I Can't Know That Yet, John 14:1-14

Dana was three years old. Her sister Kelly was five. Dana was tall for her age, and people used to think that Dana and Kelly were the same age. This meant that people often had expectations of Dana that she was not able to meet. After all, she was only three. Still Dana and Kelly were inseparable for most of the day. Sometimes we could hear the two girls playing, and Kelly would say something like, “Dana, you can’t do that yet. You’re only three. I can do that because I am five.”

One day Dana was doing something that she wasn’t supposed to. Her mom said, “Dana, you know better than that!”

In response, Dana looked up at her mom and said, “Uh-uh, I can’t know that yet, Mom.” Her mom stood there for a moment and thought, “You know, she’s only three. She’s right. She can’t know that yet.

After that day, we would laugh and say with her, “I can’t know that yet.” But, the very fact that she knew that she wasn’t supposed to be able to know that meant that she was able to know what it was that she wasn’t supposed to be doing. Have I confused you yet?

Today we hear one of those texts that is challenging in all kinds of ways. But, at the same time, we come with the knowledge of how this story ends. This knowing how the story ends helps us know something about this text that the disciples didn’t.

Sue and I belong to a mystery book club. I am shocked by the number of people that can’t read a mystery straight through. They need to read the end before they read the middle of the book. They want to know the end of the story so that they can see all of the pieces of the mystery fall into place along the way.

So it is today. We come to this text already knowing the ending. We hear the troubles of Thomas and Philip, and we can laugh because we know what it is that they are not able to know.

When Jesus says these things about where he is going, we say to ourselves, “Yup, yup, yup, I know what he is talking about.”, but Thomas and Philip are saying, “Hey, wait a minute here. We can’t know that yet.”

There are all kinds of things in our lives that happen that way. We say with Thomas and Philip, “We can’t know that yet,” and “Show us; we want to believe.” We just don’t have all of the information that we want and need.

And so, we go about our lives sometimes doing the right thing, sometimes doing the wrong thing. It is not until we have gotten all the way through the situations of our lives that we can look back and say, “If I had only known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have done what I did.” Or, perhaps we are able to say, “I am glad I did what I did. If I had it to do all over again, I’d do the same thing.

Today we witness this tension that comes from not having all of the information that the disciples might want. There is a tension surrounding what it might mean to follow Jesus. And although we might be tempted to laugh at them, we experience the same tension in our lives. Just what does it mean to follow Jesus?

This chapter in John is oftentimes known as the beginning of Jesus’ farewell address. It immediately follows the events of the Last Supper where Jesus has given his disciples the command to love one another. Now, leaving the Upper Room, Jesus begins to prepare his disciples for what is to come, and so he begins with an image of a dynamic house with many dwelling places. It is so comforting to think that Jesus is going ahead of us to prepare a place for us when we think that that place is in heaven, but the truth of the matter is that the place that Jesus is preparing for us is not a permanent home as our English translation suggests. The word in Greek is more like a resting place, a park-side bench, a place to stop and catch one’s breath along the way; more like the watering stations along the route of a marathon. That is what Jesus is preparing for us.

Yet, more than this preparation of a place, come the words, “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be anxious! Do not let your hearts be troubled.” This theme has been repeated throughout this and all the other Gospels.

And of course, we feel very familiar with these words because we have heard them in our own lives. Most oftentimes we have heard these words during funerals. Because of that, we hear these words as comforting.

But I would like to propose to you and have you entertain this other understanding of the dwelling place today; not the permanent residence, but the resting station, that place of pause along the way, sort of like this building is our resting place in the midst of our faith lives. This worship place that is the resting place in the midst of our crazy and hectic lives, in the midst of all of the work that we are doing, in the midst of chasing cows down the road and getting them back into their pasture, in the midst of grocery shopping and taking care of our duties at our jobs, in the midst of preparing for the end of the school year, taking tests and planning for our futures, in the midst of all of that, this place is our resting place.

