Relationships – St. Thomas/ Santo Tomás

Lent 5

March 21, 2021

Sermon by the Rev. Bernadette Hartsough

Although this is year B the Gospel of Mark year, the Gospel of John is included in all three years. We don’t tend to see it’s big themes. Today I want to focus on John and on today’s very important passage. During Lent, we tend to focus on sins. We focus on how Jesus saves us from ourselves, how he reconciles us to God. Jesus saves us from a life a sin. Sin separates from God. In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, ransom/ payment and sacrifice for our sins is a big theme. There are various atonement theories of how Jesus took away our sins. We can say that God took the initiative and offered his son, and we can say that humans embraced God’s love. John’s gospel asks us to look at Jesus’s life and death differently. John’s gospel is about relationships. John asks us to look at the restoration of a relationship. Using some of the scenes from Jesus’s life that I showed you last week, let us look at the role of relationships.

Last week, the posters showed the story of Jesus’s life from birth to resurrection. The first poster of Jesus’s birth said, “The Word became a wordless child.” Jesus was already in relationship with God the Father from the beginning. Now, Jesus came into the world fully human. He was born a baby. He desired to be so close to us that he became one of us. This is the story of a loving relationship that now included humans.

At Jesus’s baptism, the relationship between God and humans is revealed. Jesus was fully human and fully divine. As a result, the divine and human relationship became inseparable.

Last week I showed a poster of Jesus healing a blind man. He came so close to people that they were transformed. Jesus desires us to be whole. To be who God created us to be; spiritually, mentally, and physically. Jesus as God came to restore the relationship of God with all of creation. Jesus’s healings were a sign of that restoration.

Jesus gave us sacraments so that we wouldn’t forget his presence. The sacraments remind us that we are restored in our relationship with God, even when we turn away and even when we sin. We are in relationship with God through Jesus. In John’s gospel the Eucharist as we think of it with bread and wine, is absent. In John’s gospel, the sacrament is the communal act of washing each other’s feet. It is living in relationship with each other.

Jesus suffers. His suffering connects him to humanity. John quotes Jesus in verse 32, “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” Jesus experienced the fullness of being human. It included suffering and death. It was a way of bringing God into all of our suffering.

In the other gospels we hear that disciples of Jesus must take up their crosses. They do not seek out suffering. As humans, they will suffer. Taking up one’s cross means that when crosses come, we bear them. As we bear them, we are united to Jesus. The gospel of John does not emphasis taking up one’s cross. It emphasizes the importance of belief in Jesus. Belief in Jesus makes us partners in the relationship.

Jesus dies and is resurrected. This is not the end of the relationship but the beginning. Before jesus is crucified in the gospel of John, he prays to the father. He prays for protection for his own. Jesus after he dies, sends the Holy Spirit so that we could continue to be in relationship with God.

All of these examples show us that John’s gospel is communal. It is not just about us as individuals. Yes, lent is about examining ourselves and our lives. It is about daily personal decisions. BUT- In our culture where independence is highly valued, we need to remember that it is about relationship. Jesus was born into a human family. He lived in a culture where one’s identity was inseparable from one’s family and religion.

For Jesus in the Gospel of John, loving one’s personal life independent of Jesus’s community put one outside of community. This is important. Let me say it again. Loving one’s personal life independent of Jesus’s community put one outside of the community. Jesus gives us the gift of communal life as we lose our personal life. Humankind joined into the community with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection created this community of faith. This community of faith came to be known as the church. For John it is all about loving relationships and community. For me I can feel the importance of relationship in the last chapter of John in the dialogue between peter and Jesus.

So last week I ended my story sermon by saying that we needed Jesus’s whole story to understand his death and resurrection. We cannot understand his death unless we understand his birth. He came to restore relationships, to build faith communities, and to save us from our sins. Where do we see ourselves in this story?

Do we see Jesus in our relationships that have been restored after many years? Do we feel like part of the God family when we renew our Baptismal Vows?

Holy Week is one week away. We will wave palm branches and experience Jesus’s final days. We will draw close to Jesus in our prayers. Our personal stories will merge with Jesus’s story. As we walk the way of the cross together, our communal story of faith of St. Thomas/Santo Tomás will emerge through our individual stories. And as we continually make the decision to stay in relationship, we will see how Jesus’s death and resurrection bears fruit in our lives and in this faith community.