John 14 – Trust Me

Lectionary Readings for Oct. 10, 2021                 20th Sunday After Pentecost, Year B
Job 23:1-9, 16-17  Job Proclaims God’s Righteous Judgments
Psalm 22:1-15       v2 Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.
Hebrews 4:12-16   v16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.
Mark 10:17-31      Jesus Talks with the Rich Young Ruler

But this week we continue our series exploring the book of John, now with Chapter 14.

Weekly Meditative Exercise

Christianity includes a long and rich tradition of embracing meditative practices as a way of keeping us connected with God, ourselves, and each other. I encourage you to spend some time each week (ideally 10-30 minutes) trying each weekly exercise. You will naturally find some more appealing and effective than others. You’ll like some but not others, and after 6-12 months you’ll better understand what’s available and what helps you.

This week’s exercise focuses on Holy Communion (pages 42-45)
From Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun. InterVarsity Press, 2005.

• Desire: to set apart one day a week for rest and worship of God

• Definition: Sabbath is God’s gift of repetitive and regular rest. It is given for our delight and communion with God. It is a time for being in the midst of a life of doing that particularly characterizes the sabbath.

• Scripture: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)

Our faith community rightly celebrates all that we do through the work of our HOPE Food Pantry. BUT... If we do not regularly spend time in sabbath, we won’t have the energy OR the proper attitude to serve others. If we do NOT take sabbath time – time of intentional rest and renewal – we will burn ourselves out and thus become unable to live into the potential God has created in ourselves.
Sabbath is the action of creating Shalom in our lives. As you engage with this exercise, I encourage you to ask yourself how you can begin working on one day, i.e. 24 straight hours, of reconnecting with and renewing your relationship with God and your peace within yourself.

Peace through Leadership Quotes

“If you do not take a Sabbath, something is wrong. You’re doing too much, you’re being too much in charge. You’ve got to quit, one day a week, and just watch what God is doing when you’re not doing anything.”  ~ Eugene H. Peterson

“Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.”  ~ Alice Walker

Giving ourselves sabbath time leads us into being more at peace with God and with ourselves, which naturally helps us offer peace to others and create peaceful spaces and moments around us.

Any time I preach or lead a group, regardless of age, I start the same way. I’m going to say three short sentences. Please repeat each sentence, with enthusiasm.
God made me. God loves me. God has plans for me.

Preface to Today’s Scripture Reading

In today’s first verse, Jesus encourages His disciples to believe in Him. During our Tuesday evening Bible Study, one of the translations we looked at used the word “trust” instead of “believe.” That prompted a fairly long and rich discussion about the difference between trust and belief. I sincerely believe it’s important for us to pay attention to the words and phrases in the Bible if we are to trust it as God’s guiding words for our lives.

Here are some comments from that night which I hope you will find helpful and thought-provoking.

• “Believe is a faith thing, whereas trust is a love thing. I don’t think these are interchangeable. Trust implies we have something to look forward to.”

• “Believe is factual, whereas trust implies an expectation of a future action or event.”

• “It’s one thing to believe there is a God; it’s another to trust that God with your life and future. Trust implies a relationship; believe does not.”

• “Trust is an action word. Trust requires letting go of fear.”

• “Trust means you do not have to be afraid.”

In James 2:19, the author challenges us by saying, “You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.” And in Mark 1:24, an evil spirit says to Jesus, “Why are you interfering with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

Let’s open our ears, minds, and hearts to believe and trust as we overhear this conversation between Jesus and His disciples as Jesus tries to calm their fears and give them words of encouragement and hope.

Read John 14:1-16 and the rest of chapter 14 this week.

Today’s chapter opens with the words, “Do not get lost in despair; trust in God, and keep on trusting in Me.” These days it seems all too easy to get lost in despair. Whether it’s politics, medical issues, economics, or our relationships with each other, despair seems to rear its gloomy head far too frequently. But Jesus’ specific words – and more importantly, His overall message – are clear: don’t get lost in despair; don’t let despair consume you.

