The Fifth Sunday of Easter

April 24, 2005

Peace Lutheran Church

Las Cruces, NM

Pastor Steve Loy

Text: 14:1-14

When I read this section from John’s gospel I can’t help but think of Tom and Judy, friends of mine in the first congregation I served.  For years Tom and Judy had tried unsuccessfully to have children.  Finally, after extensive testing and medical counseling Judy was pregnant.  In fact, she was carrying twins.  With great excitement and anticipation they began to prepare for the boys arrival.  At first they were cautious, but optimistic.  But as the months progressed and everyone was healthy, Tom and Judy painted and decorated a room in their home making a nursery.  Friends and family gave them clothes, blankets, and various baby items.  There was a changing table, two cribs, two rockers, a double stroller.  With love and hope they prepared their home for the new arrivals.  Then one afternoon, with only a month until the due date, I got a call to come to the hospital.  They had visited the obstetrician for an ultra sound and the twins were no longer moving.  The doctor had given Judy a sedative and induced labor.  That evening she gave birth to two still born boys.  Over the next few days a new set of preparations began.  Two caskets were chosen and funeral plans were made.  Judy lived in a glazed fog.  As I helped them prepare for the funeral this reading from John shaped my understanding.  Like an expectant parent Jesus says “I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be also.”  I can’t help but think of the nursery, fully prepared, anticipating the twins arrival.

We find John’s gospel fraught with tension between law and gospel.  For example John 3:16.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  The text is so obviously grace – “God so loved the world.”  But it is so often used as law by some who say only those who believe rightly are loved by God.  What follows John 3:16 is even more divisive.  “Indeed I did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  Sounds like pure grace to me and that’s the part I like.  Then there is John 3:18 which reads, “Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already.”  Those who rely on verse 18 talk about the need to believe in order for salvation become effective.  They might use an analogy related to a light switch.  The power is always in the wire, but until the switch is turned on there is no light.  So too with faith, grace is always there, but until a person has faith, grace has no power and the person is not saved.

I find a similar tension in today’s reading from John chapter 14.  Verses 2 and 3 are pure grace.  “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places… I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am there you may be also.” 

You have to wonder if the many dwelling places aren’t denominational neighborhoods.  There is the Baptist part of heaven, the Roman Catholic part, the Lutheran part and the Episcopalian part.  Of course some neighborhoods are closer together and others are further apart to keep the peace.

One of our neighbors, the Roman Catholics have been high profile the past few weeks with the death of Pope John Paul II and the choosing of a new pope.  In the end the story provided little drama as the front runner kept the lime light.  More entertaining was listening to one NPR commentator trying to explain the new pope’s position on other religions.  In Cardinal Ratzinger’s first sermon as Pope Benedict the XVI he said, “I address myself to everyone, even those who follow other religions or who simply seek an answer to the fundamental questions of life and have not yet found it.  I address everyone with simplicity and affection, to assure them that the church wants to continue to build an open and sincere dialogue with them, in search for the true good of mankind and society.”  From those words the commentator concluded that the new pope will have trouble reconciling his openness to other religions with his belief that Christianity is the only right religion and therefore superior. 

His words reminded me of a Christian man who told me that if he thought some other religion was the right one, he would join that religion.  He used verses like John 14:6.  “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me’” to support his argument.  But I can’t live with that kind of black and white thinking.  When it comes to religion and theology we are going to have to live with a good bit of uncertainty and ambiguity or we will find our theology both untrue and not terribly useful.  Any notion that our faith is superior has to be tempered with Paul’s instruction to the Philippians when he wrote, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves…”  Not only our actions, but also our theology will need to be marked by humility.

Unfortunately in modern culture all too often Christianity has been tempted to follow the scientific model rather than the artistic model.  The scientific model tries to nail down the facts, and to prove hypotheses right or wrong, in an effort to pinpoint the right answer.  Art, on the other hand, portrays images and representations.  Paintings offer a scene but they are not the scene.  Music elicits emotion, but is not emotional.  Drama and poetry portray life, but they are not life.  Good theology is more like art, using metaphor and characters to point toward God, without ever arriving at God.  Jesus did theology by telling parables, the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, a woman who sweeps, or a prodigal father.  In humility we recognize that our theology always falls short, is inadequate for the task at hand.

Frankly I have to wonder if someone like the new pope, an intelligent, thoughtful, prayerful man, really believes that Christianity is the only right religion and superior to any other or is that just part of what is required in the job description.  The God I have come to know isn’t one who loves only Christians or whose only interaction with humanity is through the church.  I find a God who will not be held by labels or institutions, who is not loyal to single denominations or societies.  I find in scripture a sovereign God of all creation, who will not be co-opted by our small thinking, a God who continues to surprise us by with an inclusive grace and a who beckons us into an unknown future asking us to simply trust.

I hear in these words of Jesus not exclusivity and exclusion.  Rather I hear marvelously gracious and hopeful words.  Like a parent Christ has made a home where there is room enough for all of us and no matter where we end up we already in the arms of grace.  Jesus reminds us that where ever the future leads us, he is already there ahead of us, “I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be also.”