5 Easter A

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
May 18, 2014

5 Easter A

A number of years ago, Bruce Freeman, a priest in Cincinnati, came to Christ Church to talk with us about church growth.  Our question for Bruce was "What do we need to be and do at Christ Church in order to reach more people?"  His question back to us was "Who are you?"  According to Bruce, the real issue is not trying to be or do something else.  The real issue is figuring out who we are and then being our very best and most authentic self.  This conversation set the vestry off on a quest to figure out who we are at Christ Church and what we value.  Over a period of months, by looking at our ministries where we find energy and joy, four basic values emerged: Education, Outreach, Worship, and Hospitality.  Then the question became "How do we seek and serve Christ in all people through these areas in the most effective ways possible?"  Not surprisingly, you surfaced those very same values in the self-study while I was away.  Over and over again, survey responses expressed interest in finding new ways to engage our neighborhood, or asked for more Bible study and other forms of adult education, or want more all parish activities, or said that worship along with its various components is one of the primary reasons you came and stayed at Christ Church.  Our identity as people who practice Christianity as Episcopalians is around a church that is committed to the practice of worship, education, outreach, and hospitality.

         The gospel lesson we just read is most often heard at funerals.  When are hearts are troubled and grieving, we are comforted when we hear Jesus say "Do not let you hearts be troubled."  As we grieve the loss of a loved one, we hear Jesus say that he has gone ahead to prepare a place for us. In a world that offers many choices and options for what we believe and how we live our lives, we are reassured when we hear Jesus say "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."  We know that we will not ultimately be lost, or led into falsehood, and that death will not have the final say.

At funerals, we stop once Jesus says "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."  We stop before Jesus says "No one comes to the father except through me."  For many years, Christ Church has participated in an Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, where members of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faith communities come together to give thanks to the God we all share.  Christ Church has long been an active participant in Interfaith Hospitality Network, where congregations representing different faiths come together for the work we are all called to do: offering hospitality to those without homes or jobs.  And at Christ Church, we have families whose children and grandchildren have married members of other faiths.  In light of our many interfaith relationships, what do we make of Jesus' words "No one comes to the Father except through me?"  Jesus' words sound exclusive and harsh. Is Christianity really about who is in and who is out or who is saved and who is not?

This passage is set in the midst of Jesus' farewell to his disciples.  Jesus is preparing his disciples for his death.  How are the disciples to live once Jesus is gone?  How are they to live as disciples of the crucified and risen one?  When times are difficult, how will the disciples know that their life as followers of Jesus is worth the suffering they will endure?  These are significant questions for Christians in the late first century.  Most, if not all, of the eyewitnesses to Jesus have died.  Jerusalem has fallen to the Romans.  The chosen people of God are no longer an independent nation.  There is great tension between Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and Jews who still wait for the Messiah.  This tension creates strife and dissension in the synagogues.  Christians were not welcome in the Roman world, and Christian Jews were not welcome in the synagogues.  Living a faithful life was not easy.  The questions and the doubts outnumbered the answers and the faith.

The crucial question for late first century Christians was not who was saved and who was not.  The crucial question for first century Christians was one of identity.  What, exactly, does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?  Jesus is addressing the question of identity in this gospel reading.  Jesus is speaking to his disciples, not the multitudes.  Jesus tells the disciples that as Christians, they are the ones who believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  As Christians, they are the ones who come to the Father through the Son.  They are the ones who believe that in Jesus they have met God.  And they are the ones who believe that they have a relationship with God that is not ended by death.  The great gift of this passage is that Jesus spells out very clearly what it means to be a Christian.  Jesus is  not answering questions about Hindus, Buddhists, or Jews who still await the coming of the Messiah.  Jesus' concern is certainly not about Muslims since they did not come on the scene for another 600 years or so.  The question about the validity of other faiths is simply not Jesus' question.  Jesus wants to be very clear about what it means to believe in him and make very sure that his disciples know who they are as Christians.

In many ways, our situation as 21st century Christians is not all that different from our first century brothers and sisters.  There are many faiths being lived out in this country, and only a fraction of the people attend church on any given Sunday.  There are many competing claims on our lives on Sunday morning and through out the week.  Not only have all the eyewitnesses to Jesus died, 2000 years later Jesus has still not returned.  The question of how we live in Jesus' absence is as pressing as it was in the 1st century.  What is our distinctive identity as Christians, as Christians who practice the faith as Episcopalians, and who do so in the context of 21st century Springfield, Ohio?  What does it mean to live as Easter people, people who celebrate Jesus' presence in the midst of his absence, in the Good Friday world around us?.  On the one hand, the answers now are the same as they were in the first century.  Our identity is as a community of people who know Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  We are a community of people who come to the Father through the Son.  We believe that in Jesus, we meet God.  We believe that we have a relationship with God that is not ended by death.  On the other hand, the way that we, as Episcopalians in Springfield, Ohio, live that faith is unique and calls for us to use our specific gifts in a creative way to be those Easter people as we engage the challenges of the world around us.

The gift of identity is a powerful gift.  When we really know who we are, we can enter into genuine conversation with people of other faiths, or, perhaps more importantly, people of no faith.  We can walk with people and listen deeply to their stories because we know our own story.  We can tell people about our church because we know who we are as a faith community.  Jesus seeks not to condemn those who are outside of the church, but to make sure that those of us within the church know who we are and what we believe. In the first century and in the 21st century, knowing who we are is the first step in reaching out to others.
Amen.