September 7, 2025 • 30 mins
Context Matters, with Rev. Dr. Ken Evers-Hood.
A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: John 14:1-11.
Join us this Sunday as Rev. Dr. Ken Evers-Hood shares a powerful message about trust, hope, and finding meaning in challenging times. We welcome everyone – online or in-person. Come as you are.
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We call this kind of faith “Spacious Christianity.” We don’t ask anyone to sign creeds or statements of belief. The life of faith is about a way of being in the world and a faith that shows itself in love.
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Keywords:
Inter religious dialog, Vatican, Cyprian Concilio, friendship, faith traditions, scriptural interpretation, context, Jesus’ statement, disciples, trust, faith, resurrection, uncertainty, Stanley Fish, Keep off the grass., presbyterian, church, online worship, bend, oregon
Featuring:
Rev. Dr. Steven Koski, Rev. Sharon Edwards, Becca Ellis, Brave of Heart, Guests
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Whitney Higdon (00:00):
You announcer, welcome to worship at First
(00:38):
Presbyterian. We at FirstPresbyterian practice a spacious
Christianity, which means nomatter where you are in your
faith journey, you belong, andthere is space for you at the
table, there is space for yourdoubts and questions. We believe
doubts and questions are a giftthat invite us into deeper
conversations and a moreauthentic faith. We believe
diversity is a strength. Everystory is sacred and everybody
(01:02):
matters. We do our best to livethe spacious and radical love of
Jesus so that all might have achance to flourish in this
world. We are so glad to connectwith you in this way. We would
also love to worship with you inperson if you're ever in the
neighborhood on Sunday morningsat 830 or 10am and never
hesitate to reach out to us tolearn more about us or how we
(01:23):
might support You. I hope youenjoy this worship service.
Welcome.
Ken Hood (06:08):
I had the great honor and privilege of interviewing
father Cyprian Concilio thissummer. He is the new Secretary
General, the new head of interreligious dialog for monastics
in the Vatican, meaning Cyprian,is in charge of all of the inner
religious dialog, mostly betweenmonastics, but it means every
(06:31):
day of his year, week in andweek out, what he is doing is
crafting spaces, creating spacesfor people from different
religious traditions, to sitdown, to come together, share
their faith and learn from eachother. And to me, it just that
sounds like the most amazing jobin the world. And I got to sit
(06:53):
down with him. And one of thequestions I asked Cyprian was,
how do you know if what you'redoing is working, you know? How
do you know if you're on theright track? How do you measure
success when it comes to interreligious dialog? And he laughed
at that, and he's like, we don'treally use the word success a
whole lot, like in a businessway, he said, but if I were to
(07:18):
answer your question in oneword, and he said something that
just really surprised me. Hesaid friendship that we would
evaluate whether our efforts arefruitful faithful, if we're
building better friendshipsacross the divide of people who
think about God differently. Hesaid, Imagine, imagine imagine
(07:42):
if all of the people who thinkabout God believe in God, but in
slightly different ways. Imagineif, instead of hating one
another, fearing one another andbeing so divided against one
another, what if? What if weactually linked arms and
combined our efforts? What ifall of the people of faith in
(08:02):
the world saw one another as asfriends. He said, that's, that's
what I dream of. And I found myheart swelling as he was talking
about this, thinking, yeah,that's, that's what I dream
about too. But then, as I'msitting interviewing this man
(08:26):
whose entire work, all of hiswork, is about sitting down with
people from other faithtraditions and finding common
ground, I couldn't helpremembering where I came from. I
grew up between Dallas and FortWorth in Texas in the 80s, and
the kind of Christianity, thespecies of Christianity that I
(08:49):
grew up around in Texas, was notat all interested in what
Cyprian was, sitting down withPeople from different beliefs,
different backgrounds andfinding common ground. In fact,
the Christianity I grew up withwas really suspicious. Even you
know, of other Christians thatdidn't believe in the same
(09:11):
things that maybe we did or thegroup did, none of this sense of
generosity. And there was oneverse that I heard as a young
person again and again andagain, and it's the verse we
read for this morning. It'sJesus saying, I am the Way, the
(09:32):
Truth and the Life. There is noone that comes to the Father
except through me. And I canremember growing up in Texas,
and I'm someone who I lovedTaoism. I loved what Taoism has
become, and Zen Buddhism. I wasfascinated with the ways that I
experienced God showing up, notjust in Christianity, but in
(09:54):
other faith traditions, but if Iwere talking too loudly about
this around i. Certain kinds ofChristians, if I were, if I were
too excited about what I wasperceiving to be this truth
coming in a strange form,someone would would rush over to
me and very quickly remind me ofthis verse and say something
(10:16):
like, but hey, you know, don'tyou remember what Jesus said?
