Way, truth, life: these are not abstract concepts but the embodied Christ in your lives, and also how the Triune God lives embodied in you.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday of Easter, year A
Text: John 14:1-14

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“I am.”

That was Jesus’ answer to Thomas and to Philip. “I am.” He didn’t explain or teach them anything. He simply said, “I am what you are asking.”

Thomas wanted a map to where Jesus was going, the place with God. He wanted to know the way there.

“I am the way,” Jesus said. “And the truth. And the life.”

Philip wanted to see God for himself, the one Jesus called “Father,” to whom Jesus said he was returning. He thought if Jesus just showed them what he was talking about it would help.

“If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen God,” Jesus said.

We reduce “the way, the truth, and the life” to theological concepts to understand and discuss. We talk about God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit, as if the Triune God were an object to be studied, dissected, understood. But the Incarnate God-with-us points us in a completely different direction. “I am,” is what Jesus says.

I am the way, Jesus says.

The way of Christ, which Jesus often speaks of, is a way shaped like a cross, a way of vulnerable, sacrificial love. But it is not a way that can be laid out, mapped, with instructions, a list of actions you do. That’s the way the world works, but as poet W. H. Auden says, Jesus is a Way “through the land of Unlikeness.”¹ Jesus doesn’t have a book called “The Ten Steps to Faithfully Follow My Way.” Jesus says, “I am the Way.”

The way of Christ begins and ends with looking at Jesus, the Christ, the Word of God. Jesus is a way of living, a way of loving, a way of relating to God and to neighbor. So you can’t know the Way until you live in the One who is the Way.

Poet and priest George Herbert describes Jesus the Way as “such a Way as gives us breath.”² In your breathing-in Christ’s love and grace you begin to live Christ’s love and grace. You become vulnerable in your love because God is vulnerable in God’s love, and you’re breathing that vulnerability in, becoming what you already are in Christ. Love of God and love of neighbor then flows from you.

I am the Truth, Jesus says.

Jesus didn’t teach an abstract concept called Truth. He said knowing the Truth would set his followers free. And then he said, “I am the Truth.” I am what you seek.

Jesus embodies the Truth that God loves humanity deeply enough to join our life. All God’s true intention for the creation is known in Jesus, God in our own human flesh and blood, skin and bones. Every breath Jesus takes is God’s breath breathing in our life, and saying, “this is good, I love this.”

To know God’s Truth is not to have a fact to fight over, a possession saying you’re right and I’m wrong. To know God’s Truth is to know, in person, Jesus, the Truth of God’s love for you and for the world, who is real and alive and with you.

And this Truth is, as Herbert so beautifully says, “such a Truth as ends all strife.” When you live in the One who is God’s Truth there’s nothing to fight over. Instead you find, as Auden says, in the midst of the “Kingdom of Anxiety” in which we live, the home you’ve been looking for your whole life. A home of Truth that God is embodied in you and in all creatures.

I am the Life, Jesus says.

Last week Jesus said he wanted all God’s children to “have life, and have it abundantly.”

Now he says, “I am that Life.” To breathe in and become Christ’s Way, to imagine the Truth that your very life and body are beloved by God and inhabited by God, is to finally know true life.

“Such a Life as killeth death,” Herbert wrote. And not just death at the end of our mortal lives, though Jesus certainly promises that in this part of John’s Gospel. Jesus the Life kills death in all its forms, whether fear of a global pandemic that confines us to homes while sending others into deep danger, or any fear and anxiety that threaten us. Jesus deeply wishes for you to know him as Life now. Abundantly. In this “World of the Flesh,” as Auden puts it. Because death has no power over you even in this world.

I am, Jesus says. I am for you and I am for this world.

This is a wonderful gift in this terrible time of crisis, where every day we wake up to news that is worse, where we still haven’t reached the peak of this wave, where we don’t know how any of this will look when it settles down, and even when that might begin to happen.

Nothing can separate you from the love of God in the One who is your Way, your Truth, and your Life. Because now you live in “I Am” yourself. You embody Christ’s Way, Christ’s Truth, and so you know Christ’s Life. And your God-embodied life and love now say to your world, “I am. And you can be, too.”

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

¹ This, and subsequent Auden quotes: W. H. Auden, For the Time Being – A Christmas Oratorio, part 8, “The Flight into Egypt: IV: Chorus; in W. H. Auden Collected Poems, ed. Edward Mendelson; copyright 2007 The Modern Library, New York; page 400. Set as a hymn in Hymnal 1982, Episcopal Church U.S.A., hymn 464.

² This, and subsequent Herbert quotes: George Herbert, The Call, stanza 1; in George Herbert – the Complete English Works, ed. Ann Pasternak Slater; copyright 1995 Everyman’s Library, Alfred P. Knopf, New York; p. 153. Set as a hymn in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, to Ralph Vaughan Williams’ tune, hymn 816.

