May 3 - “The Father Who Dwells in Me
The Father Who Dwells in Me
John 14:1-14
1 Peter 2:2-10
3 May 2026 – First Congregational Church UCC, Williamstown MA
Rev. Mary W. Nelson
Jesus is a talker in John’s gospel. He talks a LOT. John’s Jesus teaches in big long dialogues, some of which last entire chapters or longer. He does not bother to present these lessons in a format that is easily memorable or applicable or consumable. The Gospel According to John is divided into five sections, and each of these sections contains two parts: the Talking, and the Doing. Really, the Doing parts are mostly just there to break up the Talking parts a bit. There’s a lot more Talking than Doing in John. Today’s passage is from the fourth section of John’s Gospel – and it’s one little-bitty sliver of a really big Talking part.
Today’s passage is part of what scholars call the “Farewell Discourses,” a series of lessons that Jesus imparts to his disciples in the few days leading up to his crucifixion. We have, today, the first half of a lesson about God’s presence among the community of believers (we’ll look at the other half next week) – and that lesson is one small piece of this multi-chapter “Farewell Discourses” section just before Jesus’ crucifixion, explaining how the community of believers will function after Jesus’ death. John is writing 60 or so years after Jesus’s death, and he uses these lessons from Jesus to give guidance and comfort to John’s own community, strengthening them in what they saw as a coming time of uncertainty.
We have now reached the part of the Easter Season when we have heard all the resurrection stories we’re going to hear, and now we are reminded that Christ’s resurrection is STILL true today, and we are part of the story of what the resurrection MEANS. Even now.
Our text today takes place on the night before the Last Supper, as John tells the story. Jesus has just washed his disciples’ feet, and is now trying to explain what is about to happen to him – the betrayal, the crucifixion, the Resurrection, the ascension… and, because it’s pretty much always the disciples’ job “not to get it,” the disciples don’t get it. The disciples serve as foils for Jesus, literary tools that set up this pattern of dialogue: Jesus says something, the disciples misunderstand him, and then Jesus must clarify.
Our passage begins with Jesus telling the disciples not to be troubled, because he is going ahead of them to prepare their places in his Father’s house, and they know the way and will follow later. But Thomas pipes up and says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?” And Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” It’s one of those famous “I AM” statements that John is so fond of using – using language to connect Jesus to Yahweh, the Great “I AM.” The whole response is longer, though: “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on, you do know him, and have seen him.”
But Philip doesn’t get it, of course, because the disciples haven’t literally seen God – not like Moses did, or one of the prophets, or Jesus. So how can Jesus say that they have seen the Father? “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus replies. “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.” He’s telling them that God is present in him, and really, this is the simplest thing he could say. It’s the bare-bones truth, in this case at least, that to know the Son is to know the Father. Not all fathers and sons have that kind of relationship, but these two do. But… not all fathers and sons have that kind of relationship, which makes it hard for some people to look at Jesus and see God. So Jesus continues: “If you don’t believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, then believe in me because of the works I do. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”
This is how we are part of the resurrection story even now. We are part of passing on not just the words, but the ACTIONS of Jesus. If we do what Jesus does, then others will see what we do, and know that we do what Jesus did–and then they will also know Jesus. It’s like the transitive property of equations, but for God.
At the very heart of things, Jesus has shown the disciples how to live. He has eaten and healed and prayed and served. He has followed God’ will – not the letter of the law, necessarily, but the will behind it. And he has taught the disciples to do the same. That is the way, that is the truth, that is the life: a life of justice and service and humility. A life of questioning the status quo and seeking to do God’s will. A life of good works: that is the way.
Whether you follow Christ because you believe he is God, or you follow Christ because you believe he has done good things… the point is that you are following Christ Who Is The Way. This conversation was happening in a time when it was thought that there was NO way to reconcile sinful, fallen humanity to holy and perfect divinity. So when we, with our modern ears in our pluralistic society, hear that “Christ is the way” or “no one comes to the Father except through me,” and we think it must be some kind of call for exclusion or exclusivity. But, the first-century listeners for whom this gospel was written would have heard the good news that THERE IS A WAY to bring humankind together with God, when they thought there was no way. Jesus the Christ is that way. This is good news! There IS a way!
