Tag: abundant life

Don’t Lose Heart

Background: The Gospel for the following sermon is John 14:1-14, where Jesus tells his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” because he is the Way and the Truth and the Life. This is the text of a sermon I gave at Christ Church Easton for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Lectionary Year A.

“Don’t Lose Heart”

This is a gospel reading, the first part of which has become maybe a little too familiar of late. That’s because it’s a reading that is often used for funerals. And we’ve had a number of funerals over the last couple years.

The reason this reading is used at funerals is because it can comfort us. Which makes sense because that is what Jesus was trying to do with his disciples—assure them, comfort them, remind them. Because he is about to leave them.

Let’s look at what has happened leading up to Jesus’s words to the disciples. Jesus has come into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. He has openly talked about his forthcoming death and summarized his teaching. He washed the feet of the 12 and foretold his betrayal and Peter’s denial. And he gave the disciples the new commandment to love one another as he has loved them.

Jesus is preparing them for the time, imminently, when he will no longer be with them in bodily form.

Today’s reading begins with “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Let’s look at this for a minute.

Jesus is not Bobby McFerrin here. He is NOT saying, “Don’t worry, be happy.” He is not saying, don’t let it bother you, no big deal.

A helpful way to think about “Do not let your hearts be troubled” is to say, “Don’t LOSE heart.” That’s a different statement. Don’t lose heart.

Things are going to be difficult. Don’t lose heart.

You are going to lose people you love. Don’t lose heart.

Sometimes it is going to feel like the world is conspiring against you. Don’t lose heart.

Instead, Jesus says, “Believe in God. Believe also in me.”

This isn’t the easiest instruction given the situation. If you go back and read John chapters 12 and 13, Jesus is letting the disciples know that the things they’ve been counting on: Jesus, their teacher, the Messiah, overthrowing Rome, freeing Israel from slavery and restoring them to their place as God’s people… record scratch… that is not what’s going to happen. Instead, he says I need to go, I am going to betrayed, arrested, and killed… the sense of panic and confusion going on with the 12 is real.

As Jesus tries to reassure them that they have everything they need; that he’s been over all this with them; that this is what the last three years have been all about, that they know the way… Thomas and Philip throw up their hands, Jesus what are you talking about?

Here is how they shine light on this scene over at the SALT Project:

“After Thomas asks, “How can we know the way?”, Philip follows up by asking Jesus to “show us the Father” — as if to say, At least give us some coordinates, so we can find our way to “God’s house” once you’re gone (John 14:5,8,2). Jesus’ response amounts to this: You already know the Way! You know the Way we’ve been traveling, the Truth we’ve been learning, the Life we’ve been living — so just keep going, and when you do, I’ll be right there with you, because I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I’m not merely your guide; I am the Way. So keep going and learning and living toward God, and we’ll be together as you go…”

The Way we’ve been traveling.

The Truth we’ve been learning.

The Life we’ve been living.

How should they (and we) remember all this, keep it top of mind? Remember me, Jesus says. Believe in me. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”


Last week, Rev. Anne took us through the different “I am” statements that Jesus makes in John’s Gospel. Along with the signs Jesus performed, the miracles that pointed at his true identity, these “I am” statements are part of how Jesus clues his disciples, including us, in on his Divine identity. Which John wasted no time in introducing at the beginning of his story: “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” and then for a period of time, the Word became flesh.

When the Word gives up his flesh and returns to the Father, he is not gone. In returning to his Father, Jesus is going to bring his followers with him, into that intimacy. Jesus is the “logos”, who was, and is, and always will be. When the disciples, when WE are with him and in him, we are with the Father; we are living in conjunction and communion with the logos, the Word.

When we live the life Jesus showed us how to live, when we learn and see and proclaim the Truth that Jesus proclaimed; when we learn to walk in Jesus’s Way; we live in God’s kingdom, here and now.

Don’t lose heart. This is the good news; this is the best news. Jesus’s going away in bodily form, opens the gate and the way for us to follow.

Here is the SALT Project again:

“We often think and speak of the good news of Christ’s advent, his arrival, his coming near — but here we learn of the good news of Christ’s departure, his “going away” (John 14:28). Jesus goes away like a tablet dissolves into water: the tablet is gone, but at the same time its presence pervades the water entirely. His absence, then, also makes way for a new, pervasive presence of the Spirit, all of which gives rise to the community of the church, the movement that will go on to do even “greater works” (John 14:12). In sum, Jesus leaves in order to make possible an even more intimate communion with us, and with creation as a whole: “I am going away, and I am coming to you” (John 14:28).”

Part of the good news is Jesus going away, his letting go of his bodily form, his flesh. It seems strange to think of Jesus going away as part of the good news, but he does this so that the Holy Spirit can come to us, and dwell with and within us.

