The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Matthew.

When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”

Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”

And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them,

“Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him. ( (Matthew 21:23-32):

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The preacher went on and on, and some of the people began to wonder when he was going to finish. It wasn’t that what he said wasn’t interesting, but rather, most of those there were long time church members and they didn’t think they needed to listen too closely.

And it was a hot day and even though the windows were open, it was stuffy in the church, and most people there wanted to get home for lunch, and hopefully, a cool drink. So they looked at their watches, and sat this way and that, and looked around, and counted the tiles in the ceiling, and eventually the sermon was over and the rest of the service would soon go by, and they could leave.

The parson shook hands with each member of the congregation as they exited, and then he turned to go back inside, to tidy up before he left. But he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye.

He turned and saw an older man, dressed in old and shabby clothes brushing grass from his pants. The man saw the parson and smiled, “Can I talk with you sir?”

“Well, er, I was just going. But come inside. Would you like a glass of water?

 “Thanks, but no. I just walked into town an hour ago, and was tired, so I sat against the church wall in the shade, and I heard what you said. I meant to be on my way, but something you said stopped me.”

“What was that?”

“You said that because of what Jesus did we are forgiven whatever bad we have done and can be back on good terms with God again. Is that right?”

“That’s basically what I said, “ nodded the preacher.

“Does that apply to me too?”

“It applies to everybody.”

“And what do I have to do?”

The parson took this man by the arm, and led him to the altar rail. “Just kneel here and ask God to forgive you for your sins, and if you are truly sorry, then He will and you will be free.”

 The man did that. He prayed aloud,” God, you know I have been a bad person. You know I have stole stuff, and hurt people. And I am sorry. I am tired of being on the outside. Can you please forgive me. Can you please let me in?”

 Something seemed to change in that old man. He stood up. His eyes were wet but his shoulders seemed to be set a little straighter. His face didn’t seem so lined.

“I’ll go now,” he said to the parson who was also crying, and he walked out the door.

The minister sat there for a long time. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He had preached each week at this church for seven years, and although he knew some of his flock needed to repent of the way they lived, none had ever indicated they would.

Oh, the people at his church seemed like such good people, There was the odd person you had to tread lightly with. There were people who partied a bit. One couple seemed too strict with their children, and he worried about them. But they attended regularly.

They all seemed to listen to what he preached, and seemed to want to follow what he said, but he knew they didn’t.

But this man?

Here was a man who had rejected God, had lived his life outside of God’s grace. had refused God, and yet he had finally realised his mistake and had come back to his Father.

Matthew tells us that Jesus is talking to those who show their love of God by how they played by the rules, by the law – in other words, how they showed it. They seem to be saying they serve the Lord but often they don’t. The law gives them latitude to look good but not necessarily to be good or to do good.,

And he gives them the story of the two sons, to illustrate what he means. One rejects his father’s order but later changes his mind and does it. The other says OK, but then doesn’t. He is telling the Pharisees something here, but they probably won’t hear what he is saying. Their lives are so organized around the law that they can’t imagine how they could be wrong.

 I am going to tell you another true story of two brothers. One was eight and the other four years old. Someone had given them a budgie in a cage, which they loved, but often forgot to look after. It was their responsibility and mostly they did what they had to do, but being young children they often forgot.

Then one day the cage was silent, and their mother checking it saw the bird was dead Its food box was empty and the water container, was dry. Then she remembered that in the last day or day or so, she had kinda heard, and kinda saw, it do something weird. It would jump down from its perch, head toward the seed bowl and do a sort of strange dance around it before going back to the perch. She had no idea what it was doing, and had been too busy to really check it out..

I remember when she told me about this, about thirty years ago, but it was only the other day that I understood what had happened. I am a really slow learner.

 Birds aren’t so dumb as you might think. They can be trained to do tricks, and they can learn.( Some day I will tell you the story of the chicken that played the piano.)

 This budgie had probably seen that when it did that little dance – made a noise, and jumped around, that it would not be long before food and water arrived. And here it was doing that and expecting the same thing to happen.

This time there were no little boys around, but the bird performed that same ritual, which had been answered in the past, hoping food would appear.

