Sermon 6-8-25

Sermon 6-8-25 John 14: 8-17 Pentecost (Whitsunday)

There is a man from Tupelo Mississippi named Paul Thorn. As a young man he was a professional boxer with a pretty impressive record. He even went nearly six full rounds with one of the greatest boxers of all time, Roberto Duran.

Mr. Thorn is also a gifted singer/songwriter. One of my favorite songs of his is called “I don't like half the people I love”. When you think about it a little, it starts to make sense.

Our Gospel reading today is another part from what is called “Jesus' Farewell Discourse”. The lectionary spends a few weeks on the discourse. In this reading Jesus and the disciples are still in the upper room where they had the Seder meal and Jesus is reiterating the things He has been telling them for the last three years.

He tells them again that He is leaving them and they know the way where He is going. Thomas speaks up and says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?”

For three years, twenty-four seven, these fellows have been following Jesus around the countryside listening to what He said and watching what He did. Then Thomas talks like it is his first day on the job. Jesus only has a few hours left before He will be brutally killed. You can imagine this is where Christ starts rubbing His head.

Then, not to be outdone, Philip, in verse eight, where we begin this reading, says, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied”.

Even Moses was known to lose his cool on occasion. When he came down from the mountain in Exodus with the stone tablets and found the Israelites worshiping the golden calf, Moses threw the tablets on the ground and smashed them to pieces.

Jesus has just said, in verse seven, right before this, “you know Him and have seen Him”. Here He says, “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?' ”

Philip wants to see God in the flesh, or at least an autographed glossy eight by ten.

This might be a good spot for Jesus to pick up a guitar and play a Paul Thorn song.

It's not like Philip has been a wallflower or side liner during the last three years. He gets a lot of ink in the Gospels. He finds Nathaniel and brings him to Jesus. He's mentioned at the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus even asks Philip where they can buy enough bread to feed all those people. When some Greeks want to meet Jesus they ask Philip to make the introduction.

Philip and Thomas have both been there since the beginning. Close up, on the inside. John, in these readings, makes them look like Abbott and Costello.

There is a table there. They have just finished The Seder Meal. Jesus probably wanted to flip it over like he did in the Temple. It's probably a good thing there is no volume knob in written text. The volume here would be increasing to an uncomfortable level.

“And you still do not know me?”

Three times in the next four sentences Jesus says the same thing, just worded in slightly different ways. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”; “I am in the Father and the Father is in me”. Lastly He says, “Believe me, I am in the Father and the Father is in me”.

The average person needs to see or hear something between five and fourteen times for it to become permanent in their memory. Apparently these hand picked disciples didn't follow that rule. Or maybe, just maybe, He's been telling them things they just do not want hear or believe. That part about leaving for instance.

The disciples didn't seem to have a problem with the thought of Jesus being “the Messiah”. Messiah was a term used by the Hebrews for someone anointed by God for a special purpose. Priests, prophets and kings were considered anointed for different purposes. Even Cyrus the Persian king was mentioned by the prophet Isaiah as God's anointed, for letting the Israelite captives return to their homeland if they wanted.

The disciples just didn't want to believe that Jesus was going to leave them in the way He was describing, tortured, shamed and put to death.

He says, “If you do not believe the words, then believe Me because of the works themselves”. They've watched Him turn water into wine, walk on water, feed the multitudes, heal the sick and raise the dead.

It's graduation day. Jesus wants and needs them to understand and believe what He has been teaching. And He wants them to love Him.

The ancient Hebrew idea of what our modern English word love means are not necessarily one and the same. In Jesus' time and place the word that the English interpreters use as love is probably not a good fix.

There are two Greek words used in the New Testament that get translated into the English word “love” : agape and philia. Both of those words really require a phrase, a sentence or maybe a paragraph to give them justice.

In short they would mean: loyalty; a close embedded relationship on which a group depends, an attachment.

Jesus wants His followers to keep His commandments. The commandments are not for His benefit, they're for ours. He even simplified all the commandments of the Old Testament into two really simple ones. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

I feel confident we are not any smarter than those twelve disciples. We all have an IEP, an Individual Education Plan, with our very own individual aid, the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, “The one who believes in me will do greater works than these”. He has to leave now. His disciples, His followers and their followers, will be expected to carry the Word of God from one end of the world to the other. A pretty tall order.

Jesus earthly ministry was short and confined to a small area on the east end of the Mediterranean Sea. His followers will take that ministry to the ends of the earth. To every kind of human imaginable. Love them. Be loyal and keep a close embedded relationship and attachment on every human being, created by God, who lives on the earth. The earth is a large place, and we don't always have to like all the people we love.

Amen.