Liturgically, that’s where we are moving. In next week’s Gospel reading, Rev. Kelsey gets to talk more about the Advocate, the Spirit. In a couple weeks we’ll celebrate Pentecost, which is the coming of the Holy Spirit to the apostles as it is told in the Book of Acts.

Today’s reading is a snapshot, a reminder, and a telling of what’s to come. All of it points to this intimate relationship with God, established for us by Jesus.

Don’t we need that sometimes. Don’t we need that most of the time. Don’t we need that all the time.

God, I don’t know if I can keep going. This grief is too much. I miss him. I miss her. I don’t know what life looks like anymore.

Don’t lose heart. Believe in me. I am the Way.

Jesus, this news, I can’t. This changes everything. I don’t even know where to start.

Don’t lose heart. Trust me. I am the Truth.

I look around the world, and it’s not even just the war, the poverty and the sickness. It’s like we don’t even care. It’s like we don’t care about each other, we don’t care about Creation, all we care about is the price of gas and showing people who don’t agree with us what idiots they are. Holy Spirit, where are you in this? What are we supposed to do?

Don’t lose heart. Remember me. I am the Life that overcomes those ways of the world.


What does it look like to not lose heart, to believe in God for us right now? When we don’t have Jesus here in front of us to give us a straight answer.

Jesus knew that these are the same questions the disciples were going to wrestle with. Their world as they knew it was coming to an end. Jesus was going to be gone. They were going to be in despair.

So he says, “Trust me. Remember all that we did together. If you want to know what to do, look at me: I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.

As I reflected on Jesus’s words and what he is telling his disciples in his farewell address, I was just as struck by how Jesus did all he did and what he modeled for his disciples and for us.

When he gave his signs—from turning water into wine, to healing people, to raising Lazarus from the dead, he did these things in community. He did them with his disciples around him.

As they walked the road to Jerusalem, Jesus had his friends with him.

How many stories do we have of Jesus at the table, eating and drinking with his friends and followers.

When they are getting ready to go through the hardest time of their lives, what does Jesus do? He calls them together to reassure them.

After his death, when Jesus appears to the disciples, John gives us Jesus and the disciples in the Upper Room and together for a fish cookout on the beach.

When the Holy Spirit comes to apostles, it is when they are gathered together.

If we want to know what it looks like to believe in Jesus right now; how to remember the Way he showed us to travel, the Truth we learn from his life and teaching, the abundant Life he wants us to live; how to not lose heart:

We do that together, gathering as he showed us, supporting each other, caring for each other in community, loving one another as he loved us.

This is how we show that we believe. Walking together in Jesus’s love, we welcome the Holy Spirit into our hearts and our lives, through whom Jesus calls us to do greater things than what he showed us in Scripture.

All of this is with us, within us, and ahead of us.

Don’t lose heart.

Let’s Get Back to Love

Background: October 5-6 was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. The Gospel reading for the lectionary was Mark 10:2-16, where Jesus is questioned about divorce and he goes on to say, “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” This is the text of the sermon I gave.

“Let’s Get Back to Love”

In the not quite three years I have been preaching, this is the second time I’ve landed on one of Jesus’s divorce readings. As someone who has been through a divorce, last time out I bounced off personal experience to talk about how devastating divorce can be and how it is to be avoided if at all possible.

This time I want to take a step back and look at why Jesus always seems to make our lives harder by making the laws and rules even more strict than what the Pharisees and scribes bring to him.

Something to keep in mind: Jesus fully engaged and answered everyone who came to him with an honest question or concern. We’ll see that next week in the case of the rich, young ruler. But Jesus is wary when the Pharisees try to test him or trick him into saying something that will get him in trouble. He is wise to what they are up to.

The Pharisees ask: is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Jesus asks: what did Moses command you? They said: Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.

And now Jesus gets to the crux of the matter: “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.”

The law gives us the least we have to do to in order to play by the rules and to get what we want. The Pharisees who repeatedly question Jesus are concerned with the law for the sake of the law. They aren’t concerned with the why behind the law, the intent of the law.

First of all, if you are approaching marriage with the attitude and question, is it legal to get divorced? You probably shouldn’t be thinking about marriage.

People then, and now, want to know what rules or code do I have to follow to be considered righteous, to be a good person, and to go to heaven, right? We’d all like to know that, and to know if we are on the right path, or if we need to make some adjustments.

That’s putting the cart before the horse. Jesus, then and now, is concerned about our hearts, about our relationships, with God and with each other. About us living life and living life abundantly. If we are going to do that, our abundance can’t be at someone else’s loss, pain, or cost.