 Like from God?

 We read in the Old Testament, and in other historical accounts that people would have gods whose purpose was to help humans. A god who provided rain, another who provided fire, another who brought good luck and so on.

It seems that humans have always had a real sense that there is a God, and have sought ways to influence God. To win his favour. But how to please this God? How to ensure that he would continue to favour his people? The answer appeared to be that sacrifices would have to be made.

The sacrifice would have to be something precious. God wouldn’t want a worthless sacrifice, would he? So sometimes a child was sacrificed.

The Old Testament refers to this, and we know from archeological research that it took place in South America. You will remember the story of Abraham being prepared to sacrifice his only son, Isaac but being restrained by an angel. Sacrifice has always been a part of worship, it seems.

We especially remember the sacrifice that Jesus made, for us – his own life, And we remember it in the Eucharist, don’t we?

We relive that last night when Jesus was with his disciples when we participate in the Eucharist.

Such rituals help us to remember and to commemorate, and to make a connection, with our God. And are very valuable as a part of our faith. They help us to come close to God. To feel a nearness with God and with each other. And we do them to persuade God to be near us.

But these rituals are for us, not for God. He doesn’t need ritual, he doesn’t need praise, He needs nothing. He created everything there is. Why would he need anything?

Psalm 50, says it well,” I will not accept a bull from your house, or goats from your folds. 10 For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. 11 I know all the birds of the air,[a] and all that moves in the field is mine. 12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine

 If God is so great, and so powerful, then he doesn’t really need anything, does he? Even praise?

 That’s something we need to do. We need to, as I said, to help us feel close to God. I remember the first time I knelt at the altar rail and took communion. I was blown away by the feeling, the blessing, the closeness to God I felt and still do. But really, it’s not what we do in here, in our beautiful old church, that is important. It is what we do out there.

What we do here is to help us to do the important stuff out there. And what we do for others. What we do to others. How we help others. How we Love others.

That’s what He wants from us.

And when we finally do see Him, He is going to ask, ” What did you do? ” Not how much did you worship? Or how many times did you go to church?

 Like he would ask those Pharisees, what did you do for others? And they would say, “We obeyed all your laws.” But he would ask, again, ” What did you do for others?

And He will ask the same thing of us. Not did you jump off your perch and do a dance to please me, but what did you do for others?

You might say, ” Well, I played a good round of golf every week, or I worked hard and built a nice home. Or I attended church every Sunday and sat through hundreds of sermons. And He will ask again, ” But what did you do?” “

And He will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”… And the goats on the left…….?.

For over a hundred and eighty years people have needed the church I attend as a place of praise, of prayer , of ritual, of community, and friendship, all of which have helped our forebears, and help us, to know what it is we should be doing out there, and to encourage us to do it.

So we should be able to answer the question, ‘ What did you do?” with confidence.

The man I mentioned at the start of this story, had done nothing good, it seems. In fact he confessed to doing a lot of bad. But when the  minister sat outside that church, for a moment after the service, he thought of people  who attended regularly. Some there would be, the preacher knew,  who didn’t actually follow what he tried to tell them in his sermons.  That old man who had wondered by, not a church attendee, had found something that urged him to move from his old life into a new one.

 He didn’t jump off his perch and do a dance, nor did he make any great sacrifice, all he did was acknowledge his need to be right with God.

I have loved my church. I have loved all who attend faithfully,. I have loved doing worship there,. but I oft need reminding, and maybe you do too, of all we need to do to be right with God. .

It’s not so much is it?

    The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ According to John.

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 2

All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. ( John 17: 1-11)

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How would you like it if God spoke to you and told you that you were going to do great things in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, and everywhere in the whole world? I guess you would panic a bit, wouldn’t you? I mean, what about your job, and who’s going to look after the kids, and what about your bridge group next Wednesday?  It would be a bit scary.

 I had a similar experience, you might say. I was in my final year in seminary, and I was staying on campus during the summer. There was a man, another Yorkshireman, originally from Doncaster, fifteen miles from my home town – he had that accent – and he was visiting from the Arctic. He was a priest, recruited in Britain by the Bishop of the Arctic, and he had ministered in the far North for, I think, seven years. He had seen an ad in the church paper asking for priests to go to the Arctic. He responded, and after a while, the Bishop of the Arctic, who was in England for that very purpose, came to interview him in his home. He said the bishop was unlike the UK bishops, some of whom live in palaces, and what goes with all that. He said the Bishop of the Arctic came into his home, sat in an armchair, put his feet on the mantelpiece, and told him about the challenges of ministering in that environment. .

He responded and after a short while found himself in the far north, getting off the plane in his raincoat, and brown shoes, totally ill-equipped for the climate. He spoke eloquently to us students, at one of our morning prayer services about serving the church in the North. He told about the great challenges, and the way they were being met. He talked about the great joy and satisfaction he got out of his ministry.

He talked about the gratitude shown by the native population for the mission work that he did. And he talked about the great need for priests to work in the North. And I felt he was talking directly to me. In fact I was sure he was talking directly to me. And I began to panic. Is this God’s way of calling me to go to the Arctic, I wondered? I hope not. I can hardly stand the winters here in Southern Ontario.

 I am here, so you know I didn’t go. When I had thought about it some more, I decided that maybe God wasn’t calling me to go North. After all I had a family to take care of here in Ontario.

But I still wonder, sometimes. I wonder how different my life would have been. Jesus, just before his Ascension into Heaven, told his disciples, “ The Holy Spirit will come upon you with power, then you will tell everyone about me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and everywhere in the world.”

The whole world! The whole world?

Wait a minute!! You can imagine them thinking, “ I can’t go out into the world. I am not prepared. I have never traveled more than a day’s journey from my home. How can I go into the whole world?”

“I just told you that the Holy Spirit will come upon you with power. That is how you will go, and how you will glorify me.” Jesus assured them.

If God is helping you, then surely everything, and anything, is possible. John tells us that Jesus is praying with his friends in that upper room, the night before his crucifixion. He says to his Father, “Father, the time has come for you to bring glory to your Son, in order that he may bring glory to you.”

The glory that Jesus is talking about is the glory of the cross. Jesus glorified his father by obeying him in all things. Even to dying on the cross. As it says, “In all things he did his Father’s will.”  That’s another way of saying that this man Jesus, lived for the Father. And he had such faith in the Father, and was so empowered by the Holy Spirit, that everything that he did, especially his death, did in fact, glorify God.

You know, we all do a lot of self -glorifying, don’t we? Probably without realizing it. But think about it. Human beings have done that throughout the ages. We seem to need to build ourselves up. The way we dress. The way we talk, carry ourselves, the people we mix with, the car we drive, the house in which we live, the schools we went to, the level of education we reached, all helping to elevate us in the eyes of other people – we hope.

It’s worse in America.

You are never too far into a conversation, down there, before someone asks you what job you do. And if it isn’t something impressive, then you are going to be talking to yourself pretty soon. What a relief it would be to be free of that eh? Not to care. Just to live as someone who is so at ease with oneself that we don’t care what the world thinks.

Jesus was at ease with who he was, wasn’t he? He stood up and spoke in the synagogue, in front of learned people; he gathered a group of followers around him and taught them as a rabbi would, this son of a carpenter. He stood up to those in authority, he reached out to those who were scorned by society. And finally, he went to his death on the cross, in supreme obedience to His Father’s will. He needn’t have, you know. He could have said, “No.” He could have stayed away from Jerusalem. Avoided it. But if he had done that, then God’s plan would have been thwarted. His death would show us the length to which God would go, in his great love for us, and in his wish to save us. And now we see Jesus sending his disciples out into the world – the whole world – to face dangers similar to the dangers he himself had faced. They would be hated.

They would challenge the evil powers of this world, and put their lives at risk. And how are these men, who haven’t shown signs of great bravery yet, going to do this?

 How are they to handle all the stuff that’s going to come their way?

Because make no mistake about it, they will face danger. Their lives will be forfeit, some of them. Some will be thrown into prison, others brought before tribunals, some flogged, thrown out of town. How will they handle this? Shouldn’t God protect them? Keep all harm away from them? Note that when Jesus prayed for his disciples, and this is important, he prayed, not that they should be taken out of this world, not that they may find escape, he prayed that they may find victory.

