Philip to Jesus: “Show Us the Father”

Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

“Show us the Father, and that will be enough for us,” Philip tells Jesus in today’s lectionary reading from John 14. Jesus goes into an explanation that includes “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

Me, I pity Philip.

Millions, maybe billions of words have been written about the dogma of the Holy Trinity, about how Christians believe in one God existing in three persons, distinct in their origin and yet one God. The Fourth Council of the Lateran would put it this way: “It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds.”

Of course, Lateran Council IV was twelve hundred years away at the time, and Philip had heard his friend Jesus talk time and again about his father. Not surprising, then, that he thought actually seeing that being would clear up the whole thing once and for all.

But a complete understanding of theology wasn’t necessary for Philip or for James (believed to be James the Lesser, as he was younger than James, the son of Zebedee), whose feast day we observe today. Both went out into the world proclaiming the Good News, and both paid the price with their earthly lives.

Did Philip ever fully understand about his friend and his Father? Do we? Perhaps many of us aren’t intellectually capable of fully comprehending how it all works. Perhaps it’s enough to simply have the faith to believe what Jesus told us… and to love.