“A Glimpse of God”

Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss

May 22, 2011

Our story this morning begins on a heavy note.  Jesus is in the upper room, breaking bread with his friends for the last time.  He knows the moments are precious and few before betrayal and denial have their way.  He knows the time draws near when he will be arrested, tortured, and crucified.  The disciples remain in denial, so strong was their belief that the revolutionary Jesus would liberate their people from Roman rule.  But Jesus knows this is their final fellowship, and so, in the gospel according to John, he imparts words of wisdom to his disciples.  It will be weeks before the fog of fear lifts and they remember his words, but Jesus says them nonetheless.

One of the privileges of my vocation is being welcomed into some of the most sacred, private times of family life.  Sara and I get to preside over celebrations of marriage, visit mothers after birth, and bless newborn babies.  We sit with spouses in hospital waiting rooms.  We accompany families in grief, we utter prayers over the bodies of the departed, and we sometimes bear witness to the final encounter between loved ones before death comes calling.  Ours is a sacred and privileged vocation.

Despite witnessing such intimate moments, when I read the gospel text for this morning, what popped into my mind were the final moments I shared with my dad.  You see, it’s one thing to witness grief.  It’s another thing altogether to sit at the bedside of a dying loved one and take in their final words.

I remember the insatiable hunger of my dad’s soul in the final weeks of his life.  From morning church music to probing conversations with his pastor to requested readings from the Bible, his soul was as thirsty as his body.  He talked more and more about heaven, and his face would light up as he imagined what it might be like to be in God’s presence—the wonder that awaited him.   As cancer diminished my dad’s body, his spirit became all the more radiant.  He radiated that kind of peace that comes when you look death in the eye and accept that it’s coming for you.  That kind of peace that comes when you let go of those beloved things (not the trite and unimportant stuff, but the beloved things) and see it as nothing but a freedom road home to God.  In his final days, my dad had things he wanted to say—parenting advice, gracious thank yous, marital wisdom, and yes, even some fear to confess.  But I’ll never forget these words.  He said, “You have to look beyond the sorrow and suffering and see the beauty in it all.”

I believe that was Jesus’ message to his friends in their final meal together.  He knew that death was on the prowl, but he had a message of new life to convey.  Do not let your hearts be troubled.  In God’s house there are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? It shouldn’t be surprising to hear Jesus talk about the spaciousness of the place where God dwells, because the root meaning of the word “salvation” is one of broadening, or enlarging.[1] Salvation, at its Hebrew root, is God creating space, making room for us.

And yet, most of us have heard the message of God’s salvation through an exclusive lens, a frame that leaves out more people than it includes.  A book series entitled “Left Behind” reached the New York Times bestseller list by detailing the end of the world, a time when some would be taken up, and many others “left behind.”  In the last week alone, we’ve been flooded with the messaging of Harold Camping, who has built a mulit-million dollar Christian media empire to trumpet his apocalyptic predictions, the most recent prediction warning that the rapture would come last night.  But here we are.

At the heart of the spiritual quest lies this question of whether there is really room for us.  In the song, “One Love,” Bob Marley says, “There is one question I’d really love to ask: Is there a place for the hopeless sinner, who has hurt all of mankind just to save his own beliefs?”  Brett Dennen, who played the Orange Peel last week, sings a song called Heaven in which he asks, “Is there a home for the homeless?  Is there hope for the hopeless?”  So many of us share the sense that if heaven isn’t a spacious and gracious place, we’d just as soon decline the invitation.

This week I had a “white caucus” meeting through Christians for a United Community.  The caucus is a small group of white folks who meet to talk about our role in dismantling racism, in society and churches, but mostly within our own hearts.  We walk together, committed to accountability.  This week, a pastor told the story of a Baptist minister by the name of Will Campbell.  Will Campbell was born poor in Mississippi, heard the call to ministry as a child, and was ordained by the age of 17.  He’s been described as a “bourbon-guzzling, tobacco-spitting, guitar-strumming” Baptist “who believes that the institutional church is perhaps the greatest barrier to the proclamation of the Gospel.”  A profane and wickedly funny man, Will Campbell has been called “the conscience of the south.”

Growing up white in segregated Mississippi, Campbell had personal relationships with many self-described racists in his own community, even as he became a civil rights activist.  He marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and helped desegregate the University of Mississippi.  His social location and gospel commitment allowed him equal access to white power brokers and black civil rights champions, and he was one of the few to walk comfortably through the disparate worlds of black and white during the violent upheaval of the movement.