I'm the Way, the Truth and Life.
No one comes to the Father, butthrough me. And it was always
like that. It was said veryfast, with a bit of an edge, I
am the Way, the Truth and theLife. No one comes to the
Father, but through me. And Ifound myself sitting with
(10:37):
Cyprian, on the one hand, reallyexcited about what he was
talking about. My heart warmingand enlarging, and then at the
same time, remembering back tohow I grew up and hearing that
verse in my head. And I have toadmit, it certainly sounds like
Jesus himself isn't superexcited about what Cyprian or I
(10:57):
am curious about in other faithtraditions. In fact, it sounds
like he's downright opposed toit. But is he? One of the things
I suspect, that you have learnedabout scriptural interpretation,
one of the most key, importantthings you've learned about
(11:17):
scriptural interpretation iscontext right context, read a
little bit before the textyou're interested in. Read a
little bit after, becauseunderstanding the context right
that can help you understandeverything that you need to know
about the text itself and facts.
In fact, if you change or shiftthe context, you can shift or
(11:41):
change the entire meaning.
There's a guy named Stanley Fishstanfish, who was at Yale for a
long, long time. He was aprofessor in law and in English,
and he wrote a book called, isthere a text in this class? Is
there a text in this class? Andhe gave this memorable example
where he said, Imagine a textlike, keep off the grass. Right,
(12:03):
take, keep off the grass. Let'ssay you have keep off the grass
and you put this on a sign, andyou put this sign in your front
yard, in front of your home. Nowit's pretty evident, pretty
clear what it is you mean whenyou have keep off the grass on a
sign in front of your house,right? It probably means, if
(12:24):
you're somewhere, like, I livein the Portland area, it
probably means like, hey, youknow, stop walking on my grass.
I'm trying to, trying to getthis lawn looking decent. I did
have a thought that if you werein Bend, it could have a
slightly different meaning,right? If you're someone who
zero escapes and bend, you couldput a sign that says, Keep off
the grass in your in your rockyfront, I don't know, not really
(12:47):
a yard, but as a as a word toother bend folks, right to say,
Hey, quit putting grass down.
Keep off the grass. Let's savethe water for something,
something useful. Stand fish,though, Stan fish had another
idea in mind. He said, If youtake this phrase, keep off the
(13:07):
grass, and if you take it up outof your your lawn, and you put
it say on the wall in a drugrehab facility, right, if you
put it under the wall of a 12step group, keep off the grass.
It has a completely, radicallydifferent meaning to the text,
doesn't it? Right? It means,let's give the cannabis a break,
(13:31):
right as we're trying torecover. Now, he would say,
what's the actual meaning of thephrase, keep off the grass?
There isn't any he says, themeaning of the phrase shifts
depending on the context, right?
So the context itself is what'sgoing to tell us what the words
(13:52):
in question have meaning. Sowhen Jesus says, I am the Way,
the Truth and the Life. There isno other way to the Father but
through me. What's the contextin which he's saying this? Have
you ever given that any thoughtI know the implied context, the
assumed context that those folksin Texas were always imagining
(14:15):
was the case when they werehurling this phrase at me, the
assumed context is somethinglike father Cyprian inter
religious dialog, right? They'reimagining that Jesus said these
words when he was sitting downin the midst of a whole bunch of
people from differentbackgrounds and traditions. And
people are trying to figure out,well, which path to follow,
(14:37):
right? And maybe someone, maybea Buddhist, stands up, or Buddha
himself stands up and says, I'mthe Way, the Truth in the life.
