Greater Works Than These
How do you know God? How do you know Jesus? How do you know what they look like or what they want or what kinds of things they’ve experienced? How do you know when someone is a person of faith? How do you know what the truth is? Does it matter? Between last week’s gospel reading, which painted Jesus as a gate to a sheep pen, and this week’s gospel reading, in which Jesus insists that he is the way and that no one gets to see God except through him, it can be easy to see why some communities seem to worship Jesus the bouncer. God’s house is not a beloved community, but a gated development with a guard house—and Jesus is the guard inside. The righteous, those who know the truth, are the ones who have accepted the understanding of Jesus as God’s son, and who know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is the only way, the path to the top of the mountain—whatever that means. This passage has always kind of troubled me, and not just because it makes me think of the implications for all the non-Christian friends I grew up with. Even for Christians, it always seemed to be used more as a cop out or a way for us to rest assured in knowing that, no matter what, as long as we believe in Jesus and accept him as our personal savior, then we’re fine and everyone else had better figure that out before it’s too late for them. We have Jesus, and no one gets to God except through him. So, we’re good. Come and get him.
But, that brings me back to my original questions: how do we know God, and how do we know Jesus? Because we can claim Jesus all we want, we can look at what the gospels say about the one we call the Christ. We can read different translations and Bible commentaries and the epistles. And you could even see what approximate contemporaries of Jesus, like Josephus, were saying. And while much of that can help us to get a sense of who Jesus is and what he looks like, I’m not sure if that gets us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help us God. Amy Jill Levine, a Jewish scholar of the New Testament, sees the “truth” that Jesus refers to in this passage not as broad, universal knowledge. Truth, in this context, is about personal knowledge. Jesus is our personal knowledge of God, and so to know Jesus is to know God. So, we can know God through Jesus. But the question still remains: how do we know Jesus? We can look to the gospels, and see a man born into poverty under scandalous circumstances. We can see a refugee, who had to flee across the border into Egypt to escape the brutal violence of a king. We can see a homeless man who travelled from place to place, depending on the hospitality of strangers and friends in order to get by. We can see a man who was outspoken about how people use their wealth, how people insulate themselves from those they don’t like, how our preoccupation with violence would be our own destruction. We can see a man who was unwilling to back down, and who was killed by an unholy alliance of church and state because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut when it would have served him best.
That is how we can begin to know Jesus, and so that’s how we can begin to know God: as one who lived the cycles of human life, who spoke out and spoke up, and who suffered a human death at the hands of fellow humans. This passage from John has us hear Jesus claim that he is known, in part and for some, by what he says. When Phillip challenges Jesus, because he still doesn’t understand, Jesus seems dismayed that Jesus’ words alone might not be enough for some to know him. And so, he offers an alternative: that he might be known by what he does. Suddenly, Jesus isn’t just the one standing on a mountain, proclaiming God’s favor for the hungry, the poor, those struggling under enormous weights, and those who long for liberation. Suddenly he’s not just the one arguing with the Pharisees or conversing with tax collectors. He’s also the one who heals the sick, who drives out the spirits that torment people. He’s the one who talks to women and strangers, who brings together feasts for thousands, and who calms even the wildest storms. He cares about those that no one else does, cares that bodies are healthy and whole, and cares that even Creation crying out is caressed and soothed. We see this in Jesus, and so we see that this is who God is, too. The God who cares deeply for the wholeness of Creation, who longs to see it repaired and set into right relationship. The God who makes young mothers sing out, from generation to generation, that the powerful are brought low and the lowly are lifted. We see this God through Jesus, who shows us the truth.
But, how do I know Jesus? How do you know Jesus? We can look from afar at the stories of Jesus, at the actions of his followers, both the Christ-like and the not-so-much. But how can we know Christ for ourselves? We have our means of grace, our practices and experiences of coming into contact with grace, and catching glimpses of Christ. We take communion, we sing, we pray. But we also look Christ in the face each day, or we ought to at least. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells his followers that he was hungry and they fed him, that he was naked and they covered him, that he was sick and in prison and they comforted him. And when they respond that they had done no such thing, Jesus tells them that whenever they have fed the hungry, whenever they have clothed the naked, whenever they have visited the sick or the imprisoned—or those in shelters or detention facilities or psych wards—they have done those things for Christ. Jesus makes himself known to us in the lives of the poor, the sick, the naked, the unhoused. In the lives of the stranger, the disabled, the queer, the young. In the lives of disenfranchised voters and those caught in the crossfire of war and economic disputes. In those who suffer, in those we overlook, in those we avoid or walk right past—Christ is made known to us. We can know Christ in the least among us. Therefore, we come to know God when we come to know our neighbors, and when we see them not simply as projects or places of need, but as those who know God more deeply than we do ourselves.
Christ tells us in this passage that those who know him will continue the works that he has done—and will do greater works than these. When we come to know Christ, there will be signs. Not in bold proclamations and shouts from the rooftops. Not when we tout that we are right and everyone else needs to get on the same page as us. But when we meet Christ in those at the margins, in the places that are not known to us or where we are uncomfortable. And when we embrace Christ in our world, and take up the works that he began. This is how we will know Christ. This is how Christ will be made known through us. May it be so. Amen.