Jesus was aware of what happened back then to a woman who had been divorced. It would be hard for her to find protection, provision of any kind, dignity, or to have much of a future. That does not give her much of a chance to live life abundantly, to be in right relationship with God and her neighbors.

The laws are the lowest standard. Let’s look just quickly at the commandments that are concerned just with how we treat each other:

  • Honor your mother and your father
  • Don’t commit murder
  • Don’t commit adultery
  • Don’t steal
  • Don’t give false testimony against your neighbor
  • Don’t covet anything that belongs to your neighbor

If we live and follow those laws, does that sound like a happy life? Does that sound like abundant life? That sounds like the bare minimum you can do to stay out of trouble.

All of these laws address the hard-heartedness of people; what they had become, what we are still, and where we fall short in needing clear-cut rules to keep us straight and spell out how to treat each other.

That’s why in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “murder? That’s a pretty low bar. You’ve got to deal with and address that feeling when it’s still anger, long before it gets anywhere close to murder.” It’s not about the law, it’s about the heart. We need soft hearts to love.

Here is what we’ve lost: LOVE IS OUR DEFAULT SETTING. Jesus gets that.


In Mark Chapter 12, one of the scribes asks Jesus, which commandment is first (or greatest) of all? And Jesus gives the response we’ve come to know: “Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love. Be passionate. Care for each other. Live life to the fullest. There is no, “thou shalt not…”; there is no, “is it legal if…”

Jesus is trying to help us get back to our default settings. But we’ve put so much in the way of that, even as the church, which is the issue Jesus kept having with the Temple leadership who cite laws left and right, but keep out the people—the poor, the sick, the marginalized; the sinners and the tax collectors, who Jesus was at the table with and caring for.

In last week’s Gospel, we heard Jesus say, “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.”

These little ones, who are learning to believe, learning to love, don’t go quoting Scripture, quoting laws at them, don’t belittle them or cause them to stumble. Help them. Encourage them.

But how? How are we supposed to do all that? People are so weird and hard to deal with. They’re too people’y.

On the road with his disciples, Jesus has been trying to get it through to them. You’ve got to put down, you’ve got to give up, these lives that society is trying to hand to you. You’ve got to put down the things that divide us and put barriers between us. You’ve got to give up the lives you’ve been living, pick up your cross, and follow me.

If we put down the crap that we’re being fed, if we give up the lives that are full of judgment, hatred, power, and status, we are free to pick up and be filled with Jesus’s love. We give up our small, ego selves so that we can be filled with the Holy Spirit.

When we let go of the doubt, the fear, the skepticism and pessimism we are being handed, we become like children: free to love.

“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

As a little child. Open, innocent—not jaded, tainted, asking which laws are the ones that really count.


Love is our default setting. Jesus and gift of the Holy Spirit are the reset button. God’s grace is our fresh start.

Well, sure, that’s easy for Jesus to say; He’s Jesus. What about us, who are flawed and human and who mess up? What does it look like for us to let go and start again?

Let me introduce you to Francis. Saint. Francis. Of Assisi. October 4 was the Feast of Saint Francis, who is often held up as the human being who most fully lived a life of Christ-like love. He saw the divine in everything and everyone and lived his life in a simple way. He didn’t start out that way, he found it as a new way of being.

Francis let his love of Christ guide him, rather than rules or laws. Franciscan Friar and author Richard Rohr describes Francis like this:

“Creation itself—not ritual or spaces constructed by human hands—was Francis’ primary cathedral. His love for creation drove him back into the needs of the city, a pattern very similar to Jesus’ own movement between desert solitude (contemplation) and small-town healing ministry (action). The Gospel transforms us by putting us in touch with that which is much more constant and satisfying, literally the “ground of our being,” which has much more “reality” to it, rather than theological concepts or ritualization of reality. Daily cosmic events in the sky and on the earth are the Reality above our heads and beneath our feet every minute of our lives: a continuous sacrament, signs of God’s universal presence in all things.”

Wow. Not a bad way to live and look at the world.

Imagine being so filled with God’s love that when we go out the doors of the church, we carry it with us and give it to everyone and everything we encounter. Imagine someone’s impression of us being, “wow, they were full of love and light”—where did they get that? How can I get some too?

The Pharisees and scribes asked Jesus questions to try to trip him up and to get him in trouble. They were the law-abiding citizens. They wanted to know if it is legal for a man to divorce his wife.

That’s one end of the continuum: following the rules for the rules’ sake. Righteousness is following the law. Now listen to the words that St. Francis is most known for, the prayer that is attributed to him:

“Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

That’s not about the law, it’s about love; the self-sacrificing love that Jesus modeled for us with his life and through his death—the love that overcame death. The love that opens the door for us.

Which do you want your life to be about? Let’s go with Jesus and Francis. Let’s get back to love.

Amen.