Fifth Sunday of Easter Sermon
St James catholic Cathedral in Seattle is a glorious place, a classic design with a simple, unembellished altar at the center, soaring ceilings, glorious art. Years ago, when I commuted from Bainbridge to St Thomas in Bellevue each day, I would sometimes stop at the cathedral just to sit awhile and pray. Jim and I have attended many concerts at St James. We worship there every year on my ordination anniversary, November 2nd, the Feast of All Souls. St James is a very special place for me – I was even invited by the former Dean to participate – a vested, female Episcopal priest in a Roman Catholic Church – in the wedding of a friend who was a member there.
The cathedral is not a lot like St John’s. The environment is urban and a little gritty, not the peaceful forested suburban beauty that surrounds us here. While by pacific northwest Episcopal standards, St John’s is a good-sized church, St James cathedral is huge, with a large central chancel – that’s this part where the altar is – and transepts on all four sides, all of them often filled. But once I walk through those magnificent bronze cathedral doors – just like when I walk through the narthex and into St John’s, the font, symbol of the sacrament of our baptism and the beginning of our life in Christian community – welcomes me. The original font at St James dates from 1907, but in 1994 a pool, a very big pool, a pool deep enough to walk down into and be fully immersed in the waters of baptism was installed. Just as we have special words inscribed on our very special font, there are special words inscribed around the pool at St James, words we heard this morning. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” The font, and those beautiful words welcome holy people into that holy space.
Unlike most churches, St James is almost always open, and when there isn’t a service or a rehearsal or a concert going on, it’s almost always quiet. Steeped in prayer and basking in the beauty and the quiet one morning, I was startled by a commotion just outside – and then inside the cathedral doors. A little group of people had come inside, and their conversation was absolutely exuberant! They were definitely not using their inside, churchy voices as they excitedly explained to their companions that here was a whole pool of water that was theirs for the taking. As I turned to look, I saw the people with the outside voices kneeling around the font, talking and explaining and filling their plastic milk jug water bottles with living water from the baptismal font. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people…
The people who came to the cathedral to fill their water jugs that day were a bit like the people the first letter of Peter was written for. Both were exiled – Peter’s people from their homeland and the cathedral people from a life where basic needs are met. Both were outsiders, Peter’s people were Gentiles, and the cathedral people were street people. Both were subject to ridicule and oppression. Both had unknown futures. And both were beloved, chosen and precious in God’s sight. I never saw a priest that day, or even an altar server or a volunteer. But I saw Jesus in the people who were eager to share the big pool of water with everyone around them.
We are still in the season of Easter, when we hear stories of resurrection. What do you think of when you think of resurrection? Do you think of it as a one-time event that happened over 2,000 years ago? I’d like to invite you to think about resurrection in a different way, as something that happens in us and through us and through the people around us too. Resurrection stories are stories of generosity over greed, of love over hate, of life over death. The cathedral people filling their bottles from the baptismal font were surely a resurrection story. What resurrection stories have you witnessed this Eastertide? Where have you seen the presence of the living God in your life, in the lives of your friends and family, in the life of the world? Where is the risen Christ among us now?
Throughout Eastertide, we’ve been hearing Jesus speak of his ongoing presence with the disciples, and with us, and the word he so often uses to describe that presence, is “abide.” The word “abide” occurs more than 60 times in John’s gospel and letters. Abiding is the way John describes Jesus’ relationship with the Father and the Spirit, and the way he describes his relationship with us, too. Abiding doesn’t just mean staying or remaining or dwelling. For John, abiding is a deep and rich spiritual indwelling, something unbreakable and inseparable, something precious. Listen.
If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. John 8:31b-32
Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. John 15:4-7
Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. 1 John 2:24
That same word, abide, is used twice in today’s gospel reading, though once we heard it translated differently. In my Father’s house, there are many abiding places … not mansions or rooms or dwelling places but indwelling, abiding places. Places to indwell with God and God with us. There are many abiding places in my Father’s house, Jesus said, and I am going there to prepare a place for you. The disciples had questions about that. They didn’t seem to understand what Jesus was talking about, especially because this snippet of conversation follows some terrible bad news. Jesus had just told them he was going to die, just told them one of his chosen would betray him, just told them Peter would deny him three times.
Do not let your hearts be troubled? Are you kidding me? Of course, their hearts were troubled, and confused. Jesus told them he was going to die but he also said he was going to prepare a place for them so that they could abide with the Father and with him. How could that be? How would they find their way? When Thomas asked, Jesus didn’t offer a roadmap or even a simple set of directions.
Jesus offered himself.
I am the way, he told them. I am the way and the truth and the life. Just as he always does, Jesus offers relationship as both the place and the way. Jesus is the way we get through the heart wrenching times, the scary times, the disappointing and failing times. Jesus is the way out of ourselves, out of the darkness and into the marvelous light. Jesus, the way, the truth, and life itself, has promised to abide in us and invites us to abide in him. I am the way to the Father, he says, because the Father abides in me.
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Sadly, Christians have used that bit of scripture – no one comes to the Father except through me – to insist that any other religion is a false religion and any other faith leaves its believers damned to hell. When Jesus said “no one” I think what he meant was “none of you.” We need to remember that Jesus was talking to a tiny group of religious outcasts in first century Palestine, people who had been expelled from the synagogue, their first church home, people who were making a new home in Jesus. “None of you comes to the Father except through me” was an expression of the particularity of that budding church, not a condemnation of the rest of the world’s religions. Christians find their way to God through Jesus, because Jesus abides in the Father and the Father abides in him. If you know me, Jesus said, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
And of course, those words only created more confusion. Apparently, Philip didn’t get that whole abiding thing, so he asked Jesus to show him the Father. We can understand his request – you’ve told us you are leaving, you’ve told us you’re going to prepare a place for us, you’ve told us we can’t go where you’re going and that you’ll take us to yourself, please Jesus, give me a sign, some sort of certainty, something I can hold onto here. We know that feeling, don’t we? We know what it’s like to be at the end of our rope, hoping against hope that it’s going to get better, that the diagnosis was wrong, that the separation was only temporary, that there would be a better job, that a third miscarriage couldn’t be happening. Anyone who has lived long enough has needed hope or encouragement or something solid to hang onto at one time or another. Show us the Father, Jesus, and we will be satisfied.
So once again, Jesus offers himself in response to Philip’s need for hope and consolation. Oh Philip. Have I been with you all this time, and still you say ‘show me the Father’? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. Why? Because I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Everything Jesus did throughout his too-short life, was done to make God known. And why did he do that? It was to invite us into relationship with God, and it’s impossible to have a relationship with somebody we don’t know. Jesus abides in the Father and the Father abides in him. So, if you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father. Then does it follow that if we abide in Jesus, and he abides in us, people who see us should be able to see Jesus? I think it does.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Each one of us has been called into God’s marvelous light, where we can accept Jesus’ invitation to abide in him as he abides in us and be the face of Christ, the face of Love in the world. As it turns out, all those abiding places aren’t just in life eternal, they’re here and now, too. And the fact that there are so many of them tell us something about how much God delights in our diversity. The cathedral people who told their neighbors about the water that was there for everyone, proclaimed God’s abundance and goodness and love in ways I never would have experienced from anyone else. And that, my dears, is one of the best resurrection stories I know.
What are your unique and wonderful resurrection stories, and how is God inviting you to share them with the world?
Ame