5th Sunday of Easter – Year A: God is an insufficient word!

God is an insufficient word!

“I go to prepare a place for you.”
John 14:1-12

With the final Sundays of Eastertide, we enter into the preparation for the feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost. These are the Sundays of farewell. In today’s Gospel and next Sunday’s, we shall listen to passages from chapter 14 of Saint John, taken from Jesus’ farewell discourse during the Last Supper. It is his testament, before his passion and death.

Why return to these texts precisely during the Easter season? The Church follows the ancient tradition of reading, during this time, the five chapters of John’s Gospel concerning the Last Supper, from chapters 13 to 17, in which Jesus presents the meaning of his Passover. Moreover, we could say that, since this is his legacy, the testament is to be opened after his death. Jesus leaves us his inheritance, his goods, to us who are his heirs.

Do not let your hearts be troubled!

Today’s Gospel text is one of the densest in John’s Gospel. The context — after the announcement of the betrayal and of his violent death — is sad and dramatic. Jesus does not hide from his disciples the gravity of this hour, but he consoles them, inviting them to trust. It is the hour of trial, of crisis. Night falls darkly upon the hearts of all.

It is a word addressed also to us who, after the joy of Easter, fall back into the harshness of our daily lives. “Believe in God, believe also in me” — this is the watchword!

I go to prepare a place for you!

In the Gospel passage, we find, around ten times, verbs and nouns connected with movement. The human being is a traveller, a wayfarer — homo viator, as Gabriel Marcel put it. Faith too implies setting out on a journey: “Go from your country… to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). So it was for Abraham, and so it still is for us. The Bible is full of roads and paths, of crossroads and junctions. “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion!” (Psalm 84:6).

For biblical man, and for Jesus, the journey has a precise direction: God, the Father. Saint Ignatius of Antioch, in his Letter to the Romans, 7:2, expresses his experience in this way: “A living water murmurs within me and says: Come to the Father!”

Unfortunately, today the meaning of life, its direction, seems to be fading. What the French playwright Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994) once said is coming true: “The world has lost its way, not because there are no guiding ideologies, but because they lead nowhere. In the cage of their planet, human beings move in circles because they have forgotten that they can look up to heaven.”

Although we are on a journey, our heart seeks rest. God’s promise is precisely that of “entering into his rest” (see the Letter to the Hebrews 4:1). This is not a passing rest, but the rest of one who feels he has arrived home, at his dwelling place. Through his Passover, Jesus goes ahead of us: he goes to prepare this dwelling for us and will then return to take us with him. This dwelling is the Father’s house. For one lives where one is loved, as the Jesuit biblical scholar Silvano Fausti (1940-2015) comments.

And where is my dwelling place? Where do I feel at home, known, appreciated and loved? That is where my identity is found, my true self. Is the heart of the Father truly my dwelling place?

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, THOMAS.

Jesus assumes that the apostles have understood him: “And you know the way to the place where I am going.” And yet they have not understood at all. Just as, perhaps, we have not understood either.

Thomas, a practical and concrete man, is their spokesman — and ours: “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” And here Jesus gives us a surprising and entirely new definition of himself: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Way, Truth and Life: three words which, in the end, are equivalent and can be applied to God himself. The way is love, the truth is love, life is love. And Jesus adds: “No one comes to the Father except through me!” Jesus is the mediator between God and humanity. Not as a neutral intermediary between the two, but as the one who takes both into himself.

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father, PHILIP.

At this point, hearing Jesus speak so much of the Father, Philip intervenes. He is more idealistic and dreamlike, and he makes a beautiful prayer: “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” It is the dream of Moses (Exodus 33:18-20) and the secret desire of every human being: “When shall I come and behold the face of God?” (Psalm 42:3; 27:8-9). Yet at this request Jesus is disappointed: “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and still you do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father… Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” Three times, Jesus repeats this mutual indwelling: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

It could be the same disappointment that Jesus feels towards us: “What? You have been with me for so many years, you see what I do and you listen to my word, and still you do not know me? When I washed your feet, it was the Father himself kneeling before you!”

