Easter 5                                                                                                John 14: 1-14

22 May 2011

In our Gospel lesson for today, we encounter many well-known sayings of Jesus: In my Father’s House are many mansions; I am the way, and the truth, and the life, Whoever has seen me has seen the Father, the one who believes in me will do greater works than these, and, finally, if in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.  The first is meant to be a comfort now that Jesus is about to depart—he will prepare a place for his followers and all shall be together in the end.  The second has to do with how his followers will achieve the goal of their discipleship; the next outlines their mission; and the last shows them that adequate provision has been made for their success. 

I want to look with you at several of these sayings and offer a way that you can hold them together and make sense out of them as your own personal plan for spiritual development.  I want to start with Jesus as the Way and the Truth and the Life.  This has become a controversial statement in our culture.  Many regard it as exclusivist and arrogant and not at all suited to a contemporary pluralist society.  Others claim that it is central for Christians and cannot be dispensed with.  But for those who hold on to it there are two very different ways of using these words.  One way you may call the simple assertion of belief.  That is, as a member of the Church I subscribe to the truth of this statement.  This is the knowledge of membership only—it is a marker to indicate who is in the company of the saved and who is not.  But there is another way of knowing Jesus to be the Way and the Truth and the Life—the way of discipleship.  The disciple knows Jesus is the way because he is walking in it; she knows Jesus is the truth because she is in the process of understanding it; she knows Jesus is the life because she is sharing in it.  The disciple understands that in knowing and loving and serving Jesus he is knowing and loving and serving God, because Jesus is Himself the human face of the eternal Father. The statement is not necessarily meant to say who is out; it is meant to describe life within the fellowship of Christ.

The one who is only a member of the Church accepts these things but they are somewhat abstract and remote to his experience.  Likewise with the mission of the Church: the Church member belongs and has taken the first steps toward fulfilling her vocation.  But as long as membership remains mere membership and does not move on towards discipleship, it is likely to be a passive association with the Church, not a missional one—that is, an association in which one tries to fulfill the duties of belonging but never engages in the mission of following Jesus.  Jesus said that his disciples would not only do the kind of works he had done but would do even greater ones.  That does not mean that the true disciple is the one who does miracles more splendid than Jesus’ miracles.  The works he refers to are, I believe, the works associated with the spreading of the Kingdom throughout the world.  This is the kind of work undertaken in the Name of Jesus, and prayer offered to fulfill this mission is what is granted to the glory of the Father.  In other words, Jesus’ followers are given the task of engaging in the mission of the Kingdom of God—in all its rich variety of manifestation—and they are told that whatever they need to accomplish it will be given them if they ask for it.

If you remember your geometry, there is such a thing as an ellipse.  It is defined as a “curved line forming a closed loop, where the sum of the distances from two points (foci) to every point on the line is constant.”  In other words you have a single object constantly related to two points.  And so with the Christian life;  one focus of that life is the commitment to know Him as the Way and the Truth and the Life; the other focus is doing Jesus’ own works.  Or, we could say, it is a balance between worship and mission.  I am going to distribute a page now which describes this balance as an alternation between Renewal and Apostolate.  We are not so familiar with it as with the Christian Life Model or the Benedictine Promise, but it explores this rhythm in the life of Christian discipleship and may help us as we look at our own response to this Gospel lesson.

The model assumes that those who have been baptized have promised themselves to a life of discipleship—that is, a serious following of Jesus in this world.  When we are brought into the life of the Church we are given many gifts of divine grace and the actual life of Jesus is implanted in us through the power of the Holy Spirit—we are renewed, made new people by grace.  But these gifts of divine grace are meant to be used in a life of active service in our world.  This is our apostolate, our mission.  It indicates an active response to our incorporation into Christ in the life of the Church.  But the model also assumes that every good gift of grace has to be renewed continually in order to remain active.  Thus, in the Christian life there is an alternation, a rhythm of renewal and apostolic action.  If we do not renew ourselves in the means of grace, our spiritual life will diminish.  But we have to remind ourselves as well that all the gifts of grace are given to us to enable us to serve God in the places where we live and work.

So let’s look at those two poles: renewal and apostolate.  First: renewal.  What is it that renews you?  Our world is filled with a lot of people who push themselves very hard.  They go without sleep, without close friendships, without healthful eating practices, and without the traditional cultural practices that enrich their humanity.  Over time they are diminished as persons—if indeed they retain their actual physical health.  Since the spiritual life is grounded in the physical life, good, healthful practices that take care of the body and soul are a good place to start.  But there is also spiritual renewal: practices that develop and strengthen the life of the Spirit into which we have been initiated in our baptism.  When these practices are neglected, our spirits suffer and become weak.  We reduce ourselves to mere church members and abandon the discipleship to which our baptism calls us.  What are these practices? 

