As I looked over the lectionary lessons specifically for today, my eye instead was drawn to the Gospel lesson from a couple of weeks ago. So – if that passage from John that we just read seemed like a déjà vu, be assured that you in fact heard your pastor read it.
However, he linked it to the story from Acts about the stoning death of St. Stephen and preached a wonderful sermon about that early Christian martyr that I listened to on your YouTube channel. Tim chose to focus on a courageous Biblical character that we often find ourselves skipping over.
I suspect, however, that he mulled over where to take you in worship two weeks ago because all the lectionary passages for that Sunday offer rich and challenging fodder for preacher and congregation alike. So – I like to think that I am picking up a theme that maybe he wished he could have preached on as well – but knew he could not give it justice in the hour or so that you spend in worship.
You see, we are certainly not let off easily in this passage from the Gospel of John! There is no pat, cut and dried lesson here that we can automatically and without much thought assimilate into our already complicated lives.
Instead we are confronted with one of the most difficult New Testament passages to understand and reconcile in today’s world. In short, to all but the most conservative church goer, these verses are problematic.
First of all, they are from the Gospel of John, which makes deciphering them a formidable task at the outset. You see, this Gospel, on its face, is so different from the other three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It was the last of the four to be written, penned around 90 or 100 CE - as opposed to the earliest Gospel of Mark which was written 20 or 30 years before.
There is also no clear answer about the audience to whom John was writing. However, many Biblical scholars agree that he focused on a broader group of people, including Gentiles who were those men and women that had always been considered non-believers and therefore outside of the Jewish tradition.
Though some of those details are murky at best, we do know that the Gospel writer of John had a narrative style unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Metaphors, symbols, and downright difficult to figure out language characterize John’s prose.
That is the first reason why these verses are problematic. They leave us scratching our heads and muttering, “What??”
The second reason centers on that phrase that John attributes to Jesus – “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Surely those words make us moderate/progressive Christians who at least flirt with the idea of inclusiveness a bit hesitant to fully consider its meaning and import.
I mean, it all sounds beautiful until, as Baptist pastor, Dan Chambers, writes, “you fall in love with a Jew, marry a Muslim, or are spiritually restored by the practice of Zen Buddhism. Then it is not so beautiful to read the words, "no one comes to the Father except through me."
(Certainly) then (he continues) the text becomes deeply disturbing…At the very least, (it) becomes challenging to each of us in a time of interfaith dialogue and a worldwide quest for peace and understanding among people of different faiths.” And then add to that sentence the bit that prefaces Jesus’ proclamation - “I am the way” – well, that is a pesky verse as well.
However, before we turn reflexively to a theologically fundamentalist or progressive camp and start finger wagging at one another about what John had in mind when he wrote these confusing verses, let’s look at the story he was narrating.
The setting is Jerusalem, and Jesus is about to embark on the final leg of his death journey. Feet have been washed. The Last Supper has been shared. Judas has left the scene to do his betraying. Jesus has told a disconsolate Peter that he will do his trifold denying before the cock crows. Only Gethsemane and its aftermath remain.
At this point in John’s Gospel, we find Jesus sitting around the table with the remaining disciples having an after dinner conversation which we call the “Farewell Discourses.” In these four chapters of the Gospel, Jesus prepares the disciples for his immanent death.
And, guess what? They are more than a little confused by this disconcerting turn of events.
There in the upper room on a side street in the Holy City, Jesus has just finished telling them something about a mansion with many rooms and going to the Father and places prepared for them – and something about their knowing the way.
His friends eye each other nervously. What is he talking about now? It makes no sense. However, by the tone of his voice, they know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is serious – and so they better listen and do their best to understand him this time.
It is Thomas – the one we will later call the Doubter, bless his heart - who has the nerve to audibly clear his throat and ask the question that is on everyone’s tongue. "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
Without missing a beat, Jesus responds, "I am the way…and the truth…and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Well, the disciples had nary a clue what to make of that statement, and I would suggest that we, a couple of millennia later, do not know either. I mean, how many times in our complex world have we asked Thomas’ question? How many times have we lamented our own spiritual situation: We do not know where to go, God? We do not know the way.
Our culture tells us 50 ways from Sunday how to live – how to be expedient, efficient, rational, affluent, and popular. The world tells us how to end up on top and avoid being trampled on by others trying to do the same. God only knows that it is a dog eat dog world, and we cannot escape it.
But even in the midst of all the dissonant advice, we dimly hear our hearts faintly beating to a different drummer, telling us something else – that what the world says just does not seem right.
Do we sense that because we are Christian? No – we sense it because we are human – created in the image of the Holy One - and, along with all of humanity, are seeking God and God’s dream for the world on so many different paths.
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them. That’s the Tibetan Buddhist Dali Llama.
Acts of kindness are superior to charity…Charity can be performed only with one's money, while acts of kindness can be performed both with his person and with his money. That’s from the Jewish Talmud
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of
others. That’s the Hindu Mahatma Gandhi.