But then, then he sits downsomebody else, maybe Shiva or or
Ganesha, my favorite of thegods, the elephant headed God,
the remover of obstacles. Maybe,maybe he stands up and says, I'm
(14:58):
the Way, the Truth. Truth andthe Life, until finally, God
after God, or tradition aftertradition, gets done, and then
Jesus, at the end, stands up andsays, No, I am the Way, the
Truth and the Life. There's noway to the Father, but through
me. And that's to me always theassumed context, right? That
Jesus is in this inner religiousdialog, and he has no room, no
(15:23):
room for our sense that Godmight be speaking to us in other
traditions. But is that theactual context? Yeah, not even
close, yeah, if we actually readthe scriptures. We read the text
the Biblediscloses an extremely different
(15:47):
context. The text in questionhere, it starts actually a
little bit before 14. It startsat the end of 13, and then goes
all through, all through 14. Thefirst thing that I want you to
notice is that Jesus isn'taddressing anyone but his
followers. Alright, there'sthere's noone from another
(16:07):
tradition, no one who'squestioning about Jesus. The
only people Jesus is talking toare His disciples, the people
who left everything, their homesand families, to follow after
Him. And none of them in thistext, are wondering, it is,
should we keep following Jesus?
I mean, there's Mithras, there'sthese other options. No, that's
(16:29):
that's not in question. Jesusnumber one, it's not an inter
religious dialog. He's onlytalking to the people who have
followed him his whole life. Sowhat? What's the what's the
question? Well, at the end of13, we find out that Jesus is
telling his disciples a hardtruth, uh, he's saying, I'm
(16:50):
going to be leaving you, andwhere I'm going, you cannot
follow. And he's saying thiswith a sense of and it's going
to be okay, right? I'm leavingyou where I go. You cannot
follow and it's gonna be okay.
Peter's the first to jump in andsay, Hey, this is upsetting,
right? Just take me. Just, justtake me. I'll come along. I
(17:14):
would die for you. He says,Jesus responds, Peter, you would
die for me a time is coming whenyou were going to deny that you
even know me, not once, butthree times. Peter, put your
hand. Put your hand down. RightI'm leaving. Jesus says, and
(17:35):
where I'm going, you cannot comeand it's going to be okay.
Thomas is next. He's the focusin our text today, and he's
upset. This isn't okay, right?
Jesus says, Hey, I'm going to begoing away and preparing a place
for you, and I'll come back andyou, you know the way. And
Thomas says, we don't know theway. We don't know where you're
(18:00):
going. Jesus. How could we knowthe way? All Thomas is wanting
is an answer. He wants to knowwhere Jesus going. He wants a
map. He wants some certaintythat he can hold on to and know
that it's going to be okay. Andit is. It is to that desire for
(18:20):
certainty, right? That Jesussays, Hey, Thomas, I am the way.
I am the truth. I am the life.
No one gets to the father. Noone's going to get through this,
right, except through me. WhatJesus is really saying to Thomas
is no Thomas saying, We don'tknow where you're going. We want
to know. We want something wecan hang our hat, and we want
(18:43):
something certain. And Jesussays, no, no, you have to trust.
This is what faith is about. I'mgoing away. You're not going to
be able to see me. I will becoming back, and you just have
to trust it's going to be okay,right? That's what this text
(19:05):
means. It isn't about interreligious dialog. It's not about
not finding truth in otherpaths. Oh, that's fine. Now this
is about Jesus saying, I'm goingto go away and you, you won't
know where I am. You can't seeme, and you just have to trust
me and the disciples. It's notokay. We, we want to know and
man, I, I sympathize with them.
(19:30):
I, I feel like that almost everymorning these days, as I wake up
and I, I try to wade through thenews the world that we're living
in right now, politically,ecologically, you name it,
there's so much change happeningso fast, so many things that I
cared about and and loved arebeing dissolved or changed or
(19:54):
shifted. And I have parts thatare like, Jesus, where are you
in? In all of this, where areyou? What is happening? I would,
I would like to be able to knowthat you're here. I would love
to be able to know that it'sgoing to be okay and and this is
when I hear these words fromJesus whispering in my in my
(20:19):
ear, you know, I don't get toknow that everything's gonna be
okay. Jesus is the way. Jesus isthe truth. Jesus is the life.
And there's no way through this.
There's no way through thefather, except through him,
except through trusting in Him.
