May 10, 2020     Father Peter Gideon
Homily for Fifth Sunday of Easter
 
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still, and trust in me.”
 
The car was packed, children were belted in and the parents took their places in the front two seats, ready to set off on the family summer holiday. When the car had moved a few feet to the end of the drive, the mother asked jokingly, “Which way shall we go, right or left?” The youngest shouted from the back, “I don’t even know where we’re going, so how could I know the way?” Everybody laughed and the journey continued. The child didn’t know the holiday destination or the route but trusted that the parents would bring the family to a lovely place where they would be accommodated safely and could enjoy their holiday together.
 
In today’s Gospel, Thomas is like that young child. He asks a very similar question after Jesus has spoken to the disciples about leaving them and about preparing a place for them to follow. Jesus will soon be executed. He is preparing them for the traumatic shock they will soon experience and these are among his final words before his death. Thomas was one of the bemused disciples. He was trying to trust Jesus’ words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still, and trust in me,” but Thomas didn’t really understand what Jesus was talking about. Jesus calls his disciples back to the fundamental relationship of trust and assures them that he is not abandoning them. Rather, he is returning to his Father, and he tells them that this is also their final destination. There are many dwellings in his Father’s house, and he goes to prepare a place for them, so that they will be with him and dwell with him in his intimate relationship with the Father.
Today’s Gospel reminds us that we can trust in God’s plans for us without knowing the details. An eternal home is being prepared for us. Jesus’ words to the disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled” and “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” are words we can keep in our mind throughout our life journeys.
Like Thomas and Philip in today’s Gospel, there is room in our relationship with God for honest acknowledgement of our confusion, our lack of power, our frustration when our requests seem to go unheard. What young person has not felt this way with parents or teachers? What spouse has not known some turmoil? Who has not had to deal with some bureaucracy and come away with some of these feelings? But in most of those human experiences, trust is not destroyed. We are called to continue to trust and abide in Jesus as we make our life choices. The message for us, as for the first disciples, may well be to look again at the faces before us and see the work of Jesus and the Father. Might we think again about the great works, the blessings that have been accomplished for human healing, delight and peace, and see the Lord at work among us? Since Jesus is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”, we see him in all those places where life is affirmed and appreciated and where truth and love are served.
We live our lives in the physical absence of Jesus and without seeing God. But in the light of Jesus’ promise to his disciples, we can have a great feeling of God’s presence with us and not be afraid. Wherever there is healing, reconciling, life-giving work happening, this is the work of God. Wherever there is life in abundance, Jesus is present.
Peter explains further, in the second reading, that the followers of Jesus are called to be living stones. He describes Jesus as “the living stone… chosen by God and precious to him”; through our communal activity as the Church, we give concrete evidence of the spiritual connection we share, the bond that holds us together, and of the extraordinary source of our very way of being. It is from this place of community that we can, like the first disciples in the Acts of the Apostles, remain obedient to the faith, always filled with the Spirit and wisdom. Each of us has our gifts. Jesus calls on us to be a part of his ministry to the world. We are to be not only as living stones but a “royal priesthood”, singing the praises of God “who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light”.