So radical was the gospel to which Campbell subscribed, that he believed there was even room for the racist at God’s table.  At a hometown trial of a white man who had murdered a black man, Campbell sat mostly with the victim’s family.  But occasionally, he would cross the center aisle and sit with the accused.  He knew him personally, and while he found the crime vile, still he had room in his heart for the perpetrator.  A journalist covering the case found Will Campbell’s behavior bizarre and finally asked him why he sat on both sides of the aisle.  In salty language that I won’t repeat here, he said, in essence, “because I’m a Christian.”

My friend summed up the tale of Will Campbell by remarking, “isn’t it good news that Jesus died for the victim and the perpetrator?”  Perhaps the best news of all is that the salvation of our God is spacious enough to encompass the victim and perpetrator within each one of us.  Jesus knew that the line separating good and evil passes not through nations or between classes, but right through every human heart.

Facing his impending death, Jesus spoke with great urgency, trying to explain to the disciples something that they could not quite grasp.  They interrupted him with questions, but Jesus responded in an astonishingly gentle manner.  The first interruption occurred when Jesus said, “And you know the way to the place where I am going.”  Thomas, “who always liked the feel of solid ground beneath his feet,”[2] blurted out, “We do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?”  With a calm patience, Jesus replied, “I am the way.”

Sara mentioned last week the penchant for mixed metaphors that exists in John’s gospel.  And here we find another.  Jesus is the truth and the life, but he is also the way to truth and life.  Jesus is both the journey and the destination, both the gateway and the goal.  There is no way to Jesus, Jesus himself is the way.  Peter Rollins says: If you want a road map to God, go and do the things that people who love God do—“give to the poor, pray, meditate, fast,” and see if you find truth.  I believe Jesus is saying: If you want to know the way to God, do the things that I do, love the people I love, witness the suffering I see, lay your hands with mine on the sick, listen as I hush the sea, pray with me in the garden, and you will know the way.

Still, the disciples were confused.  And so Phillip interjects, “Show us God, and we will be satisfied.”  Phillip requests what we all long to know: where is God?  Who is this one who created all that lives and breathes?  Show us God.  We hunger to know if God is real, we want to know that we do not walk alone.

Preacher Gardner Taylor confesses, “I join my heart and voice to Phillip’s…when we have been bruised by life and our hearts are sore, we need to know that God will bind up our wounds and drive away our fears…Put me down alongside Phillip,” he continues, show me the one who supplies all our needs, “who leads us beside still waters and into green pastures.”[3] Show us God, and we will be satisfied.

Jesus responds, calling Phillip by name.  “Phillip,” Jesus laments, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me?”

The desire to know the true essence of the divine is profoundly human.  Sometimes we say more about who God is by defining what God is not.  God is not oppressive power dressed up with the force of weaponry, like the Roman Empire.  God is not one who demands the legalistic conformity of institutionalized religion, like the chief priests and Pharisees of Jesus’ time.  God is not found in the prosperity of riches or the bling of celebrity.

The good news is if we know Jesus, we do know something of God, for the fire of divinity burned in Jesus, alongside the flame of humanity.  And I don’t know about you, but Jesus is all the glimpse of God that I need.  If we know the one born in Bethlehem to blue collar parents, we know a God who lives among the poor.  If we know the one who inquired at the temple, we know a God who invites us to live the questions.  If we know the one who broke bread with outcasts, walked with women, healed the diseased, we know a God who created the least of these in the divine image.  If we know the one who endured an unjust trial, we know a God greater than the powers and principalities of our day.  If we know the one who suffered in death, we know a God who bears our burdens.  If we know the one who couldn’t be kept in the grave, the one raised into new life, we know a God who gives us a fresh start.  If we know the one who forgives bitter betrayal, we know a God whose forgiveness is a doorway wide enough for all to enter.

Sara recently remarked that death can embitter or embolden us.  Sometimes it does both.  Though Jesus tried to prepare them, the disciples were embittered and fearful after Jesus’ death.  They retreated to the upper room, drew the shades and locked the doors.  Their unbelief, however, did not deter the risen one.  The resurrected Jesus returned to clear the air of fear, fling wide the doors, and transform the upper room into a birthplace for the body of Christ.

Death can embitter us, but if we are wise, we let go of bitterness and grab hold of boldness.  You see, as followers of Jesus, we are called not to erect institutions, divide over doctrinal details or congregate around creedal confessions—we are called to boldly be the body of Christ in the world.  To walk where Jesus walked, to accompany the least and the lost.  To sit with sinners, love the loveless, find home with the homeless, to touch the untouchables.  This is the way to God.  It is a way that transforms us, a way that emboldens us to new life—the life of resurrection.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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