God, clearly

Dear sir: After due consideration we are pleased to advise you that the use of this substance particularly over a sustained period of time, could be deleterious to the integrity of your plumbing system.

Sincerely, Acme Plumbing.

The homeowner wrote back:

Thanks for your kind reply. I'm glad to hear that I can use hydrochloric acid without bad effect.

In alarm the company wrote again:

Dear Sir: Please allow us to explain that we are concerned about the use of the proposed substance upon your plumbing system. It could be detrimental to the efficient functioning of the system.

Sincerely, Acme Plumbing.

He replied a second time:

Thanks. I poured a bottle of this stuff down the drain and it works great.

Finally the company wrote in large capital letters:

DON'T USE HYDROCHLORIC ACID. IT WILL BURN HOLES IN THE PIPES.

Finally, the plumbers were clear and direct about what they needed to say.

Clarity is what we need.

Finally, Jesus is clear today in the Gospel of John: “I and the Father are one.”

To understand as much of the mystery of God as we are able to comprehend, look to Jesus.

We can't go any farther, or get any closer than that.

“If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

When we look at Jesus we see God, not a form of God, not a reflection of God, we see God.

When we look at this Jew from Nazareth who was strangely born, briefly lived, unjustly condemned, violently died, and unexpectedly raised, we have seen as much of God as we ever hope to see until the fullness of heaven.

To be sure, the Gospel of John has not made it easy for us.

Jesus is elusive, hard to figure out, enigmatic.

He shows up at a wedding and 180 gallons of water become wine.

(John 2)

He goes to the temple, makes a whip and drives people out.

He gets into an argument with a scholar, double-talks, and confuses him badly.

If he can't get it straight, what hope is there for us? (John 3)

Jesus meets a woman at a well, pries into her personal life, and she runs away amazed. (John 4)

He healed a crippled man, and broke a bunch of religious laws in the process. (John 5)

He made wonder-bread (John 6)

He cured people using spit and mud.

How can we understand all of this?

Who are you? we demand to know, and he answers: “I am the bread of life, (John 6) I am the true vine (John 15), I am the way, the truth and the life, John 14) I am the door of the sheep, I am the good shepherd, (John 10) I am the water of life (John 4).”

And we all respond, “What?

Quit beating around the bush; show us!”

Philip expresses our question:

“Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

“I and the Father are one,” Jesus says

“If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

When we look at Jesus we see God, not a form of God, not a reflection of God, we see God.

Remember how John's Gospel begins, with that wonderful passage that we hear several times a year, and especially at the celebration of the Incarnation, at Christmas-time:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....And the Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.”

With that kind of a beginning, one would expect Jesus' life to be a procession from one glorious thing to another, a triumph.

But instead we hear all those enigmatic self-descriptions about way and door, and bread, and all the rest.

And then Jesus faces a horrible and cruel death, and it is described as his “glory”, and it is clear that we are not dealing with an ordinary kind of situation here.

His life will not fit our expectations.

Christians are those who believe that in this Jew from Nazareth, in his words, even the most confusing of them, and in his deeds, including the most incomprehensible of them, we are seeing as much of God as we can.

Christians are those who realize that in this man Jesus the fullness of God is pleased to dwell (as the poets phrase it)

and who realize that our time is well-spent when we are busy seeking after, falling in love with, trying to look like this Jesus who is one with the Father.

What a challenge this is!

A member of the parish asked me this week to explain the Holy Spirit.

And in this first week of Pentecost, it is an especially appropriate question.

But to answer the question we have to identify all three members of the Holy Trinity; we cannot talk about one without talking about all three.

So then one of the classic ways of answering is to identify the Father as the one who speaks, the Son as the one who is addressed, and the Spirit as the speaking between the Father and the Son.

Another is to say that the Father is the one who loves, the Son is the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit is the loving between the Father and the Son.

(We could invent others: the Father is will, the Son is deed, and the Spirit is the action between will and deed.)

To say “God is love” is meaningless unless we talk about all three members of the Trinity.

Love has to have an object;

the Father loves the Son.

And God's love isn't a quantity of something, it is an action, the Spirit.

To say that “God is Word” is meaningless unless we talk about all three members of the Trinity.

The Father's Word is addressed to the Son, and it isn't a thing, but an action; the Spirit is the speaking of the Father and the Son.

That is what is implied when Jesus says today that “I and the Father are One.”

And there is one more step.

By Holy Baptism, we are invited into this conversation, first to listen, then to imitate as an infant imitates an adult, and when the time will be completed, to speak freely and fully in the presence of the Holy Trinity.

What an incredible and awe-inspiring thought!

The term “spirituality” is thrown around quite freely these days.

Oprah makes up her own little religion of herself and calls it “spiritual.”

Others use drugs or consult crystals or horoscopes or whatever, and claim “spiritual enlightenment”.

We don't have to play any of those games.

We have Jesus' word: “I and the Father are One.”

We can't make God into whatever we want; it is quite the opposite.

The Father is inviting us into the active, loving, speaking that is God, shaping us into what he would finally wish us to be.

When we look at Jesus we see God, not a form of God, not a reflection of God, we see the triune God.

This one, Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, makes himself clear to us, at least in as much as we can handle right now.

For us it begins in a joyful silence today as we hear and ponder Jesus' self-revelation: “I and the Father are One.”

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.