Logos

Scripture: The Fifth Sunday of Easter, A.D. 2015 B

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The greatest argument for the existence of God is the fact that the universe operates according to rational, intelligible laws. There is reason behind it. And the greatest argument for a high anthropology—for the idea that human beings are important—is the fact that we can, by and large, discern these laws and extrapolate from them. We have the ability to seek out truth. The universe makes sense, and we can make sense of it. That alone is miraculous.

Today Jesus tells us some incredible things. “I am the Vine,” He says; “you are the branches. Abide in Me as I abide in you … Those who abide in Me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from Me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in Me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”

These are powerful words, powerful claims. They point clearly to the uniqueness of Jesus. We can admire other moral leaders and spiritual teachers, but no one would say of Gandhi or Lincoln or even of Buddha, “He is the vine; we are the branches. We can do nothing apart from him.” Jesus is making much deeper claims here.

Some of this must inevitably go against the grain. We hear these words, and they set off alarm bells, don’t they? Because in out postmodern world, the great virtue proclaimed by our society is inclusivity, is it not? To be moral is to be inclusive. Conversely, then, exclusivity is the great vice, the only remaining sin. And Jesus’ words here sound quite exclusive. “Whoever does not abide in Me is thrown away like a branch and withers. Such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” What is Jesus saying here—that anyone who is not a Christian is useless, worthless? What if we fail to abide in Jesus? Will He cast us away, then, as well?

No, clearly not. “We may have boldness on the day of judgment,” writes St. John in this morning’s epistle—the same St. John who wrote this Gospel account. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” If you hear the Gospel as Jesus judging you, Jesus rejecting you, writes John, then you have yet to grasp the fullness of what He’s saying.

In order to make sense of Jesus’ words, not just here but throughout the Gospel of John—“I am the Vine,” “I am the Bread of Life,” “I am the Light of the World,” and so on—we have to dig a little deeper. Like I said, the greatest argument for God’s existence is that the world makes sense. There is meaning behind it, purpose, reason, logic. Every sane person who has ever lived has spent his or her life on a quest, a spiritual quest, to discern the truth of the universe, to discern the meaning of life, the reason behind it all. This goes for philosophers, scientists, poets, priests, explorers, farmers, you name it. Everyone who believes in goodness and truth and beauty is in some way seeking these things out in their lives. And so we are all on a spiritual quest for truth.

The ancient Greeks, who were quite accomplished at thinking things through, called the universe’s underlying order the “Logos.” And Logos means Word—the Word of God—the mind and power of God as He is at work creating a rational world. Logos is where we get words like logic, or biology, or philology, words that have to do with making sense of the world around us, the things around us. In the book of Genesis, one of the first things that Adam does is to catalog the animals. “Cata-logos” means to organize things according to the Word. Adam’s job is to make sense of God’s world. Other cultures have other names for this concept. In China, for example, the Word is not the Logos but the Tao. Same idea.

Everyone who seeks truth is seeking the Logos, the meaning of the world, the underlying reason and purpose behind it all. It doesn’t matter if you’re Buddhist or Hindu or Jewish or Muslim or atheist or pagan. We are all part of Creation, all part of God’s plan, and so we all, to one degree or another, abide in the Logos, in the Word of God that creates and orders all people and all things. Does that make sense? I’m trying not to be too heady but John is a thinker.

This, then, is the story of humankind: we are born into a world that has a purpose and that makes sense. We are born with the capability to discern that purpose, which we do to the best of our abilities. Thus arise all philosophies, all religions, all governments, all ideas. We’re all seeking truth. We do not create our own truths, mind you, because that would be self-contradictory. You cannot create your own truth any more than you can create your own mathematics or your own planet or your own mother. But we all seek out the one truth and try to live according to it, to abide in it, as best we can.

When the Bible talks about human beings being God’s stewards and subcreators, it doesn’t mean that we wave our hands and pop things into existence ex nihilo, like God does—though one could argue that fantasy lets us do something like that. Rather, it means that we have the ability to reason, to seek out the truth behind Creation, and when we do that we participate in the Logos, in the Word of God. We participate in God’s act of Creation by abiding in the Logos, living in the truth.

Okay. So if everyone everywhere is seeking the truth behind the world around them—seeking, in effect, the Creator behind the Creation—and if everyone is trying to live out the truth as best we can in whatever circumstance into which we’re born, what difference does it make to be a Christian? Everyone participates in the Logos, knowingly or unknowingly. Everyone abides in the Word of God to some degree or another. So why bother being Christian at all?

Here’s where we get to the very heart of John’s Gospel. John makes it quite clear that the most important thing for a Christian to realize is Who Jesus is. If you understand the claims that Jesus is making about His identity, everything else will fall into place. This is why John’s Gospel focuses on what we call the Seven Signs. John says that Jesus performed so many miracles and wonders that if you wrote them all down, all the books in the world we be unable to hold them. But John selects seven—just seven—because they are signs that point to Jesus’ true identity. John’s Gospel is also famous for Jesus’ seven “I am” statements, one of which we read today: “I am the Vine; you are the branches.”

Jesus is not just another moral teacher. He is not just one religious leader among many. Surely we can learn great things from Homer and from Buddha and from the Bhagavad Gita. All these people sought the Logos, the Word of God, and I would argue that Christians have a moral duty to learn from other religions. But Jesus isn’t just another religion. Jesus isn’t just another person attempting to discern the Word of God, to find the Logos of Creation. No. Jesus Himself is the Logos. Jesus Himself is the Word of God made Man. He is the reason behind it all. He is the truth for which we have sought. He is the one Who makes sense of everything.

How does John’s Gospel begin?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

All people abide in the Word. All people are created and sustained and loved by God. But those of us who have been claimed by Baptism into Christ’s own death and resurrection have the unspeakable privilege not simply of seeking out the Word of God in the world around us, but to know the Word of God intimately as a Person, as God made flesh, as Immanuel, God-With-Us. We have seen the Word of God; we have touched Him; we have placed our hands into His wounds and witnessed the depth of His self-sacrifice for us and testified to His victory over sin and death and hell.

We have seen the Cross. We have seen the Resurrection. We know the Word of God not as abstract gleanings of the truth but as our very King and Savior and Lord. He is the full revelation of what we have all sought for so very long. And He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life—the Logos, the reason behind it all!

Everyone who seeks the truth already abides in Christ. It is our job, dear Christians, to introduce them to Him face-to-face.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

With compliments to Fr. Robert Barron and the Word on Fire, who inspired this sermon.