{"id":1259,"date":"2011-05-24T14:27:55","date_gmt":"2011-05-24T14:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=718"},"modified":"2011-05-24T14:27:55","modified_gmt":"2011-05-24T14:27:55","slug":"show-us-the-father-by-susanne-guenther-loewen-may-22-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1259","title":{"rendered":"Show us the Father – Susanne Guenther Loewen – May 22, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0Lectionary Texts: <\/strong>John 14:1-14; Acts 7:55-60; 1 Peter 2:2-10<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When I was in high school, a classmate of mine had a lot of trouble paying attention. At the end of most classes, after the teacher had explained a concept at length, he would invariably ask a question that had already been thoroughly answered, often just before he asked it. Sometimes the exact same question had already been asked by another student. It got to the point where the rest of the class just knew that when this student raised his hand, something we had already covered would be brought up again\u2026\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The John 14 passage for this morning reminded me of this classmate of mine because the disciples \u2013 particularly Philip, seem to be in a very similar situation. The end of Jesus\u2019 ministry is drawing near. He\u2019s been teaching and preaching for several years. One would expect his disciples to be fairly familiar with the contents of his teachings by now, since it\u2019s almost time for them <\/em>to become the teachers and carriers of Jesus\u2019 message. This seems to be what Jesus is leading up to in our passage for today: he speaks to them about the fact that soon, he will no longer be with them, and they become \u2013 well, seriously confused.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Here is where we find the familiar statement that Jesus is the way, and the truth and the life, as Jesus talks about how he himself is the way to know the Father; essentially, Jesus is saying that he is the presence of God among them. This seems like a pretty straightforward statement, doesn\u2019t it? But the response Jesus gets is pretty odd. When Jesus says, \u201cIf you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him,\u201d Philip\u2019s response is: \u201cLord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.\u201d What is going on here?! Jesus has just told the disciples that he himself is the way to know God. Not only that, but the events leading up to this passage have been explicitly about how Jesus reveals who God is \u2013 in chapter 12, Jesus says that the words he speaks come from God (v. 50), and that \u201cWhoever believes in me believes not in me but in [God] who sent me. And whoever sees me sees [God] who sent me\u201d (vv. 44-5). After these statements, Jesus washes the disciples\u2019 feet, saying, \u201cwhoever receives me receives [God] who sent me\u201d (13:20). How many other ways can Jesus say that he reveals the character of God? And yet the disciples don\u2019t get it. Philip says, \u201cshow us the Father and we will be satisfied,\u201d and Jesus can\u2019t believe it!\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Jesus responds, \u201cHave 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, \u2018Show us the Father\u2019? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?\u201d Jesus seems downright frustrated at this point! As a teacher, such a response must seem insulting! It\u2019s as if they don\u2019t trust his message, and don\u2019t believe what he\u2019s teaching them. But if there\u2019s anything Jesus wants his disciples to take away from their time with him, it\u2019s that he reveals the character and presence of God in his teachings and actions<\/em>.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0So what is it about this idea that makes it so difficult for the disciples to grasp? What leads Philip to blurt out, \u201cShow us the Father\u201d? It\u2019s such an impatient comment, almost like saying, \u201cJust tell us the answer already! Enough with the hints and metaphors and paradoxes \u2013 just show us the Father and we\u2019ll be satisfied!\u201d I think it has to do with what the name \u201cFather\u201d means to Philip. There must be something about Philip\u2019s understanding of God that doesn\u2019t fit with what Jesus has been saying. Maybe he thinks that Jesus is holding back on showing them the Father because Jesus\u2019 ministry has been too ordinary, too unglamorous. Maybe, not unlike those who predicted that the world would end yesterday, Philip is expecting an altogether different God to come \u2013 one who is the image of a triumphant king, or a stern and punishing judge, or an all-powerful warrior, who will overthrow the Roman occupiers in a violent battle. If he was expecting these images of God to appear, it would make sense that he doesn\u2019t see any evidence of them in the life of a wandering teacher, preaching among the outcasts, among peasants and those considered unclean sinners. Maybe Philip is thinking, enough with all this talk and sitting around eating and building relationships \u2013 where\u2019s the action?! When is the battle going to begin, with God appearing as a heavenly warrior, ready to shed rivers of enemy blood?!\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0But this is not what lies ahead for the followers of Jesus \u2013 Jesus\u2019 ministry is to proceed quite differently, and there have been signs of what is to come. Jesus\u2019 parody of a royal procession into Jerusalem and Jesus\u2019 washing of the disciples\u2019 feet are two such signs, indicating quite a different meaning of the name \u201cFather.\u201d This is not the kind of father who abuses power, who manipulates and dominates his children, but the kind of Father who washes his children\u2019s feet and walks with them in their suffering, to the point of undergoing death on a cross.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Yet, two millennia later, after that most overt of signs, the cross, who of us has really caught on to the radical transformation this creates in how we think of God? It was not only the Jewish tradition of that time, centred around the Temple, that thought of God this way \u2013 the Christian tradition wasn\u2019t too far along before Christians started distancing God from the events of Jesus\u2019 ministry, especially the cross. Many of the second- and third-century theologians involved in the church councils thought that because God is all-powerful, God must be altogether free from suffering and emotions, since these are caused by outside influences. An all-powerful God couldn\u2019t be affected by anything outside of Godself, so God the Father must be free from all suffering. The cross, they concluded, was therefore something that only affected Jesus, the Son. Even more specifically, they argued that it only affected the human<\/em> aspect of the Son, since the divine remains unaffected by suffering. I won\u2019t go into all the details of this complex and convoluted theological argument, but you get the idea: a huge distance was created between God and the cross in order to protect a certain understanding of God (and, we might add, of fatherhood) from the events of Jesus\u2019 ministry and death. Like Philip, they de
