I.N.I.

a homily first preached at Christ the King Lutheran Church, Pawling, NY on the 4th Sunday of Easter, 24 April 1994, and based on the Epistle for the week of the 4th Sunday of Easter, 1 John 3:1-2 (also preached at the Concordia College, Bronxville chapel on 28 April 1994)

Dear Friends in Christ,

What do you want to be when you grow up? That’s a question young kids hear a lot. We ask college students the same thing: what are you going to major in? And: what are you doing after graduation? And at least some of us professors ask ourselves the same question every once in a while.

There’s a lot of tension and anxiety over formulating the right answer to this question. What’s an elementary school student to do if the occupation that sounds interesting is one traditionally filled by members of the opposite gender? What are college students to do if their major leads to a field of employment that isn’t hiring many people these days, or that doesn’t appear to pay enough (whatever that is)?

We can’t always see far enough ahead into the future to make predictions about our own futures that will work out with certainty. What’s true in the area of academic majors and job choice is certainly true in other areas of our lives.

Our vision of the future is clouded. There isn’t any answer in astrology or Tarot cards or transcendental meditation. Looking for clues to the future in Nostradamus or fortune cookies is a waste of time. Our view of eternity can’t be focused through any of these skewed lenses. People have naturally-occurring spiritual cataracts clouding their vision. The quack medicine of these popular, but ineffective, ways of trying to discern the future cannot remove the cataracts.

I would go further and say that our vision of the present is also quite clouded. As a rule, we can’t see the way things really are any more than we can see what will happen in the future.

How many times have you found yourself misunderstanding the words or intentions of the people you live with? How often have your own motives been misinterpreted by those you love?

Every once in a while we find ourselves really “in sync” with someone; and those times stand out because that kind of depth of understanding is so rare between people. For the most part we don’t reach that level of sensitivity and empathy with other people.

Nation states have the same difficulties as they try to negotiate peaceful settlements to international crises. Labor and management struggle with achieving a unified view of the economic realities of their industry or business. On some campuses, at some times, there have been major problems between students and faculty with achieving an understanding of present realities. (Here, I think, most of our problems along this line are individual, where a faculty member just can’t make the subject matter clear to a student, or a student simply can’t get a professor to accept his or her grasp of the topic.)

Our most significant and far—reaching problem with vision is a clouded vision of Jesus. My guess is that most of us walk around with fuzzy, Emmaus disciple vision. You remember how these two disciples walked a long way with the Lord, talking with Him, explaining their plight to Him, listening to His opening of the Scriptures, and yet they did not recognize Him as the one whose death they mourned.

He was right in front of them, and they didn’t know it. He spoke to them and they didn’t hear it.

Now, if the Lord’s teaching about the last judgment is true (the one where He taught about the dividing of the sheep from the goats, and tells them that when they did (or didn’t do) an act of kindness ‘to the least of these,’ they were doing it to Jesus) if this is true–and there’s absolutely no reason to suggest that it isn’t true–then each of us confront Jesus daily in ‘the least of these’ around us. And chances are that often we don’t recognize Him. Our vision of the Lord is clouded.

How can we get around this failure of vision? How should we deal with the fuzzy focus that clouds our vision of the way things are, of the future, and of our Lord?

Like so many other issues and questions, this one draws me back to some basic things. I believe that the first answer is that we need to continue to rely on the promises of Scripture. This is the source for our knowledge about things beyond our experience. While the Word of God is not a book of formulas and fortunes designed for each of us to use to answer academic and career choices, neither is it without relevance. The Scriptures reveal principles and themes by which God wants us to live under his grace.

We also rely on the power of Baptism that is ours by God’s promise. The waters of Baptism wash us clean of sin. In the same way that washing in the pool of Siloam at Jesus’ command gave sight to a man born blind (John 9:1—12), our sight is cleared up when we daily plunge ourselves under the waters of Baptism. Relying on the forgiveness that is ours in Baptism, we become daily “more gentle, patient, and meek… more free from greed, hatred, envy, and pride.” (Large Catechism, Tappert 445:67) This clears our vision so that we can see Jesus more clearly, so that we can understand what he wants us to do, so that we can discover how he wants us to live.

We listen to Jesus, our Good Shepherd. We leave our hearts open to the working of his Holy Spirit. We are his.

These things bring us to a state of joyful submission, of calm assurance regarding our future state. God works in our lives now. We see that in relationships we have. We see it in the providential knitting together of circumstances in our lives. We can easily translate our experience with God’s working in our lives now to an understanding that he will continue to work in us in the future.

While we can’t always see where we are headed, we can know that we will be safe in the Lord’s hands. While we can’t always know where our career paths will lead, we can know that a work life developed in tune with God’s desires for us will be fruitful and fulfilling. We can judge career decisions against the basic commands of God that we love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind; and that we love our neighbors as ourselves.

Most importantly, our ultimate end is kept safe for us in the hands of our loving God. We know this from His promises in the Scriptures. Our curiosity wants more, but unfortunately it can’t have more.

At present we cannot know all the details of what will be. We cannot unravel all the details of what our lives in Heaven will be like. When John writes here in our text that “what we will be is not yet known,” he has a bigger picture in mind than our choice of courses for next year, or the selection of our career path. He has our eternal destiny in mind.

Our basic hope for eternity is the same as the men in Jerusalem during Holy Week who came to Philip (John 12:21)–we would like to see Jesus. It’s a reflection of a basic human desire that’s been expressed throughout history. Peoples of all cultures want to confront God. The pervasive sinful condition of all individuals, however, has kept us from doing that. When we see Jesus at the resurrection, our joy and our forgiveness will be complete.

At this point, we still don’t know what we will be when we are all grown up in the Lord. It’s enough to know that we will eventually see Jesus face—to—face. There’s comfort there. There’s peace. There’s assurance. There’s joy.

Jesus died and rose to life in order to give us the assurance of eternal life. It’s ours and, as the saying goes, the rest is just details. AMEN

And may the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

S.D.G.