Sermon preached on Easter V, May 18, 2014 by The Rev. Bill Eakins, Grace Church, Great Barrington
Gospel reading: John 14: 1-14
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
What are Christians to make of such a text in a pluralistic age? The assertion that Jesus Christ is the way to God is scandalous in a shrinking world where we are increasingly exposed to people of other religions and where many are beginning to realize the importance of understanding and appreciating the insights of such religious diversity. In the United States, Jesus as “the, way, the truth, and the life”has always been an issue in our relations with our Jewish neighbors. But now we have a growing American Muslim population for whom Christian exclusivism is equally offensive. What are we to do?
Well, one possibility, of course, is to eliminate the scandal and the offense by backing off from any exclusive claim. We could say that for us as Christians Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, our path for knowing God. For others the path is the Buddha, or Mohammed. And maybe that position makes sense to you; I know it does for many. But I have to tell you it just doesn’t work for me. I think it takes the guts out of the Christian faith and leaves us with nothing but a hollow shell of ethical propositions.
Another possibility is to adhere with renewed rigor to Christian exclusivism. Those bumper stickers you may have seen express this attitude: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”Jesus is the one way to God. So whoever you are, give up the errors of your ways and believe in Jesus, or else.
Well, I am not happy with that position either. I think its arrogance and its judgementalism are in direct conflict with the very Jesus it claims to honor.
What I would propose is a Christian attitude toward other religions that upholds Jesus Christ as “the way, the truth, and the life”and at the same time respects and seeks to learn from religious diversity.
The reason for Christian particularity, for upholding the singular importance of Jesus, is the conviction that in Jesus of Nazareth, God has acted in a way that is of vital importance to all people everywhere.
What gave Stephen the courage to bear witness to Jesus as God’s anointed one in the face of an angry mob armed with stones? What changed Saul, a bystander to Stephen’s stoning, into Paul the ardent mission of the early church? What motivated Paul and Peter and the other apostles to risk their lives in spreading the Good News about Jesus Christ? It certainly wasn’t a burning desire to disseminate the Beatitudes or the Golden Rule. Rather it was a conviction that God had acted in the world in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Those who were witnesses to what God had done could not remain silent. Such good news had to be proclaimed not only because it had happened but because of what it means: God is King and Jesus is Lord, we are loved and we are redeemed. Or as St. Peter puts it in today’s Epistle: we have been “called out of darkness into light.”
I believe such apostolic conviction is the hallmark of authentic Christianity. It not only honors our heritage, but empowers Christians to be bold in being about God’s business. Wish-washy Christian belief can be a cop-out, an excuse for capitulation to whatever is the dominant ideology of our age. For example, during the Nazi era, the so-called German Christian Group chided the evangelicals of the Confessing Church in Germany for the Confessing Church’s resistance to the totalitarianism of Adolf Hitler. Why couldn’t Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the others loosen up a bit and see all the good that Nazism was doing? In response Bonhoeffer and other Christians of the
Confessing Church quoted today’s gospel: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me, says the Lord.” In other words, no one but Christ can claim our total allegiance.
Sometimes religious relativism can lead to moral relativism. And sometimes strong, definite Christian conviction can produce heroic saints who are brave enough to challenge the status quo and change the course of human events for the better.
Authentic Christianity dares to invite all people everywhere to believe in Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life. And yet if Jesus is the way to God, it is certainly no straight or narrow path because Jesus is neither straight nor narrow. Rather, Jesus is full of a broad love for humankind, and Jesus has a rich appreciation for the complexity and ambiguity of the human condition.
Note well that our text does not say, “Beliefs about Jesus are the way to God”or “Having the right opinions about His teaching is the way.”It says, “Jesus is the way”The way to God runs right through what you see of God in Jesus. So, “I am the way,”(I who am not always easily understood), “I am the truth”( I who am never simple), “I am the life”(I who am always moving one step ahead of my bewildered disciples, reaching out to surprising people.) I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
Jesus is the one who told those parables about a recklessly extravagant God who sows seeds everywhere just for the heck of it, who allows the wheat to grow along with the weeds, who sends rain upon the just and on the unjust, whose kingdom is like a fishing net full of fish of every kind. Jesus also told how God is like a father looking down the road for a glimpse of a lost son, God is like a woman searching all the night through for one lost coin, and God is like a shepherd going out in the dark of night to find one straying sheep. And speaking of shepherds, didn’t Jesus, after calling himself the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, go on to say, “And I have other sheep who are not of this fold; I am going to bring them in also?”And likewise, in the very same “one way” Gospel that we heard this morning, doesn’t Jesus assure us, “in [God’s] house there are many dwelling places?” The God that Jesus reveals is a big and generous God whose love is overflowing, and whose compassions knows no limit.
So if any are looking for a text to make them feel smug as a member of the exclusive “Jesus club”, something with which to beat over the head the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists, a cleaver to separate the saved from the damned, you’d better think twice before quoting, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”The shepherd who leaves the sheepfold to seek the lost sheep and to seek the sheep “not of this fold”-He is the one way. And those who pride themselves on being members of the elect within the true Church and fail to reach out to love their brothers and sisters of other religious beliefs would do well to confess that they have simply failed to see the nature of God revealed in Jesus.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”I do not think we Christians should shy away from the conviction and from the promise of those bold words. They invite us to a particular and a certain faith that has the power to change our lives and our world. And they invite us to be a people whose understanding and compassion are as broad and as deep as the God Jesus reveals.