\nmanded that Jesus \u201cshow them the Father,\u201d as they understood the Father<\/em>: as a controlling, all-powerful, completely autonomous ruler, who would never condescend to suffer on the cross. Not only that, theologies of atonement soon developed, arguing that God somehow required and caused the violence of the cross, making God a divine child abuser, an apathetic and sadistic tyrant. Unfortunately, this kind of logic is not limited to Christian history, but still pervades our tradition today. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0And maybe we are not altogether beyond this type of theological logic, whether we realize it or not. Have we let the radical reversal of the cross sink in and change how we think about God, or do we still cling to some version of the all-powerful, dictator God? Do we allow ourselves to think of Jesus Christ on the cross as a human being, but not of God<\/em> on the cross? Do we read the story of Jesus Christ as one of temporary hardship \u2013 a short time of God becoming incarnate and suffering, only to return unscathed to glory in a distant heaven, while many continue to suffer in this life? Theologian Sharon Betcher states it well when she writes, \u201cfor example, we sing, \u2018Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord\u2026. Power and might belong to our God,\u2019 forgetting that this Passion Sunday refrain was a mocking parody \u2013 not an imperial imitation \u2013 of the power of Caesar. The power we celebrate, riding on the back of the donkey, was a nonviolent power of solidarity with history\u2019s humiliated.\u201d It\u2019s an unsettling and counter-intuitive image: to think of God upon the cross, in such a weak, humiliated position, and to think that this might be how God does things: through peaceful, risky means that involve very little control and very few guarantees of success. But isn\u2019t this precisely the kind of \u201cFather\u201d Jesus keeps referring to, and exemplifying \u2013 God as a penniless travelling preacher who spends all his time with those others ignore, washing the dust from their feet, only to be killed shamefully, as a criminal and a slave? Is this really the story of our God, which we somehow celebrate as a triumph, ending in resurrection? What does this story truly mean for how we understand power and righteousness?<\/font><\/p>\n

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The other passages from today bring this contrast into further focus, distinguishing between different understandings of God\u2019s righteousness using imagery related to stones. In Acts 7:55-60, we witness the last few moments of Stephen\u2019s life, before he becomes the first martyr for the Christian faith. At this point, he has just given a speech about how wrong the chief priests have got things \u2013 he has insulted the institution of the Temple and its sacrificial system, and proclaimed an alternative vision of righteousness. Enraged by his disrespect, those present take it upon themselves to defend the Temple hierarchy and their understanding of God through violence. Here stones are picked up and used as weapons; these are stones of hatred and death, resulting in the end of Stephen\u2019s life; these are lifeless, life-ending stones. This is not altogether foreign to us, since even in our day, there are times when stones are used as weapons. I think of the news story from last summer about Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman who was sentenced to be stoned to death for committing adultery. There are also teenagers in Israel\/ Palestine, who throw stones at the Israeli soldiers, or, on the flip side, the huge dividing wall the Israelis are building to \u201cprotect\u201d their settlements; walls too are weapons made of stone. This is when stones are stones of death, bringing lifelessness.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0But what is especially interesting about Stephen\u2019s last words is that he prays them to \u201cLord Jesus\u201d \u2013 here Stephen essentially uses the name of Jesus as a divine name, thereby recognizing what Jesus tried to tell his disciples, and they just couldn\u2019t grasp: that he is in God and God is in him. Though this is part of what Stephen\u2019s persecutors consider blasphemy, he recognizes that the stones of death, the stones that divide and kill, forming walls of enmity, are not the key to God\u2019s character. So what is?<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The second type of stone imagery is that of stones as life-giving. This might seem like an odd image, but it actually appears at several points in the Bible: the call to worship for today spoke of God as our rock \u2013 God as our refuge, our shelter, a phrase that appears throughout the Psalms. The story of the Israelites drinking water from a rock in the desert also comes to mind. Rock is seen here as the material that shelters us and thereby is a kind of lifegiving rock; God is the rock that gives us life and preserves this life. What a contrast to the death-stones thrown at Stephen! But this strange imagery is taken even further in the passage from 1 Peter 2, which speaks of Christ and his followers as living<\/em> stones.