The Italian biblical scholar Alberto Maggi comments provocatively: Jesus is not like God — whom we do not know! — rather, God is like Jesus. Christ is the full revelation of the Father, the perfect image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). “What was invisible in the Son was the Father, and what was visible in the Son was the Father,” concludes Saint Irenaeus.

What Jesus says completely revolutionises our notion of God. The monk Enzo Bianchi, founder of the Bose community, in an interview some years ago, when asked who God was for him, replied:

“The word ‘God’ has always seemed to me ambiguous, insufficient. I feel a deep relationship with Jesus Christ. I think I shall go to God, that I shall know him, through Jesus Christ, but I do not know who God is; we know nothing, no one has ever seen him, we speak too much about him without knowing him. In my view, one of the greatest mistakes is to continue speaking about God when God remains unknowable, ‘the mystery’. For me, Jesus Christ is enough; he will lead me to Him… I do not spend time arguing about God or announcing God.”

And in his commentary on today’s Gospel he says: “At times I ask myself whether we Christians, heirs of the Greek world, do not end up professing a theism with a Christian veneer. We must have the courage to say that, for us Christians, God is an insufficient word!”

In conclusion, in these times of uncertainty or even bewilderment, let us also be concrete like Thomas and ask: Jesus, where are we going? He will answer us: Follow me, I am the Way!
If we have a heart anxious to see the Father, in the context of a world and a history so deeply troubled, let us also repeat with Philip: “Lord, show us the Father.” And Jesus will continue to answer us: Look at me, listen to me. The Father is in my way of loving, of serving, of forgiving, of washing feet.

If you want to know who God is, do not seek him far away: look at Jesus. And let yourself be led by him to the Father’s house.

Fr Manuel João Pereira Correia, MCCJ

GOSPEL REFLECTION
John 14:1-12

The passage in today’s Gospel is taken from the first of three farewell speeches pronounced by Jesus at the Last Supper after Judas went out to implement his intention of treason. They are called so because in them Jesus seems to dictate his last will, before facing his passion and death.

The liturgy makes them ponder after Easter for a very simple reason: a testament opens and acquires its meaning only after the death of the person who dictated it. The words spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper were not restricted to the apostles in the upper room but addressed to the disciples of all times. Easter is the most suitable time to understand and meditate on them.

The passage today begins with a phrase that could be misunderstood: “In my Father’s house there are many rooms; otherwise, I would not have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. After I have gone and prepared a place for you, I shall come again and take you to me. Yet you know the way where I am going” (vv. 2-4).

Jesus seems to be saying that the time for him to go to heaven has come. He promises that there he will prepare a place for his disciples.

This explanation is unsatisfactory because we believe that everything is already set in heaven for a long time. Then the idea of the numbered seat, corresponding to the various degrees of reward, with the danger that someone might not also have a place to stay, does not enthuse at all.

The meaning of the sentence is different. It is much more concrete and relevant for us and for the life of our communities.

Jesus says he has to go through a difficult “path.” He adds that his disciples would have to know very well that “way” because he often spoke of it.

Thomas replies on behalf of all: we do not know this “way” and we cannot guess where you want to go.

Jesus explains: he himself will be the first to run the “way.” Once his mission is accomplished, he will be back and will take the disciples with him. He will infuse them with his courage and strength, so they will be enabled to follow in his footsteps.

What the “way” is, is now clear: It is the difficult path toward Easter. It demands the sacrifice of life. Jesus talked about it many times, but the disciples were always reluctant to understand. When he insisted on the “gift of life,” they preferred to be distracted, thinking about something else.

