Readings: Acts 6:1-7; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
I don’t know, Jesus.
That’s kind of a big ask.
I mean… easier said than done.
There is a lot for our hearts
to be troubled about at the moment.
Some are troubled at the thought
that many, many more people will die
before we have a vaccine
or effective treatment for Covid-19.
Some are troubled at the thought
that each passing day of shutdown
does more damage to people’s livelihoods
and will lead to years of poverty and lost opportunity.
Some in the first group are troubled
that people in the second group
are troubled over what they are troubled about
and some in the second group are troubled
that people in the first group
are troubled over what they are troubled about,
but most of us manage to be troubled about both things,
we humans being experts in multitasking anxiety.
Trouble is laid upon trouble
in a noxious layer cake of fear,
and though our current anxieties may be
unique to this historical moment,
humans have been feeding on fear for millennia.
So when Jesus says, “do not let your hearts be troubled”
he is speaking to the human condition
that we share with those who first heard his words.
We shouldn’t forget that Jesus is speaking to his disciples
on the night of his arrest,
and while they do not know exactly what will happen,
they know something is happening,
and it is likely going to be bad.
Troubled hearts come
from not knowing the path forward.
So before they can heed Jesus’ exhortation
to free their hearts from trouble,
they want to know where all of this is headed.
For, they think, until they know that,
they cannot leave that place of troubled hearts
where they are mired.
When Jesus promises that they will be with him
in the Father’s eternal dwellings,
Thomas—ever the skeptic—
says, “we do not know where you are going;
how can we know the way?”
But the whole point of faith
is that you can know the way
without knowing the destination.
Faith, as the Letter to the Hebrews says,
is “evidence of things not seen.”
Thomas Aquinas says that not seeing faith’s object
is what distinguishes faith from knowledge.
There remains a difference
between one who is journeying
and one who has arrived,
between what Thomas Aquinas called a viator
and a comprehensor,
between one living by grace
and one living in glory.
We know in our bones that we have not yet arrived.
We feel it is the exhaustion and anxiety and irritation
of these past two months.
We hear it in cranky children and adults,
in hurled insults and accusations.
We see it in mounting deaths rates
and unemployment statistics.
This is life on the way,
not life in the heavenly homeland.
And the way is the way of the cross.
Faith, which knows the unseen,
clings to the promise that we will arrive.
But we don’t know,
can’t know,
how long we will have to endure the way.
Our destination will take us by surprise,
like a thief in the night.
We have no map,
only a path before us to follow.
But still our hearts should not be troubled,
even in the midst of troubles,
because to turn to Christ in faith,
to set out upon his way of grace,
is to know the God who will be our glory.
The stunning claim of Christianity
is that in Jesus Christ
our destination has become the way
and the way has become our destination.
The instant we set our feet upon that road
we have in a real sense arrived at our homeland:
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
We know this too in our bones.
We feel it in those moments of peace and consolation
that fall upon us when we have no reason
to feel peaceful or consoled.
We hear it in words of kindness and encouragement
that can come from unexpected quarters.
We see it in the faces of friends who love us
and of strangers who evoke our compassion.
Faith is an odd dwelling together
of knowing and not-knowing.
Faith directs us to our unseen destination,
but it also sees the destination in the way,
sees the Father revealed in the Son through the Spirit,
sees just enough to take another step
sees by grace the hints of glory.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
It’s a big ask, these days in particular.
But the call of faith is nothing if not audacious.
We are on the way of faith,
and it is the way of grace that leads to glory.
May God continue to lead us on this path
and may God have mercy on us all.
