Where Is God? Maybe Right There Beside You

This is a sermon that I preached on Sunday, 5/11/25, at Berkeley Friends Church. The scripture reading for this sermon was: John 10:22-39. You can listen to the audio, or keeping scrolling to read my manuscript. (The spoken sermon differs from the written text.)

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was traveling alone in Central America. I was in Nicaragua, on a bus headed north, towards the border with Honduras, and I had everything I owned with me. All my Nicaraguan currency was in my wallet. Normally, I wouldn’t have carried all that money in my wallet, for safety purposes, but in this case, I was doing so because I was about to leave the country and knew I would need to exchange it all when I got to the border.

Then, once we were out in a rural area, I felt someone press against me as they left the bus and quickly realized that I had just been pickpocketed. I tried to chase the thief to get my wallet back, but they had gotten off the bus quickly, and there was nothing I could do. The big problem was that I hadn’t paid my bus fare yet, so when the bus driver came back to ask me for my fare, I had to explain that I had just been robbed and couldn’t pay.

The bus driver was not concerned about the reasons I could not pay. He was only concerned with whether I would pay or not, and the fact was, I couldn’t. So, the bus driver pulled over and ejected me from the bus in the middle of nowhere, along the side of the highway.

I remember the feeling of desolation that came over me. I felt so abandoned and alone, so helpless. I had no idea what I was going to do, and I sat down by the side of the road and started crying.

After a minute or two, I noticed that there was someone watching me from the fence line. It turns out that this place in the middle of nowhere wasn’t, in fact, the middle of nowhere. A lot of people lived there, in what I would describe as a sort of shanty town – people making do with what they could. Very, very poor people. And there was this woman looking at me from behind the fence. I felt ashamed because I was crying, and I tried to pull myself together as I noticed her approaching me.

The woman asked what was wrong, and I told her that I had been robbed and didn’t have bus fare, so the driver had thrown me out. After a moment, she asked me to wait. When she came back, she gave me money for bus fare. At this point, another bus was passing by, and she hurriedly urged me to get on. So I did. I said thank you – I don’t know how many times I said thank you. I said thank you as many times as I could before I got on the bus and made my way towards the border, towards Honduras.

I can’t even describe how I felt, receiving this act of kindness and care from a person who had never met me and who almost certainly would never see me again. This charity towards me, who came from such a different world than hers and who – under normal circumstances – had so many more resources than she did. Yet at that moment, I was the one in need. I’ve never forgotten her. I’ve never forgotten that moment. Even twenty years later, I feel so profoundly grateful. I pray that God will pay back her and her family a thousand times for what she did for me in that moment of deep need.

That woman by the side of the road in Nicaragua was the mercy of God to me. She was God taking care of me, showing love to me, giving me what I needed when I was vulnerable and lost.

In our reading this morning from the Gospel of John, Jesus is confronted by fellow Jews in the temple who are demanding that he announce that he is the Messiah. They say, “You keep teasing us, you keep hinting at your identity, but say it for us plainly: Tell us directly that you are the Messiah.”

Jesus refuses to give them what they want. He won’t make a flat statement about his Messianic identity. Instead he says, “Look, I’ve already told you, but you didn’t believe. The good deeds that I’ve done in your presence over and over again testify to who I am. What more evidence do you need?”

Unlike the people who are demanding statements and signs from Jesus, Jesus says that those who are his sheep know his voice. The people who belong to Jesus know what his identity is without having to be given a declaration. The people of God can see the works that Jesus does and know that he is from God.

The people assembled there in the temple get ready to stone Jesus because Jesus calls God his father and says, “The Father and I are one.”

As they get ready to attack him, Jesus questions them: “Which of my good works are you about to stone me for?” And the guys holding the stones say, “We’re not going to stone you for doing good works. We’re going to stone you for blasphemy, because you just equated yourself to God.”

So Jesus turns around and says, “You know the Bible itself compares rulers to gods in the Psalms, and so who are you to say that I, who am here doing the works of God, am not God’s son? Who are you to call that blasphemy?”

