Sermon for May 10, 2020 - Easter 5 - Year A - The Rev'd Jeffrey W. Mello

Acts 7:55–60; Psalm 31:1–5, 15–16; 1 Peter 2:2–10; John 14:1–14

While checking in with someone this week, they commented that they thought, perhaps, that God was simply asking too much of them.

I’m sure most of us can empathize.  Most, if not all of us, are being stretched to the very edges of our abilities.  If you had told any of us what we would be doing today, a year ago, we wouldn’t have believed it.

A year ago, we all had enough on our plates already.

Six months ago, we were already trying to set boundaries and to say “no” more often.

Three months ago our lives, personal and professional, were already demanding our A game too many hours a day, too many days a week.

And then came COVID-19 and with it came social distancing, school closings, and furloughs.  Then came masks as our tickets to the outside world.

And then came the murder hornet.

And then came what would have been the 26th birthday of Ahmaud Arbery and the video that would finally bring arrests in his lynching surfaced.

And then it snowed.  On May 9th.

And those are just the things that have happened to all of us in the past two months.  

In this time, our personal lives have brought their own challenges, too.  Loved ones have died, jobs have been lost, families have been separated.

Even the celebrations we count on in this season to midwife us into summer have been taken from us.  Birthdays and graduations, new births and new jobs.  Today is Mother’s Day, and no one can visit like they would have.

The metaphor that we are in a marathon, not a sprint, now a cliche, doesn’t even seem true anymore.  At least running a marathon, you know where the finish line is.  This feels more like a session with a masochistic personal trainer who keeps telling you that you only have to do “four more”, only to keep saying “only four more” over and over and over again until you collapse on the floor.

So, it’s a good question.  Is God simply asking too much of us? Is God pushing us until we break under the weight?

My response to her question, was really a question I needed to ask myself.  I asked, “What, exactly, is God asking of you?”

What is God asking of you in this time?  What is God asking of me?

As I listened to her responses, and thought of what my own might be to the same question, I realized that much of what it is I imagine God is asking of me, what feels impossible, is really only what I am expecting of myself.

Is God asking you to accept things the way they are?

Is God asking you to meet the challenges of the present moment with skill and perfection?

Is God asking you not to get angry, not to become overwhelmed with grief, not ask why or not wonder if you have what it takes?

Is God asking you any of these things, or are you asking them of yourself?

I can’t find anyplace in scripture where Jesus tells his followers to “plow through,” “suck it up,” or keep a stiff upper lip.

I can’t find support in Jesus’ life and ministry for the expectation that I get it right every time in every way, or that the total responsibility for the enormity of suffering in the world is laid squarely on my shoulders, and mine only.

So what is God asking of me in this time?  And is it too much?

Many of us have had the experience recently of not knowing what day it is.  

Our Gospel reading from John doesn’t help.  Though today is the fifth Sunday of Easter on the calendar, the Gospel story takes us all the way back to Maundy Thursday, between Jesus washing the disciples’ feet and his arrest.

Jesus spends a good long time in John’s Gospel saying goodbye, anticipating their grief and their confusion.

Throughout his Gospel, John uses the disciples’ questions as a vehicle for a pronouncement or teaching of Jesus.  In John, the disciples are often plants in the audience.

And they usually say exactly what I’m thinking, at the very same time they are thinking it.

If you were to separate this morning’s Gospel reading into two separate narratives, one for the disciples and one for Jesus, the sayings of Jesus would read like a selection from the “Greatest Hists of Jesus” list.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

“In my Father’s house, there are many dwelling places.”

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

If you piece together the Gospel narrative using only the disciples’ voices, it plays more like the conversation I had this week, like the conversations we are all having when it comes to the question of the present time and our lives of faith.

“Thomas said to him, ‘Lord we do not know where you are going.  How can we know the way?”

and later, 

“Philip said to him, “Lord show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

Both of these might be translated, “God, where have you gone.  And where are you now?”

Would it be nice if God could answer these questions with enough proof that we might grab hold and hang on as we are tossed about by the challenges of our days?

The disciples knew things were spinning out of control, and nothing could prepare them for what was about to come.  Who could have predicted the crowds turning, who could have seen that following this rabbi would put their own lives in danger?  Who would’ve guessed that beloved Peter would deny, or that Judas would betray?

Show us God, Jesus.  Tell us where you are going, and how we are supposed to get there.

God where are you?  What do you want from me, and how do I get there?

“I am the Way,” Jesus says to Thomas.

“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus tells Philip.

If we need to know where God is calling us to go, we need to walk in the path that is Jesus.  

If we want to know where God is in the world, we need only look for where Jesus is in the world.  

If Jesus were in the world, where do you imagine he would be?  What might he be doing? What do you imagine he would have to say?  What do you imagine he might ask of you?

Well, in scripture, he was with the brokenhearted, he was weeping at the grave, he was yelling in the temple, he was loving the unloved.  Might that not be where he is now?

What is God asking of you?  Well, what has God always asked of those who long to be in relationship?  

To get it right? To never stumble? To cower in fear?  To believe the voices that tell us we are not good enough, not important enough, not doing enough or not smiling enough?

Of course not. That’s not the God I read in scripture.  And it’s not the God Jesus points us to giving himself, his life, his ministry, his death and his resurrection as an example of what Love looks like.

Jesus couldn’t tell his disciples not to let their hearts be troubled if he expected them to get it right, or perfect, or even to be able to change the violent forces at play.

He could only ask them not to let their hearts be troubled if he knew, as God has always known, that they would not get it right, they would make mistakes and fall far short of their expectations of themselves.  That they would not be able to stop Good Friday from coming.  And yet.  Even though all would seem lost and any return to normal would evaporate, still God would be there with them in it.  Still the stone would roll away and the tomb would be empty.  Still God would walk with them on the road, sit with them over breakfast, speak to them in their hearts and show the Glory of God in the midst of it all.

Though the disciples couldn’t yet know it.  God did.

Though we can’t always see it now, God does.

Where is God in this time?

Crying at the graves of the dead.

Healing the broken-hearted.

Feeding the hungry.

As Queen Elizabeth so beautifully put it,  “Our streets are not empty, they are filled with the love and the care that we have for each other.” Our streets are filled with the love of God.

Our buildings aren’t closed because God has left them, but because God has stirred our hearts to love.

Do not let your heart be troubled.

Easy for Jesus to say, to his disciples and to us.

Possible only if we let go of what it is we think God is asking of us.

Instead, just take one more step on the path in front of you that is Jesus.

And know that, where you see hope and love and peace and justice getting done in the world, wherever and whenever you see that glimpse of the Glory of God, God is there.

God is there.

God is here.

Amen.

While all direct and indirect quotes are always cited, there are sources I read regularly in preparation for sermon writing.  Chances are thoughts have been spurred by these sources and so I list the usual suspects here:  David Lose, In the Meantime, The New Interpreters Bible, Sacra Pagina .

© 2020 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello