The Call to Union
Sermon preached by the Rev. John Elliott Lein at St. Thomas à Becket Episcopal Church on May 10, 2020, on the following texts: Acts 7:55-60, Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16, 1 Peter 2:2-10, and John 14:1-14. Sermon begins at minute 18:23 in the video recording.
Today’s homily comes to you courtesy of our beloved music director, Bill Haller. He selected Hymn # 487 for our service today, based on the correlation to our Gospel reading from John, then told me he wished that one day I’d preach on it because he couldn’t make sense of the lyrics.
So Bill, this is for you. And thank you for the suggestion, because it has been a fun and rewarding piece to tackle.
Let’s start with two bits of context before we get to the hymn.
First, Jesus’ dialogue here in the Gospel of John: this passage, particularly verse 6, has a long history of interpretation that is not always positive or benign. While this gospel is my own personal favorite if read carefully, it has been used by Christians throughout the centuries to justify horrendous acts of violence against those of other faiths, especially Jews. In this passage, Jesus’ words, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me,” have been used to dogmatically reject and persecute other religious traditions, to claim that we alone have the truth to which others must submit often at the point of torture or death. However, just as John shows us over and over that the disciples frequently mistake Jesus’s meaning by too literal or surface a reading, I hope that we can dig deeper and find a more generous while still devoted reading.
Second, this hymn that we’ll be singing later began as a poem by George Herbert. He was born in Wales in 1593 to a wealthy family. His mother was a devoted patron of the arts, befriending and supporting many including a poet named John Donne. George grew up in a rich intellectual atmosphere and found prominent success as Public Orator of Cambridge and in a brief career in parliament, before retiring and taking up orders as the rector of a small country parish. He was always in ill health, and died three years into his ministry at age 39 with several unpublished manuscripts. Once his collection of poetry called The Temple was published according to instructions in his will, it became an instant success and has been beloved throughout the centuries, influencing many famous poets even today.
The poem which became our Hymn 487 is titled “The Call.” I'll read it for you now.
Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life;
Such a Way as gives us breath,
Such a Truth as ends all strife,
Such a Life as killeth death.Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength;
Such a Light as shows a Feast,
Such a Feast as mends in length,
Such a Strength as makes his guest.Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart;
Such a Joy as none can move,
Such a Love as none can part,
Such a Heart as joys in love.
This poem is obviously structured as a pattern of three sets of three, beginning with the three key words Jesus uses of himself: way, truth, and life.
The first thing to notice is that Herbert has “relativized" the language. Rather than using objective descriptive terms with “the way,” and so on, he speaks relationally to “my way” and then expands on “Such a Way”. It is very intimately personal and devotional rather than objective and universally definitive. This is the language of mysticism, of personal and direct encounter with the divine, rather than that of religious doctrine and dogma.
He addresses his subject with three pleas and and a three-fold expansion of each. Let’s look more closely at each stanza.
When Herbert asks, "Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life,” he follows up by describing a Way that gives breath. In the Hebrew tradition, the word “ru’ach” means both breath and spirit. Here he is playing with the double meaning of life and the Holy Spirit, that Breath of God which Jesus promises his disciples in another section of this same long conversation in the gospel.
The Truth he desires is one that ends strife. Strife is “heated, often violent conflict.” I think in this context it’s referring to an inner state rather than an outer context. For him, truth is that which resolves division; between human and human, human and nature, human and God. The mystic tradition often points to the necessary resolving of a false dualisms, of recognizing that our perception of distance from God is an illusion rather than an actual truth. Of accepting the truth that we have always been forgiven, always been loved, always been connected.
And this results in a life beyond the shadow of death that hangs over us. ** *
The second stanza begins, “Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength.” In the lines which follow, we see how interconnected and constructive these elements are. The Light reveals the Feast; the Feast renews; the Strength makes “a guest.”
To mend something has the connotation again of reuniting two torn halves, to stitch together something that was originally whole. It is only after this that the strength is granted for the protagonist to become a guest; one who sits at a seat of honor and partakes in the banquet with the host. No more is this one refusing to consider themselves unworthy to be at table, but joyfully accepts the invitation from God knowing now that they are truly loved and wanted.
And the third and final stanza reflects that sense of completion as the poet calls “ Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart.” The building emphasis resolves to clarity: the call is about reuniting, union, connection. It is a state which is independent of circumstance; immovable, indivisible. For Herbert, the telos, the goal, of the Way of Christ is a Heart which is fulfilled in love and joy.
So here are the two things I’m taking away from this reading.
First, if we decide to read Jesus’ words the way Herbert does, we find a whole different layer to their meaning. Remember, in our Gospel selection Jesus is directly addressing questions from his beloved disciples. This is personal, not objective. It is language of devotion.
When someone says "my child is the most beautiful”, or “my hamster is the best” we know they are not making a scientific claim that they expect to stand up to peer review. This is the language of love; affirming devotion in relationship. In the same way, we Christians can affirm and follow Jesus exclusively as our life-giving Way, our unifying Truth, our death-dismissing Life, while still celebrating and affirming somewhat-parallel yet distinctly-different devotions and practice from our neighbors in Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and others.
Second, what George Herbert has outlined for us could be perceived as a three-fold path to undoing that eternal tragedy we call “the Fall,” our separation from God. The steps are:
To ENTER into the Spirit which gives life, ends internal strife, and destroys the power of death.
Then to REST at the Feast revealed by Light, where our tears are mended so we are finally able accept the invitation as guest of God.
And finally to be in UNION; immovable, indivisible, rooted in the Heart with joy and love.
I wonder also if the poet intended these three sections to be metaphorically addressing three aspects of what it means to be human. First our Mind must be healed; the Spirit comes to resolve our mental turmoil and to release our bondage to the fetters of death consciousness. Second, our Body needs wholeness, to allow ourselves to accept healing and the desire of the Holy for ourselves who so often feel unworthy. And third, our Heart, the center of where human meets God, can be our center of being and going out into the world.
For Herbert, as for many mystics, the barrier between God and man is one that we insist on and which God desires to release us from. To be a mystic is to seek direct, unmediated connection to God. And in John’s Gospel, that’s exactly what Jesus is trying to get across to his disciples. Philip tells Jesus, “Well, just show us the Father then, so we can be happy,” and I can just hear Jesus sigh. “You’ve seen me, who is so deeply interconnected with the Father that there is no division between us. I have shown you this way; now walk it.”
So as we close today, let’s think on these things which Herbert has proposed in his poem which we will shortly sing as a hymn:
That our devotion to the depth of the Christian path does not require dismissal or abuse of others,
And that the Way of Jesus, that which offers Truth and Life, is a journey inward toward wholeness, through the mending of the division of sin and coming to true belief at our deepest core that we are loved and desired as God’s companions at the Feast, with a Heart full of Joy and Love.
AMEN.
