I am the way and the truth and the life...

5 Easter, Year A, RCL

Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
1 Peter 2:2-10
John 14:1-14

I am the way and the truth and the life.

Anytime I hear a passage from the Gospel of John I am amazed at how this evangelist is able to pack a theological punch in just a few short verses. In this mornings passage alone – line after line of scripture challenges, the hearer to reflect on what it means to be a follower of Jesus – what it means to be a Christian.

Have you been with me all this time and still you do not know me?

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.

If you know me, you know my Father also.

I am the way and the truth and the life.

My reflections on this passage led me to the realization that though I have been serving the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour for almost two years now – I have preached the gospel, celebrated the Eucharist, baptized children, and walked among you as a person of faith, a person of prayer, a follower of Jesus; but I don’t believe that I have told my story – the story of why I am a Christian.

Like many of you, I was raised in a church-going home – my family is Episcopalian and I attended several different Episcopal Churches through my childhood and high school years. I was trained and well practiced in the ways of Episc-aerobics – stand up to pray, kneel to pray, stand to sing, sit down in between, pick up the hymnal, pick up the prayer book, hands up, hands across the chest, hands together, etc. etc. etc.

Now, I’ll admit, my earliest memories of church as a child were of very, very cold air conditioning – (remember I lived in Arkansas until I was nine,) short sleeved dresses, and leaning into the warmth of my mother’s body. I also remember singing hymns – even before I could read – but thanks to the organ, always feeling the pitch in the center of my chest.

As a child I was formed to be an Episcopalian – so much so that when I visited other churches where communion was not the norm, and remaining seated – even during prayer, and the Gospel – things just didn’t feel right. I wasn’t sure I had “done church” not having received communion.

From the beginning being in church was a full body experience, and one that made sense – that fit me quite well. Much of my earliest formation was about being a part of a community, and its practices, so that I felt I had a place there; I knew how to act and respond to the cues of the liturgy. It had little to do with actual faith in God, or understanding who Jesus was – though I’m certain that I heard countless sermons and Sunday school lessons about Jesus – mostly I just knew I belonged there.

Have you been with me all this time and still you do not know me?

When I was nine years old my family moved from the home I had always known in Arkansas to a suburb of the twin cities in Minnesota. For both of my parents the move was right for their careers, education and a return to the upper Midwest where both of them were born and raised and where both sets of my grandparents were within an easily drivable distance from our new home. My older brother struggled more than any of us with the move – particularly as a Jr. High school student, dealing with adolescence and a new community, making new friends, trying to understand his place and way of being in an unfamiliar culture, and climate. We had a new Episcopal Church – and the worship experience and practices were enough the same that we knew what to do, how to act, how to function in that place. At least that experience was stable; there we knew how to be.

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.

By the time I entered Jr. High school my brother had been in a downward spiral for several years – drugs, alcohol, you name it, my brother was into it. I lived in a house that was rarely peaceful, or happy. My parents worked, my brother partied, and I took long rides on my bike when the weather permitted my escape.

As with any child growing up – what I knew was normal – it was far from perfect, but it was my house, my family, and my situation to live with until something or someone changed.

My best defense-mechanism was invisibility – I would just disappear, and let the rest of them battle it out – it rarely had anything to do with me anyway.

I assumed that I was invisible to everyone… I assumed that no one could see or hear all that was taking place in my house – the struggle my parents had to care for and discipline their rebellious child – the difficulty of keeping up appearances, even when things seemed to be at their worst, and the fear of what it might mean to let a child fall hard enough that they might take responsibility for their own self, their own actions.

Meanwhile – I kept myself together reading books and being an escape artist. Until one day, someone invited me out to lunch. It was the youth minister at my church – someone who I knew through acolyting and some youth events that I had attended. It was summer time and we met up at a little restaurant in downtown.

Lord we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?

I thought we were just going for lunch. I thought we were just saying hello over the summer. I thought nothing much of it at all – until she asked me how I was doing… until she let me know that she could see me, and could see that things were not so great at home. I thought I was fine – but I wasn’t.

If you know me, you know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.

The day that I was saved, the day that I met Jesus, was the day that I realized I could be seen – and not only was I seen – and made real, special, important on that day – but I was seen for the simple fact I was a child of God.

And on that day a follower of Jesus, one who knew God’s love deeper than anyone else I knew at the time, did one very simple thing. She had faith in the Jesus’ words, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Responding to those words on that day for her meant doing the work that Jesus would have done – reaching out to the lonely, the hurting, the vulnerable.

I don’t think we spoke a word about Jesus that day – except perhaps when we gave thanks for the meal that was before us. But as I have reflected over the years on how and why I follow Jesus – why I can stand here and uphold Jesus’ words, “I am the way and the truth and the life” it relates back to that day – that moment in my life when I met Jesus at the supper table.

I am the way and the truth and the life.

On that day, through a deep connection with another human being, I was seen by and I saw Christ. I understood the words, “I am the way” because it was exemplified to me in the words and actions of one who reached out to me in my greatest need. As members of a Christian community, we are called to bear that story not only on our lips but in our lives. As followers of Jesus, we are called to care for one another and for those in need by being Christ for others, by being companions, and sometimes vessels on the way.

In theological terms we can discuss this passage by reflecting on it’s placement in the Gospel of John – conversation the Jesus had with his disciples at the last supper – described as the farewell discourse. Jesus’ laying the groundwork for our Trinitarian understanding of God as he describes the mutual indwelling of God in Christ, and Christ in God, followed by the next verses that describe third party of the trinity with the impending arrival of the Holy Spirit…

But in reality – in day to day language – in relationship with one another… the words, I am the way and the truth and the life – these words are alive in my life because someone who had faith in their strength, and meaning lived up to them. At my greatest moment of need – one spoke the truth, one valued my life and one invited me to join them on the way as a fellow member of the family of Christ, a community that was there for me outside of my small and struggling family system. On that day I claimed the birthright that I received at my baptism and began to own the teachings and the ways of a life of Christian faith and practice. My preparation as a church-goer was complete. My life as a faithful participant in the Christian community had just begun.

When the Christian Community is at its best – it has faith in and reflects these things in its words and deeds. When we as Christians are at our best – we know ourselves well-enough to know why we are here, why we do what we do, and as a result we are motivated to share that part of ourselves with others – through our words, through our actions, through our lives as they are lived out in the world.

Today I shared with you a portion of my faith story. This week as members of our congregation take the final steps to affirm their commitment to be active members of the Christian community through confirmation in the Episcopal Church, let us each reflect on why we are here, why we are called to follow Jesus, and are committed and practicing Christians – when did you find yourself on “the way” and where is it calling you to go? Who is it calling you to be, how are you articulating and sharing the parts of your story that allow you to have faith in the words of Jesus, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

Delivered by the Rev. Mary Catherine Enockson

April 20, 2008, The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Rock Hill, SC