The Way, the Truth, the Life (Easter 5A: 18 May 2014)

RCL Easter 5A

18 May 2014

Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

North Vancouver BC

Focus text:  John 14.1-14

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 a.m. Eucharist at Gloria Dei.

       During my first congregational assignment I participated in a regular parish educational programme that explored various aspects of the Christian faith.  At one point during the series the  rector asked me to give a short presentation on Origen of Alexandria, an Alexandrian biblical scholar and teacher who lived from 185 to 254.  Looking back from the distance of more than thirty years, I should have declined, but I agreed because I wanted to please the rector whom I had only known for a short while.

      

       I gave the assembled group a brief overview of Origen's life and teaching, then I invited questions from the participants.  Things were going relatively well, until someone asked me about Origen's passing comment that 'even the devil could be saved'.  I shared what I knew about Origen's understanding of the human will and of the irresistible love of God.  If God's love is irresistible, then logic would dictate that eventually the devil would have to yield to God's love and seek forgiveness and reconciliation.

       I thought that this was the end of the matter, but when the Bishop came for his annual visit a week or two later, this question raised its head again.  This time the question was posed as if it were what I had been teaching the parish rather than my clumsy attempt to describe Origen's teaching.  The Bishop chose not to rise to the bait and said, 'What happens to us after death is God's affair.  How we live our lives as followers of Jesus in this life is ours.  This is what concerns me and every lay and ordained leader of the church.'

       In today's reading from the gospel according to John, we hear words that have been the source of endless Christian interpretation and, in some cases, the warrant for Christian persecution of those who do not share our faith:  "Jesus said to [Thomas], 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.'" (John 14.6)  How are we to understand these words, living as we do in a society that is both multi-cultural and multi-faith?  How are we to act when our closest neighbours may be Muslim, as is true across the parking lot from this church, or Sikh and Muslim, as is true in my neighbourhood in Surrey?

       Perhaps the first step is looking back at the context of Jesus' words in the gospel.  Chapter 14 of John's gospel is part of a lengthy teaching session that Jesus has with the disciples following that last supper they were to enjoy before the events of Good Friday.  In these chapters John records his community's understanding of the life and ministry of Jesus in the light of the resurrection.  It is an internal conversation, directed not at those outside the Christian community, but at those who, as John puts it so well, have not seen yet believe.  Thomas' question is not, 'What is the future state of those who do not confess you as Lord?'.  His question is one that every Christian asks every day of her or his life of faith, "Lord, we do know where you are going.  How can we know the way?" (John 14.5)  It is to this question, "How can we know the way?", that Jesus responds with those famous words, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."

       Before you or I ask questions about those following other paths, Jesus asks us three questions about our own discipleship:

       1)  Are we following the way of Jesus?

       2)  Are we seeking the truth of Jesus?

       3)  Are we living the life of Jesus?

It is sometimes far more tempting to question the faith of others, to ponder their place in God's plan of salvation, than it is to look closely at how we as members of Christ's body witness to the way, to the truth, to the life we know in Jesus of Nazareth.

       To follow the way of Jesus is to choose compassion rather than indifference, to choose reconciliation rather than vengeance, to choose self-giving rather than self-interest.

       To seek the truth of Jesus is delve into the mystery of why goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness and life is stronger than death (Desmond Tutu).

       To live the life of Jesus is to love the Lord our God with our all heart, with our all soul, with all your mind and with all our strength and to love our neighbour as ourselves.

       Follow the way of Jesus and others will follow.  Seek the truth of Jesus and others will seek.  Live the life of Jesus and others will live.

       This is the heart of the gospel that John proclaims.  He even goes so far as to write that those who follow this way, seek this truth and live this life will do greater things than their Teacher and Friend.  Through us the way, the truth and the life can become incarnate and the abundant life spoken of by Jesus becomes evident in us and in our communities. 

       Not quite two thousand years ago a Roman citizen living in North Africa wrote to his city magistrates to complain about the Christians living in the city.  He was aware of the official policies that considered Christians to be criminals, but he pointed out that the behaviour of these Christians was hardly criminal:  'They care for the sick, whether they are Christians or not.  They visit the prisoners, whether they are Christians or not.  They tend the needs of the poor, whether they are Christian or not.  Perhaps if our religious officials were to do the same, there would be fewer Christians.'

       Today's gospel seems to me to be an invitation to return to first things and entrust other matters to God.  Let us devote ourselves to following the way Jesus has modelled for us, to seeking the truth that Jesus reveals to us and to living the life that Jesus has shared with us.  Surely it is enough; surely it is what our neighbours need; surely it is what we have been baptized to do.  Amen.

Who May Enter through the Gate? (RCL Easter 4A, 11 May 2014)

RCL Easter 4A

11 May 2014

Saint Faith’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Focus text:  John 10.1-10

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached on Sunday the 11th at the 10.00 a.m. Eucharist.

            In September of 1964 I entered Grade 6 and was assigned to Mr Schiff’s class.  All of us who were in his class felt very special; not so much because we knew anything about Mr Schiff, who was an unknown to all of us.  What was special was the location of our class:  not in the main building with the little kids, but in a separate, so-called ‘portable’ classroom on the school grounds.  It was like having our own private school.

            The fall of 1964 was momentous to my eleven- and twelve-year-old classmates.  It was a presidential election year that pitted Lyndon Baines Johnson, the Democratic president, and Barry Goldwater, the Republican challenger.  Johnson, who had assumed the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kenney in November 1963, was seeking his own mandate on a platform of bold social programmes, some of which are still part of the American political fabric.  Goldwater and the Republicans were trying to halt what they saw as an expansion of the government in Johnson’s so-called ‘Great Society’.

