Show Us the Father

Gospel: John 14: 6-14

Philip makes a familiar request, one popular in Jesus' time and in our own: show us the Father, show us God.  Jesus provides two answers to this request.  First, if you see Jesus, then you see God.  But how are we to see Jesus? We see Jesus in other people: whenever you did it to the least ones, you did it to me.  We see Jesus in another person, that person who is a temple of the Holy Spirit, one made in the image and likeness of God.  We see God in other people.

The second answer Jesus provides is to look at the works Jesus performs, for he performs the works of God.  These works are deeds of mercy: healing others, feeding others, being present to the needs of others, delivering them from what possesses them.  When we see these deeds performed we see the presence of God in our midst, the presence of mercy in the world.

We too can perform these works.  By following the example of Jesus in the world, we can do these works of God.  The works of God are not apologetics, not liturgics, not dogmatics.  The works of God are the works of mercy offered to others.  The works of mercy are the only authentic apologetic, the fulfillment of the liturgical, the antidote to the dogmatical.  God is love, and so must we be.