Navigating when we feel lost
Easter 5A | John 14:1-14
I’m starting to get the theme here. It’s only taken forty years. Easter is about seeing what we don’t think we’re supposed to even be able to see. The living rising from the dead. We don’t think we’re supposed to be able to see that.
When I was a kid, I marveled at the crucifixion and then the resurrection. All the details of the Passion; even its gruesomeness. It was all so interesting.
And even when I was in that pre-teen/teen age, I truly understood the dilemma that Easter morning. Half of me fully got why the disciples couldn’t grasp that Jesus was actually standing in front of them. And the other half thought: “You guys are morons. Dude, open your eyes.”
Even that sensation—which made far more sense when I went to seminary and was introduced to Christology and theories of the atonement—that sensation of being confused and wanting a sign made sense.
And then, to have Jesus confront them in that very way? To offer himself physically? Inviting them to see and feel and know that he is real…
The substance of the resurrection invites this confrontation with our own senses, our minds, and our understanding of what counts as real in our world. And these witnesses to it, the disciples, are afraid of it. Afraid to see it.
Easter is about new sight.
Jesus reveals that he is really there to Mary, to the disciples in the room, the disciples on the road. He reveals the truth of the scriptures to them.
And then last week, we were reminded of Jesus giving sight to the man born blind. And now we have Thomas and Philip who are revealing another kind of blindness. A way of seeing the world that is super familiar to us. But a way that is also utterly blind to how God is working in the world.
Look at what Thomas says.
Jesus tells them that they know the way to the Father. And Thomas is all “How? I don’t have a map unless you give me one.”
Which, again, we totally get where he’s coming from. Jesus sounds like he’s speaking in code. But we also get that he’s not talking about a literal place. At least we understand there is another dimension to what Jesus is saying.
Thomas, however, is locked into a kind of pre-literalism. Jesus is telling him how and he’s ignoring it by claiming he doesn’t get it. Refusing to listen. And demanding Jesus provide the material of it.
Then look at Philip.
He makes almost the same move. I’ll believe it, teach, if you just show us God. Which is kind of funny. Like Jesus, show us you can hit a homerun off of Justin Verlander from my living room. We can see why he’s asking for this, but also how it’s nonsense.
These two disciples are evaluating their world, their experience in it, and then placing their belief in a narrow, literal vision for it.
And Jesus is inviting them to see beyond that vision.
Which sounds great, right? Who doesn’t want in on the secrets of the cosmos?
But what we might struggle with is acknowledging how we do this same thing all the time. How our own literalisms blind us to so much of reality. Because we are obsessed with defining our world narrowly.
This is, perhaps, what is causing so many fits with AI—Artificial Intelligence. Because it is forcing us to stretch our understanding of what is real. How we define it, experience it, and know it.
Even that impulse many of us have to dismiss it is engaging in literalism.
So what is Jesus revealing to them?
To many of us, the first thing we get from Jesus is comfort and assurance. Which is why it is a favorite at funerals, right?
We can know the way. And when we get there, there will be a place for us and our loved ones. Jesus will be there to care for us.
This doesn’t just give us relief now, but hope to draw strength from. This is the way, the truth, and the life!
And we also get the impact of Jesus pulling this into the path he is walking. That we can literally know the way by watching Jesus walk the way. But we can also know it by following him along the way. Much like the sheep following the shepherd’s voice or a child following a parent’s.
That act of following, even virtually, provides a certainty even when we ourselves feel lost. When we don’t know where we are.
Seeing Through Glass
I’m reminded of a critique I read recently about our youngest two generations experiencing their world entirely through glass. Not just the glass of computer screens and cell phones. But the glass of car windows. As we’ve spent fifty years building unwalkable subdivisions and hollowed out city centers for people to wander around.
We’ve built a kind of dislocation in our own space, that we can’t fully know where we live because we don’t fully experience it. And learn from experiencing it. It is all mediated through someone driving to and from destinations, not walking or biking our community.
To know the way when we feel lost requires a kind of trust in following someone else’s lead.
When we think in literal terms, trust, certainty, comes only in what I can experience or what I can see. But that isn’t the whole of trust and certainty. We know it also comes when someone holds our hand and guides us along. Or even when we open Google Maps and let that person who lives in our phones tell us where to go.
Literalism confuses our sense of trust.
It misrepresents what is true and what we ought to rely on. It’s like reading a book, but only the even pages. You’re literally missing half the story.
So why insist on looking at half the world and ignoring the other half? Why do we even pretend that this is good and right and faithful? Especially when Jesus is opening our eyes to just how much we’re missing that way.
And the reason is that we’re afraid. We’re scared of the truth because it might hurt. Or make us think about junk we don’t want to. There’s a reason a lot of people leave fundamentalist churches, but don’t leave fundamentalist thinking behind. It’s scary. Because it’s what we know. And we might think we need to think that way.
Notice how Jesus responds to Philip, though.
Thomas asks a narrowing question and he expands Thomas’s vision of the world. Philip asks him a stunting question. A question that stunts his belief. And Jesus responds to expand his belief. He wants him to expand his trust. Trust in me. He’s saying.
So what does this mean for us?
That our sense of the world is to be big and broad so we can see all of God’s glory in all of it.
And that our sense of belief, trust, is to be broad, too. That we trust in what Jesus is saying, in what God is doing. Trust in one another, our neighbors, and communities. And that we build up that trust. Not as something earned or exchanged, bartered, or sold. As if it were some common commodity good for exploitation. But for good.
The Jesus Compass
Lastly, Jesus offers himself, not as a source of comfort, but of a means to find it. He talks about The Way, as our lives are a spiritual journey. He speaks of his teachings as instruction and formation for understanding God’s dream for the world. And he offers himself as a way to connect with God and know God.
Which makes him a compass. The means by which we can know the way to go. How we know we’re headed in the right direction.
Jesus doesn’t answer our questions: What am I supposed to do here? But he helps us know when we’re facing East.
And so often that is the root of our conflicts. We’re focused on the question before us and ignoring where we’re headed.
Knowing where we’re headed: that assurance is comforting. That is certainty in the midst of confusion. We know the way. To God.
The Way
And to give a little more help coaxing that out: What does the Presiding Bishop remind us is the hallmark of God?
“If It’s Not About Love, It’s Not About God.”
God is love. So love is the way to God. Jesus’s Way is a Way of Love. Our Way is a Way of Love. We are a people of love. And every day we get a little bit closer to that. Every day, we become a more vibrant, vivid portrait of that love.
So may that transformative, vibrant, engaging love of Jesus fill your heart with grace and gratitude. And let there be so much of it that there isn’t enough room to keep it to yourself. To store up some for later. You just have to share it.
This is what even we struggle to see. That with God’s love, we’re never truly lost. We’re home. When we are led by love, we’re already home. And Jesus’s love is the way.