In this perspective, the question about “the seats in the Father’s house” becomes clear. Whoever has agreed to follow the “way” traveled by Jesus, finds himself immediately in the Kingdom of God, in the Father’s house. This house is not paradise, but the Christian community. There are many places, that is, many services, many tasks to be performed in it.

There are many ways in which the gift of one’s life takes form. The “many places” are nothing but the “various ministries,” the different situations in which everyone is required to make available to the brethren one’s own capacity, the many gifts received from God.

Until the Second Vatican Council, the laity was not considered active members of the Church. They did not participate but “assisted” in the Eucharist; they did not celebrate reconciliation, they went to “receive” the absolution. They were often idle spectators of what the priests were doing. Today we understand that every Christian should be active, not for the shortage of priests, but for the fact that everyone has work to do within the community.

Jesus says that in the course of the ministry, there could be no motives for envy and jealousy. The “places,” that is, the services to be rendered to the brethren are many. The only one who is not yet shaken by the newness of life, communicated by faith in the Risen Lord, may remain idle.

In civil society, the place is assessed on the basis of power, the social prestige that confers the money with which it is paid for. The question: “What do you do?” is equivalent to “How much do you earn?”

The place prepared by Jesus and for each one is instead evaluated based on service: the better “place” is where one can serve more and better for the community.

The passage is a call for verification of community life: what is the percentage of active members? Are there commitments that no one wants to take? Are there competitions to grab for oneself the responsibility of any assignment? Of the many “jobs” prepared by Jesus, are there still many undiscovered ones? Are there “unemployed” people? Why?

The second part of today’s Gospel (vv. 8-12) is centered on the question of Philip: “Lord, show us the Father and that is enough.”

“Let me see your glory,” Moses asked the Lord, and God answered him: “You cannot see my face because man cannot see me and live” (Ex 33:18,20).

While conscious of this inability to contemplate the Lord, the pious Israelites continued to implore: “I seek your face, O Lord. Do not hide your face from me” (Ps 27:8-9); “My soul thirsts for God, the living God. When shall I go and see the face of God?” (Ps 42:3).

Philip seems to be an interpreter of this intimate yearning of the human heart. He knows that “no one has ever seen God” (Jn 1:18), because “he lives in unapproachable light and whom no one has seen or can see”(1 Tim 6:16); but also recalls the bliss reserved for the pure in heart: “for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8) and thinks that Jesus can satisfy his secret aspiration. He presents such a demand that seems to echo those expressed by Moses and by the psalmists.

In his response, Jesus shows the way to see God. One needs to look at him. He is the human face that God has taken to manifest himself, to establish a relationship of intimacy, friendship, and communion of life with people. He is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), “the radiance of God’s glory and bears the stamp of God’s hidden being” (Heb 1:3).

To know the Father, there is no need to make arguments or reasoning. It is not worth it to get lost in inadequate philosophical investigations. It is sufficient to contemplate Jesus, to observe what he does, says, teaches how one behaves, loves, whom he prefers and attends to, caresses and from whom he lets himself be caressed, with whom he dines, he chooses, defends … because the Father does so. The works that Jesus fulfill are those of the Father (v.10).

There’s a time when the Father fully revealed his face: on the cross. There he reveals his supreme love for people. The “radiance of his glory” (Heb 1:3) fully appears. There, his “light shines” (2 Cor 4:6) in its fullness.

“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus affirms (v. 9). But this seeing is not reduced to the gaze of one who witnessed the events, the facts, the concrete gestures carried out by him. It is a gaze of faith that is required, a look that can go beyond appearances, beyond the purely material datum, a look that captures the revelation of God in the works of Jesus.

This seeing is equivalent to believing.

Who sees the Father in him, who grants him full confidence and is prepared to risk one’s life on the values ​​proposed by him, will do the same works and will do even greater ones. It is not about miracles, but the total gift of self for love.The Father will continue to realize in the disciples the works of love that he has accomplished in Jesus.

Fernando Armellini
Italian missionary and biblical scholar