EASTER V April 24, 2005

I have wrestled a lot with the portion of the Gospel read today. "I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me."

Most of the time that passage gets quoted in a very excluding way, as a way of saying that non-Christians will not be saved, that non-Christians have no relationship with God; that they are going the wrong way, don’t speak the truth, and will have no real life.

Before his own downfall, Jimmy Swaggert said, "God doesn’t hear the prayers of a Jew." Three years ago, Franklin Graham called Islam an "evil religion." In this last Wednesday’s paper the Vice Commandant of the Air Force Academy was quoted as saying that the aggressively Christian atmosphere at the Academy had become so strong that, "There were people walking up to someone and basically they would get into a conversation and end it with ‘if you don’t believe what I believe, you’re going to hell."

Five years ago the Cardinal for the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Faith (the institutional descendant of the Grand Inquisitor) promulgated a teaching that no one outside the Roman Catholic Church would be saved. That Cardinal has just been elected Pope. He says he want to reach out to other Christians and people of other faiths, but the exclusive interpretations of this passage from John has such a weight of tradition behind it that it may block any true openness and creative ecumenism.

For me that kind of defensive exclusivity can only come from a deep insecurity, and insecurity is contrary to Christian hope. It seems to directly contradict the opening sentences of this very reading from John: "Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me. In my father’s house there are many dwelling places…" Many rooms, many mansions, however it’s translated. I just can’t rest with the exclusivist interpretation of the way, the truth, and the life passage. If I did believe it I couldn’t be a Christian.

But I approach this passage with the same meditational technique that I use with anything else in our tradition that contradicts the way I experience life. I won’t simply buy it because somebody tells me I’m supposed to, I can’t just ignore it, but neither can I just reject it. I hold it out there and look at it from different angles, and I think, and I pray, and, over time, I see what I can see.

And the way that I have found out of my dilemma with respect to this particular passage – "no one comes to the Father but by me" – has been to see it not as a kind of demand or religious requirement, but rather simply as a statement of fact.

Whatever divine reality we understand to be a part of the life of Jesus is the same divine reality that underlies any expression of the life of God in this world.

Whoever find their way to God, a Saint James parishioner, or a Zen Buddhist monk, goes, in fact by the way of Christ.

Whoever sees the truth, mystic poet or nuclear physicist, sees in fact the truth of Christ.

Whoever has a life, the dying saint or the young couple in love, in fact lives in, through, and because of Christ.

There may be levels of awareness. (Ours, in fact, may not be the deepest.) There are certainly differences in vocabulary. But none of those distinctions alter the fact that there is one God, creator, redeemer, and spirit of the universe…the ground of all that is…and the power behind what we as Christians experience as redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus came as savior of the world, not as the chief recruiter for some religious institution.

Any challenge that we may find in the phrase, "no one comes to the Father, but by me," must be for some other purpose than overly defending an insecure faith. And such a purpose can be found in the prophetic ministry of Jesus and the prophetic call to his Church. This is clarified, I think, if we join this reading with its companion reading from the Book of Acts today. Especially the part where the enemies of Paul accuse him and his friends of "turning the world upside down."

The way of the world, the truth of the world, and the life of the world were as far from the way, the truth and the life of Christ then as they are today. They were, and are, false ways, false truths, and a false life that need to be turned upside down.

The "way" of the world, for example, follows a straight line. For the Romans that was seen as destiny. For us it is seen as progress. We want to grow, to do, to make, to change by evolution or revolution. Never just being who we are, where we are. Always becoming. Wanting more and more and more and more of whatever we have. Judging everything, measuring everything – levels and stages, and degrees and achievements. There is always comparison in the way of the world. Are you ahead of me, or am I ahead of you? Who is further along the way, with the biggest house or the best job or more faith (whatever that could mean.) And this way of the world is sure there is a "right" way – Christian or Muslim, Presbyterian or Episcopalian, Roman Catholic or Community Church. You take the high road, I’ll take the low road and I’ll get to heaven before you.

That’s not the way of Jesus. That’s not the way of Christ.

The way he shows us has more of a circle about it than it has a straight line. It’s the ebb and flow of the times and the seasons. "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again." It’s a natural way

The way of Christ has more to do with being somewhere than with getting somewhere. More to do with rest and re-creation than with battle lines through which we attack each other and defend ourselves.

Time in the world, in the way of the world, is cut up into moments through which we progress. But for God, as I’ve said before, there is no time so there is no progress, just an eternal "now", as Paul Tillich pointed out. The way of the Gospel goes nowhere, but arrives at the center in the presence of God.

The "truth" of the world is always a question of "data" and "information". The world wants the facts, just the facts. And, as I’ve also said before, there is a big difference between fact and truth. Facts are objective, truth is relational. Facts deal with information, truth deals with meaning. Facts are best assessed dispassionately, truth can only be approached with passion. Facts lead to separation, truth leads to wholeness.

The truth that Jesus brings, that Jesus is, is an eternal truth. And it is true no matter what factual framework is used to present it. Because I am a Christian I’ve found that Christianity expresses that truth more clearly and in a more accessible form for me than does Buddhism or Islam or New Age Philosophy. And I am willing to recommend Christianity to anyone. What I’m not willing to do is say that others can’t possibly have access to the truth if the factual way they express that truth is different from mine.

The important thing is the truth, not the facts, the words in which it is clothed and through which it is revealed. There have been non-Christians…Gandhi, Rumi, the Zen Master Dogen,….who, I believe, clearly spoke the truth. And there, sadly, have been many people, who have called themselves Christians, who have spoken lie after lie after lie after lie.

Then there is the life….the way, the truth and the life.

I think that people often confuse a Christian life with a Christian lifestyle…obeying the rules, doing good deeds, a focus on the family, being productive, being responsible. (All of which is, incidentally, pretty far from the lifestyle of Jesus who rejected his family, went around rootless and homeless, broke all the rules and was executed for treason.)

But neither of those lifestyles is to be equated with Christian life.

Christian life, of "the way, the truth and the life", involves the shifting of emphasis and value from the surface of life, that shows forth in life-style, to the deeper source of life in God. It’s key is non-attachment, not only to material goods and the vanities of the world, but also to personal piety, personal accomplishment, and even personal survival. That’s why Paul says that when he is weak, that is when he is strong. That’s shy the way to the fullness of resurrection goes by way of the emptiness of the cross.

But in the end, you know, it is not all up to you. You didn’t choose this way, this truth, this life. You have been chosen for it.

You are a royal Priesthood.

You are a holy nation.

Now, go and turn the world upside down.

Thanks be to God.