Christianity was never meant to have us withdraw from life, but to equip us better for it; never meant to release us from problems, but a way to solve them; never meant to offer us an easy peace, but a triumphant warfare against evil; never meant to offer us a life in which we escape our troubles, but a life in which troubles are faced and conquered.

Linus and Charlie Brown were walking along one day, and chatting with each other. Linus said, “ I don’t like to face problems head on. I think the best way to solve problems is to avoid them. In fact, this is a distinct philosophy of mine. No problem is so big or so complicated that it can’t be run away from.”

 Imagine if you ran away from every problem. Where would you be now? Back in the womb! See how your mother would like that.

God doesn’t promise us no problems.

He promises us the courage to face them, and the ability to overcome them. God has chosen us and dedicated us in his service. He doesn’t expect us to carry out that great task of our own strength, however. In fact, he graciously fits us for whatever task faces us, if we can just place our life in his hands.

 I was speaking to a young mother once. Susan and I had already met her a short while before, and I remembered her saying then, that having two young children to look after was very hard. And she looked tired. She said she didn’t have any family nearby who would take the children off her hands for just a little while.

Then some time later, I saw her again, and we chatted for a few minutes. She told me she is extremely busy. She works week-ends, and has a part-time job she does at home, and then of course she has the two babies to care for. And  she does housework, and meals, and so on. And she couldn’t talk for long, as she had the laundry in. I bet that if you had told that young woman just a short time before, how much she would accomplish, as a wife and mother, she would have laughed in your face.

Don’t tell me that God doesn’t equip people when he gives them big jobs. God also equips us to handle sorrow, and suffering, and all sorts of hardship. I can tell you from my own observations that I have seen people face great challenges, such that I thought they would never be able to handle, and yet, by the grace of God, they did.

He is there in our suffering, right there in the dirt with us, waiting for us to feel his presence, and know his love. We have just got to let Him in. A man by the name of Rufus Jones lost a son of eleven years who was all the world to him. He wrote many years later about the experience, concluding with this luminous parable of how his own heart was opened to God’s love.

“When the sorrow was at its most acute, I was walking along a great city highway, when suddenly I saw a little child come out of a great gate which swung to and fastened behind her. She wanted to go home behind the gate but it would not open. She pounded in vain with her little fist. She rattled the gate. Then she wailed as though her heart would break. The cry brought the mother. She caught the child in her arms and kissed away the tears. ‘Didn’t you know I would come? It’s alright now,’ she told her child. “All of a sudden,” he said, ”  I saw with my spirit that there was love behind my own shut gate.”

This life is never fair, it seems. ‘That’s why God had Jesus Christ choose you to share in his eternal glory. You will suffer for a while, but God will make you complete, steady, strong, and firm.’ He is right behind that gate. Just waiting for you to call out to him.

God is in control

Really!

     The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John

Jesus said, ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”  (John 14:15-21)

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I read a book written by an ex Jesuit priest.  I don’t know if you know it but the Jesuits are called the soldiers of Christ. In keeping with that reputation, their training, is extremely rigorous

He wrote about the academic and theological learning they did, and what they learned about the history of their order.  All quite normal. 

But he said that at a certain time – and I don’t know if it was everyday – they would go to their dormitory, and each would draw the curtain around his bed, and each man would take out a switch, and would whip himself on the back with this switch.

I am not too sure why they did this. It could be to strengthen them, for any hardships they may face, but I think it was for a more doctrinal reason. There has been  a belief in the church over the centuries that as Jesus suffered, we – if we are to follow him – must suffer also. 

Today’s reading from First Peter  (1 Peter 3:13-22 )  tells us that suffering for your faith is a blessed thing. Peter says that even if you have to suffer for righteous things, then God will bless you.

He was writing to people who had felt the whip – slaves – and others who were ridiculed, or physically harmed because of their beliefs.

And  he wanted to encourage them not to give up. He cites the suffering of Jesus, an innocent person who died for those who are guilty and to bring us closer to our God.

