May 22, 2011 - Easter 5A

Trusting Jesus Along the Way
John 14:1-14
Easter 5A – May 22, 2011

“Do you trust me?” - That's what Aladdin says to Princess Jasmine after they've been chased by the local law-enforcement from the marketplace, and find themselves cornered in the upper floor of a tower with no place to run, no escape, as the men who have been chasing them are almost upon them. Aladdin stands in the open window and says, “Do you trust me?” “Do you trust me?” he asks again, as Jasmine hesitates, and when she manages to squeak out “Yes”, he grabs her hand and yells, “Then jump...” Out the window they go, and down, down – crashing through canopies and awnings, which break their fall, until finally they land, safe on the ground, no worse for the wear.

Trust. It's a vital part of any relationship – and it's a crucial question underlying our gospel story from John this morning. As we always do, we join a story already in progress. This chapter is part of what scholars call the Farewell Discourse, beginning with Jesus washing feet and hosting the Last Supper in chapter 13 and continuing through chapter 17, when they finally leave the upper room and go to the garden of Gethsemane. Here in chapter 14, Jesus has just finished telling the disciples that Peter will deny him, that one of the others will betray him, and Judas has already left the building to do just that. He's told them that he is about to die. Their heads are spinning, and then Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” But we can translate that word believe another way. It also means trust. “Trust in God. Trust also in me.”

Trusting isn't necessarily the same as believing. We can believe in God, which we usually take to mean as some intellectual agreement. It's a mind thing. We can believe in God, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we trust God. Trust can be a hard thing, especially when we don't know what's coming next, when we're not sure what the road ahead holds for us, when the road that lies behind us has been rough and rocky. I resonate with dear old Thomas in this story; Thomas, the one we so often call “doubting”, when really he was just honest – putting into words what everybody else was thinking and feeling. When Jesus talks about going to prepare a place in his Father's house and coming back to bring the disciples to himself, and says, “And you know they way to the place where I am going,” Thomas blurts out, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” You can almost hear the fear and confusion and hurt and frustration in his voice. “Jesus, you've just told us all of this stuff that's gonna go down tonight, and in the next few days, and none of it makes any sense. I can't see where this is all leading – and what I do understand scares me. Please, just give us some straight answers. Tell us what we do next. Can you give us your forwarding address, so we can look on a map and come find you?”

We've all felt that way sometimes – felt lost and confused. We've wondered if the world was ending – and I'm not just talking about these past few days when the end of the world was predicted, but about those times when life as we know it gets turned upside down, by death or disease or destruction or distress of many kinds, when we don't know where to go or to turn next. Or even just in those times when we were seeking some sense of direction, in those periods of discernment when we're trying to figure out who we are and what we should do – what we value, what makes for meaning, what would be the best choice, not just for the moment, but for the long-term future... and we think, “Lord, I don't know where you are going. I don't know where you are leading me or where I am going! How can I know the way?!” Wouldn't you love it sometimes if we had a spiritual GPS, mapping out the steps of our lives, leading us to our destination, giving us the turn-by-turn with plenty of warning before the fork in the road so we stay on the right path, the most direct route, with none of that “recalculating” going on? When we feel lost in life, we want the great big neon sign that points out the way.

And in these moments, when we don't know where we are headed or what way to go to get there, that's when trust comes in. Because Jesus says to Thomas, and Philip and the rest of them, “Trust in God, trust also in me.” Don't just believe with your heads, trust with your hearts. And like Jasmine with Aladdin, trusting sometimes means taking that leap of faith, not knowing where you will land. Trusting sometimes means taking a risk, even when you can't be sure of the outcome, because you have faith in the person who holds out their hand to you.

Jesus invites us to have that kind of trust in him – the kind that believes in the person in front of us, even when we can't see the way out ourselves. We trust Jesus, even when our hearts are troubled, because he himself is the Way. He is the Truth, he is the Life. We trust the Way who leads the way because his way leads us from the grave to resurrection. His way leads us out of darkness into light. His way leads us from death into new life. Even when the future is unclear, we know that the future isn't something to be feared, and so we step into that future, sometimes boldly, sometimes with fear and great trembling – but we take that leap of faith, because Jesus himself invites us, and because he promises to prepare a place, and to come lead us along the way, not just in some far distant day, but even now, even today.

Do you trust him? Then j-u-m-p... straight into the arms of the one who will lead you home.

Thanks be to God!
Amen!