It is not a place to come and stay, but a place to rest and catch one’s breath; a place to find our center, our ultimate focus, that trust that empowers us and leads us back into the world from which we have just come—that place which calls to us with a demanding voice, that place that needs to hear of the good news of the risen Christ, that place that needs to have us show God’s work in the world through our witness and actions, that place that desperately needs to know what it means to follow Jesus..

In this context, Thomas’ question is incredibly poignant. “Where are you going? We don’t know the way.” In part this question and statement are based on fear. In part the question and statement want to pretend that he doesn’t know. In part the question and statement are made because Thomas doesn’t want to know. But we know because we have already read the end of the story. We know that the place where Jesus is going is the cross.

Jesus says, “Yes you know the way. I am the way. I am the truth. I am life itself.”

Jesus’ words are about living, not in the afterlife, but living in the world with one another right now, speaking truth, revealing truth, showing the way to fuller lives.

As I prepared this week, I kept thinking of one of my favorite songs. It is “The Boxer”, by Paul Simon. The last verse says, “Now I’m laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone, going home to where the New York City winters aren’t bleeding me, leading me, going home. In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade, and he carries the reminder of every glove that laid him down or cut him ‘til he cried out in his anger and his shame, ‘I am leaving! I am leaving! But the fighter still remains.’”

For some of us, this image of our Father’s house with many dwelling places is that going home place of eternal rest. Some of us are in that time of life-review, getting things laid out, getting things ready because we know that our time is not long, and that is good.

But, if the Church is going to be an active part of the world, pointing the direction of Jesus’ leading, then the places Jesus prepares for us need to be less permanent, more energizing, more like the boxer’s corner stool in between rounds—that place where the manager and coach give you water to rinse your mouth, wipe your face, attend to any cuts or bruises.

In this sense, our worship space is like that corner stool, where we rest from the world in prayer, praise and thanksgiving; that place of hoping for good outcomes, celebrating life itself, and giving thanks for those who are standing with us in our corner, cheering us on, giving encouragement and reassurance; that place where we can evaluate how the battle is going and develop winning strategies for the rest of the fight.

Like the boxer’s stool, this is a temporary place. It is not a place to sit forever because the fight is going to continue. The next round is coming. Although there are times when we might not want to go back into the fight, our identity of fighter means that we are called to go: the fighter remains. We may remember all of the failures in our lives, but there have been successes too. And so, from this place that Jesus has prepared for us, from this resting place along the way, from the place where our sorrows and our joys are remembered, we wait for the bell announcing the next round to go out into the world to address the injustices of the world, not for ourselves alone, but, in the name of Christ, to announce the raising up of the dead, reaching out into the poorer quarters of our world, and telling the story of God’s love and caring.  

Last week, we heard the words from the 23^rd Psalm, “You prepare a banquet for me in the presence of my enemies.” In this Eastertide, this Easter time, this Easter season, we find that God’s dwelling place, this world we live in, is not a place to hold us back, it is not a place of comfort that keeps us away from the ravages of the world, rather, this dwelling place, this resting place is a place for healing and discernment that leads us back in to life’s journey addressing the problems of the world head on.

We know the way that Jesus is going. It is the way of the cross. We have seen the Father, for we have seen the works of Christ. We know Christ’s presence in our lives, received in the drowning waters of death and resurrection Baptism, in the bread and the wine of Christ’s true presence among us, and in the works and the care of one another in this place of resting and then in the world around us. It is a time of caring struggle that lasts a lifetime, an eternal lifetime.

From Isaiah we hear these words, “I have dandled you upon my knee and suckled you at my breast.” God has held us and will hold us. For all of you who wrestle with God, know that Christ’s love in, with, and through, God, is the one who gives us peace, that is wholeness in the midst of a broken world.

We have come to this place today in the midst of a world that is in chaos. And our world needs our attention and our energy. In this place, we can find our focus and catch our breath so that we can go out into the world being Christ’s signs of resurrection in this resurrection world of hope and promise.

Go in peace. Serve the Lord!