John 14:1-14

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going." Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

I do not have enough training in the science of psychology to even consider myself an armchair psychologist, but I have a hunch that a person sees his or her world through the lens of one, or maybe two, formative relationships that he or she has experienced. Most likely, this formative relationship is with one or both parents. Generally speaking, the way in which your parent has interacted with you has informed your sense of self and your place in the world, what to expect of relationships in general, and how you relate to other people. A good psychologist or counselor will help you revisit these formative relational experiences in order to help you understand whether what those experiences taught you are actually true or not.

I am not familiar with any qualitative data on the subject, but I would offer a second hunch, that parents in general try to do the best they can. You probably didn’t find a Hallmark Mother’s Day card with that sentiment “You do the best you can,” but I still think it’s good news.

We only know what we know; and we know what we know only through the way our parents taught us to know things. And even if most parents generally do the best they can, they are limited by the ways that they were raised to understand the world. The way I understand myself and the world is directly tied to the way my mom and dad understand themselves and the world...and, of course, how they interacted with me.

Our image of God, like everything else, is filtered through the lens of the one or two formative human relationships in our life. It is typical for children to think of God as very similar to their parents...bigger and more powerful versions to be sure, but still very much in line with the thoughts and behaviors of the parent. A child who grows up feeling safe and cared for by a parent will default to an understanding of God as safe and caring. By the same token, a child who grows up being abused by a parent will default to an understanding of God as abusive.

It takes considerable effort for people to adapt their understanding of God, especially if it goes against everything they have been taught by those early formative relationships. A child who grew up feeling safe and cared for by a parent finds it difficult to imagine God could ever be abusive. By the same token, a child who grows up being abused by a parent finds it difficult to imagine God could ever be loving and caring.

We are at a bit of a disadvantage when contemplating matters of the divine because we only know what has been allowed to pass through the lens through which we view and understand the world.

Today’s gospel scripture is a beautiful example of Jesus compassionately correcting some of his disciples misconceived notions about the divine. Jesus invites the disciples to use his life and ministry as the lens through which to view and understand the world. The text is saturated with patience, reassurance, promise, and hope. Jesus is addressing some deep-seated insecurities and mistaken assumptions about God that his disciples have adopted in their lifetime. Here, in the moments before his execution, Jesus urges the disciples to be filled with…

… peace (“Do not let your hearts be troubled”)

… faith (“Believe in God, believe also in me”)

… assurance (“If you know me, you will know my Father also”)

… and divine power (“the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do”)

Take comfort, my friends, in knowing that the heads and hearts of Jesus’ disciples were still filled with fallacies about God even after spending years in Jesus’ presence. Also, take comfort that Jesus’ promises of peace, faith, assurance, and divine power were communicated in a time of uncertainty, turmoil, and disappointment. This speech, after all, comes on the heels of Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s denial and Judas’ betrayal. None of this compromised the truth of Jesus’ great instruction: Do not be troubled, believe in God, you know what to do, and you will be able to do it.

Jesus’ earthly life shows the world what God is like in flesh and blood, so that we can have a more accurate understanding of who God is, as well as who we are.

God, it turns out, is Christlike. Everything that Christ did during his earthly life was what God would have done -- what God DID do. God does not have a shadow side, ulterior motives, or a secret identity. God was fully exposed in the person of Jesus.

God, it turns out, is a skilled craftsman, and storm-calmer.

God, it turns out, is a healer and miracle-worker.

God, it turns out, has no regard for our barriers of race, ethnicity, class, religion, and gender.

God, it turns out, pays all his laborers equally.

God, it turns out, has a taste for a good wine and likes being invited to dinner.

God, as it turns out, is willing to die to expose humanity’s fear and lust for earthly power.

God, as it turns out, has high expectations for those who claim to follow...but also has incredible patience and unlimited forgiveness.

God, as it turns out, needed Jesus to show people just how short they had sold themselves and how short they had sold God.

Each one of us has been raised to see the world through a particular lens; but this lens often keeps us from fully realizing who we are and who God is. There’s no button to push or magic wand to wave to break free from these limiting understandings. One cannot be enlightened in an instant. But there is work you can do to allow God’s identity and relationship to be the primary way through which you view and understand the world.

You can read the stories of scripture to become more aware of who God is and who God isn’t.

You can talk to God, as matter of factly as you picked up the phone to talk to that old friend last week.

You can seek out a psychiatrist or counselor to help you understand how and why you have come to understand the world the way that you do; and to see what you have come to believe about yourself that simply is not true.

And you can meditate on Jesus’ last words to his disciples in what was also a chaotic and uncertain time: Do not be troubled, believe in God, you know what to do, and you will be able to do it.

Amen.

Matthew 10:24-39

“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

“Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Jack and Max and I had a good laugh about an online list of “19 Pictures that Scream ‘DAD!’” when it showed up in my Facebook feed, just in time for Father’s Day a week or so ago. This will be funnier for women and for everyone under the age of 40 or so, I imagine than it will be for the rest of us, so please accept my apologies in advance. But I give you some of the 19 pictures that scream “Dad!” according to your children and grandchildren, anyway:

The white crew socks (with accompanying tan line, I’m sure):

The Jean Shorts (not so affectionately known as ‘JORTS’):

… these sandals:

the tucked-in Tommy Bahama shirt:

I’ve heard cargo shorts are on that list, but I’m having a hard time giving those up, I have to say.

