Imagine that a nice cross-section of present-day Christian disciples were sharing a meal with Jesus on the night before his crucifixion. Jesus, of course, knows that he is going to die, but imagine that the liberal and conservative and moderate Baptists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Methodists, and so on who are gathered around the table do not have a clue what is going to happen. First, Jesus shocks everyone by washing their feet like a slave would have done. When he reports that one of them is going to betray him and that another will deny him three times, they begin to eye one another, and themselves, with suspicion. Then Jesus adds fuel to the fire by telling everyone that he is going away, and that he is going somewhere that they cannot come. Can you imagine the fear, and mistrust, and confusion that reigns in this group? Jesus’ heart is breaking as he watches their pain and grief. He tries to comfort them, to tell them that he isn’t leaving them alone, that he loves them and will be back for them, and that they will still be together. But we don’t understand.
As murmurs rumble around the table, one of the really devout and more concrete-minded disciples cries, “Now, Jesus, you had me worried there for a minute, but I have an idea. Since you are going to be leaving us, we need to keep order here on earth, so we just need to know exactly when you are coming back for us--I mean for the ones of us, that is, who are your true followers, not for the betraying and denying ones.” He then pauses to give a meaningful glare around the table before he continues to explain, with great hopefulness in his voice, “Look, I’ve been doing some math here on my napkin, and I figure that if we take the date of Noah’s flood and add 7000 years and then divide it all by 10 and multiply by 500, and then add some more numbers, then we can be looking for you to come back for us on … say, May 21, 2011 ….”
Before Jesus can answer, one of the more liberal of his disciples interrupts, “What silliness! Just calm down and pass the potatoes over this way. We know that Jesus loves us—all of us—and that’s all that matters. Let’s just enjoy our meal and then we can go outside and leave what we don’t want for the beggars. We can sing some songs and set up some non-profits while we wait for Jesus to come back. That’s all you expect us to do, right, Jesus?” The liberal disciple looks at the worried faces of his friends gathered around him and whispers to them: “Relax. It doesn’t matter what you really think about Jesus, guys; when he’s gone, we just need to live the compassionate lives that he taught us about.”
Jesus stands up and replies, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. You think that you can do it all on your own, but none of you comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. In the way that I lived and in the way that I will die, you will know who God is and what God wants from you.”
“Ha, just as I thought!” cries the conservative one. If people don’t agree with what we believe about God, then they are going to burn in hell for all eternity! It says right here in scripture that God is an Almighty Judge, and he is going to roast all of the evil-doers! We are Jesus’ disciples, right, so we are the ones who know God. We just need to write down and preach with conviction what we know, and the people who are saved will sign off on it. That way we’ll know exactly who is with us while we are waiting for Jesus to come back.”
Jesus sighs and shakes his head sadly. “Have I been with you all this time, and still you do not know me?” he asks. “Have you not seen me eat with sinners, welcome tax collectors and prostitutes, touch the unclean, and call the little children to me? Have you not heard me when I tell you that the single new commandment that I have for you is that you love one another? Trust me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then trust me because of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, the one who trusts in me will also do the loving, healing works that I do and, in fact will do greater works than these.”
Yes, when faced with the question of how to live together as Christians in this world, how to follow a Lord who now loves us, unseen, from the right hand of God, we modern disciples don’t “get it” any better than the twelve did as they ate their last meal with Jesus. The words of our Gospel that we read today are Jesus’ words of comfort to us.[1] They are loving words that are meant to console us in his absence, to invite us to trust him, to encourage us to follow him in his dying and rising just as we followed him in his living and teaching. He wants to reassure us that we have seen God’s love for us in his life and works and that we can therefore trust God to bring us safely into the future, no matter how difficult or frightening our world may seem.
But what do we do? We turn this passage into what one scholar describes as “proof positive that Christians have the corner on God and that people of any and all other faiths are condemned.” Or else we just turn away from John’s Gospel all together, taking it upon ourselves to cut out a part of Holy Scripture just because we decide that it sounds too “exclusionary and narrow-minded”[2] for our sensibilities. Poor Rob Bell, the pastor of a rather evangelical megachurch in Michigan, has most recently made the news for writing a book entitled Love Wins, in which he takes issue with an interpretation of our Gospel that might lead us to condemn someone like Mahatma Gandhi to hell. While I have not yet read Bell’s book, and do not yet know whether I agree with his theology, I can say that his challenge to us to leave the judging to our generous, loving, and mysterious God is one that we should consider. I was waiting in line in the ladies’ room of a Mississippi rest-stop earlier this spring, during our Youth Mission Trip, when a large group of teens came in. I heard them talking about being on a mission trip to the Gulf Coast, too, and I asked them where they were from. A couple of girls looked at each other with hesitation. “Um, we’re, um, from a church called Mars Hill, in Michigan. You, um, might, um, know about our pastor, Rob Bell? He’s the one who’s in trouble….” she stammered. I had indeed heard of Bell, both for some excellent youth videos that he has made and for the controversial book. “Oh, I’m OK with your pastor,” I said, as a look of relief and disbelief spread over the girls’ faces. “Really?” they asked, “so many people don’t like us now.”
When a group of teenagers from a dynamic church, traveling to spend their spring break building houses for the poor in Mississippi, are afraid of condemnation from an Episcopal priest in a ladies’ bathroom, something is wrong. What happened to the love and promise in Jesus’ voice? What happened to our trust in him, to our trust in God, to our trust that God—not us—is in control?
Here’s another story to shake our heads over on this weekend in which some Christians say that the world will end: There is a house in Tennessee called, “Armageddon House” or “Millenium Manor.” Seriously. In 1939, the builder of the house was convinced that judgment day, the end of the world, would be a certain date in 1969. So he started building a house out of stone, believing that it could withstand the earthquakes and volcanoes and other disasters that some believe will befall us in the End Times. The sturdy house has few windows, and a basement dungeon, and it is rumored that the man’s wife’s body is entombed within the walls. The news report states that the present owner is feeling quite secure this weekend, even if the world is supposed to end.
While we are building literal--and metaphorical--sturdy stone houses in which to hide ourselves, Jesus says, “in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places,” many places to abide in God, to be in deep relationship with God. If only, says Jesus, just a little bit later on, if only you could trust me, and be in deep relationship with each other, as well.
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