The way that Jesus taught the disciples is not about self-righteousness or judgment or domination, and it’s not about passive acceptance of one’s lot in life. The way that Jesus taught is about making choices – choices that work toward the greater good, choices that turn the love of God outward so that others may receive it, choices that witness to God’s justice and work toward bringing God’s kingdom ever nearer on this earth, choices rooted in the recognition that you are part of something bigger than yourself. We make our own choices, and we can choose whether or not we want to live like Christ.
“The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and in fact, will do greater works than these.”
John’s is a Gospel where there’s so much more Talking than Doing, but we’re told and we’re shown that the Doing is far more important than the Talking.
When Jesus refers to God as his “Father,” that really grates on some people’s nerves at times. Not everyone has had loving, positive, affirming relationships with male parent figures; some people have had decidedly negative encounters with persons playing that role in their life. It’s important to remember that, when Jesus calls God “Father,” he’s making a metaphorical statement about his relationship with God, not his relationship with his own parents, or the biological configuration of a God’s body (he’s not saying that God is literally a man). When Jesus calls God “Father,” he’s leaning on an idealized vision of who a father is supposed to be, and claims that he relates to God in that way – and we can, too.
He’s also making a political statement, although that gets lost with time and translation. The name that Jesus calls God is abba, and despite the tradition of translating abba to mean “Father,” a word infused with formality and respect and distance, a more accurate meaning is “Daddy” or “Papa.” To say that God is my Father has a very different feel than to call God “Dad.” There’s a closeness, an accessibility, an ease to that relationship. And the Pharisees felt this difference. How dare you be so familiar with Yahweh? Yahweh is so powerful that he must be feared. Yahweh is so holy that you cannot speak or even write his name without being struck dead. And yet you dare to refer to the Almighty Creator as Daddy?!?!?! Disrespect! Blasphemy! Crucify him!
Jesus dared to relate to God in a new way – a way, as it turns out, that was also the truth and the life. It was his relationship with his abba-daddy-God that gave us an important new way to understand and relate to God: a personal way, a loving way, a way that teaches that God is in us, in our thoughts, in our hearts, in our actions. And if we choose to relate to God through Jesus the Christ, then we understand God as this idealized vision of fatherhood who is ultimately loving, and positive, and affirming, and accessible.
There is value in grounding your faith in some kind of personal experience of God’s grace or love or truth, but a so-called “personal relationship with Jesus” is not the be-all-end-all of a life of faith. And Jesus never says that it is. Jesus calls God his “Dad,” so that we may access this new way of relating to God – not based in fear, but in familiarity. But if your relationship with God does not extend outward from yourself, then you are missing something. None of us owns God, none of us holds a monopoly on relating to God, and we need our community to give us that reality check sometimes. There is a danger in thinking that your personal relationship with God bests God’s relationship with anybody else, or any other group: you risk coming to believe that it’s all about you, and what you want, and what you need, …and your faith becomes an idolatry of the Self. But to follow The Way that Jesus sets forth, to be Christ-like, is to live an outwardly-directed life according to God’s will, caring for others, helping those who need help, extending the hand of Christian fellowship to the people around you, joining in community with other Christians, focusing your energy into the community of faith, so that the community of faith can go out and be the Body of Christ in the world, following his teaching and example. Instead of Talking, we can do more Doing.
In the end, this passage is about the importance of community, not about developing a personal relationship with God. And it’s about what we do in this life, not what the next life might hold. God isn’t present with just one faith community, God isn’t owned only by those who call him abba. God is present in all those who seek to follow God’s will, to walk in God’s way. God dwells in us, and we dwell in God. Abba-God is present in us all because we are the Body of Christ. And because, as the Body of Christ, we do his works.
Thanks be to God. Amen.