As we learn to be community in new ways during physical distancing, we can look to the example of the early church who cultivated community amidst the uncertainty following Jesus’ death by trusting God’s guidance through the Holy Spirit.

Vicar Bristol Reading
The Fourth Sunday of Easter, year A
Texts: Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; John 10:1-10

Beloved in Christ, may the love of God be with you this day and all days. Amen.

Have you seen any chalk messages around your neighborhood?

You might have spotted some out your window or on an evening walk on your block. It’s become a trend during the pandemic. Sidewalks are covered in rainbow-colored chalk messages that say things like: “We’re all in this together” or “Don’t be afraid” or “This too shall pass.” My favorite one I saw recently said, “I can’t wait to hug you.”

The chalk trend is a sweet way to cheer one another up in difficult times, but it’s also deeper than that. It’s a philosophy of community. The messages remind us that although we are physically distancing, we are not socially distancing. We are coming together by staying apart. We are taking care of, and being cared for, by strangers we’ll never even meet.

Even once the stay-at-home orders are lifted, this practice of physical distance is going to be with us for a long time, as we continue to cope with the coronavirus. We will need these reminders that the distance is actually a form of community. We’ll need these reminders on our sidewalks, in our conversations, in our prayers. This is what love of neighbor looks like right now. This is a new way to be community together.

This Easter season we’ve been reading in the book of Acts how the early church discerned what it meant to be community together in a new way.

Things were changing for them, and they were facing a lot of uncertainty as they struggled to understand Jesus’ death and resurrection. How would they know how to move forward in the absence of their teacher and leader?

What we read in Acts is that they learned to listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Even though Jesus was not physically with them any longer, the Holy Spirit moved among them and within them. That Spirit was a gift of Christ’s ongoing presence, poured out on the disciples.

But the apostle Peter says it goes further than that. Peter told the crowds that came to hear him: the promise of the Holy Spirit is for you, and for your children, and for those who are far away. The Holy Spirit is a gift for everyone to whom God calls! (Acts 2:39) The Spirit is not constrained by time or place. It’s not exclusive or limited; it’s abundant and generous. The disciples navigated the uncertainty after Jesus’ death because they trusted that abundant Spirit, which Jesus had promised would continue to guide them.

Through this faithful group of Christ-followers, God drew more and more people in, and they cultivated community together.

In Acts, we hear how radical the vision of togetherness was for these believers. They worshipped together daily and shared meals. They supported one another socially, spiritually, and economically. They accounted for every person’s needs. They shared everything.

Loving one another in this way sounds unrealistic in the midst of a pandemic, when you can’t be together and have all things in common. You can’t share meals and worship. You can’t even share handshakes and hugs. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be Christ-centered community.

You can care for the needs of others. You can support one another socially, spiritually, and economically. You can praise God with glad and generous hearts, study God’s word, and pray in your home, as Acts tells us the early church did. You are doing all of those things, and God is still working through you every single day. The Spirit is still speaking to you as you navigate how to be community in the midst of these circumstances.

When Jesus talked about how the community of believers should depend on God for guidance, he often used the image of a flock of sheep being led by a shepherd.

We heard this in our Gospel reading from John today. The shepherd leads the sheep by voice, calling to them and guiding them. The sheep can’t see all that well, but they can listen. They recognize and follow the voice of their shepherd. And they know to run away from other voices that might try to persuade them down a different path.

Following the voice of the shepherd can’t keep the sheep from all harm. They can’t huddle in the safety of the sheepfold forever. At some point, they need to go out and find pasture where they can eat, and they trust the shepherd to lead them there, to the green pastures and the still waters. (Psalm 23:2)

When you imagine yourself as one of God’s flock, navigating the dangers of the world, you might experience God as the shepherd who calls to you and leads you to the good fields. You might experience God as the gate that welcomes you back in to a place of safety. You might experience God as the gatekeeper who protects you while you rest, keeping out anything that would harm you. Jesus uses all of these different images to help people understand the ways that God cares for them.

And if all those metaphors confuse you, and you’re asking how God can be a shepherd, a gate, and a gatekeeper, know that you’re not alone. After all, the disciples themselves admitted that they weren’t sure what Jesus was talking about. So he gave them the bottom line.

Jesus says what matters is this: God wants life for you.

And not just the kind of life that’s sufficient or good enough. God wants the kind of life for you that’s abundant, like a cup running over, flooded with blessing. (Psalm 23:5) God wants this for you, and for the people you’re isolated with, and for the people you miss and want to hug, and for the people you’ve never even met. Even when it feels like you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death, you are not alone in this. The whole flock surrounds you and the good shepherd leads you.

Keep listening for the voice that speaks abundant life to you. Keep listening for the voice that calls you into courageous love for the world. Keep listening.

Amen.