Sermon for the Feast of St. Philip and St. James
“Ye believe in God, believe also in me”
The gospel passage for this saints’ day commemoration is part of Jesus’ so-called “farewell discourse” in John’s Gospel from which we have been reading on the last three Sundays of Eastertide. It presents one of the most provocative, most challenging and most controversial, perhaps, of Jesus’ so-called “I am” sayings in John’s Gospel, at least with respect to interfaith dialogue. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
The month of May is ushered in on the steps of the holy apostles, Saint Philip and Saint James, so that “we may steadfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life,” as the Collect puts it.
The readings for The Feast of St. Philip and St. James complement the themes of Eastertide. The fundamental orientation of the Son to the Father is ever so strongly and rather provocatively expressed in the gospel reading, “no man cometh unto the Father but by me,” Jesus says, pointing out to Philip, too, that “he that hath seen me, hath seen the Father.” And yet, Jesus says, “believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very work’s sake.”
The things which Jesus does are the works which manifest the truth and the life and the way of God. And how are we to participate in that? Through prayer. “If ye ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” All prayer is about nothing less and nothing more than asking the Father in the name of the Son by the power of the Spirit. All prayer gathers us into the fundamental orientation of the Son, “because I go unto my Father.” Here again, and providentially, we have the recurring Easter refrain, “because I go to the Father.” Everything is rooted and grounded in the life of God, the holy and blessed Trinity.