Faith. Faith means we don'tknow, right? If we knew if we
(20:40):
had certainty, we wouldn't needto have faith. We know what our
faith is about when we exist ata time of uncertainty. I want to
leave you with a poem I wrotefor a friend of mine. He's a
pastor, and he went through aperiod of extreme doubt. We were
(21:03):
coming up on Easter and we werein this Bible study, and he's
like, how am I supposed topreach the resurrection when I
don't I don't even know what Ibelieve. We at least, did not
try to, you know, solve thisfriend and give him some some
pat answer. We just sat there inthe silence We sat there and the
uncertainty, and felt it withhim. But what I saw in the next
(21:27):
couple of months, as hecontinued to wrestle, I kept
seeing him show up. I keptseeing him care for his people.
I kept seeing him preach as wellas he could. I kept seeing him
show up and enter into life,even when he didn't know what
was happening. And I realized
Unknown (21:45):
that's That's what faith is, right?
Ken Hood (21:49):
Faith is entering into this life, not when it's obvious
that Jesus is with us andeverything's going to work out,
but when it's not obvious. Thisis called resurrection is not an
argument. Resurrection is not anargument. It is not a belief to
which you might agree or not andmove on unchanged. Resurrection
(22:15):
is a weed, her roots crackinginto concrete. Resurrection is
The Thin Man white shirt, facingdown four machines of war
vulnerability. His only weapon.
Resurrection is the mountainHemlock fighting through rhyme
ice growing sideways, stunted bythe howling winds, but growing
(22:35):
anyway. And resurrection is youshowing up one more time to a
place you know you don'tunderstand, hoping that she is
right when she says you neverdisappoint. Resurrection is not
an argument. It is a song sungin another tongue that somehow
still brings tears to flow.
(22:56):
Resurrection is the warm handfinding your shivering shoulder
on the coldest night after youhave turned away. Resurrection
is not an argument. Resurrectionis life and is stepping into
life when all you know forcertain
Unknown (23:16):
is the shadow of death.
Whitney Higdon (27:36):
Thank you so much for joining us, and we hope
you enjoyed this worshipservice. If you would like to
make a donation helping makethese broadcasts possible or
support the many ways, first,Presbyterian seeks to serve our
community, you can make afinancial gift online@bendfp.org
every week, we hear from someonethanking us for the gift of
(27:56):
these broadcasts and what adifference they Make. Your
support makes that possible. Ourchurch is committed to reach
beyond our walls, bringing hopewhere there is despair and love
where it is needed the most.
Your generous support helps usto be generous in love. Go to
our website, bendfp.org, andclick on the link. Give online.
Your support is reallyappreciated and makes a
(28:19):
difference in people's lives.
Thanks again. I hope to see younext week.
You announcer, welcome to worship at First
(00:38):
Presbyterian. We at FirstPresbyterian practice a spacious
Christianity, which means nomatter where you are in your
faith journey, you belong, andthere is space for you at the
table, there is space for yourdoubts and questions. We believe
doubts and questions are a giftthat invite us into deeper
conversations and a moreauthentic faith. We believe
diversity is a strength. Everystory is sacred and everybody
(01:02):
matters. We do our best to livethe spacious and radical love of
Jesus so that all might have achance to flourish in this
world. We are so glad to connectwith you in this way. We would
also love to worship with you inperson if you're ever in the
neighborhood on Sunday morningsat 830 or 10am and never
hesitate to reach out to us tolearn more about us or how we
(01:23):
might support You. I hope youenjoy this worship service.
Welcome.
