Mooroolbark Uniting Church (St. Margaret’s)

Easter 5, 3 May, 2026
Sermon: John 14:1-14
The Rev’d Howard Wallace

The last words of famous people have often been noted whether they have been
serious or humorous. Archimedes, the famous Greek mathematician, is reported to
have said: ‘Don’t disturb my circles.’ As he sat on the ground proving a geometric
theorem just before a soldier killed him. Thomas Aquinas, the 13 th century
philosopher and theologian is reported to have quoted the biblical book of James: ‘all
is straw.’ Leonardo da Vinci, the 16 th century Italian artist and engineer, apparently
said to the King of France: "I have offended God and mankind because my work did
not reach the quality it should have." The one I like is Pope Alexander VI who lived in
the late 15 th – early 16 th century, "All right, all right, I'm coming. Wait a moment."
In the ancient world last words were of great importance. Those who recorded the
lives of famous people often created speeches by them to their followers gathering
important lessons for later generations. In the Bible, the whole of the Book of
Deuteronomy consists of three speeches by Moses to the Israelites just before he
dies. In the Gospel of Luke but especially in John, Jesus speaks to his disciples at
the last supper, the night before he was crucified. John devotes 5 chapters to that
speech. Today’s Gospel reading is the start of that speech. While John has Jesus
addressing the disciples before he dies, the content of his speech is really about
what life and faith will be like for them beyond the time of his crucifixion and
resurrection.
Jesus utters a number of well-known sayings in today’s passage. But also, there is a
great deal of confusion on the part of the disciples.
Jesus says two things at the start of today’s reading that are important. He asks for
trust. ‘Believe in God, believe also in me.’ The Greek word for ‘believe’ also means
‘trust’. Belief and trust are words greatly abused in today’s political climate but in
personal relationships they are paramount. Jesus is saying that belief in God is
deeply founded on a relationship of trust in Jesus. The second thing he says is that
‘In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.’ This passage is often used at
funerals but it is not just about death and the afterlife. Rather, it speaks also of the
hospitality of God toward all God’s people.
Trust and hospitality are thus keys to understanding who God is; keys to our
relationship with God. And trust and hospitality are keys to our relationship with
Jesus – the risen Jesus – who is himself the key to the trust and hospitality of God.
And it’s here that the confusion of the disciples enters as Jesus talks on. It is not a
matter of them being dense. They ask genuine questions, ones that the church later

on would ask. No, this confusion is the writer’s way of developing what Jesus is
saying so that the later church, we, might understand who Jesus is and how we are
related to God through him.
Jesus talks a lot about coming and going. ‘I go to prepare a place for you.’ ‘I will
come again.’ ‘You know the way to the place I am going.’ But then Thomas protests:
‘How can we know the way?’ But Jesus is not talking about a physical way or place.
Rather he speaks metaphorically of himself as the way, the truth and the life. John’s
point is subtle but important. Jesus is not telling his disciples how to get to God. He
is not even saying, I think, that if you say and do as Jesus says and does, then you
will find your way to God – even though, of course, Jesus’ words and actions are
models for us. No, he is saying he IS THE WAY etc. In Jesus God is present to us. In
Jesus’ way, in the truths he imparts, in the life he lives, God is present, speaking and
acting with us. In Jesus, God comes to us bringing his hospitality with him. It is not
our obedience to the way of Jesus that helps us come near to God, but it is God’s
approach to us that is primary. The belief and trust that is called for in us is not thus
in some distant God in whose house there are many dwelling places to be enjoyed at
the end of life, but rather a belief and trust in the one whose way and truth and life
come near to all in Jesus.
But now there is further confusion. Philip says: ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will
be satisfied.’ Philip’s question, which seems a little frustrating to Jesus, allows the
Gospel writer to clarify further the point he is making through the speech of Jesus.
He has Jesus say: ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’ Jesus says he is in
the Father, and the Father is in him. In Jesus we see God. God is wholly present to
us. This is how God has chosen to come to us and part of Jesus’ answer to Philip’s
demand is to shift the sense of power and authority away from Philip’s assumption
that we might be satisfied when we see God to the realisation that it is God’s gift to
us that God comes to us freely and graciously in Jesus. Now of course, we who live
so long after Jesus lived, do not ‘see’ Jesus in the way his disciples did. But
remember, neither did the people John was writing his Gospel for who lived some 60
odd years after Jesus died and was raised. Like them we ‘see’ Jesus in other ways.
He is present in his story in the Gospels and in the rest of Scripture, in the preaching
of that Scripture (I hope), and in the many words and works offered in his name by
those who trust in his hospitality. After all, he promises near the end of today’s
reading that those who believe in him will do even greater works than he did, not
because in any way they surpass him in themselves but because he is in them and
God is in him. The Church is the community of God’s people who recognise God in
Jesus. The Church is now the presence of Jesus within the world and hence
participates in the presence of God within the world.
Now I have no doubt you have heard some in the church who would read Jesus’
words in John in an exclusivist way: Jesus is the ONLY avenue to God; Christianity

is the ONLY true faith in God. And ONLY by accepting the Christian faith in the terms
of those espousing such exclusivity can we know God. But that need not be the way
to understand what the Gospel is saying at this point. It is simply a new way of
demanding the kind of satisfaction Philip seeks. Note that Jesus gives his disciples a
choice in how to perceive that God is acting through him. If they do not believe what
he says then they are invited to look at the works he has done. Does that not open
up the possibility that if we see works of grace and compassion consistent with the
works of Jesus, then are we not as followers of Christ able to understand those
works as the work of Christ himself, the work of God, even though they may not be
done by one who ‘believes’ in Jesus in the traditional way by confession? That
thought is also expressed elsewhere in the Gospel story. Our understanding of the
work of Christ need not thus be restrictive or exclusionist, only to be done by those
who profess directly the name of Jesus. In the shadow of God’s own hospitality, it is
incorporating rather than segregating, embracing rather than excluding.
As Jesus speaks his last words to his disciples, he addresses ones who are
confused, doubting, not understanding, uncertain. Before the next 24 hours pass
their confusion and distress will greatly increase. And yet out of that confusion and
distress a people of God, the Church, will arise. The church today is no less
confused and doubtful than the early disciples were. It feels inadequate, embattled,
threatened and ineffective in a world which often dismisses it as belonging to a past
era. The temptation, of course, is to retreat inwards, to seek our own security and
comfort, to look inwards.
But the task we are called to is not to save ourselves or feel sorry for ourselves. It is
not to devise clever plans to ensure we survive. Rather it is to continue in faith and in
trust in our relationship with God through Jesus. It is to be accepting of the hospitality
of God, of God’s dwelling place, and to share that hospitality in a world that is often
inhospitable. It is to see Jesus present and speaking and acting in the life around us;
to recognise his words and works when we hear or see them, and it is to echo those
same words and works in our own lives. In a world where the best of leaders
struggle to maintain fairness, hope and harmony within their communities, and the
worst of them speak only lies, violence and oppression, we are called to remain
faithful, trusting in the one whose way is the way of and to God, whose truth is the
word of God and whose resurrected life is now lived within and among us. Amen.