What If?



Gate Pa – 5th Sunday in Easter (May 18th 2014)
Readings:
First Reading:                                     Acts 7:55-60                                                   
Psalm:                                     31:1-5, 15-16                                     
Second Reading:                    1 Peter 2:2-10               
Gospel:                                    John 14:1-14                                                  

What I want to say:
Use Eleanor Catton’s graduation speech at VUW Graduation this week to ask “what if”. What if we take the incarnational seriously and are simply willing to trust into God made known in Jesus. Not the God taught about by Jesus, but the God whose character is made know in the life and death of life of Jesus. What if Jesus as the way, truth and life is not a propositional truth but an incarnational truth, a relational truth. What if truth and love has priority and no-one is beyond God’s love.
What I want to happen:
I want people to ask what if for themselves and come up with their own learnings.

The Sermon
Eleanor Catton and “if” – gospel is about if – asking questions, taking off assumptions, looking from another point of view
Gospel is part last discourse – last logn speech
            after Judas left
            seriously important
            biographies – this last sppech is distillation of wisdom of person
                        establishes them as someone worth paying attention to – or not
set in conversation with group disciples – frightened, confused, troubled
            like Johns community was frightened, confused, troubled
            as we can be
in face of this Jesus says simply believe into me, trust into me
there is a place for you in the heart of God, even in death
Thomas gets stuck
can’t get beyond the literal
can’t let go of his assumptions
cant look for another place
can’t ask “if”
basically he is asking – when have you told us the way to get to the father
            when have you taught us the right doctrines, right way to think, right way to behave?
Jesus answers “I am the way, the truth, the life, no-one comes to the father but through me. If you know me you will know my father also.”
“If you know me”
heres the problem
God is out there
you can’t really know God
can’t really even know God’s name
you can be taught about God
given some ideas and concepts about God
and clearly Philip is not convicned Jesus has done a very good job at doing that
so he asks “show us the father and we will be satisfied.”
he misses the “if”
and sadly so do we most of the time
what happens if Jesus isn’t talking about teaching about god
isn’t talking about getting the ideas and concepts straight
what happens if
Jesus meant when he said you know me you will know my father also
what happens if when we look at Jesus we see God
when we hear Jsus we hera God
what happens if we don’t have to believe in the theological concept that Jesus is God incarnate
we just have to know at some level that when we see Jesus we see
God in flesh
God among us in the here and now
oozing the character of God
the love and compassion of God
the mercy and justice of God
the inclusiveness and passion of God
the goodness and peace of God
with every word, every action, every breathe
Jesus invites us to ask if
if God is like that
then what does life in God look like
            for me
            for us
            for this world
            God’s world
what if Jesus the way, the truth and life is not a set of ideas and doctrines about God that we need to believe to get into heaven
but the way of God we are invited to live now
and what if believing  Jesus is the only way to the father doesn’t mean that God is only found in those ideas and doctrines
but that wherever we see and hear of this compassion and love, this mercy and justice, this inclusiveness and passion, this goodness and peace, then we can trust that God is present and at work, even when Christian claims are not made or known
What if God is not defined and contained within our theological understanding of who Jesus is, who God is
what if God exceeds all our understanding
what if God does not require right belief, or even right action
but simply that we seek to live into, trust into: love, compassion, mercy , justice, goodness and peace we find in Jesus
those qualities that we come to know as we come to know the historical Jesus, and the risen Christ.
If we are willing to ask if a lot more often
Then says Jesus, we will be part of a much bigger mission that Jesus led 2,000 years ago
then we will begin to be incarnational ourselves
then we will be missional
then we will know whose we are
who we are
and what is ours to do
then we will join in God’s ongoing mission to change the world.



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