Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Easter 5, April 20, 2008
The Rev. Melissa Skelton
John 14:1-14
Jesus said, “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.”
Each morning this month I get two different e-mails from poetry organizations. That’s because April is National Poetry Month.
Once when asked to define poetry, a poet said, “When I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up, I know that I’m in the presence of poetry.” And so this poet did not define poetry by its form or subject matter but by the effect it has on us as listeners or readers.
This is the same experience I have in the Gospel of John when Jesus comes out with one of his “I am” statements: “I am the bread of life.” “I am the light of the world,” “I am the good shepherd”, and in today’s gospel “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Like good poetry, these bald and evocative statements transport me to the hair-raising country of the inexpressible, to an encounter with a mystery and a reality that I can scarcely absorb.
Today’s “I am” statements, of course, come in response to the question of a beleaguered Thomas who is troubled about the prospect of losing his teacher and who is just plain confounded by a Jesus who always seems to be saying things that, like many poems, ask us to imagine a bigger, more immediate and gracious world than we would normally expect.
For as bright as all of us are, under the stress and strain of daily life, in the middle of perplexities, necessary losses, the sheer volume of everyday living, it’s easy to miss the “beyond in the midst of things”, as one theologian put it. And so, whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not, with everything going on in our lives, we can long for that beyond in the midst of things to abandon its poetry and to become, well, more prosaic, easier to understand, more practical.
It would be easier, perhaps, for Thomas and for us if Jesus were more prosaic—if he were just an admirable moral teacher who told us more plainly what to do in life, if he were clearer and more specific, rather than coming to us like a some kind of divine and confounding poet whose words we do not and cannot always understand. It might be easier for Thomas and for us if Jesus were more prosaic.
But he is not, and it’s worse than we had expected, for he’s not just a divine, confounding poet, he’s God’s living poem: a teller of tales, a doer of signs, a healer of the afflicted, at times, significantly, a keeper of silence: one who touches, includes, feeds, challenges, suffers, cries, dies, one who, above all, is—coming not to tell simple stories followed by a moral that we can deflect or forget, but whose life itself is the immediate, mysterious and gracious story of costly love poured out for those who have done nothing to earn or deserve it.
It is a story that rightfully raises the hair on the backs of our necks, because it’s both unbelievable and somehow absolutely true to what we have learned we need in life and what we in turn need to give to the world in order to live fully as human beings.
Today we are the community gathered around Jesus as God’s living poem, the holy one who himself is God’s costly love for us. We are here to bathe in the mystery of this love and to surrender to the creative, joyful and costly path it will open to us.
And this morning a little child shall lead us.
Ten-month old Lucie will be leading us this morning into the way of baptism. She will be going down into the water and coming back up: water, itself, being the stuff of many poems, a substance of great mystery and a symbol fraught with deep ambiguity.
She will be leading us into the water of God’s creation and our own creative life and the chaos that always accompanies it.
She will be leading us into the water of life that both overwhelms and drowns us, and accompanies our rebirth.
And finally, she will be leading us into a place where God’s love, like water, bathes us all over—gets into every nook, every wrinkle, touches every scar.
And just to make this last thing completely obvious, this morning Lucie will be baptized with nothing between her and that water. Yes, today we’ll be doing a “naked baby baptism.”
For me, it’s an apt image for the way that Jesus opens to us: a way of bold and yet vulnerable, fleshy love that finds joy in the midst of pouring out itself for others—a way that we can only follow because God in Christ offered the same to us first—bold and yet vulnerable, fleshy love that pours itself out for us.
And so it seems important to end the homily this morning with poetry, poetry that I hope will make the hair on the back of our necks stand up a bit, but what is more, poetry that will rub up against the baptism we are about to experience, giving us a new feel for the one who comes to us as living poem, the first born of all creation awakening us to the beauty and mystery of the world and our own creative lives, the crucified and risen one who is the way, the truth and the life.
These are two poems read together—Pablo Neruda and one of our own, W.H. Auden
And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don’t know how or when,
no, (it was) not voices, (it was) not
words, (or) silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night…
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names…
(but) something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire…
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
for myself a pure part of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness.
You will see rare beasts and have unique adventures.
He is the Truth.
Seek him in the Kingdom of Anxiety.
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.
He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh.
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.
Works Cited or Consulted
Pablo Neruda: Poetry translated form the Spanish by Alastair Reid
W.H. Auden: For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio
