Easter 5, 2014
“The Bible says it; I believe it;
that settles it…” This is a saying that marks the end of any rational
conversation. Unfortunately, there are some people who share our faith who
believe this sort of statement to be a fundamental for true belief in God.
What’s worse still is that this sort of thinking didn’t emerge only in the 19th
Century with modern fundamentalism—it was alive and well in Jesus’ time, as
well.
So, whether it was adherence to
purity codes, dietary laws, cultural-religious exclusivism, or even religious
piety; we find that myopic understanding is not a new thing. And it was this
type of ideology that Jesus regularly challenged. Through his life and
ministry, he challenged people to look deeper, love stronger and serve more
faithfully and selflessly. In this way, Jesus, brought into question what we
thought we knew of God, and invited us to actually know God, and thereby
actually have relationship with God and God’s people.
In today’s Gospel reading, we have
a part of the story of the Last Supper, which features a conversation that
encapsulates much of the meaning of Jesus’ ministry. This is right before Jesus
is arrested, and just after he has given the New Commandment to love one
another as he has loved…
Anyway, Jesus is speaking with more
loaded language than usual. The disciples know he’ll be betrayed, and Judas has
already left to set things in motion. So here, Jesus is doing his best to try
to calm and comfort his remaining disciples.
He explains that they don’t need to
worry because he’s going ahead of them to prepare a place for them. And then
when Thomas (the disciple whose precociousness is only exceeded by Peter’s)
asks how they will know where he’s going, and how they will follow. Jesus,
responds by saying that he is the Way; if they know him, they know the Father…
Then Philip, who suddenly seems to
want to have all of his theological bases covered, asks: “Show us the Father,
then we’ll be satisfied…”
In my mind, I see Jesus slowly
placing his face in his hands for a moment before speaking. He says,
“Philip…how long have I been with you, man? You’ve seen miracles, you’ve heard
my teachings…ah…ah…Philip, you still don’t see it? I am in the Father and the
Father is in me…duh!”
But we have to hand it to Philip,
because he’s actually asking the question that’s on all of our minds. Is this
guy Jesus really who he says he is, and what happens if I put my faith in him?
Well, the interesting thing is that
Jesus never really says who he is…at times his words are just mystical enough
that we might think that he’s actually claimed divinity—but really, it’s just
not that clear.
However, if we do what he tells
Philip—if we even just believe in what he’s taught and the miracles that he’s
done…if we even start there, we begin to see not only who Jesus is—but a whole
lot more as well.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus
really came to challenge humanity’s understanding of God. I think we can say
humanity, since we continually find more and deeper truths about God and
ourselves whenever we read the Gospels.
Anyway, like I said, he came to
challenge our impressions and images of God, so that in getting beyond those
images, we could actually find God. The trouble with this, of course—this
process of dismantling our images of God—is that they’re so deeply rooted in
who we are. We have tremendous investment in our understandings about God, and
therefore we feel that a lot is threatened when we’re asked to do away with
such images.
Unfortunately, what we miss in all
of this is the fact that what we’ve created in our images of God are actually
idols—and not really God at all…
The truth is, that all of us have
our idols of God—and it’s not just the sin of conservatives, either—because
like idolatry, fundamentalism takes on all sorts of forms. In other words, we
all have our pet ideals about Who God is, and what God is all about. I often
have to be reminded of this fact.
So, the fruit of these idolatries
(as we’ve seen in Scripture) are people who believe they’re pious and holy
because they’re following the rules—but in the same way, they’re resentful and
hateful because their adherence to those rules had become a replacement for
God… Subsequently, anything else than these petty idolatries seemed scary—even
a real relationship with the Living God.
Enter into all of this, Jesus. Not
only does he challenge the God concepts that obscure the true and Living
God—but even though he is the very Incarnation of God, he points beyond himself
to invite people to truly know and experience God. I know that seems contrary,
but in doing this, Jesus points all of us to a God who is not only Imminent and
present by his miracles and ministry—he also leaves us with no excuses as to
why we shouldn’t also do the same.
So, Jesus is teaching in a
completely new way by embodying everything that is the mystery of God—but
without allowing us to grasp it. This means that we don’t have the excuse that because
he is God Incarnate and we’re not, we can’t possibly love or live like Jesus.
It also meas because we cannot grasp it, we cannot exclusively claim God for
our own.
Nope. Outside of the miracles, the
things that Jesus did were only extraordinary because they seemed so contrary
to human nature. He called us to love our enemies; to seek peace and pursue it.
He called us to love one another as he loved—and he did this not so that we’d
have some unattainable, idealistic goals to keep us morally challenged. Jesus
called us to do these things because he believes we’re capable of doing it—and
for the places in our lives where we need a little help, Jesus promised the Holy
Spirit would be there to guide us. And in this
way, by this example, Jesus reveals
to us the Father in a way that stone tablets, an Ark and a Temple complete with
animal sacrifice never could before…because he is all of it. Jesus is what all
of it means, and he invites us not only to look for more deeply for God, he
invites us to experience God through love and faith and action; things that
cannot be taught conceptually, but learned intuitively.
Philip asked God Enfleshed to show
us God so that we might be satisfied. Simply put, Jesus responds by asking all
of us to see how he loves; hear what he says; and to live even as he lives.
It’s in this way, then, that we will be able to truly see the Father—not as
we’ve conceived him, but the true and Living God—God as he has been revealed in
his Son, Jesus Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment