April 24, 2005  Fifth Sunday of Easter Contributed by Bruce G. Epperly

See aslo: [2008][2002]

 

Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
I Peter 2:2-10
John 14:1-14

Assurance or Anxiety?

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” Today’s gospel reading is a flashback to Holy Week, reminding us that in spite of Easter, we still struggle with our anxiety over failure, conflict, sickness, and death. Perhaps, the disciples are uneasy and distracted. While they don’t consciously know what will soon befall them and their Teacher in the next few days, they can feel it in their bones. They need reassurance not just for the next few days, but for the years to come. Like ourselves, they need to know that Easter is an every day reality.

We know the Johannine passage both from funerals and evangelistic meetings. Its words are both affirmative and ambiguous in tone. “In [God’s] house there are many dwelling places….I go to prepare a place for you.” These words suggest that our future is safe in God’s hands. Death will not be the end, for God has a “home” waiting for us—a place where we can continue to grow in the company of the “beloved community” of God’s realm. God will not abandon us in the death of every moment or in our ultimate physical death. God has adventures in store for us. But, unlike Rick Warren’s popular book,  The Purpose Driven Life, these adventures neither devalue this lifetime, nor are they fully worked out in advance. Life is an adventure and not a religious Triptik. Even God must improvise, surprise, and respond to an evolving world. Indeed, the afterlife may be more of an adventure than we can imagine.  

Perhaps better known is the next section of the gospel reading: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to [God] except through me.” Traditionally, this has been the crucial text of Christian exclusivism and unilateral evangelism. Apart from a conscious, intentional relationship with Jesus, you are lost forever. Only those who know Jesus will be saved, and retrospectively that seems to exclude Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, and the native spirit guides of Africa and the Americas , as well as any current person who finds truth in a non-Christian religion. But, to base Christian exclusivism on this text alone is claiming too much. In fact, the focus is on the ability of Jesus Christ to save us, rather than  ourselves and our beliefs. Jesus Christ is the way – his path is the way to wholeness, salvation, and shalom—and this graceful and forgiving path may surprise all of us.

As we wrestle with traditional understandings of this text, we must ask whether or not God utterly changes God’s attitude toward us at the moment of death. Does God quit loving us and seeking our wholeness when we die? To me, this is a pivotal theological question that defines both our understanding of God and the afterlife.

This passage can open the congregation to reflecting on the nature of Christian mission and proclamation by raising the questions, “how shall we preach the gospel in a pluralistic age?” and “is there any point to calling persons to conversion if they are already saved?” This is the dilemma of universalist theology. If the doors to salvation are open to all, what is the point of sharing the good new with anyone outside the church? How we answer this question is more than an issue of church survival or growth, but our understanding of the fundamental message of Christianity and the goal of human life.

I believe that progressive and mainstream Christians are still struggling with the question of mission and evangelism, and need to frame it in new ways. We know what we do not believe, but have no affirmative vision of how the message of Jesus Christ can help people find wholeness once we take the issues of heaven and hell out of the equation.

Still, salvation or wholeness is a key issue for people today. In what ways will we share the good news that both this life and the next are in God’s care and that God will be our companion in all the seasons of living and dying? The church can approach evangelism and mission in terms of wholeness, justice, and beauty--realities that encompass this life and the next—without promoting world-denial, eschatological dualism, or the negation of other faiths. The way of Christ may have, in its lively intimacy, many paths toward wholeness.

Stephen’s response (Acts 7:55-60) provides  a vision of a living faith in a perilous situation. Stephen follows the path of Jesus. As the heavens open up in this mystical encounter, Stephen asks that God forgive his persecutors. The way of Christ is not about condemnation and separation, but a radical inclusion of lost humankind within God’s healing realm.

The passage ends with another theological gem, “the one who believes in me will also do greater works than I do.” Our faith is meant to empower us to do great things—to teach and preach, to seek justice, and to heal in Christ’s name. The One present in Jesus’ life is also present in our lives. The power of God is our legacy too and Jesus is giving us the inspiration, guidance, and passion to do great things in our time.  Beyond the cross and resurrection, Christ is alive in us through God’s creative transformation and healing touch.

A Royal Priesthood?

“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.” Again, in an age of pluralism, egalitarian relationships, and permeable boundaries, these words are anachronistic. We don’t want to separate the world into saved and unsaved, in and out, us and them. Yet, to some extent we must differentiate ourselves from others – not in terms of the traditional dualistic categories, but as those who are called to be bearers of Christ’s presence, “to proclaim the mighty acts of [God] who called you out of darkness into [God’s] marvelous light. We are “chosen” to live by God’s healing touch, extravagant welcome, and open community.

This passage asks the question, “what values shape our lives and enable us to bring wholeness to the world?” These values may be social – simplicity of lifestyle, openness to diversity, transcendence of the religious and political culture wars, commitment to peace. We stand out by our affirmations, even when these affirmations have an implicit denial built into them. What shall our church affirm that is uniquely Christian – uniquely progressive and inclusive – and how shall we live this out? Today, our “priesthood” may very well be our willingness to embrace and take on the burden of seeing the other as a Thou and welcoming the oppressed to abundant life. Our inclusive and transforming faith in God may be what differentiates us from much of the Christian and secular world today.

Bruce Epperly is Director of the Alliance for the Renewal of Ministry, Continuing Education, and associate professor of practical theology at Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is the author of God's Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus, Mending the World: Spiritual Hope for Ourselves and our Planet (with Louis D. Solomon) and the forthcoming The Call of the Spirit (with John B. Cobb, Jr., and Paul Nancarrow).

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