I wonder what you noticed in the reading from the Gospel of John that I proclaimed just now. It’s a passage that has a lot of stumbling blocks – or what I call “spiritual speed bumps” in it. Maybe it was the rapid repetition of the word Father as one of the many names for the Divine. Thirteen times here. I have an old t-shirt from the Episcopal Women’s Caucus that boldly announces “God is not a boy’s name.” My cousin, Linda, saw the t-shirt once years ago and said to me in all earnestness, “but God sounds like a boy’s name.”

Maybe you noticed the exclusivist messianic claim, “No one comes to the Father except through me,” and thought “aha! How is Pam going to work her way around this?!” Maybe you noticed the bold promise at the end, “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it,” and sadly recalled your sincerest and most fervent prayers that have gone unanswered.

Or maybe you were carried away to another time when you heard the promise, “in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” Maybe you remember it as “many mansions,” from the funeral service of someone you loved. I think this Gospel passage is chosen to be read more than any other at memorial and funeral services. Maybe you heard comfort in the words, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Maybe you didn’t hear anything after “do not let your hearts be troubled.” Or maybe you heard everything after that and didn’t register that first line at all.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.” That is a variation of what Jesus says more often than anything else in the Gospels: “do not be afraid.” Here is where I want us to begin and end today. “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” If Jesus is saying that it’s because his listeners’ hearts are troubled. Right? Otherwise, he wouldn’t need to say it. Do you know whose hearts are troubled and why? (It’s a little hard to keep up with the Gospel story when we skip around between evangelists and passages during Eastertide.) Our portion today is from the 14th chapter of John. The scene begins in the chapter before. It’s probably a familiar scene to you – it’s before the festival of Passover – the evening of Jesus’ arrest. John says that Jesus knew that the hour had come to depart from the world. He is with his disciples. In John the story goes that while they were having supper, Jesus stood up from the table and tied a towel around his waist and began to wash his disciples’ feet. In John, the story goes that washing each others’ feet is what his disciples are to do in remembrance of him. (In John, remembering Jesus is not about the bread and the wine – it’s all about washing each others’ feet.) “Love one another this much,” he says. “Love one another this way,” he says. “Love one another more and more,” he says.

In the midst of all of this, Jesus also says that Judas will betray him and that Peter will deny him three times before daybreak. It’s a troubling story on so many levels. Strong feelings of impending death, the intimate and embarrassing washing of the feet of disciples – of students – by their master teacher, and the teacher’s predictions of betrayal and multiple denials by those closest to him. Did you know that the lowest attendance at any service at Emmanuel Church last year was Maundy Thursday? I wonder whether, for many people, the ritual enactment of the scene of the last gathering of the disciples while Jesus was alive is either irrelevant or is just too much to bear.

Immediately after he predicts Peter’s triple denial of his relationship with Jesus, Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” So I imagine that Jesus is speaking to himself as much as speaking to the others in the room. For Jesus and his followers, the heart was the center of the self. (1) Commit to me – have confidence in me – give credence to me, Jesus says. (Believe here is not an intellectual exercise; it’s about the heart.) You, whose hearts are aching from looming betrayal and denial and grief and loss, there is a place for you in the household of God. And if you cannot commit to me, Jesus says, or give credence to me, then commit to the works themselves. Have confidence in the works themselves. Give credence to the works themselves.  Trust the works themselves. And if you do, you will do greater works than these. That is an amazing prediction isn’t it? Jesus’ prediction that Judas would betray him came true. Jesus’ prediction that Peter would deny him came true. Jesus’ prediction that his disciples would do greater works than he also came true -- and it’s still coming true.

The confusion and distress that Jesus’ disciples express is still coming true also, isn’t it? How can we know the way? Could someone please just show us the Holy One and then we will be satisfied. And what the Gospel of John says is, you know the way because you know Jesus. You know God and you know the works Jesus is talking about because you have seen Jesus. You know God and you know the works because you have heard Jesus’ words. You know God and you know the works because you have experienced Jesus’ works. What are the works of Jesus? Well, I’ll tell you, the works of Jesus were not about getting everyone to come to church! You know them: they are about freeing prisoners and captives, they are about befriending people who are strange, they are about feeding people who are hungry and giving cool drinks of water to people who thirst, they are about sheltering people who are vulnerable, and healing people, and about washing a lot of feet. The works of Jesus are works of Love. That’s all there is to it. You know the works of Love – you have been on the giving end and you have been on the receiving end of the works of Love. Perhaps, as William Brosend, who teaches at the School of Theology in Sweanee, suggests, the evidence of God is less spectacular than Philip and we might prefer. (2) But I actually think that Love is spectacular, it’s just a lot more difficult than we would prefer. I think that Jesus knew this too.

I think that’s why Jesus said, “if you need anything, just ask for it. If there’s anything I can do, let me know. Name it and I’ll do it.” In fact, that’s the evidence to me that this passage is a love story – it’s a love song. You know, some of us travel through our spiritual landscapes along our spiritual journeys with musicals in our head. (well, I do anyway) The ending of this gospel passage reminds me of the song from the musical Oliver, “I’ll do anything, for you dear, anything, for you mean everything to me.” That’s what this is. Jesus is addressing a group of his followers who are frightened and facing death – their own and the death of their beloved teacher. He’s telling them how they are going to go on without him – that they’re not just going to survive, they’re going to thrive! They’re going to do bigger and better works than he ever did if they trust – if they commit themselves to the knowledge of truth and the experiences of love that are already inside of them.

This is about keeping on keeping on. It’s about mission. It’s no accident that this gospel passage is most frequently chosen for funeral and memorial services. But it’s not assurance of a far-away-after-death heaven – at least, I don’t think it’s about a far-away-after -death heaven. It’s about the survivors. It’s about the kind of heaven that is the experience of being bathed in light, and truth, and spirit, and the freedom of the Divine. This kind of heaven is not spatial, it’s relational. It’s about how to carry on without the physical presence of the one that you don’t want to live without. It’s not about a mansion prepared for you in some never-neverland kind of heaven. It’s not about a physical place. It’s about room for you in the heart of the Holy One right now which is an essential moment in eternity. Right now. In God’s economy (oikonomia), here are many places to stay, (literally, to make a staying). The Divine remains or dwells or makes a staying in the works of Jesus and the ones who carry on the works of Jesus, which are the works of Love.

So if the works of Jesus are not about coming to church, why come to church? Because we need the nourishment and the encouragement. Because we need to give thanks to God. Because we need to be generous. We need to be in community with folks we wouldn’t know otherwise. Because we are more together than the sum total of our individual parts. Because this is where we practice. We are practicing Episcopalians – we practice not letting our hearts be troubled in here so we can do it out there. We practice the works of Love in here so that we can do them out there. We’re practicing – we don’t always get it right (in here or out there).

So what about that exclusive messianic claim in the middle of this lesson? In my imagination, the fear of the disciples and the fears of the early church represented in this claim can’t squelch the wide-open embrace of Jesus; those fears – our fears -- cannot keep a lid on the God of Israel – the God of the Hebrew Bible Who has compassion for all – even gentiles and even enemies – according to the prophets. (3) What I hear this passage saying is that that “only” way in to the heart of God is so wide, so welcoming, so expansive that there is more than ample room for you. So do not let your hearts be troubled.

2. The Christian Century, April 8, 2008.