First of all, regular participation at mass.  Corporate worship has many elements: there is the instruction that comes through the reading of Scripture and the preaching, there are the common prayers by which our needs are offered and we are taught the full range of the Church’s heart; there are the hymns and songs which lift our spirits and instruct us in ways that words alone cannot do; there is the Blessed Sacrament itself which renews our baptismal life by feeding us with Jesus’ own life.

Secondly, there is the practice of regular, daily prayer and Bible reading.  There are many ways a person could organize this practice, but in the Episcopal Church we have the daily office, which is a wonderful school for prayer.  In it you get regular immersion in the most important of the passages in the Bible, the poetry of the psalms, and the beauty of the Church’s historic prayers.  When you then engage in your own personal praying for your own needs, the needs of family and friends and the wider world, your repentance and thanksgivings—all of these are deeper and more informed by being grounded in the Church’s prayers and in the Scriptures. 

There is, thirdly, a place for study as well—serious grappling with the issues and problems of our world as they relate to our faith and learning of the ways the Christian life has been lived in ages past.  Each of these three areas is crucial—they prepare us for living as disciples in our world.

The second focus of the model is our apostolate.  Of course there are things to do around the Church which relate to our common life, but where we exercise our apostolate is first of all in the place of our daily life.  We are representatives of Jesus in our jobs and in our homes and in our neighborhoods.  We are to manifest Kingdom life in those places.  That doesn’t always mean talking about Jesus, but it surely means living like him.  It also means to keep eyes and ears open for those who may need the love of Christ brought home to them in some special way.  It means a continuous attempt to be a consistently Christian person no matter what we are doing or where we are doing it.  That is, it means to live as a disciple—a follower of Jesus who is practicing living in the way that the Master taught. The tasks of our apostolate vary.  One person may be a laborer in a factory and another a physician in a hospital.  Both as disciples are to manifest the love of Christ in their work and with their fellow-workers.  In their lives out of work, they are to be good spouses, parents, neighbors, friends, open to the needs of those around them.  

And now it is obvious why we need this rhythm of renewal and apostolate. Living for Jesus is not easy and a person can get tired.  You need to recharge your spiritual batteries and revitalize your faith and knowledge of Jesus as the way and the truth and the life.  And then you go out to live in his way, express his truth, and manifest his life.  As you are caught up in this process, and you ask God for the grace and strength to do Jesus’ will and follow Him as your Lord, these prayers will be answered and you will be able to do the works Jesus would do if he were you.  In this process, I call your attention to the importance of those three needs listed at the bottom of the page that contains the renewal-apostolate model. 

1.      We need to accept our dependence on God, which is aided by openness to spiritual guidance.  That is, we approach Sunday Mass in all of its parts with our hearts open in order to hear what it is that God might say to us.  We read the Bible and say our prayers with that same openness to the Spirit.  We listen to other people for the same voice.  And when we find that we cannot think through things very well on our own, we look for those with the spiritual knowledge who can help.

2.      We need to accept our responsibility for ordering our spiritual life, particularly through establishing a Rule of Life. That is, for the most part, you will not find a way to experience the renewal elements that are so important to your spiritual life, unless you plan for them.  Life is too full of things already.  It is likely that you will have to rearrange parts of it in order to make room for these important spiritual renewal elements.  If you need help with this, I would be glad to talk with you.  We even have some aids to developing such a rule on our web site.

3.      We need to accept our interdependence with others in the Church, which takes place through life in Christian community, a congregation.  Being rooted in a community over time is very important in the life of discipleship.  You get to know others and they get to know you and there is reason to hope for accountability and assistance in living the Christian life together.  I am very aware that we could do more in this regard to facilitate sharing amongst ourselves in the details of living the life of discipleship. 

There is a wonderful prayer for the diocese that sums up what we are trying to do, on page 817:

O God, by your grace you have called us in this Diocese to a goodly fellowship of faith. Bless our Bishop and other clergy, and all our people. Grant that your Word may be truly preached and truly heard, your Sacraments faithfully administered and faithfully received. By your Spirit, fashion our lives according to the example of your Son, and grant that we may show the power of your love to all among whom we live; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.