And do good; indeed, Allah loves the doers of good. That is from the Muslim Koran
Jesus also has an answer to this question about what path to take in our quest to find God and to ground ourselves more deeply in love. “I am the way,” he simply says. But not I would suggest - and this is important – not “I the man Jesus am the way.”
You see, this phrase is another one of those “I am” symbolic sayings scattered through the Gospel of John. “I am the bread of life” did not mean that Jesus was a loaf of bread. “I am the light of the world” did not mean that Jesus was a lightbulb. On the face of it, such literalism would be foreign to the John because he was the writer of metaphor and hidden meanings, always challenging us to dig deeper to the truth.
And so I would say that Jesus never intended us to interpret his person as the way. As progressive theologian Marcus Borg has postulated, might not Jesus mean – “I am the way. My life is the way.”
I whose life has been about a relentless passion for justice for the downtrodden and unending compassion for the ones who have been trampled upon am the way. I whose life has been about love for the sparrows and the lilies and all the world created by the Creator am the way. I whose life has been about living the Beatitudes, turning the other cheek, and challenging the powers-that-be am the way. I whose life has been about withholding judgment and forgiving the unforgivable am the way. I am the way. My life is the way.
“No one comes to the Father except by me,” Jesus continues. How daunting and exclusionary that sounds - until you realize that the word that Jesus uses for Father is abba, which is like papa and is about as familiar as you can get. We are THAT close, Jesus says. God and I are THAT close. And to press the point home once and for all, he goes on to say that “the Father and I are one” and "Whoever has seen me has seen God." My life – my way - embodies God’s dream for the world.
Of course, by now none of this makes any sense to his followers scratching their heads in that upper room in the Holy City, just as most of the time all this does not make sense to us either. When it comes to this particular passage, we, like the disciples, end up caught in a web of literalism.
But Phillip comes to their rescue (and ours), for he cannot take hearing this confusing mishmash any longer. And so in an attempt to put an end to all the mumbo jumbo, he demands an explanation. "Show us God, Jesus, and we will be satisfied."
Jesus’ patience must have been immense. "How long have I been with you, and you still ask such a question, Philip?” he queries. “Everything I say, everything I do discloses God." I am a window to the Almighty. Understand me, and you will understand God. Look at me, and you will look at God.
And what does God look like? As Dan Chambers asks, “What does the good Samaritan look like? What does compassion look like? What does healing look like? What does acceptance of those pushed aside and shunned by society look like? What does the face of love look like?”
You want to know what God is like? Look at what Jesus was like. Put another way, a Reformed pastor Scott Hoezee said so simply and eloquently: “Jesus is the autobiography of God.” And so I ask you - What else do we need to know about the way?
The Gospel writer John gave us such a gift in this often deeply misunderstood passage, These are words of such hope and such promise – not words that exclude and divide.
I agree with Dan Chambers when he says. “For us, as ones who follow Christ, Jesus is the way. We need no other way. In Christ we sink into the depths of God. The way of Christ is a way that leads us…deeper into the mystery of the divine. And on that way, we are not alone; and those who journey with us into the depths of God's love are not only Christians. The road to God is shared by many.
When you look into the faces of those (on the way with you), you may well be looking into the face of a Buddhist, a Jew, or a Muslim. Each follows her or his own way. The way of love and compassion, the way of a heart open enough to embrace all people and care for the earth…this is a way known to countless people through countless ages.”
“In my Father’s house are many rooms” Jesus tells his disciples. Does it make any more sense now?
A man arrives at the gates of heaven. St. Peter asks, “Religion?”
The man says, “Methodist.” St. Peter looks at his list and says, “Go to room 28, but be very quiet as you pass room 8.” Another man arrives at the gates of heaven. “Religion?” “Buddhist.”
Go to room 18, but be very quiet as you pass room 8.
A third man arrives at the gates. “Religion?” “Jewish.”
“Go to room 11, but be very quest as you pass room 8.”
The man says, “I can understand there being different rooms for different religions, but why must I be quiet when I pass room 8?”
St. Peter says, “The Jehovah’s Witnesses are in room 8, and they think they’re the only ones here.”
I don’t think so. When Jesus said, “I am the way”, I think he meant, well, like in Alice in Wonderland when Alice talks with the Cheshire Cat:
'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' asked Alice.
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where----' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
'----so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk enough.'
Deep down inside, whether we are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, we know there is someplace we need to be in order to be whole, and that is indeed the point of the journey we all take. We are indeed on the Way, and it is the right way because it is God’s way – and in the end, that is what matters most.
So as you go forth, walk beside, well, walk beside whoever ends up next to you - rich or poor, (and in our politically charged environment particularly) conservative or progressive (but I digress…), as you go forth, walk beside beside whoever ends up next to you - rich or poor, conservative or progressive, Muslim or Jew – and, as a Christian, remember these words : first of author Steven Covey who said “seek first to understand, then to be understood” and also the words of theologian Frederick Buechner who wrote: A “Christian is one who is on the way, though not necessarily very far along it, and who has at least some dim and half-baked idea of whom to thank.” Le those words set you pace on the way.
