Sermon Seeds: Do the Works

Sunday, May 3, 2026
Fifth Sunday of Easter | Year A
(Liturgical Color: White)

Lectionary Citations
Acts 7:55-60 • Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 • 1 Peter 2:2-10 • John 14:1-14
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?z=s&d=47&y=17134

Focus Scripture: John 14:1-14
Focus Theme: Do the Works
Series: That Message Spread (Click here for the series overview.)

Reflection
By Cheryl A. Lindsay

In recent years, there has been considerable commentary, scholarship, and public pondering about the role of rest in our lives. There have been calls to rest for self-care, resistance, or a return to the created order. We may study the accounts of Jesus taking time away from his ministry activities and even his companions for rest and renewal. Rest benefits us spiritually, physically, mentally, and socially. Rest is countercultural in a world that prizes and praises productivity, hyperfunctioning, and output. Yet, the first creation narrative that culminates in God’s holy and satisfied rest reminds us that work and rest connect with each other in a continuum that sustains the creative act. Rest need not repudiate work to be holy, but rest can facilitate the interrogation and critique of the fruitfulness of the work that we do. All work is not equal in purpose and fruitfulness. All work does not join in the model of creation where all that work produced was declared good.

What then enables us to discern the work that we should do?

In the Gospel according to John, the second half of the book is considered the Book of Glory. The first half (Book of Signs) reveals the identity of Jesus, and the second prepares for and demonstrates the exaltation of Jesus. That exposition begins with the Farewell Discourses, in which Jesus extensively and with increasing transparency shares what will unfold in his life and ministry to his disciples. The narrative turns inward on this group not only to reflect the intense series of encounters and events leading to the Passion. The gospel writer also considers the original audience who were facing sustained and rising persecution and needed hope and encouragement to remain faithful and steadfast.

These Farewell Discourses prepare his disciples for his death and for moving forward without him. The discourses contain several images that make his message more vivid. The first describes “his father’s house” as a mansion with many rooms. Jesus promises that he will return and take them to this house (14:2). There may be an allusion here to the Jewish hekhalot (“palaces”) tradition, involving stories in which a seer visits the heavenly realm and explores its different rooms (see the chariot vision in Ezekiel 1 and 1 Enoch 17–18). More immediately, the verse also alludes to the temple, which Jesus called his Father’s house in 2:16, and to the son/slave contrast in 8:35. Jesus insists that this house can be reached in only one way: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (14:6).
Adele Reinhartz

If the message seems more exclusionary than one might expect, then one might also remember that this work was intended for an exclusive audience—one experiencing persecution from forces in power. Jesus’ primary and most profound encounters demonstrated interactions with the marginalized and oppressed. Further, his restoration project was on earth; therefore, his concern was with tangible and material needs as well as spiritual ones. His assertion to being the way, the truth, and the life is a statement of identity and instrumentality not doctrine or judgement.

The statement is another way of understanding the motivation of the Incarnation. Jesus comes to demonstrate the way, the truth, and the life. While his long discourses in this gospel narrative may suggest a concern with doctrine, it is worth noting that they are often tethered to an event or action. This discourse occurs after supper and the washing of the disciples feet, not an act of dominance and power, rather a display of servitude and humility. That is the way of Jesus and the way he exhorts his disciples to follow.

It is quite noticeable that Jesus speaks of his “words” and his “works” interchangeably. Where we might have expected, “I am not speaking on my own, but the Father is speaking through me,” he says instead, “the Father, dwelling in me, is doing his works,” and he commands them to believe on the basis of “those very works.” He told them earlier that “The words I have spoken to you are spirit, and they are life” (6:63), and they acknowledged that “You have words of life eternal” (6:68), yet he also made clear to his opponents that words are cheap. Even if he calls himself “God” or “the Son of God,” it means little or nothing (see 10:34–36). What really counts are the “works” the Father has given him to do: “If I do not do the works of my Father, don’t believe me. But if I do them, even if you don’t believe me, believe the works, so that you might learn and know that the Father is in me and I in the Father” (10:37–38). Now, in the presence of his disciples, he expects them to recognize those same words about mutual indwelling as words bringing to realization the Father’s “works” of giving life and executing judgment (see 5:20–22). “Believe me” (that is, believe what I say), he tells them, or else “believe because of those very works.” It amounts to the same thing….Much earlier, he distinguished between the works of the Father “until now” (5:17) which the Father has shown him, and the “greater works than these” (5:20) of raising the dead and executing judgment, both now and at the last day (see 5:21–29). But in what sense are the works of believers after his departure “greater” than Jesus’ works? …We have known all along that he had a limited time to complete his works (9:4; 11:9–10), and that certain things could not take place and other things could not be understood until after he was “glorified” (see 7:39; 12:16). Here he looks more closely at the impending time of his absence, assuring his disciples that his works will nonetheless continue and, yes, be even “greater” than when he was present. Still, the question persists: In what sense “greater”?
J. Ramsey Michaels

