The
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Sunday
May 14, 2017
John
14
Sermon:
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
In my the parish of my growing up, St. Mark’s
Episcopal Church in Jim Thorpe, PA, now St. Mark’s and St. John’s, there is are
two treasured Louis Comfort Tiffany windows. One depicting the resurrection
story of Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and the other a non-biblical story
entitled the “breadth of my Love”. This depicts a youthful looking Jesus
resurrected, standing in a field with his arms stretched wide. His very garment
in the artful mastery of tiffany is transparent, showing the very flesh of
Jesus’ arms and legs through his vibrant white garment of resurrection.
It is a window that reveals hope and LOVE that the
resurrected Jesus shows the breadth, the wideness, the embrace of God’s Love in
his resurrection. It is reassurance, it is promise, and it is as real as the
feel of a warm embrace in the flesh, here and now!
This window by the way is a memorial to Lucy Packer
Linderman, daughter of Asa Packer, and grandmother (or great grandmother) of our own Ann Shanley.
Today’s Gospel from John is a familiar one. It is read
often at funerals to convey that very promise of Jesus’ revelation of promise
of hope and breadth of God’s love. It is a narrative of reassurance and it is a
promise of God’s presence here, now, and throughout eternity.
But lets take a look at its context here and now for
us, this morning. This section of John’s gospel narrative takes place as part
of what scholars call his farewell discourse to his disciples. What has
happened to this point is that Jesus disciples have followed and witnessed
Jesus’ performing many “sign’” as the great revealer of God’s very nature. He
has healed the sick, cast out demons, brought sight to the blind, and even
raised a dead man to life!. God the healer, God the ruler of even demons, God
the enlightener, God who has power to bring life even in the face of death.
This Jesus, “the revealer” has shown his disciples the very character of God,
and now he prepares to leave them.
But here now they find themselves gathered with Jesus
and they seem unsettled and in need of reassurance. The setting for his
address: He has had a “last super” with
them. Washed their feet and explained they must be servants of all. He has
foretold of his betrayal by one of them, and the betrayer has gone off into the
night to do his work. He has let them know that he will be with them only a
little bit longer and that where he is going they cannot come AND he has told
them that one of them will deny him. (Peter). Tough night, tough speech, tough
dinner conversation.
So one might be sympathetic of an anxiety that may be
in their midst and the need for reassurance.
“Let not your hearts be troubled” Jesus says. “Believe
in God, believe also in me”. In my
Father’s house there are many dwelling places, and I go there to prepare a
place for you”. “And as I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back to
you, so that where I am you will be also”.
I like here by the way the King James Version of this
translation, In my Father’s house are many mansions. Mansions to me conjers up
the image Jesus is really after. Mansions are BIG, Bigger than you can imagine, Mansions are
solid, firm, Foundational. The breadth
of God’s Love is the same.
In other words, you may feel like the foundation of
all that I have shown you about God (the healer, the enlightener, the one who
has power over even demons, and the one whose love conquers even death) is on
shaky ground, but it is a firm and wide and broad and certain as the finest
dwelling place……and it is in that dwelling place that God and you, and I will live.
It is the best definition of home base.
The dialogue continues to reveal that in Jesus, the
disciples, you and I, find the way to
know God’s breadth of Love, even as Philip gives us permission to say to Jesus,
well sometimes we miss it, that is sometimes we miss seeing in Jesus, the
nature of God’s hope-filled presence, that Jesus himself “shows us” again and
again that God is about healing, God is about enlightenment, God is about
“saving” us from our demons, God is about Life over death”. This the breadth of God’s Love.
Have you seen this breadth?
I see it---when a sister lovingly washes her brothers
feet, as Jesus washed his disciples.
I see it—when a person struggling with the demons of
addiction, find a Grace to overcome it.
I see it—when waters are poured over a child’s head
surrounded by the Love and hope-filled expectation of parents and a community
of faith who can’t wait to get their hands on this child. When they will be
fortunate enough if they hang in here with us for Barb Ianelli to introduce
them to the Breadth of God’s Love through story. When mentors in the Journey to
Adulthood experience reveal to them that community support and love with one
another can literally heal the deepest anxieties and insecurities of the young
and unsure—that acceptance is a gift of Love. Broad and wide.
I see it ---when the courageous extend hospitality and
care to the most vulnerable, a family trying to make a new life, a stranger
hungry or in need of clothing, or a place to sleep. I see it---
I see it---the breadth of God’s Love, when someone we
Love finds hope and comfort and belief that death is never the final answer,
even as we lovingly say good-bye here to one we have loved desperately, finding
faith in the promise tha that Love never dies.
Breadth of my Love?
Have you seen it?
