Seeing the world through God’s eyes

Jesus said, “the one who believes in me will do the works I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…” (John 14:12) Do you believe that?

I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time believing that some days. Actually, truth be told, I have a hard time believing that most days. I mean—when was the last time I raised the dead or cured a sick person? How about you? What did Jesus mean by that?

There are Christians who take what Jesus says quite literally—when people hear that once upon a time I served in the Diocese of West Virginia, someone might ask me if I ever met a snake-handler. Well, we in the western slopes and river valleys where I lived did not have those groups, who are generally still found in small pockets in the southern coal regions. But, you know what, that mentality is not far from us, even in our sophisticated, tech-savvy days.  There are people who think that the way to emulate Jesus’ power is by trying hard to recreate his miracles. We are many times easily disappointed when things don’t go our way even though we think we are doing everything ‘right.’ And secular scoffers tell us all the time that if we can’t do the miracles that Jesus did, then Jesus is in fact dead, and we are fools.

Well, we are people of faith, not people of magic. And there is more than one way to live out Jesus’ power today. It’s just that we forget that sometimes. We, in fact, live out and surpass Jesus’ works all the time—and don’t even notice.

Allow me to explain.

John’s Gospel this morning puts together Jesus’ words in a series of teachings at the Last Supper. Remember that the Gospel is not a verbatim transcript but is written to Christians sometime after the resurrection of Jesus, in this case sixty to seventy-five years after that. It’s been long enough to see that the Church is in it for the long haul.

Add to that two challenges that continue to this day: First, the Christian Church is a persecuted church that stands outside of the mainstream of the culture, and the Church is a divided Church. Divided between those who seek quick, simplistic, solutions and those who want to reach out into the world in Jesus’ name.

The Gospel is written for us. It is to us and Christians like us that John recalls for us Jesus’ promise that we will do even greater works than even Jesus did himself.

We Christians have a hard time believing that. We feel helpless, we feel lost, we feel ourselves reacting to the world we live in rather than responding to it. Despite the Gallup polls which suggest high levels of religious belief, most of us are at best functional agnostics. Most Americans see our faith as a lifestyle choice in a supermarket of ideas—rather than the way God engages us and changes us in our daily lives. Many people act as if religion is a kind of magic for which we simply lack the right incantations.

The life of faith is a choice—a choice to look at the world through God’s eyes. The choice to listen for God at work in the great and small way that God still speaks to us. And to see that God is working through us and in creation in astounding ways.

Do you believe that we in fact do great things just as Jesus said? Look at what Jesus did and what we do: Jesus taught; we teach. He healed; we heal. He fed; we feed. He transformed; we are being transformed. He challenged; we challenge. He reached out to people beyond his own cultural, ethnic, and religious circle; we reach out to people beyond our own circle living lives often much different than we do. He made faith real to people who were lost; we make faith real to people who are lost.

Every week, we witness a miracle—if we choose to look. Every week we feed hungry people and that, to them, is just as amazing as if we took two fishes and five barely loaves and fed a multitude. In our case, it’s sometimes cans of tomato sauce and lots of pasta.

Every week, we witness a miracle—if we choose to look. Addicted people walk into our building and support each other reach and maintain their sobriety and look to their Higher Power in the process.

Every week, we witness a miracle—if we choose to look. As parents in all kinds of situations—young, old, single, paired, married or not, learn how to raise their children with health, safety, and love.

Every week, in great and small ways, there are people who give themselves to prayer, service, who visit the sick and care for the homebound, who care for the environment, work for justice, who study and listen for God and support each other as they transcend life’s everyday challenges and discover the transforming love of God.

Are you an ethical and just employer? You’re doing a great thing! Do you do your work with integrity and faith? You are doing great thing! Do you make the hard choices to raise your children well? You are doing great thing! Do you give your time to improve the lives of someone, a student, a neighbor, a person in trouble? You are doing a great thing. Do you care for your neighbor, or your sick friend, or give of your substance to forward God’s kingdom? You are doing a great thing. Certainly, by themselves they seem small. Insignificant. But taken together all these things are a mighty force for good that transforms creation, that shows that Christ is alive and well and living amongst us every day.

The temptation is to sit on our thumbs until Jesus returns. The challenge is to trust God enough to put aside the distractions so that what we all do together daily, in great and small ways, demonstrates the transforming power of God in the everyday lives of people like us.

In the Gospel today, Jesus is telling us that we are the living sign of Jesus’ right here, right now. If people want to know what Jesus is up to—look at all of us Christians living his love, experiencing God’s power, and reaching out to the world every day.

Here is the promise: that we who trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior will do greater things than even he did. Here is the challenge: do we believe it?