Fuhgeddaboudit

 John 14

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 

And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. 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.” Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.

 

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. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. 

I’ve preached this text a lot!  About five times more at funerals than on Sundays though.  I met with a guy once to proof the bulletin for his brother’s funeral and the man’s face sank as he read this Gospel.  I asked what was wrong.  He said, “Well, I haven’t been to church in about 60 years but back then you got a mansion.  What happened to the mansion?”  I told him it was because too many people, like you, stopped coming to church so they had to cut back.  Okay, I didn’t tell him that.  I actually tried to undo that picture in his head and tell him that Old English “mansion” was really any kind of home, but it wouldn’t work. 

Nothing worked.  In fact, it worked just as well as me saying to you “Do NOT think about a green alien!”  You’re thinking about a green alien right now, aren’t you?  Now, whatever you do, DON’T think about his antennae.  You just did it!  You added antenna!  Even though I told you not to! 

The truth is, the human brain doesn’t UN-THINK things very well AT ALL… BUT it can mentally ADD stuff, say, purple spots on a green alien, in a split second… see you just did that too, didn’t you?  But just try and STOP thinking about it for even a few seconds.  Yeah.  It turns out there’s not a very good reverse gear in the old noggin.  Smarter people than me call this “framing.”  We humans easily add new “frames” to the pictures in our minds.  But once a frame is there, it’s nearly impossible to take it out.  That’s why when something bad happens and someone says, “Just forget it!”  It NEVER works.  That’s why when people say, “Let’s not talk about that terrible thing and maybe it will go away!”  It NEVER goes away!  Instead, it just adds a “guilty of thinking about it” frame to that memory as well.  Not helpful.  

BUT, by adding frames, our minds can see things in new ways, find new meaning, purpose and reshape our lives going forward.  In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Professor Lupin teaches his class how to fight a magical creature called a bogart.  A bogart is a shape shifter and they take on the shape of the thing you fear the most.  The way to fight a bogart is NOT to try to stop thinking about what you fear.  Instead, the way you fight a bogart is to add a humorous frame to the thing you fear.  One student's greatest fears was professor Snape, so he imagined Snape in a new “frame” wearing his grandmother’s clothes. Another student's greatest fear was spiders, so when the bogart turned into a giant spider, he added the frame of it with roller skates on each of it’s eight legs.  

Jesus did just that in this lesson.  He added new frames, one after another like little stepping stones to get the disciples to see new possibilities even in something as horrible as his death.  Remember, this lesson takes place in the upper room on the night of the Last Supper.  Jesus had just washed their feet, predicted Judas would betray him, and given them the new commandment to “love one another.”  But Jesus didn’t ask the disciples to stop thinking about his impending death.  That would have been impossible. Instead he began to add new frames, which began to give his death new meaning.  With those new frames, he began to show them that somehow his death would prepare a place for everyone.  The Disciples worried that they would get lost! Jesus didn’t tell them to STOP worrying.  Instead he added another frame, telling them that they won’t have to find it. Jesus himself would return to lead them there himself.  STILL worried that they would never be able to make it to that promised mansion or even a crappy little dwelling place, Jesus adds yet another frame, asking them to simply focus on putting one foot in front of the other, one Jesus-like step and then another, always toward the truth, just as Jesus did throughout his life.  Then, step after step after step they would eventually discover the truth… that they ALREADY had a place in God’s heart and walking this way would reveal the truth that a life immersed in God's infinite love was already theirs.  

All of us have a place prepared for us deep within God’s loving and compassionate heart!  A place where each of us were lovingly placed in our Baptisms… a place we already live… whether or not we realize it.  We help one another realize this truth… the truth that all of us, already rest safely in God’s embrace… by walking together in the world the Jesus way.  

This life of ours can get pretty dark from time to time and our brains aren’t made to simply forget the darkness.  Instead we need to follow Jesus’ lead and add frame after frame of light on top of the darkness.  We can do it for ourselves, but we can also do that for one another.  Even that little seemingly insignificant little frame you add can be an incredible gift reminding them of their place deep within God’s heart.  Then add another and another until they see, not darkness ahead, but a dive ever deeper into God’s eternal love.  Amen.