Greater is a value comparison which may refer to quantity or quality. The suggestion that the works of the disciples may be qualitatively more significant or impactful than the ministry of Jesus seems unlikely and some may suggest sacrilegious. Quantity would seem the more reasonable interpretation as the reach of the gospel through the word and works of disciples from the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry until the end of human time would be exponentially more than during the one to three year ministry timeframe of Jesus.

At the same time, the point of comparison may be flawed. Rather than comparing the ministry of Jesus to that of the disciples who follow, Jesus speaks to the comparison of the ministry of disciples with Jesus having set the fullness of his divinity aside to the ministry of disciples with Jesus reestablished in full glory. Through this, followers of Jesus may now abide in Jesus in a “greater” way.

It is important to recognize that Jesus is not settling for second place. The disciples’ works are, first of all, the same as “the works I am doing,” and only “greater than these” because “I am going to the Father” (italics added). The emphatic “I” is quite noticeable. The “greater” works are no less the works of Jesus than of his disciples, for it is he who makes them possible. Just as the distinction in 5:20 was not between Jesus’ works and those of the Father but between the Father’s works “until now” (5:17) and those yet to come, so the distinction here is not between what Jesus does and what the disciples do, but between what Jesus has done so far and what he will do (through them) by “going to the Father”….What is the reader to make of such promises of answered prayer?…The disciple is invited to come to the Father “in the name of” Jesus, with the promise of enjoying the same access to God that Jesus enjoys (see 9:31, and especially 11:41–42). It is not a matter of an individual’s personal whims or desires, but of bringing to realization all that Jesus wants to accomplish in the world.
J. Ramsey Michaels

These are the works and how to discern them. Jesus invites disciples to pray (word) and act (works) so that the will of God, the way of God, the truth of God, and the life God promises to all of God’s beloved creation may be revealed and fulfilled.

Do the works.

Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent
The 33rd General Synod adopted a Resolution to Recognize the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024). As part of its implementation, Sermon and Weekly Seeds offers Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent related to the season or overall theme for additional consideration in sermon preparation and for individual and congregational study.
“Our lives are a battlefield on which is fought a continuous war between the forces that are pledged to confirm our humanity and those determined to dismantle it; those who strive to build a protective wall around it, and those who wish to pull it down; those who seek to mold it, and those committed to breaking it up; those whose aim is to open our eyes, to make us see the light and look to tomorrow […] and those who wish to lull us into closing our eyes.”
– Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Devil on the Cross, 1980

For Further Reflection
“All happiness depends on courage and work.” ― Honoré de Balzac
“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” ― Émile Zola
“Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.” ― Louisa May Alcot

Works Cited
Michaels, Jr. Ramsey. The Gospel of John (New International Commentary on the New Testament). Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010.
Reinhartz, Adele. “John.” Gale A. Yee, Ed. Fortress Commentary on the Bible: Two Volume Set. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014.

Suggested Congregational Response to the Reflection
During the Season of Easter, commit to spreading the good news of God’s liberating, redeeming, and reconciling love through consistent communication. Consider the tangible ways your faith community has been positioned to demonstrate the power of new life.

Worship Ways Liturgical Resources
https://www.ucc.org/worship-way/easter-5a-may-3/
For those observing PAAM Sunday, click here.

The Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, Minister for Worship and Theology (lindsayc@ucc.org), also serves a local church pastor, public theologian, and worship scholar-practitioner with a particular interest in the proclamation of the word in gathered communities. You’re invited to share your reflections on this text in the comments on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.

A Bible study version of this reflection is at Weekly Seeds.