The Way, the Donuts, and the Life We’re Already In

One morning, a young boy named Kevin went with his grandfather to get donuts. Grandpa was a man of deep faith, and he wanted to make sure Kevin understood the way things worked, the big things, the eternal things. So as they drove, he turned to his grandson and asked, “Kevin, which way is heaven?”

Kevin pointed up.

“And which way is hell?”

Kevin pointed down.

Grandpa nodded thoughtfully and continued, “And where are you going?”

Kevin didn’t miss a beat. “To get donuts.”

Now, I’ve been thinking about that story all week. Because in a lot of ways, it captures the tension sitting right at the heart of this morning’s passage. Grandpa is asking about eternity. Kevin is thinking about breakfast. And the question that lingers between them is this: which one of them has the right of it? Is the life of faith primarily about where we are going when we die? Or is it about the journey we are on right now? And is it possible, just possible, that in Jesus’s answer to Thomas and Philip, we discover that those two things are far less separate than we’ve been taught to believe?

Troubled Hearts and Extraordinary Grace

To understand what Jesus is saying in John 14, we have to understand what came just before it. This passage is part of what scholars call the farewell discourse, a long, tender conversation Jesus has with his disciples at the Last Supper. And the moments immediately before our reading are heavy ones. Jesus has just predicted that Judas will betray him. He has foretold that Peter bold, passionate, fiercely loyal Peter will deny even knowing him before the night is through. The room is thick with grief and confusion and the particular ache of anticipated failure.

And then Jesus says: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

Sit with that for a moment. He doesn’t say, “Everything is fine,” or “That betrayal and denial stuff was just a hypothetical.” He doesn’t pretend the hard things aren’t coming. He looks at his friends the ones who will let him down, the ones who are already afraid and he speaks words of grace directly into the middle of their mess: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.

Laura Holmes points out something remarkable here. The same word used to describe troubled hearts is the very word used to describe Jesus’s own inner life throughout this gospel. His spirit is troubled. His soul is troubled. He weeps. He struggles. And yet, in the midst of his own deep anguish, he turns to his friends and offers them the one thing he has in abundance: grace. Can you hear it? I know what you will do. I know how you will fall short. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe.

This is not a conditional grace. It is not offered to the disciples who prove themselves worthy or whose track record is spotless. It is offered to the ones who will scatter and deny and doubt. Andrew McGowan reminds us that this passage, so often read at funerals, so often framed purely as a promise about the afterlife, is actually just as much about presence as it is about absence. It is not primarily a word about where we go when we die. It is a word about the God who refuses to leave us, even now.

Many Rooms, or a Place to Stay?

Then there is the question of the house. “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places,” Jesus says. If you grew up with the King James Version of the Bible, you know this line as, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” And that image has lodged itself firmly in the Christian imagination, God as a celestial real estate developer, handing out properties of varied grandeur to the faithful departed.

But the word behind our English translations tells a different story. The original Greek word is monē, which gives us the word monastery. The Latin translation uses mansio which is where “mansion” eventually entered English but the original sense is not a grand estate. It is a resting place. A place of welcome and hospitality along a journey. Think of an inn on a long road, a place to stop, rest, and be received. What Jesus is offering is not a reward at the end of a journey. He is offering rest itself. He is saying: there is room for you. There is always room.

McGowan takes this even further. He suggests that “my Father’s house” is best understood not as a physical location, not even heaven in the conventional sense, but as the bond of love and trust that holds believers together with Jesus and with one another. It is a relationship, not a real estate portfolio. And that changes everything about how we hear the promise. Jesus isn’t saying, “Hold on until you die, and then you’ll be comfortable.” He is saying that the life of belonging to God, of being held in love, of having a place that life is available now, and death cannot end it.

Kevin’s Donuts and the Journey That Matters

So let’s go back to Kevin and his grandpa.

Was grandpa wrong to think about heaven? Not at all. The promise of life beyond death of reunion, of wholeness, of being held in God’s presence is real and precious. On the hardest days of our lives, those promises sustain us. But was Kevin so wrong either, heading single-mindedly toward the donut shop?

Here is what I think: grandpa and Kevin weren’t having the same conversation. One was thinking about destination, the other about the present moment. And what John 14 suggests is that in Jesus, those two things are not opposites. The journey and the destination are the same thing. The way is Jesus himself.

The Greek word hodos translated here as “way” means road, journey, pilgrimage. It can mean an actual path underfoot, or the act of travelling itself. The earliest followers of Jesus didn’t call themselves Christians. They called themselves Followers of the Way. The Way of Jesus. Not a set of beliefs to be assented to, not a destination to be aimed for, but a whole manner of living a road walked together, in the company of the one who said, I am the road.

And the way, the truth, and the life are not three separate ideas. They are one. Jesus is not offering a theological proposition and two side dishes. He is saying: I am the link between you and God. I am the relationship itself. To know me is to know the Father. To see me is to see what God looks like in human form and what you have seen is someone who heals, who feeds, who welcomes, who kneels to wash feet, who pours out grace on people who will betray and deny him.

The Works We Are Called To

Then comes a line that should take our breath away. “The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

Greater works than Jesus? What could that possibly mean?

Scholar Angela Parker offers us a powerful frame. She writes that our greater works must exhibit the way, the truth, and the life for communities that continue to be disconnected and denied access to the things that bring abundant life, quality food, access to medical care, affordable housing, and continued dignity no matter what their identities are. That, she says, is the way, the truth, and the life for a collective people with a singular heart.

This is not about religious performance or spiritual achievement. It is about following in the footsteps of Jesus, who demonstrated over and over that God’s love is not rationed, not earned, not withheld from those the powerful consider undeserving. The greater works are the works of a community that takes seriously the grace it has received and pours it out for others. Communities like ours, trying imperfectly, faithfully to be the presence of Christ in a world that is often very hungry and very lost.

Here is the thing about the disciples in this passage: they keep asking for more than they think they have. We don’t know the way! says Thomas. Show us the Father! says Philip. And Jesus, with extraordinary patience and gentleness, says the same thing to both of them: you know more than you think you do. You have already seen what you are looking for. I have been here all along.

That same word is for us today. We may feel unequipped, uncertain, overwhelmed by the scale of the need around us. We may feel like we don’t know the way. But Jesus says: you do. You have seen what love looks like. You have experienced grace that didn’t wait for you to deserve it. You have heard words of comfort spoken into the middle of your fear and failure. Now go and live that way. Now go and do those works.

There Is Always Room

Our God is not a distant landlord assigning eternal accommodations. Our God is a pilgrim, who travels toward us even as we travel toward God. There is a human journey to God’s house and a divine journey to stay with those Jesus loves and they are not two separate journeys. They are one. We find ourselves, at the end, not just arriving somewhere, but realizing we have never been truly alone on the road.

So yes, think about heaven. Let those promises comfort you in the dark hours. Let them steady you when the ground shakes.

But also, go get the donuts. Be present in your life. Look around at the people journeying alongside you. Pour out grace the way it has been poured out on you, especially on those who have let you down. Clear the road for those who haven’t had access to the things that make life full and beautiful and dignified.

The Way is open. There is room lots of room for everyone. And the one who walks ahead of us on that road has never once stopped calling our name.

Further, our greater works must be situated in grace and led by the Holy Spirit so that as we lead in this spirit of grace, all would be comforted, none would be troubled, as we follow Jesus on the Way.

Amen.