SPEAKER_00: There are moments in life when we do not need more information.
SPEAKER_00: We need someone we can trust.
SPEAKER_00: A child lost in a crowd does not need a map.
SPEAKER_00: He needs a hand.
SPEAKER_00: A patient waiting for test results does not need a lecture on biology.
SPEAKER_00: She or he needs a doctor who will look them in the eye and tell them the truth.
SPEAKER_00: A family standing at the grave does not need more slogans.
SPEAKER_00: They need hope that they will be stronger than death.
SPEAKER_00: And at the Last Supper, that is exactly where the disciples are.
SPEAKER_00: They are not confused because they lack information.
SPEAKER_00: They are afraid because everything they trusted is about to be shaken.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has just told them that he is leaving.
SPEAKER_00: Judas has already gone into the night.
SPEAKER_00: Peter is about to deny him.
SPEAKER_00: The cross is no longer this distant possibility, but it is just about a couple hours away.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says to them, Do not let your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_00: That line is almost impossible to understand unless we remember who is saying it.
SPEAKER_00: The one going to the cross is the one comforting the ones who will run from it.
SPEAKER_00: That's Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Not man reaching up to God, but God entering the room, sitting at the table, looking into the eyes of frightened people and saying, Trust me.
SPEAKER_00: And then Thomas says, What all of us say when life becomes uncertain?
SPEAKER_00: Master, we do not know where you are going.
SPEAKER_00: How can we know the way?
SPEAKER_00: This is not just Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: This is every human heart.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know the way?
SPEAKER_00: How do I know that I'm making the right decisions?
SPEAKER_00: How do I know that my life is going somewhere?
SPEAKER_00: How do I know that I'm not wasting my time, my love, my suffering, my vocation, my marriage, my family?
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus does not give Thomas a map.
SPEAKER_00: He gives him himself.
SPEAKER_00: I am the way, the truth and the life.
SPEAKER_00: Not I will show you the way, not I will explain this truth to you, not I will point you towards life.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says, I am.
SPEAKER_00: I am the way.
SPEAKER_00: That is the claim that changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: Because Christianity is not first a system of ideas, it's not a moral code, it's not a cultural inheritance, some nice philosophical ideas.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even the first set of beautiful traditions.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is a person.
SPEAKER_00: The way is a person, the truth is a person, the life is a person.
SPEAKER_00: And that means the deepest question of your life is not, what do I believe?
SPEAKER_00: The deepest question is, whom do I trust?
SPEAKER_00: Because everyone trusts someone.
SPEAKER_00: We trust voices we follow.
SPEAKER_00: We trust opinions we repeat.
SPEAKER_00: We trust the fears we obey.
SPEAKER_00: We trust the wounds we let define us.
SPEAKER_00: We trust a culture when it tells us what matters.
SPEAKER_00: We trust success when it promises us an identity.
SPEAKER_00: We trust comfort when it promises us peace.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus stands in the middle of all of that and says, Trust me.
SPEAKER_00: Not because the road will be easy, because I am the road.
SPEAKER_00: That is why he says, In my father's house there are many dwelling places.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what he does not say.
SPEAKER_00: He does not say, in my father's house there will be many ideas.
SPEAKER_00: He does not say in my father's house there will be many theories.
SPEAKER_00: He says there is a house, a home, a place, a father.
SPEAKER_00: That is what the human soul is starving for.
SPEAKER_00: There is spiritual hunger, not just for success, but a home.
SPEAKER_00: Not just for achievement, but a home.
SPEAKER_00: Not just for distractions, but a home.
SPEAKER_00: Not just for applause, a real home.
SPEAKER_00: Every person in this church is trying to have that home.
SPEAKER_00: Some people try to get home through control.
SPEAKER_00: If only I control everything, I will finally be safe in this situation.
SPEAKER_00: Some people try to get home through pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: If I can only feel enough, I will be alive.
SPEAKER_00: Some people try to be home through achievement and things and material wealth.
SPEAKER_00: If only I can have this, then I will finally matter.
SPEAKER_00: Some people try to get home through being through being needed.
SPEAKER_00: If everyone depends on me, then I will finally know who I am.
SPEAKER_00: But none of those things is home.
SPEAKER_00: They are all hotels.
SPEAKER_00: You can't stay for a while.
SPEAKER_00: You can stay for a while, but you can't live there forever.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, I am going to prepare a place for you.
SPEAKER_00: That means your life is not random.
SPEAKER_00: Your suffering is not meaningless.
SPEAKER_00: Your future is not empty.
SPEAKER_00: There is a place prepared for you and in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the hard part.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus is preparing a place for us there, he's also preparing for a place here.
SPEAKER_00: That is where many of us resist him.
SPEAKER_00: We want the comfort of heaven without the conversion of discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: We want Jesus as consolation, but not Jesus as the way.
SPEAKER_00: We want peace, but we do not want to surrender.
SPEAKER_00: We want the Father's house, but we still want to decorate it as our own little kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: That's why this gospel is so powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not simply saying, one day you will have a place in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: If only you're good.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's saying, let me reorder your life.
SPEAKER_00: Let me reorder your life now so you can become the kind of person who can live in the Father's house forever.
SPEAKER_00: That's what holiness is.
SPEAKER_00: Holiness is not some strange way.
SPEAKER_00: Holiness is becoming a home with God.
SPEAKER_00: And then the first reading shows us what that looks like in real time.
SPEAKER_00: In the Acts of the Apostles, we hear that the church is in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: It has its problems.
SPEAKER_00: There's tension, there are complaints, there is neglect.
SPEAKER_00: Some widows have been overlooked.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the church is already the church.
SPEAKER_00: Human, messy, complicated, holy, but not perfect.
SPEAKER_00: And what do the apostles do?
SPEAKER_00: They do not pretend there's no problem.
SPEAKER_00: They do not panic, they do not abandon the mission.
SPEAKER_00: They pray, they discern, and then they call forth new servants.
SPEAKER_00: That's the genius of the church.
SPEAKER_00: The church does not become holy because there are no problems.
SPEAKER_00: The church becomes holy when problems become an invitation to go deeper, into deeper service.
SPEAKER_00: That is a word for every parish.
SPEAKER_00: That is the word for every family.
SPEAKER_00: That is the word for every marriage.
SPEAKER_00: A word for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: Deeper service.
SPEAKER_00: Stop asking for a life with no problems.
SPEAKER_00: Ask for the grace to become holy through the problems.
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes the thing you're complaining about is the very place God is asking you to serve.
SPEAKER_00: The widows were being neglected, and from the wound, from that wound came the deaconate.
SPEAKER_00: From that crisis came Stephen, the first might the first martyr.
SPEAKER_00: From that problem came a group of saints.
SPEAKER_00: That's how God works.
SPEAKER_00: He builds roads through places we thought were dead ends.
SPEAKER_00: Allow yourself to be built into living stones, to become a spiritual house, to become people through whom others can find the way.
SPEAKER_00: So today do not ask God only to show you the way.
SPEAKER_00: Ask him to make you be part of the way for someone else.
SPEAKER_00: Ask him to make your home, your marriage, your friendship, your parish, your words, your wounds, your service into a place where someone else can say, maybe God is real.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe mercy is possible.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I am not lost.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there is a place for me too.
SPEAKER_00: Because there is.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a road, a path, not an idea, not a theory, not a program, a person, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So, my brothers and sisters, he is the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: Do not let your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_00: Trust him.
SPEAKER_00: Follow him.
SPEAKER_00: Let him build you.
SPEAKER_00: And then go out into the world and help someone else find that same road back to the home.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.