April 24, 2005

Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 14:1-14

Acts 7:55-60

“Which Way Home?”

     Several years ago a movie came out called, “Good Will Hunting” starring Matt Damon and Robin Williams.  Matt Damon played the part of a janitor at a college and Robin Williams was a math professor.  A complex mathematical equation was placed on a blackboard in a hallway at the college.  It was something of a teaser to see if anyone coming through the building could figure it out and find the solution.  In truth, some of the people in the math department were hoping no one could figure it out because they wanted to maintain a little intellectually superiority over the students and the rest of the faculty.  And as they had hoped, none of the students or faculty could figure out the equation.  But one night, as a janitor was making his rounds, he stopped at the blackboard and saw what no else could see.  He saw a way through to the solution.  He was the last person anyone would have expected to find the way through.

     You never know who might know the way.  It could be someone you least expect.  The way through could come at a time when you least expect it.  And the one who knows the solution may not be someone of great genius.  It might be someone with the right skills or the right understanding or the right insight or just someone in the right place at the right time.  We just need to be open to the way when it presents itself.

     There’s an old story that floats around Rhode Island that may have an element of truth to it, but who knows by now.  It’s about a couple coming to visit the state (from a faraway place like Connecticut, maybe).  They stop at a gas station and ask how to get to the beach and the attendant asks, “Narragansett, Ninigret, Misquamicut, Napatree…?” and the man looks at his wife and says, “Forget it, honey, the guy can’t speak English!”  Sometimes we have to be open to the directions even when they come in a way we don’t expect.

     In today’s reading from the Gospel of John, we find the disciples confused about what is going to happen to Jesus in the last days of his earthly life.  They can’t figure out what he is saying when he talks about leaving and coming again.  Thomas struggles with the idea, “Lord, we do not know where you are going.  How can we know the way?”  Phillip tells Jesus, “Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”  Jesus reassures his disciples and tells them, “I am the way, the truth and the life.  I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”  They needed to look to Jesus to see the way, and if they would do that they would see what they didn’t expect in that frightening and confusing time.   They would see all the way to God.

     With so many doubts and fears in the room, with Judas Iscariot having just left to betray Jesus and Jesus having just confronted Peter with the fact that he would deny him, Jesus might have seemed to be the last person to know the way.  Indeed, when things got difficult a few hours later and Jesus was arrested, they all turned their backs on him and fled.  In that moment, his disciples were no longer his followers.  But 70 years or so later when the Gospel of John was written, when people could look back on the events of Jesus’ life from a different perspective, they could see more clearly that he was indeed the way through. The solution was right there in him all the time.  He was the way, the truth and the life. 

     An often misunderstood man with a short-term ministry in conflict with the established religion of the day, crucified early in his life - who would have expected him to be the Savior?

     People have struggled to understand Jesus in every generation since.  How could he be a man and yet divine?  How could he be fully one with the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit?  There is more mystery here than anyone has ever been able to figure out, but somehow it seems, Jesus is the one who shows the way, so much so that when we look to him, we see all the way to God.

     By his own life and teaching, death and resurrection, Jesus helps us see God.  This is what God is about – caring for, giving for, loving and saving us.  And even if we happen to believe there may be more ways to approach God than the writer of the Gospel of John imagined, we still can’t do better than seeking the way, the truth and the life through the Savior, Jesus Christ.  He’s the one, after all, who gave his life for those who couldn’t figure him out: “Forgive them, Father, for they don’t have a clue!”

     The story we heard from the Book of Acts this morning is about Stephen, now known by many as St. Stephen.  This is the first recorded casualty of persecution against Christians in the first century.  He gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing there.  He saw the way that those around him could not, would not, see.  They refused to listen to what he had to say and rose against him and stoned him to death.  And with words similar to what Jesus said earlier, Stephen said with his dying breath, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

     It is easy to identify stoning an innocent person as a sin, but perhaps there is another sin here, too, the sin of not allowing oneself to see the way to God.  Perhaps St Stephen’s prayer is for all of us who get too busy, too self-absorbed, to lost in our own agendas to see the way.  And the Lord does not hold it against us, but offers patient forgiveness. 

     How is God still speaking to you?  Where has the Lord opened the way to understanding for you, the way of reconciliation, the way of discernment, the way of peace?  In this historic time for our church, where and when will the way open before us?  Can we be open to the unexpected?  Can we allow the Holy Spirit to surprise us?

     In “Good Will Hunting”, the janitor found his way through complex equations because he was a hidden genius, but we don’t have to be geniuses to see the way in Christ.  We just have to allow ourselves to see with the eyes of faith, to let go of some of our firmly held expectations and be open to what the Lord is showing us.