And after suffering torture and death, Jesus was elevated to the highest position in Heaven, and he sits at the right hand of the Father.

Suffering does bring out hidden qualities in people. Quiet unassuming people have become heroes in the midst of suffering. Suffering has been likened in the Bible to gold that is heated in the furnace until the impure ore falls away and only the purest gold remains. It toughens us. It purifies us.   If we can overcome suffering, with God’s help, then surely we will also be rewarded.

If you have lost a loved one. If you have suffered from a painful or disabling illness, if you are taking treatment for cancer, if a child has taken the wrong road in life, if someone you know and love is in pain, then you know what suffering is about.

And if you were to choose – suffering or no suffering, I know which  you would choose – character building or not – no suffering!

The point is though, that as human beings, we will all suffer some pain, sorrow, heartache in our lives. There is no getting away from it. It’s how we handle it that matters.  

George Matheson was born in Glasgow, in 1842. Before he reached the age of two it was discovered that his eyesight was defective. He, his parents, and the specialists fought a heroic fight, but before George had finished his course at Glasgow University, he was completely blind.

With great courage and faith, however, he graduated with honours in philosophy, studied for the ministry, and in a few years time became the minister of one of the largest churches in Scotland. In addition to his laborious preparation for sermons and services, he did a great deal of parish visitation, wrote numerous articles and twelve books, and continued his own studies throughout his life.

Blind!

It must have been heart-breaking for George Matheson’s parents to have a strange infection steal their son’s eyes.  It must have been truly heartbreaking for a young man to lose his sight.  Yet, George Matheson somehow found in that situation that God made resources available to him. God took account of his suffering, and gave him courage, resourcefulness, and grim perseverance, enabling him to be victorious over his handicap.

George took the life he had been given, blindness and all, and gave it back, a life fulfilled, and filled, and one which blessed countless others, both in his writings, in his ministry and in his example.

I am sure that there must have been nights when he cried himself to sleep, when his dark burden seemed too much to bear, and yet, with the help of his Lord, he made it through.

I said that we all have to undergo suffering of some sort. I say that because I know that in my own life (and I count myself to have been blessed to a great degree)  I have encountered suffering.

I say it because in my job I met  people all the time who were struggling with sickness, mental torment, grief disappointment, worry, stress, and so on.

It seems obvious, doesn’t it,  that  suffering is a part of human existence. And if it is, then it must have a purpose.

Imagine life being all rosy, no worries, no problems, nothing to bother you – just day to day – nothing happening in the suffering department.

It really wouldn’t be life, would it? 

I am sorry to say it, but it looks like suffering is something that God could take out of the world, but for some reason doesn’t.

We all know people who have had to put up with the most horrendous situations. Situations that just hearing about bring tears to our eyes. Situations that we wouldn’t want to be a part of, for all the tea in China.

And yet these people come through, and do so with their dignity intact, their sense of being intact, and are somehow  stronger for it.

A man was watching a new butterfly  struggling to exit its cocoon.  He watched for a while, and it appeared to him that  the butterfly was suffering as it wriggled, and squirmed, trying to get out, but making little progress.

Feeling sorry for it, the man took a pair of scissors and tried to help by making a tiny cut in the cocoon, so the butterfly could come out more easily.  It crawled out.

But that is all it ever  did – crawl.

The pressure of the struggle was supposed to push life-giving colorful juices back into the wings, but the man, in his mercy, prevented this. The insect was never anything but a stunted abortion.  It was condemned to spend the rest of its short  life crawling in the dust.

It seems to me that maybe God knows what he is doing.  It seems to me that you can depend on Him. Even when the struggle is hard and meaningless.

The Gospel reading recounts a few moments in that upper room before Jesus was betrayed.  The disciples were panicking. They knew now what Jesus was saying – that he would suffer and die. That he would leave them.

They felt lost.

But Jesus told them, “Don’t worry, I won’t leave you orphans. I will send you a helper, a parakletos.”

The Greek word for helper, is parakletos.  A parakletos is someone who is called in to help. It comes from the Latin word fortis, which means brave, and a parakletos was someone who enabled a dispirited, beaten person to be brave.

