Sermon précis, 07 May 2023, Rev Dr Barry T Brown
Easter 5 – ‘Jesus – The Way to the Father’ – John 14:1 – 14 (NRSV)
Introduction:
The first funeral I ever conducted was 56 years ago, in early 1967 at
Barham, NSW. I am fairly sure I read the Biblical passages from the
Methodist Book of Offices, including last Sunday’s Psalm (23 – the
Shepherd Psalm) and selected verses from today’s reading, John 14,
at the opening of the Funeral Service. For many people it is at
funerals that our reading is most commonly heard.
This is appropriate because it speaks to ‘troubled hearts.’ Yet, this
was not the intended purpose in John’s Gospel. These words of Jesus
are address to his disciples, and therefore also to John’s community,
concerning their distinctive identity in Jesus – who is distinctively the
way to the Father.
When researching my family history I have had many challenges and
not a few surprises. My great, great grandfather, John Brown (1817-
1895), provided some of these. The one I want to share with you
concerns the details John provided in 1882 for the Death Certificate
of his 34 year old daughter, Emma Jane. John and Emma had a
number of adult sons still living then; but Mary Jane was the only
daughter. John was the Informant. He gave his name, and the
description of his relationship as Patter. Patter (or Pater) is an older
English translation of the Greek word Patros, which in the NRSV is
translated FATHER (mostly in capital letters). Patter infers intimacy,
not just progeny.
The term FATHER is found 121 times in John’s Gospel; 13 times is in
today’s reading; and we will hear it again a further 10 times next
Sunday.
John chapter 14:1 (today’s reading) is the beginning of Jesus’
Farewell Discourse (which comprises three chapters, 14 – 16). New
Testament scholar, C H Dodd, refers to these passages as the

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‘intimate conversations’- between Jesus and his ‘Friends’ and
between Jesus and the ‘Father’.
Before attending to a couple of verses in particular, it is useful to
note a couple of related matters. The first relates to The Lord’s
Prayer.
My first real job started around 1957 when I delivered groceries after
school for a shopkeeper named Harry Paternoster. Then from age 14
I left school and worked for Harry and Myra Paternoster’s Foodland
store, the first self-service store in Echuca. I later found out that
‘Paternoster’ meant ‘The Our Father’, which we now refer to as The
Lord’s Prayer. Most Sunday’s we use The Lord’s Prayer to conclude
the Prayers of the People. But today, as we normally do on the days
we celebrate Holy Communion, we pray The Lord’s Prayer together
as part of The Great Prayer of Thanksgiving. One thing that is
important to remember: While The Lord’s Prayer is a great model for
our personal prayers (which is its setting in the Sermon on the
Mount), it is a corporate prayer, said together. We do not pray this
pray commencing with ‘My father’, but ‘Our Father’. And, it is not
merely the ‘our’ of those assembled here; but of all who know the
Father in and through Jesus the Son.
We now attend to an important and sometimes misinterpreted part
of today’s reading – John 14:6 -7
Jesus said to him (Thomas), “I am the way, and the truth,
and the life. No one comes to the Father except through
me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From
now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Note first: Jesus does not offer a Dogma, a Doctrine, a Prescription, a
Theory. He offers himself! He is the Way to the Father, He is the
Truth, he is the One in whom Life is to be found and lived. Above all
else, the Christian Faith does not offer anything that is not centred in
Jesus – the way, the truth and the life.

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No one comes to the Father except through me…
Gail R O’Day provides a useful Excursus, in her commentary on this
passage:
“… What John intends as particularism (ed. distinctiveness),
many contemporary Christians wrongly interpret as
exclusiveness. John 14:6 celebrates how Jesus reveals God
for those in this particular faith community and is not a
statement about the relative worth of the world’s religions.
John is concerned with helping Christians recognize and
name their God and the distinctiveness of their identity as a
people of faith”.
It is helpful to look again, carefully, at this verse in its context
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the
life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you
know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you
do know him and have seen him.”
In other words, John wants us to hear Jesus addressing his disciples,
and John’s faith community (and ours) as the way to knowing God
intimately as FATHER. This recognises that God is revealed in many
ways, but is distinctively revealed and introduced by the Son as the
Father, who himself is one with the Father.
I close by sharing a Lightbulb Moment in my understanding of the
meaning of today’s Gospel reading. When I was working on my
doctoral studies in the 1980s I was fortunate to have the Rev Dr
D’Arcy Wood as my supervisor. For most of this time he was engaged
with the publication of the first editions of Uniting in Worship and
introducing this new worship source throughout Australia. He drew
my attention to an important sentence in Introductory Notes (in
both the Leader’s Book and The People’s Book) to The Service of the

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Lord’s Day. The first Note (which I think Dr Wood worded himself)
begins:
“Christian worship is God’s gift whereby we participate through the
Spirit in the Son’s communion with the Father…” (UiW LB, page 76).
When we meet for worship on Sundays, The Lord’s Day, the Day of
Resurrection, we do so in the name of Jesus. And through Jesus we
participate in that unique relationship of the Father and the Son. And
so, when we gather, we prayer together, ‘Our Father…’
Next Sunday our reading from Jesus’ Farewell Discourse (John
14:15ff.) will continue and we shall hear Jesus say: ‘And I will ask the
Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you for
ever…” (John 14:16). We will attend to the gift of the Holy Spirit – to
us, from the Father and the Son.