Ken Hood (06:08):
I had the great honor and privilege of interviewing
father Cyprian Concilio thissummer. He is the new Secretary
General, the new head of interreligious dialog for monastics
in the Vatican, meaning Cyprian,is in charge of all of the inner
religious dialog, mostly betweenmonastics, but it means every
(06:31):
day of his year, week in andweek out, what he is doing is
crafting spaces, creating spacesfor people from different
religious traditions, to sitdown, to come together, share
their faith and learn from eachother. And to me, it just that
sounds like the most amazing jobin the world. And I got to sit
(06:53):
down with him. And one of thequestions I asked Cyprian was,
how do you know if what you'redoing is working, you know? How
do you know if you're on theright track? How do you measure
success when it comes to interreligious dialog? And he laughed
at that, and he's like, we don'treally use the word success a
whole lot, like in a businessway, he said, but if I were to
(07:18):
answer your question in oneword, and he said something that
just really surprised me. Hesaid friendship that we would
evaluate whether our efforts arefruitful faithful, if we're
building better friendshipsacross the divide of people who
think about God differently. Hesaid, Imagine, imagine imagine
(07:42):
if all of the people who thinkabout God believe in God, but in
slightly different ways. Imagineif, instead of hating one
another, fearing one another andbeing so divided against one
another, what if? What if weactually linked arms and
combined our efforts? What ifall of the people of faith in
(08:02):
the world saw one another as asfriends. He said, that's, that's
what I dream of. And I found myheart swelling as he was talking
about this, thinking, yeah,that's, that's what I dream
about too. But then, as I'msitting interviewing this man
(08:26):
whose entire work, all of hiswork, is about sitting down with
people from other faithtraditions and finding common
ground, I couldn't helpremembering where I came from. I
grew up between Dallas and FortWorth in Texas in the 80s, and
the kind of Christianity, thespecies of Christianity that I
(08:49):
grew up around in Texas, was notat all interested in what
Cyprian was, sitting down withPeople from different beliefs,
different backgrounds andfinding common ground. In fact,
the Christianity I grew up withwas really suspicious. Even you
know, of other Christians thatdidn't believe in the same
(09:11):
things that maybe we did or thegroup did, none of this sense of
generosity. And there was oneverse that I heard as a young
person again and again andagain, and it's the verse we
read for this morning. It'sJesus saying, I am the Way, the
(09:32):
Truth and the Life. There is noone that comes to the Father
except through me. And I canremember growing up in Texas,
and I'm someone who I lovedTaoism. I loved what Taoism has
become, and Zen Buddhism. I wasfascinated with the ways that I
experienced God showing up, notjust in Christianity, but in
(09:54):
other faith traditions, but if Iwere talking too loudly about
this around i. Certain kinds ofChristians, if I were, if I were
too excited about what I wasperceiving to be this truth
coming in a strange form,someone would would rush over to
me and very quickly remind me ofthis verse and say something
(10:16):
like, but hey, you know, don'tyou remember what Jesus said?
I'm the Way, the Truth and Life.
No one comes to the Father, butthrough me. And it was always
like that. It was said veryfast, with a bit of an edge, I
am the Way, the Truth and theLife. No one comes to the
Father, but through me. And Ifound myself sitting with
(10:37):
Cyprian, on the one hand, reallyexcited about what he was
talking about. My heart warmingand enlarging, and then at the
same time, remembering back tohow I grew up and hearing that
verse in my head. And I have toadmit, it certainly sounds like
Jesus himself isn't superexcited about what Cyprian or I
(10:57):
am curious about in other faithtraditions. In fact, it sounds
like he's downright opposed toit. But is he? One of the things
I suspect, that you have learnedabout scriptural interpretation,
one of the most key, importantthings you've learned about
(11:17):
scriptural interpretation iscontext right context, read a
little bit before the textyou're interested in. Read a
little bit after, becauseunderstanding the context right
that can help you understandeverything that you need to know
about the text itself and facts.
In fact, if you change or shiftthe context, you can shift or
(11:41):
change the entire meaning.
There's a guy named Stanley Fishstanfish, who was at Yale for a
long, long time. He was aprofessor in law and in English,
and he wrote a book called, isthere a text in this class? Is
there a text in this class? Andhe gave this memorable example
where he said, Imagine a textlike, keep off the grass. Right,
(12:03):
take, keep off the grass. Let'ssay you have keep off the grass
and you put this on a sign, andyou put this sign in your front
yard, in front of your home. Nowit's pretty evident, pretty
clear what it is you mean whenyou have keep off the grass on a
sign in front of your house,right? It probably means, if
(12:24):
you're somewhere, like, I livein the Portland area, it
probably means like, hey, youknow, stop walking on my grass.
I'm trying to, trying to getthis lawn looking decent. I did
have a thought that if you werein Bend, it could have a
slightly different meaning,right? If you're someone who
zero escapes and bend, you couldput a sign that says, Keep off
the grass in your in your rockyfront, I don't know, not really
(12:47):
a yard, but as a as a word toother bend folks, right to say,
Hey, quit putting grass down.