Their parakletos would bethe Holy Spirit.

Jesus, that night, was setting his disciples a hard task, sending them on a difficult engagement. But they would not be alone, the  parakletos, would  guide them  and enable them  to do what they were tasked with.

Jesus might be saying to us, in this day and age: “Life brings us many difficult times. Coping with them is something that is hard to do. So I am sending you a helper, the parakletos, who will enable you to manage, to make it  through, and to come to the light.”

God in His love and mercy, in His infinite love for us His children, sends us the help we need to make it through the night. 

He doesn’t want us to suffer. He doesn’t want us to have to cope all by ourselves. 

In fact, as George Matheson found out, he wants to be with us in our struggles, and the Spirit he sends will give us the strength we need. .

George Matheson wrote these words after twenty years of blindness.

O Love that will not let me go.

          I rest my weary soul in Thee!

          I give thee back the life I owe,

          That in Thine ocean depths its flow

          May richer fuller be.

He took the life he had been given,  a life that to many would have seemed empty and hopeless, and filled it with triumph.

With the help of  his parakletos – the Holy Spirit.  Am

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.  And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

“Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.

“Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.

” I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. ( Jn 14:1-14)

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I read something a while ago: A ship had radioed for a  pilot to help make its way through dangerous waters. The pilot who showed up looked no more than sixteen. The ship’s captain  was understandably, a little nervous at turning his ship over to such a young looking pilot – a boy – so he asked the young man,” Do you know where all the dangerous rocks are?” The boy answered, “No sir. But I know where they aren’t.”

And you know, when  a pilot takes a boat through a dangerous waterway, the captain has to turn the boat over to him. And the captain doesn’t look over the pilot’s shoulder, or over the side of the ship, to look for hazards.  He trusts him. The actual path the ship will take is not so important. What is important is that he has placed his ship in the hands of a pilot. 

That’s something that in the church we have gotten kind of mixed up about.

We are Christians and we claim to follow Jesus, but sometimes, we are like a ship’s captain who doubts his pilot, and is constantly worrying about where the rocks are.

The thing is, that with Jesus as our guide, we don’t have to look around every corner, or steal a peak at the road ahead, or worry about what is coming our way.

We just have to follow Him. 

The disciples still hadn’t grasped that truth, even that night before his crucifixion.

Jesus told them not to worry. ‘ I am going to prepare a place for each of you. I will come back and will take you with me.’

Thomas said, “Lord we don’t even know where you are going. How can we know the way?

Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth and the life. Without me no-one can go to the Father.”

Don’t focus on the path. I am the  path – the way – the pilot. Focus on me.

The church needs to remember that!

The truth of this is that because of his sacrifice on the cross, we have access to the Father. We are able to be in a right relationship with God.  That is why Jesus is known as ‘the way.’ 

He is the way to the Father.

Philip still didn’t understand. “Show us the Father. That is all we need.”

Jesus asks,  “Don’t you know who I am? If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” 

You see, Jesus came to earth to show us God in himself.  To bring God closer to us.

He said to them, “Have faith in me when I say that the Father and I are one, or, have faith in me because of the things you have seen me do.”

Believe me because of what I say:  Jesus’ spoke with an authority and knowledge that eclipsed that of religious leaders of the time. The truth is, he had inside knowledge. How could he silence critics, scribes, lawyers, who had studied the law, and Israel’s history, and theology, and had high standing as experts? Only someone who knew the mind of the Father could do that.

Believe me because of what I say

Or believe me because of what I do:  the healing of lepers, the giving of sight to the blind, the giving of hearing and words to those without hearing or speech, the giving of life and movement to those whose bodies were paralyzed, the raising of the dead,  the feeding of the five thousand, the stilling of the storm on Lake Galilee, and many other miracles – signs – signs –  that the Father endorsed Jesus as His Son.

His words and his works, evidence the divinity of Jesus the Son. 

And that Jesus is the way, the pilot, to eternal life, and all  we need do is  follow him.  

You know there have been others who put themselves forward as being the way, the end-all-and-be-all. Alexander the Great’s soldiers saw him that way.  He  generated such loyalty in his men that they would do anything for him.

