Episcopal Church of the Incarnation
The Fifth Sunday in Easter (A)
Acts 7.55-60 Psalm 31.1-5, 15-16 1 Peter 2.2-10 John
14.1-14
Alleluia. Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed.
Alleluia.
“If
a dog has three heads, and there are five dogs in the yard, how many dog’s
heads are there in the yard?” A question
like this contains a statement that we can easily recognize as absurd–dogs
don’t and can’t have three heads–and yet we can still solve the problem. We multiply three times five and answer that
there would be fifteen dog’s heads in the yard; but we
know that the premise of the question is absurd. This reasoning process is what is known as
formal reasoning. As demonstrated,
famously, by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, before a certain age children
do not engage in formal reasoning. Asked
the question about dog’s heads, a young child would not multiply three by
five. He or she would not get past the
absurdity of the premise, but would point out that dogs can’t have three
heads. A very young child has to
experience a postulate in order to use that information in reasoning.
In the
epistle St. Peter instructs us that as Christians we are like newborn
infants. To grow in salvation we cannot
engage in formal reasoning, adopting the viewpoint and experience of another as
our own for purposes of working out a problem, but have to experience the
“pure, spiritual milk” of faith. Please
don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying
that faith cannot proceed from reason. I
am not saying that faith is irrational.
What I am saying, and what St. Peter is getting at, is that how we grow
in knowledge of God depends on non-rational constructs. Notice that I didn’t say irrational, but
non-rational. This means a number of
things, but one of the things it means is that I have to be careful about how I
look at evidence.
For
example, I can look at the stoning of Stephen in our lesson from Acts, or
Jesus’ death on the cross, and conclude that God has not vindicated His servant;
God has not glorified His Son. I can
read in the epistle that God has laid a new cornerstone in
When Jesus
says “I am the way,” is He being metaphorical, or should we take Him at
His word? It’s not enough to point to
anything we don’t understand in faith and say, “Well, it’s a mystery” or “Well,
you need to have faith.” If we claim
with St. Peter to be those “called ... out of darkness into [God’s] marvelous
light,” we need to be able to shed some light on the why’s of belief,
the reason of belief.
Let’s go
back and look at the example of formal reasoning with which I began this
sermon, that of five dogs with three heads.
Before a certain age a child cannot get past the absurdity of the
premise of three-headed dogs to work the problem, because he or she cannot yet
adopt the viewpoint of another. The only
viewpoint he or she can use to solve a problem is his or her own, and
experience then makes it clear that dogs can’t have three heads. But suppose the problem doesn’t involve a
three-headed dog? Suppose it involves
accepting that there is someone in this room with you, right now, who knows you
and loves you? Whether you are a young
child or one practiced in formal reasoning, you now have a different problem to
examine. First, you are faced with the
fact that you want there to be someone who knows you and loves you, and so in
looking at evidence you have to be careful to not just engage in wishful
thinking, finding evidence where there is none.
Then you are faced with the fact that unlike a dog having three heads it
is possible for someone to lead you to God, to give you life and truth,
even if you can’t explain how this can happen.
So where does this leave us?
Stuck, saying, “Well, it’s a mystery”?
That’s
where a lot of people stumble, even if they have accepted the possibility of
faith. They stumble because they can’t
accept the testimony of another, whether this other is Jesus, St. Peter, or
their church-going friend. But–and this
is a big “but”–once we can accept the testimony of another then we can get
beyond faith being a mystery to faith being lived; we can get beyond God being
a mystery to God being someone we know and love. When St. Peter says in the epistle that we,
like newborn infants, are to “long for the pure, spiritual milk,” he is saying
that we are to seek the testimony of faith that is offered in the testimony of
the Church, of Scripture, and of all those who know and follow Jesus Christ as
their Lord and Savior. He is saying that
we are to come to God and “let [ourselves] be built into a spiritual house;”
that we can be built, we can grow in faith as we
experience faith. We must be fed by
others first, but then as we gain experience in faith we find that we can
“solve the problem” and find the answer by adopting the viewpoint of another,
the insight of another who tells us that He is the way, and the truth, and the
life.
In the
Gospel Thomas asks Jesus, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” That’s when Jesus says He is the way. Philip then asks Jesus to “show us the
Father,” and Jesus replies “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Like children, the disciples can’t solve the
problem; they can’t understand God because they lack direct experience. In effect Jesus tells them to not get hung up
on the postulate, a premise like “the way to salvation” or “God as Father,” but
to adopt His viewpoint, His experience.
And in adopting this viewpoint and experience the disciples then
experience God themselves, and gain knowledge of Him, to solve what has been to
them a mystery. Like the disciples, we
must first adopt another viewpoint, and accept the postulate stated by Jesus, before we can experience that He is the way, and
experience truth and new life in Him.
Notice that
I just spoke both of viewpoint and knowledge, of reason and experience. We have to be careful to avoid the trap of
ever thinking or acting like a life of faith can be approached as an
intellectual exercise. If we ever treat
faith as a matter of intellect only, we find that faith is as unreal as a
three-headed dog. To make it beyond this
unreal world and into the truth which Jesus promises we have to confront three
barriers. The first is intellectual, and
that is what we’ve been talking about today; growing in faith by adopting the
testimony of others. The second is
experiential and personal; it’s about how we grow by doing, and we have also
talked a little bit about that today.
But the third is social. It’s a
matter of community. It’s about how we
live our faith together, experience our faith together, and build on each
other’s testimony in faith. Getting
through these three barriers involves a journey, but it is a journey for which
we have a guide.
We’re on a
journey and not just wandering. In St.
Peter’s words, “now you have received mercy”.
We are not left groping for truth.
We are not left in life as a zero sum game in which we have to try to
figure out and then effect our own salvation. Now we have the testimony of all those who
have gone before us in faith. Now we have our Lord’s
testimony of what God wills for us. Now
we who have fed on the spiritual milk of faith do grow in salvation, for our
knowledge of salvation grows in our experience of salvation. We can’t show anyone a three-headed dog, but
we can show them a life of faith. We can
walk in the way of salvation and invite all others to walk with us. We can testify to the truth of the kingdom of
heaven. We can testify to abundant life
in Jesus, to Jesus who does answer our prayers when we follow in His steps. We can let ourselves be built into a
spiritual house, knowing that “Unless the Lord
build the house, they labor in vain that build it”
(Ps. 127).
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.