Keep off the grass. Let's savethe water for something,
something useful. Stand fish,though, Stan fish had another
idea in mind. He said, If youtake this phrase, keep off the
(13:07):
grass, and if you take it up outof your your lawn, and you put
it say on the wall in a drugrehab facility, right, if you
put it under the wall of a 12step group, keep off the grass.
It has a completely, radicallydifferent meaning to the text,
doesn't it? Right? It means,let's give the cannabis a break,
(13:31):
right as we're trying torecover. Now, he would say,
what's the actual meaning of thephrase, keep off the grass?
There isn't any he says, themeaning of the phrase shifts
depending on the context, right?
So the context itself is what'sgoing to tell us what the words
(13:52):
in question have meaning. Sowhen Jesus says, I am the Way,
the Truth and the Life. There isno other way to the Father but
through me. What's the contextin which he's saying this? Have
you ever given that any thoughtI know the implied context, the
assumed context that those folksin Texas were always imagining
(14:15):
was the case when they werehurling this phrase at me, the
assumed context is somethinglike father Cyprian inter
religious dialog, right? They'reimagining that Jesus said these
words when he was sitting downin the midst of a whole bunch of
people from differentbackgrounds and traditions. And
people are trying to figure out,well, which path to follow,
(14:37):
right? And maybe someone, maybea Buddhist, stands up, or Buddha
himself stands up and says, I'mthe Way, the Truth in the life.
But then, then he sits downsomebody else, maybe Shiva or or
Ganesha, my favorite of thegods, the elephant headed God,
the remover of obstacles. Maybe,maybe he stands up and says, I'm
(14:58):
the Way, the Truth. Truth andthe Life, until finally, God
after God, or tradition aftertradition, gets done, and then
Jesus, at the end, stands up andsays, No, I am the Way, the
Truth and the Life. There's noway to the Father, but through
me. And that's to me always theassumed context, right? That
Jesus is in this inner religiousdialog, and he has no room, no
(15:23):
room for our sense that Godmight be speaking to us in other
traditions. But is that theactual context? Yeah, not even
close, yeah, if we actually readthe scriptures. We read the text
the Biblediscloses an extremely different
(15:47):
context. The text in questionhere, it starts actually a
little bit before 14. It startsat the end of 13, and then goes
all through, all through 14. Thefirst thing that I want you to
notice is that Jesus isn'taddressing anyone but his
followers. Alright, there'sthere's noone from another
(16:07):
tradition, no one who'squestioning about Jesus. The
only people Jesus is talking toare His disciples, the people
who left everything, their homesand families, to follow after
Him. And none of them in thistext, are wondering, it is,
should we keep following Jesus?
I mean, there's Mithras, there'sthese other options. No, that's
(16:29):
that's not in question. Jesusnumber one, it's not an inter
religious dialog. He's onlytalking to the people who have
followed him his whole life. Sowhat? What's the what's the
question? Well, at the end of13, we find out that Jesus is
telling his disciples a hardtruth, uh, he's saying, I'm
(16:50):
going to be leaving you, andwhere I'm going, you cannot
follow. And he's saying thiswith a sense of and it's going
to be okay, right? I'm leavingyou where I go. You cannot
follow and it's gonna be okay.
Peter's the first to jump in andsay, Hey, this is upsetting,
right? Just take me. Just, justtake me. I'll come along. I
(17:14):
would die for you. He says,Jesus responds, Peter, you would
die for me a time is coming whenyou were going to deny that you
even know me, not once, butthree times. Peter, put your
hand. Put your hand down. RightI'm leaving. Jesus says, and
(17:35):
where I'm going, you cannot comeand it's going to be okay.
Thomas is next. He's the focusin our text today, and he's
upset. This isn't okay, right?
Jesus says, Hey, I'm going to begoing away and preparing a place
for you, and I'll come back andyou, you know the way. And
Thomas says, we don't know theway. We don't know where you're
(18:00):
going. Jesus. How could we knowthe way? All Thomas is wanting
is an answer. He wants to knowwhere Jesus going. He wants a
map. He wants some certaintythat he can hold on to and know
that it's going to be okay. Andit is. It is to that desire for
(18:20):
certainty, right? That Jesussays, Hey, Thomas, I am the way.
I am the truth. I am the life.
