The Way

The Way

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

May 14, 2017

Scripture: John 14:1-14

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

“I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s what it says right there in the Gospel of John. Jesus is the only way to God, or so at least it sounds like it says. It’s the Christian exclusivist’s favorite verse, especially the “no one comes to the Father except through me” part. It’s Jesus or nothing. It’s to heaven to Jesus and to hell with everyone else. There it is. Right there in the Gospel of John, the Christian exclusivist’s favorite Gospel. But before we jump to that conclusion, let’s take a closer look at what this verse actually says and what it doesn’t say.

In that verse John’s Jesus says “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” I’ll get back to that part of the verse in a bit. It’s what John has Jesus say next that I think we need to wrestle with. He says “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Now, if you’re like most Christians you probably hear Jesus saying “no one comes to the Father except through believing in me.” If that’s what you hear you’re in good company, but here’s the thing. That’s not what Jesus says. People read the “believing in me” part into this line all the time, but the words “believing in” simply aren’t there. I’m not making that up. They aren’t there. I’m not reading out of the verse something that’s there, I’m just not reading into it something that isn’t there. Now to be sure, in the Gospel of John Jesus talks a lot about believing in him, but he doesn’t say that in the verses the lectionary chose for this morning. John 14:6, the verse I’ve been quoting, just doesn’t say “through believing in me.” It just doesn’t. It just says “through me.”

Our verses do mention one “who has faith in me.” It has those words, but look again at what the text does with them. It doesn’t say that those who have faith in Jesus will come to the Father. No, it says that the consequence of having faith in Jesus is something quite different from that. It says: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” John 14:12. Those who have faith in Jesus will do what he has been doing and more. There’s a lot to be said about what Jesus has been doing, but I want to ask a different question here. I ask not what has he been doing but where has he been doing it? The answer of course is here. On earth. Mostly in Galilee, a specific place on earth. Kris and Walter were there last year. That’s mostly where Jesus did what he did. The necessary conclusion from this verse about faith in Jesus is about how we live this life, not about how we get to the next one.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Neither the Gospel of John nor the Christian faith as a whole denies the afterlife. Our verses this morning contain one of the relatively few places in the New Testament that seem actually to be about an afterlife. John 14:2 reads: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” John’s Jesus sure seems to be talking about an afterlife in heaven. So it’s not that the Gospel of John denies the afterlife, it’s just that the afterlife isn’t what it is primarily about. So these verses aren’t about believing in Jesus as the only way to heaven. They are mostly about what happens in this life when you have faith in Jesus.

OK, but what about the line “I am the way, the truth, and the life”? To get at what those words are about, let me tell you a story. Once a Christian exclusivist was working as a missionary in India. He confronted a Hindu holy man with that verse. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” What do you say to that, our zealous missionary asked the Hindu sage. To the missionary’s surprise the Hindu man replied: “Oh yes. I believe that absolutely.” The missionary was nonplussed. This Hindu man had expressed no interest in converting to Christianity. So how could he say he believed this verse from John? I imagine the missionary standing there saying “Huh? How can you possibly say that?” The Hindu teacher explained: “Jesus says he is the way and that no one comes to God except through him. To understand that statement we must ask: What is the way that Jesus is? It is the way of love, compassion, justice, and forgiveness. And yes. Absolutely. That is the way we are to live. That is how we connect with what is eternal, what is sacred, what Jesus called the Father. That way is how we live in harmony with the universe, with the ultimate, with the holy behind everything that is. Yes, that verse you quote from your Bible is absolutely correct.” Our missionary friend didn’t know what to say. Surely he had never heard this verse interpreted that way before. He was sure it means you’re damned for all eternity if you don’t believe in Jesus the way he did. I’m sure he went away puzzled but as sure as ever that only people like him are saved and the Hindu man he had spoken with was condemned to hell despite his talk of love and compassion because he didn’t believe the right things about Jesus.

Well, I’m Christian not Hindu, but I am convinced to the marrow of my bones that the Hindu wise man of this story understood Jesus better than the Christian missionary did. Over the centuries the Christian tradition has come to see Jesus as essentially someone we are supposed to believe in so that our souls will go to heaven not hell when we die. Yet the more I work in Christian ministry, the more I preach the Gospel, the more I try to find ways that Jesus makes a difference in my life and in the lives of the people I minister with the more convinced I become that getting people to believe in him so that their souls would be saved simply wasn’t what Jesus was primarily about. You all know that I’m a professionally trained historian, so the history of most anything is important to me. When we look at the earliest years of the Christian faith we find that in the beginning Christianity wasn’t much about souls going to heaven at all. Before our faith was called Christianity it was called “The Way.” And it wasn’t a way to heaven as much as it was a way to live this life. We have evidence that the first Christians really did live differently from the non-Christians around them, differently in fact than they had lived before they became followers of Jesus Christ. They lived in Christian community. They cared for one another. They rejected all violence and sought to live in peace with everyone. They took care of other people too. When a terrible plague hit Rome most Romans who could fled the city to try to save themselves. The Christians didn’t. They stayed. They cared for the sick and dying. Some of them died themselves from the disease that was devastating the city, but it appears that their death rates were lower than they were among other groups. Their courage and care for others so impressed people that many Romans converted to Christianity because they wanted whatever it was that these Christians had that led them to lead such appealingly different lives. Christianity was a way of life before it was a religion.

And the Hindu sage in my little story was absolutely right about what that way was. It was the way of Jesus. That meant it was a way of love, compassion, peace, and forgiveness. It was a way radically different from the ways of the world in which Jesus lived. More importantly, it is radically different from the ways of the world in which we live. It is a way that praises the hated Samaritan, welcomes the prodigal home no questions asked, and includes those whom culture and even religion exclude. It is a way that values the spiritual over the material. It is a way grounded in prayer and gratitude toward God in everything that happens. It is a way in which people strive always to transcend their selfish tendencies and find their satisfaction in serving others. It is a way that knows that violence doesn’t solve problems, it only causes death, destruction, and more violence. It is a way that knows that God is real and that death is not the end for any of us. Jesus said “I am the way.” All of those things are the way he was and the way he is. They are the way to which he calls us today.

So, is Jesus the way, the truth, and the life for us? Absolutely. Is belief in Jesus the only way to God? Absolutely not. God calls us to follow the way of Jesus. Can we? Will we? May it be so. Amen.