I won’t ask for a show of hands and I’m not confessing any of it, but all of that might be the reason your children or grandchildren wish sometimes you would drop them off without getting out of the car; or maybe it’s the reason they let go of your hand when they see their friends headed your direction when you’re out in the world; or maybe it’s why they hope you won’t volunteer to chaperone the dance or the field trip or show your face on school property, if at all possible. Whatever the case, I’m pretty sure we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t, but knowledge is power, nonetheless.

It’s funny to think about – especially if you’re 13. It’s a little sad and maddening if you’re on the other end of it all. And all this stuff, in a strange way, had me thinking about some of what I hear Jesus saying in this morning’s Gospel. Specifically, it made me think of what it means – and what it looks like – to acknowledge or deny God, the Father, in our daily lives, for all the reasons that we do.

See, what Jesus is doing– using all sorts images, illustrations and hyperbole – is nothing more and nothing less than naming the seriousness of our call to be disciples and followers of Christ in the world. I don’t think he means for us to take him as literally as he does mean for us to take him seriously. Because discipleship is a serious thing. It was in the days of the Jesus and it is meant to be, still. It calls for bold confession, faithful practice, and courageous action.

And, Jesus is talking to his first disciples knowing all sorts of persecutions and temptations are in store for them because of what he’s asking them to do. When he talks about coming “not for peace, but with a sword,” he’s not doing away with his title as the Prince of Peace or with his command to love one another above all else. Jesus is saying that, too often, the kind of amazing, radical, counter-cultural, life-changing grace, mercy and peace God offers is more than some people can handle. And that in order to really get it and to truly proclaim it and to faithfully share it means to surprise and to separate and to send people reeling from time to time. So he wants us to be realistic about and ready for the consequences of what real faithful, kingdom living may lead to in our lives and in the world.

Because doing that well – living faithfully, I mean – is hard work. When you stand up for justice for the “least of these,” that often means challenging the systems that protect the powerful. When you speak truth to power, power doesn’t always like what you have to say. When you speak the truth, even in love, the response is often denial and fear and hatred of that very truth and of those bold enough to proclaim it.

These are just some of the ways our lives as disciples acknowledge Jesus before others – and sometimes the ways, we have to admit, we deny him, just the same. That kind of faithful living gets people like Martin Luther excommunicated; people like Larycia Hawkins fired; people like Nelson Mandela thrown into jail; people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., the White Helmets in Syria, killed. And of course all of it got Jesus, himself, crucified.

And those are some tough shoes to fill. I wonder how many of us have had the opportunity or would have the courage or the faith to live out our faith like some of these giants. But we do our denying on a smaller scale, don’t we? When we drive by the hungry person on the street corner… When we let the racist comment slide… When we laugh with the bullies... When we add our two cents to gossip mill.

So what are we to do with Jesus’ promise that, “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. And everyone who denies me before others, I will also deny before my father in heaven”?

What I hear him saying isn’t so much that those who deny Christ and the call to discipleship are doomed or damned for all eternity. It’s not that if we don’t live up to the standards of King or Mandela or Bonhoeffer, we’re out of luck. Remember, it is “enough that the disciple be like the teacher” and remember, he promises we hold more value than many sparrows, who, even though they fall, are never beyond the reach of God’s care.

What I hear Jesus acknowledging is that God – the Father of all creation – knows, like so many good parents know, what it feels like to have his children drop his hand at the grocery store; or rush by with friends to avoid any awkward conversations; or shrink down in the seat and hurry from the car hoping no one notices who’s in the driver’s seat.

What I hear Jesus saying to his disciples and to each of us, is that it’s time to grow up. He’s inviting us to embrace the claim of God, the Father, on our lives and to start living in the joy and the responsibility of that holy calling.

Just like it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when children begin distancing themselves from their annoying, embarrassing, nagging parents, it’s hard to pinpoint a precise moment when they begin to turn around and start re-building those bridges of relationship, connection, respect and admiration, too.

But, believe it or not, kids, it happens. I think even my parents would say it’s true.

There comes a time when the bad clothes and lame jokes and all the other embarrassing stuff of parenthood begin to seem pretty small in the grand scheme of things. And I hear Jesus calling our attention to that same reality when it comes to our relationship with God. He’s inviting us to embrace our call to discipleship – and all the things an immature faith might resist about it – because following Jesus puts everything into a different perspective.

It’s an invitation because Jesus knows that when we do it – when we let the call to discipleship change the way we live, what once seemed like work (things like generosity, gratitude and grace) will become a way of life. What once seemed beyond us (things like sacrifice, selflessness, and suffering, even) prove to bear fruit. What once seemed unbelievable (things like healing, wholeness, and real joy) will become Truth for our lives. And what once seemed impossible (forgiveness, freedom and eternal life) will belong to us all.

Amen

The Christlike God – John 14:1-14

"From Embarrassed to Emboldened as Disciples" – Matthew 10:24-39