No one gets to the father. Noone's going to get through this,
right, except through me. WhatJesus is really saying to Thomas
is no Thomas saying, We don'tknow where you're going. We want
to know. We want something wecan hang our hat, and we want
(18:43):
something certain. And Jesussays, no, no, you have to trust.
This is what faith is about. I'mgoing away. You're not going to
be able to see me. I will becoming back, and you just have
to trust it's going to be okay,right? That's what this text
(19:05):
means. It isn't about interreligious dialog. It's not about
not finding truth in otherpaths. Oh, that's fine. Now this
is about Jesus saying, I'm goingto go away and you, you won't
know where I am. You can't seeme, and you just have to trust
me and the disciples. It's notokay. We, we want to know and
man, I, I sympathize with them.
(19:30):
I, I feel like that almost everymorning these days, as I wake up
and I, I try to wade through thenews the world that we're living
in right now, politically,ecologically, you name it,
there's so much change happeningso fast, so many things that I
cared about and and loved arebeing dissolved or changed or
(19:54):
shifted. And I have parts thatare like, Jesus, where are you
in? In all of this, where areyou? What is happening? I would,
I would like to be able to knowthat you're here. I would love
to be able to know that it'sgoing to be okay and and this is
when I hear these words fromJesus whispering in my in my
(20:19):
ear, you know, I don't get toknow that everything's gonna be
okay. Jesus is the way. Jesus isthe truth. Jesus is the life.
And there's no way through this.
There's no way through thefather, except through him,
except through trusting in Him.
Faith. Faith means we don'tknow, right? If we knew if we
(20:40):
had certainty, we wouldn't needto have faith. We know what our
faith is about when we exist ata time of uncertainty. I want to
leave you with a poem I wrotefor a friend of mine. He's a
pastor, and he went through aperiod of extreme doubt. We were
(21:03):
coming up on Easter and we werein this Bible study, and he's
like, how am I supposed topreach the resurrection when I
don't I don't even know what Ibelieve. We at least, did not
try to, you know, solve thisfriend and give him some some
pat answer. We just sat there inthe silence We sat there and the
uncertainty, and felt it withhim. But what I saw in the next
(21:27):
couple of months, as hecontinued to wrestle, I kept
seeing him show up. I keptseeing him care for his people.
I kept seeing him preach as wellas he could. I kept seeing him
show up and enter into life,even when he didn't know what
was happening. And I realized
Unknown (21:45):
that's That's what faith is, right?
Ken Hood (21:49):
Faith is entering into this life, not when it's obvious
that Jesus is with us andeverything's going to work out,
but when it's not obvious. Thisis called resurrection is not an
argument. Resurrection is not anargument. It is not a belief to
which you might agree or not andmove on unchanged. Resurrection
(22:15):
is a weed, her roots crackinginto concrete. Resurrection is
The Thin Man white shirt, facingdown four machines of war
vulnerability. His only weapon.
Resurrection is the mountainHemlock fighting through rhyme
ice growing sideways, stunted bythe howling winds, but growing
(22:35):
anyway. And resurrection is youshowing up one more time to a
place you know you don'tunderstand, hoping that she is
right when she says you neverdisappoint. Resurrection is not
an argument. It is a song sungin another tongue that somehow
still brings tears to flow.
(22:56):
Resurrection is the warm handfinding your shivering shoulder
on the coldest night after youhave turned away. Resurrection
is not an argument. Resurrectionis life and is stepping into
life when all you know forcertain
Unknown (23:16):
is the shadow of death.
Whitney Higdon (27:36):
Thank you so much for joining us, and we hope
you enjoyed this worshipservice. If you would like to
make a donation helping makethese broadcasts possible or
support the many ways, first,Presbyterian seeks to serve our
community, you can make afinancial gift online@bendfp.org
every week, we hear from someonethanking us for the gift of
(27:56):
these broadcasts and what adifference they Make. Your
support makes that possible. Ourchurch is committed to reach
beyond our walls, bringing hopewhere there is despair and love
where it is needed the most.
Your generous support helps usto be generous in love. Go to
our website, bendfp.org, andclick on the link. Give online.
Your support is reallyappreciated and makes a
(28:19):
difference in people's lives.
Thanks again. I hope to see younext week.
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