            We were old enough to understand some of the political discussions taking place among our parents’ friends and acquaintances.  My father’s family had been dyed-in-the-wool Democrats since the days of Franklin Roosevelt and my mother’s ‘red’ Labour in England.  Within my family circle opposition to Goldwater was pretty strong.

            Because we were becoming politically aware, Mr Schiff decided to organize a presidential debate.  We studied the issues, the party platforms and prepared for the in-class debate scheduled for mid-October.  I was please when Mr Schiff chose me to lead the Democratic team.  Fifty years later I only remember that the debate revealed what has continued to be one of my significant flaws:  I cannot remain dispassionate in a debate.

            What I remember most clearly about my year with Mr Schiff was that he was the first Jew I had ever met in my twelve years.  Intellectually I knew that there were other non-Christian religions, but, in the Colorado Springs of the 1960’s, other religions tended to mean Roman Catholics or Methodists or Baptists or even Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons!  I had been exposed to the anti-Judaism prevalent in American society despite the catastrophe of the Shoah.  Most of my friends would probably have believed that only Christians would go to heaven.

            I do not know how, but having Mr Schiff as my teacher changed the way I thought about other religions and other religious believers.  Although my memories of Mr Schiff have lost their precision over the years, whenever I think of him I am overwhelmed by feelings of respect and deep affection.  If Mr Schiff, a man of deep integrity, was not welcome in heaven, my twelve-year-old mind began to ask the question, “How could God be just?”

            In today’s gospel we are offered two images of Jesus, one that is familiar and comforting, the other that is less familiar and challenging.  The first image is that of Jesus as the good shepherd.  It is comforting to think of our Lord, the Son of God, as someone who seeks us out when we are lost, who risks everything for our well-being and who knows each one of us by name.  As an image it is as warm and cozy as the wool sheep provide.  Is it any wonder that Psalm 23 is used so frequently at funerals?

            The other image is cooler and scratchier:  Jesus as ‘the gate to the sheepfold’. 

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.  All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them.  I am the gate.  Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” [1]

No one can enter the sheepfold, an image for God’s coming reign of justice and peace, unless they enter through the only gate, Jesus.  Any other ‘gate’, the evangelist John tells us, is the gate of thieves and bandits.

            For some Christians, perhaps even the majority, to call Jesus the ‘gate’ means that no one will enter the coming reign of God unless they confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour.  No matter how ‘nice’ Mr Schiff may have been, he was a Jew and, unless he converted, he was destined to be eternally on the outside looking in.  Throughout the world today there are hundreds if not thousands of Christian missionary agencies whose primary motivational message is this:  ‘If we don’t convert unbelievers, then they are doomed.’  Some of these agencies actively practice what I would call ‘sheep-stealing’:  they reach out to Christians who do not share the agency’s particular understanding of Christian faith and practice and imply that any other way of being Christian is also doomed.

            There is another way to interpret this text that draws inspiration from the beginning of John’s gospel.

            In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. [2]

John speaks of the Word as the principle or pattern by which God uses to create, to redeem and to bring to perfection the whole universe.  Note that John does not say that the Word is the pattern only for some people; it is the pattern for ‘all people’ and that nothing has come into being without being made in this pattern.

            This pattern, the Word, the ‘Logos’ to use the Greek term, is active in all times and places.  Christians believe that this Word is uniquely made known in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  This belief is summed up in the words of my late teacher, Jim Griffiss, when he said, “All Christian teaching can be summarized by saying, ‘When you meet Jesus of Nazareth, you meet God.’  Everything else is commentary.”

            To believe that we meet God uniquely in Jesus of Nazareth does not mean that we need to condemn the religious faith of other people nor see them as our competitors.  Because the Word, the pattern of life, the ‘deep magic’ of creation, has been active before time and in time, before the kosmos and in the kosmos, this life has been implanted in the very DNA of all human beings, before and after the Word becoming flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.

            We Christians can rejoice that we are surrounded by other peoples of faith whose lives manifest the pattern of the Word --- even when they are completely unaware of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  Whoever works for justice reveals the Word.  Whoever offers compassion embodies the Word.  Whoever does what Jesus would do is a friend of the Word.  Entering the promised reign of God has more to do with living the good news, living a Jesus-shaped life, than it does with having the right religious credentials.

            There are many others, however, in the world, in our neighbourhoods, with whom we do need to share the good news we know in Jesus of Nazareth.  They are seeking life in its fullness that Jesus offer to all who will follow in his path and they have not yet found it.  They know in their innermost beings a longing for the life implanted in them from the moment of their conception and reinforced every moment of their lives.  What they have not yet done is commit themselves to following a path that brings them knowledge of eternal life, the fullness of life in the here and now as well as the hope of that same life in the future.

            I am convinced Mr Schiff knew this life in his Jewish faith and practice.  I am convinced that my Sikh neighbours know this life in their faith and practice.  I am equally convinced that we all live a life shaped by the Word and it is that Word that gives life to all humanity.  But there are many who live in darkness and who cannot see the Word.  It is to them that you and I are sent to proclaim the good news of God in Christ so that they may life, abundant life, eternal life.  May it be so.  Amen.

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[1] John 10.7-10 (New Revised Standard Version).

[2] John 1.1-5 (New Revised Standard Version).