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0What might this image suggest? What does it mean to be living<\/em> stones<\/em>? The commentators I consulted spoke of the contrast between the Temple and the new vision of the faithfulness established by Jesus Christ. In the Jewish tradition of that time, the actual structure or physical building of the Temple was the centre of the faith. People, including Jesus, made pilgrimages to Jerusalem for religious festivals, so they could worship in that massive, luxurious building; it was the place itself that was holy. Within this understanding, God\u2019s presence resides within the walls of the Temple, and requires the faithful to come to God to worship and to make sacrifices of various kinds. In Stephen\u2019s case, his persecuters thought that in order to preserve God\u2019s honour, they had to go to the extreme of sacrificing a human life.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0By contrast, 1 Peter speaks of Christ as the cornerstone of a new building, one that is just being built. It states, \u201cSee I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him shall not be put to shame.\u201d \u201c\u2018The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner.\u2019\u201d Jesus is the foundational stone of the building; he is the stone that supports this building, giving it solidity. The stone that other builders thought unworthy and useless has become the most important stone in this building.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0So what is the rest of the building made of? It\u2019s made of the believers, the members of Christ\u2019s church. Starting in verse four, we read an invitation to, \u201cCome to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God\u2019s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.\u201d The members of the church are invited to become part of the building God is putting together, to be built, with Christ the cornerstone, into God\u2019s great construction project.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Evidently, this is no ordinary building, because the stones used to build it are living<\/em> stones; this is in fact the New Temple. And these are not ordinary sacrifices, either, but spiritual<\/em> sacrifices. A major reversal is happening here, a shift from v
\niewing holiness as tied to the Temple, an actual building which houses God\u2019s presence, to perceiving holiness in the very lives of God\u2019s people<\/em>. The new Temple, the Church, is not so much about an elaborate, cathedral-like building, but about a metaphorical building made of people, living stones that make up the house of God. In other words, God\u2019s presence dwells among us<\/em>. As one commentator stated, \u201cThe suggestion here is that brick and mortar has been replaced by an organic, living<\/em> Temple.\u201d I think this image is meaningful to us as Mennonites because this is in part why Mennonites have not historically spent a lot of time or funds on church buildings. They have favoured simple and plain worship settings, devoid of glitz and elaborate decoration. This was and is a way of maintaining the emphasis on the people as church rather than the building.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0This reversal likewise changes the meaning of sacrifice. God no longer requires a substitutionary death (and I should note that there is a debate raging about whether that idea has always been a Christian misinterpretation of the Israelite sacrificial system). Instead, God requires life<\/em> \u2013 believers are to share their lives with God and others, to be living<\/em>, not lifeless<\/em>, <\/em>stones, whose lives reflect God\u2019s presence. Unlike the stones which take away life or combine to build walls which divide people from one another, believers are to be life-giving, like the rock which gave water to the thirsty Israelites in the desert, and like God, who is our shelter and refuge. God\u2019s New Temple, the church, crumbles what previously separated us, breathing new life into what was once lifeless, gathering up scattered stones to create a house that lives and promotes life. Here stones are no longer thrown at one another in a destructive way, but used for constructive purposes; to build up, to put together something that reflects God\u2019s lifegiving, loving power.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0And this ends up changing the way we look at power as well. No longer does power mean absolute autonomy and the inability to be affected by others. No longer is power displayed in an elaborate building. No longer does power mean the ability to take away life, as in Stephen\u2019s case. Instead, power becomes associated with giving life, with building others up, with the utter vulnerability of a life of peace, which may lead to the cross \u2013 and will lead to the resurrection. It is this alternative vision of power that the disciples would come to recognize in Jesus\u2019 claims that he was in the Father and the Father was in him. This travelling peasant-preacher had been showing them \u2013 and us \u2013 the Father all along, but they had not recognized their preconceived notions of God in what Jesus was showing them. In order to understand Jesus\u2019 message, they had to let go of their assumptions about God\u2019s power and might, maybe even about what it meant to be a good father in their patriarchal context; like the twelfth-century Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, they had to \u201cPray God \/ to rid [them] \/ of God,\u201d to \u201clet go of God for the sake of God.\u201d That is, they had to put aside their previous understandings of God to allow Godself to define God\u2019s character and presence in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0May we also have the courage to pray the God of life to rid us of the God of violence and death, so we may become living stones in the New Temple God is building among us, with Christ as our cornerstone. Amen.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

View Archived Sermons \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Listen to this Sermon\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Lectionary Texts: John 14:1-14; Acts 7:55-60; 1 Peter 2:2-10 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When I was in high school, a classmate of mine had a lot of trouble paying attention. At the end of most classes, after the teacher had explained a concept at length, he would invariably ask a question that had already been thoroughly answered, often just before he asked it. Sometimes the exact same question had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}