Jesus goes on to say, “If I’m not doing the works of the Father, then don’t believe me. But if I am doing the works, then believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

Jesus says that his sheep know his voice, and that the works of the Father speak for themselves. It reminds me of a video that I saw recently on Reddit where a guy on a motorcycle sees a man on the overpass above him who looks like he’s about to kill himself by throwing himself off the bridge. The motorcyclist slows down and figures out how to turn around on the side of the highway and make his way back underneath the overpass.

When the motorcyclist arrives below the man standing on the edge of the overpass considering suicide, he calls out to him and uses gestures to encourage the man to reconsider what he’s about to do. Once he’s convinced him to step back from the edge, he rides the motorcycle up off the highway and back around to where he can get on that overpass and speak to him.

At that point, another car stops and there are multiple people intervening with this man, helping to make sure that he gets help and does not hurt himself.

For that man on the overpass, the motorcyclist was the presence of God, calling him back from destruction. The man on the motorcycle brought a word of salvation, showing God’s love for the man on the overpass, calling him back into beloved community. In that moment, the Father and the motorcyclist were one.

Jesus’s words here are extremely challenging because of the context in which he speaks them. Our reading this morning is from John 10, but then in John 15, Jesus says clearly to his disciples, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me as I abide in the Father, and you will be in unity with the Father through me.” When Jesus says, “The Father and I are one,” he is modeling for us a relationship that he wants us to have with God too. He wants us to lead lives that are so connected through him to the Father that we and the Father are one, too.

Does that sound amazing? Does that sound scary? Does that sound like a little bit too much to be true? That’s how it feels to me.

It feels overwhelming when I realize that this is actually my calling as a follower of Jesus: I am called to become like Jesus and therefore to become a person who is one with the Father, who is living with the Father in me, and me in the Father; Jesus in me, and me in Jesus. When I realize that this is my destiny in Jesus, I know that my life has to change dramatically.

I do think there are times when I’ve been the hands and feet of God. I believe there have been moments when I have delivered God’s word or encouragement or mercy for someone else. There have been instances when my life has demonstrated those good works that testify that the Father and I are one. But I also know that in so much of my life, I’m not testifying to that. Far too often, my life is not bearing the works that testify that the Father and I are one. At best, I am an unreliable tree that bears all sorts of fruit, and not all of it is good.

I’m challenged by this. I know that God has called me to bear good fruit all the time; the destination for my life in Jesus is to be a tree that bears fruit in and out of season. I am called to be a person who is self-evidently doing the works of the Father, so that the world will know that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, that I am a branch of the true Vine. How can I possibly live up to this?

In the movie Gladiator, the main character says, “What we do in life echoes in eternity.” I think that’s what Jesus is saying here. And I think he’s saying even more than that. I think he’s saying what we do in life demonstrates eternity. Our lives are meant to enact eternity. Our life in Jesus makes eternity present in the material world.

Someone else once said, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” None of our actions are ever lost. None of our words are ever truly forgotten. For me, as a very imperfect person who has done and said many things that I regret, that is hard to hear. But the promise of Jesus is that as I, as you, as we disciples of Jesus continue to seek him, we will become more like him. As we continue to hand our lives over to him, we will more reliably do the works of the Father that demonstrate that we are in the Father and the Father is in us.

If this is all too mystical or theoretical for you, just remember the man on the motorcycle. Remember the woman in the shanty town by the fence line who gave some random gringo bus fare to get home. Remember the people in your life who have blessed you when you didn’t deserve it, who have surprised you with the love and protection that they’ve extended to you in moments of crisis. Remember the times that you’ve done that for other people. 

We are called to do all these things, and more. The Holy Spirit is working in us, making this holy life possible in us. In the words of Philippians 2:13, God “is at work in [us], enabling [us] both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

We are in the Father, and the Father is in us – at least in the form of a seed. Let’s be proactive in encouraging that seed to grow and to take root, so that when people say, “Why is there so much evil in the world? Why is this happening to me? Where is God?” our lives provide an answer.