Notice that Jesus does not offer us a despair-free life. If anything, He affirms that despair will be part of our lives. What’s important is that our faith remains the focal point and compass for our lives. As I’ve said in the past, any honest prayer is a good prayer. Wherever you find despair in your life, share that with God using whatever words, sounds, art, or actions make sense to you; God will understand what you are feeling and what you need.

This is yet another example of why it’s so important for all of us to come together as a faith community so that we can share our joys and sorrows with each other and support each other through all of life’s events. We need to celebrate with each other. And we need to share our struggles with each other. Why? Because we are stronger together than we are alone. That was true for the 11 remaining disciples 2,000 years ago, and it remains true for us today.

Jesus goes on to make several statements that, in John’s poetic style, are challenging to translate into modern English.

One example is verse 6 where Jesus tells Thomas, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” You’ll find that language in multiple translations. Notice it begins with Jesus saying, “I am” which recalls God talking to Moses in the story of Exodus. This is the sixth of seven times in John that Jesus describes Himself as “I am...” and in doing so, speaks as God. Here, Jesus is reminding the disciples that God’s ways are truthful and life-giving. This concept is so ingrained in Jewish tradition that some Rabbis use the Hebrew word for truth as a name for God.

“No one can come to the Father except through me.” The English translation seems so clear – so... binarily clear. It’s either Jesus or nothing. And you’ll hear that from many Christian pulpits. But they will conveniently skip over Jesus’ comment you’ll recall from Chapter 10:16, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” We don’t know what Jesus meant by that, but we cannot ignore or discard it. Some modern scholars think that, in verse 6, Jesus was saying that “you, my 11 disciples have me, God in the flesh in front of you right now. None of you has another path. Focus solely on me.”

Remember, Jesus is directing these comments to His most committed followers – not to the general public. And He is doing so prior to the crucifixion and resurrection. In that moment, Jesus was explaining that He was God’s presence among them; “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” Again, these words are meant to reassure His most devoted disciples.

Sadly, centuries of Christians have used this verse as a tool to exclude people from Kingdom of God. We must break that tradition and remind ourselves – and others – of the numerous times John (1:9; 4:42; 10:16; 12:32) describes the Good News of God’s immediate and eternal love as being available to everyone.

We can understand verse 6 as supporting verse 1: “You can trust me because I am way – I offer truth and life.” At our best, our faith offers people truth and life. One of our core “truths” we believe is that God made us and loves us.

Our Bible Study group also wrestled with verse 12, “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works...” As Christians have done for centuries, we asked, “How in the world can we do more than Jesus did?!?” As modern Americans, we seem to have an instinctive desire to grade, score, and value everything. But that’s not how God’s love works. Yes, Mother Theresa saved thousands of lives and impacted millions more. Did she do more than Jesus?

Someone in our Bible Study group pointed out, “if God is in us, then we can do great things by allowing God to act through us.” Exactly. That may be the single best understanding of that verse I’ve ever heard. AND that presents us with a profound challenge: ARE we and HOW are we allowing God to act through us? For us to live into this verse, we must 1) maintain our relationship with God, 2) remain alert for how God may be leading us, and 3) follow God’s leading with the confidence that comes through trusting a loving God. You see how this all ties together?

This is a meaty chapter filled with poetic, and thus challenging, language. And we need that. We need our faith to challenge us, to stretch us, so that our faith, our beliefs, and our trust can grow. I encourage you to read and reread this chapter. As you do, ask God to fulfill Jesus’ promise to send you the Spirit of Truth to guide you. As we grow in our faith, we can help others grow in their faith. We don’t have to have all the answers; in fact, we never will. And that’s just fine, because we have each other, and together – as a faith community – we are stronger, wiser, and more resilient that we are alone. This is what is means to be part of the Kingdom of God.
Amen? Amen!