I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life | a sermon

A sermon by Jamie Howison on Acts 7:55-60 and John 14:1-14

Here on this 5th Sunday in Eastertide, we are faced with what can only be called death and life texts. And I choose that order—death and life, as opposed to life and death—very intentionally. In this faith, death is very much real—no matter how many treatments, super diets, exercise regimens, and medical interventions we might undergo, we are, all of us, dying—but death does not have the final word.

In the case of the reading from Acts, which is a snippet from the much longer two-chapter story of Stephen, we arrive just before he is put to death. Let me back up to an earlier point in the story, to give some context as to why the mob kills Stephen. He’s been appointed as one of the deacons of the early church, selected to serve and make sure that people’s basic human needs are cared for. He also seems to have been quite a force as a communicator, which has riled up some of the chief priests and leaders at the temple, and so:

They set up false witnesses who said, ‘This man never stops saying things against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed on to us.’ (Acts 6:13-15)

To which Luke adds a lovely little detail, saying, “And all who sat in the council looked intently at him, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.” (6:16)

And then Stephen launches into an explanation of what he has been teaching, tracing things back to Abraham, revisiting the stories of Joseph and Moses and placing particular emphasis on the episode in which the freed Hebrew slaves fashion for themselves the golden calf instead of simply relying on God. He’s going full steam by the time he winds up his speech, saying to those temple leaders, “you are for ever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.” And then our brief reading for tonight picks up, as Stephen says, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” which is the point at which a relatively civilized mock trial turns to mob violence.

Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he died.

“As Stephen dies,” William Willimon notes in his commentary on this book, “he utters a prayer modeled after a short Jewish bedtime prayer (Psalm 31:5)—’Into your hands I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God’—”Except for one crucial modification,” Willimon notes, for

 Stephen’s prayer is addressed to ‘Lord Jesus’ rather than God. Seated at God’s right hand, Jesus is invoked at the hour of death, the same Jesus whose attitude to death is emulated by Stephen. The martyr’s last prayer is that his enemies also be forgiven. Jesus’ followers die like Jesus. (Willimon, Acts, Interpretation Commentaries)

So a death, surely, but one that already comes with the promise of new life. And it is a death marked not by hostility, fear, or defensiveness on the part of Stephen, but instead by gracious forgiveness.

Now turning to the reading from the Gospel according to John, we can catch a glimpse of the sort of things that might have led Stephen to face even his death with such grace and courage. The setting is the upper room, on the night of Jesus’ arrest. The poor old disciples are still somewhat foggy in their grasp of what is actually happening, with at least some of them clinging to the dream that Jesus will yet rouse up an army to evict the Romans and establish a new kingdom centred in Jerusalem. As John tells things, Jesus simply persists through their blindness, teaching that night what they would later most need to remember.

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’

To this, dear old Thomas—ever the skeptical one—basically says that they don’t have a clue as to where Jesus might be going, and so won’t begin to know how to follow him there. To this Jesus responds with words that have continued to resonate through the centuries and right into our own time. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” But before this, and tangled right into Thomas’s question, comes that statement about “my father’s house.” “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places.” N.T. Wright makes a really helpful point here, commenting,

The only other time he’s used the expression ‘my father’s house’ it referred to the Temple. The point about the Temple… was that it was the place where heaven and earth met. Now Jesus hints at a new city, a new world, a new ‘house.’ Heaven and earth will meet again when God renews the whole world. At that time there will be room for everyone. (Wright, John for Everyone)

When God renews the whole world, which is something we are still anticipating, “there will be room for everyone.” Of course, humans being what we are, not everyone will actually opt to join in with God’s utterly renewed and remade world. Recall the parable of the Prodigal, in which that utterly failed younger son is welcomed fully back into the father’s house, while his hard-working but rather uptight and resentful older brother just opts to mope in the garden, feeling rather hard done by the grace that has been extended to the prodigal. Holding the door to the house open, the father beckons and invites his elder son to swallow his pride and petty resentments, and just come to the party… which is where Jesus leaves the parable hanging. That’s because at some point in all of our lives we’ll find ourselves in a place not unlike that garden, feeling things not unlike what the older brother felt, and Jesus wants the parable to press on us.

Now one more thing from this Gospel, and something that has at least a modern history of being rather abused. “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.” In her book Blessed, Kate Bowler outlines in detail how that one line has become something of a fetish for the so-called prosperity Gospel movement, leading many of its key figures to justify holding staggering amounts of money, property, cars, and the like. But N.T. Wright makes the point that this isn’t what the teaching is meant to produce, as he writes,

The all-important phrase ‘in my name’ doesn’t, of course, just mean adding ‘in the name of Jesus’ to anything we might think of, however stupid, selfish or hurtful.

Praying ‘in Jesus’ name’ means that, as we get to know who Jesus is, so we find ourselves drawn into his life and love and sense of purpose. We will then begin to see what needs doing, what we should be aiming at within our sphere of possibilities, and what resources we need to do it. When we then ask, it will be ‘in Jesus’ name,’ and to his glory…

In short, “in Jesus’s name” ultimately means in the spirit of Jesus, which points to a willingness to lay down one’s life for the sake of the other; a rather far cry from preachers driving Rolls Royce cars and staying on luxury private vacation islands!

No, as I said as I began, these readings invite a deep reflection on death and life, and in that order. Because we believe—we proclaim—that in Jesus, death no longer has the final word.