Alexander would ask to meet with the leaders of the city he wanted to take, and he would give them a demonstration of his men’s  unquestioning loyalty.  He would order his soldiers to march forward, straight over a cliff. They did it without question. The city leaders, seeing this unswerving loyalty, knew they could not withstand his army and capitulated right there and then.

For his soldiers, Alexander was the way. No need to ask why or where, or how, they just did as he commanded.

Of course, Alexander didn’t lead them over the cliff. He led them from behind. Isn’t  that always the case with human leaders?

Jesus shows that he is the way by going over the cliff for us, as it were. He shows us sacrificial death. He shows us unconditional love. And in his conquering of death, he shows his divine  power.

Not only that, but he promises his followers that they will have the power to accomplish even more than he did. “You will do even greater things, now that I am going back to the Father, Ask me and I will do whatever you ask. This way the Son will bring glory to the Father.”

“Ask me and I will do whatever you ask.”

That doesn’t mean that we can pray that we will win the lottery. Or become a Canadian Idol. Or lose fifty pounds. Or get a better car, or a bigger house. Or be better looking.

It means that whatever we want to do in His Name, and if it is done for the glory of God, then he will help us accomplish it. 

Jesus’ prophecy on this came true. On the day of Pentecost, which we will celebrate soon, Jesus’ disciples,  filled with the Holy Spirit, and burning to carry the Good News of Jesus to the world,  spoke so forcibly to the crowd gathered around them that 3,000 people – three thousand –  decided to make Jesus their pilot, through this world’s tricky waters.

They went on from there until literally thousands, and then later, millions, of people became followers of The Way. Many, many more than the number that Jesus had persuaded to follow him.

 And still today greater things are being done in His Name. There is a church in Texas that has 40,000 members. They have to meet in an arena. It isn’t the only church with massive numbers either.

These churches have wonderful ministries raising money for the underprivileged, providing counseling and spiritual advice, providing legal and financial services for their flock; ministering to the sick and lonely, supporting thousands of the world’s poor overseas, and so on.

Forty thousand in that one church. That’s probably more than all the people who heard Jesus during his three year ministry.

But they didn’t do it by themselves. 

A lot has been accomplished in our little church over the years, and you can be proud of that. There is more to do.  Much more to do, as we witness to our love of Christ to the world outside.

But we make a mistake if we try to do it by ourselves.

Because it just won’t happen.

If we think we can do it without Christ.

I like the story of a little boy who was spending his Saturday morning playing in his sandbox. He had his box of cars and trucks, his plastic pail, and a shiny, red plastic shovel. While he was making roads and tunnels in the soft sand, he found a large rock right in the middle of the sandbox. 

He dug around it and managed to dislodge it from the dirt and then exerting himself to the fullest, he pushed and pulled it across the sandbox.  But when he got the rock to the edge of the sandbox, he found that he couldn’t roll it up and over the little wall.  He shoved, pushed, and pried, and managed to get the rock teetering on the edge, but it tipped and fell back into the sandbox.

The little boy grunted, struggled, pushed, shoved again, but all that happened was that the rock fell back once more and mashed his chubby little fingers, and he burst into tears of pain and frustration.

Unknown to the lad, his father had been watching this little drama from the living-room window.  And just when the first tear trickled down the boy’s cheek,  a large shadow fell across  the sandbox. It was the boy’s father.

Gently but firmly he said, “Son, why didn’t you use all the strength that you had available?”   The little boy sobbed back, “But I did, Daddy, I did! I used all the strength that I had!

 “No, son,” said his father, “You didn’t use all the strength you had. You didn’t ask me.” 

And dad reached down, picked up the rock, and removed it.  [1]

Think about what you would like to see accomplished by your church. Think about what you would to accomplish in your own life of faith.

The first thing we have to realise is  that we can’t do it alone.

The second thing to remember is that Jesus assured us that if we wanted something that would glorify God. If we wanted something that would further the work of Christ in our life. Then all we have to do is ask. 

That’s the promise.  We have not been left alone.  Not alone.

Amen.

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[1] Bible.Org.Trustworthy Bible Resources.