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From the first moment our eyes locked, I knew my husband, Ken, would be my life partner. Later he would tell me he knew the same about me.  I had gone to his mother’s house to do some “light housekeeping.” He happened to be there doing some yard work.

 As I was washing dishes in the kitchen and he was mowing grass in the in the back yard, my mind wandered.  “It will be this way someday, I thought.” While he was pushing the mower, he imagined a similar thing. “Someday we will share a common path in life,” he said.  This “view” into the future grounded our commitment to do everything we could to develop and nurture the gift of this relationship. Things have not always been perfect, but it has been a relationship filled with life abundant.

While I knew from the start that Ken was the one, certainty did not come until three years and two children later. One afternoon we were talking about each of our understandings of heaven. In particular, what would actually happen when we got there—if we got there? At one point Ken paused, thought for a moment then said, “You know what I think, I think when we get to heaven, we will only be asked one question, the question, ‘Why were you not you?’”  Whoa—such wisdom and from a computer geek! I think I’ll keep him, I thought.

“Why were you not you?” This eschatological question about what happens at the end of our life on earth is a question for each of us to ponder. In fact, since that afternoon discussion with Ken, I learned that this prayerful reflection, asked in several different ways, is one that many of religious traditions have wrestled with for centuries. While it gives us a glimpse into the future, more importantly, it allows us to see more clearly how we might want to live life this very day. It causes us to pause and look into ourselves and ask—Who am I? Whose am I? For what purpose am I?—today!

So often in life, we spend our time trying to figure out how to get where we are going-- or obtaining what we want and what we value. We work so hard at getting to where we think we ought to “end up being” that we can’t see the spiritual path we’ve chosen to take, even though it is right in front our eyes. So instead we spend our time worrying. We over-function and under-function—or sometimes, we simply give up altogether. Then the only thing left to do is to pray.  So, we hope for clarity or some piece of wisdom that will move us forward. We seek words of faith that will pull us back on center.

Each of the twelve disciples was about their everyday life work when their eyes locked on Jesus. They had been fishing, tax collecting, teaching, and healing – then in an instant, their life path changed. They put down all they had known to this point to follow the path of Jesus. There were times when they succeeded in their work as disciples and there were several instances when their best efforts and good intentions were way off base; and times when their energy and commitment fell just a bit short.  We are familiar with their many questions and we understand their concerns. In essence their questions about discipleship, of following Jesus, are no different from our own—especially when challenged to wrestle with the fact and possible purpose of Jesus’ suffering and death.

This morning Meleny read the passage from John’s gospel that is known as the “Farewell Discourse.” It is a long and eloquent good-bye spoken by Jesus to the disciples in the upper room before he went into Jerusalem.  It is a glimpse into the future that is hoped to give the disciples fortitude and strength—purpose and conviction after Jesus death. It sums up all the things Jesus wanted them to remember and to do from that moment on—to believe in him, to be true to who they are—to continue to walk a faith-filled journey. 

Jesus reminded them that he would go and prepare a place for them. It was a place they knew in one sense, but in another sense, not yet.  However so, these very words offered energy and reassurance to this much loved, unfinished, grieving band of followers who had not yet fully grasped the life that they themselves had chosen and agreed to live. They tried to take it all in, but much of what they heard made their hearts troubled, their minds anxious.

To quiet their worrisome souls, Jesus encourages them to remember what they already know.  He says, “I am the way, the truth and the life. None of you comes to the Father except through me.” Where Jesus goes, they will be also. It is an assertion about the relationship with him.

Too often these words, “Jesus is the way”, are taken out of context and misinterpreted and/or misunderstood. Hearing them, we can become deeply disturbed and a little embarrassed as the words seem to draw a stark line between who is in and who is out in God’s kingdom and realm. The gospel writer’s articulation of Jesus’ assertion perpetuates the problem. The word “only,” while not written, seems to slip into the sentence in a manner that indicates proof positive that Christians have the corner on God—as if we have it all right and others have it all wrong. Some Christians even go so far as to assert that all other faiths should be corrected and if not, condemned.  It is important then to remember there is a difference between what the writer of John’s gospel says to specific Mediterranean communities and what Jesus intends for us to hear in these words throughout time.

Where the writer of John’s gospel seems to make an exclusive claim, the Jesus we follow makes a particular claim—one specifically addressed to those who had chosen to follow him because of the joy and no matter the cost. This was a specific religious community who had been personally and socially transformed by the incarnation—God with us in Jesus—fully human—fully divine.  The very fact that Jesus says, “none of ‘you’ comes to the ‘father’—Jesus earthly parent” rather than saying, “no one comes to ‘God’ except through me”, helps us know that. 

Jesus’ words of love and care and promise spoken to the disciples are spoken for us too.  They invite those of us who lock eyes with him to once again commit to a relationship with God through him—to follow Christ’s way—to walk a Christ-like path and to talk a Christ-like witness—to fully claim the Christian faith which is particular to us. As with the disciples, Jesus calls us and cautions us to not get stuck in questions about truths only God can answer, or mired in grief that paralyzes our faith, confusion that distracts us from our purpose and worry that confines rather than defines our living. No, these words invite us to embrace who we are and what we are called to be as move along the road with Jesus. We who claim to be Christians – that’s our path.

Yes, for those of us who follow Christ, Jesus is the truth and the way. Jesus is the way to unbounded love, amazing grace, transforming forgiveness, extravagant welcome and life eternal. This farewell discourse is an eschatological view of what is already and what is not yet that causes us to think about, to question, how or if we are truly following the path we have chosen to journey with Jesus.  So to the question, “Why were you not you?”

Jesus response is quite simple. Be you—be fully you—a Christian—God’s own—today, tomorrow and always.

Joseph Cardinal Bernadin, the late Archbishop of Chicago once said there are three key days in any person’s life.  “The first is the day they were born. The second is the day when one comes to realize why he or she was born. The third is the day that the person begins to do something about this mission. In my experience, he says, all three days are closely bound up with God’s presence in our lives. The second and third days are intimately linked with prayer.”

Sweet Jesus, show us your way. Show us your truth so that we might have life with you eternal. Come take us with you Jesus—in our living today and always!

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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