John 14:1-14
April 28, 2013
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.
Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many
dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare
a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you
know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do
not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I
am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do
know him and have seen him.’
Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show
us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with
you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me
has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe
that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I
do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe
me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then
believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who
believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater
works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask
in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you
ask me for anything, I will do it.
Any time I read this passage, I can’t help but go back in
time to an event that took place in our presbytery in 2000. If you are
unfamiliar with Presbyterian stuff, a presbytery is similar to a diocese in the
Catholic Church, except we don’t have bishops. An equal number of elders and
pastors vote in these meetings, and these votes have a bishop’s authority.
In 2000 a church in our presbytery, the Summit
Presbyterian Church in Butler, came up with a confession that outlined their
beliefs. For a little bit of history, all Presbyterian denominations are
considered to be “confessing” denominations in that they all have a number of creeds,
like the Apostles Creed, that help people understand our beliefs better.
The Summit Church, upset at what they saw as the
increasing moral laxity of our denomination, decided that they would write
their own confession—one that would declare what it believed to be the correct
position on salvation, the role of the Bible in Christian faith, and the proper
perspective on sexual relations.
A number of other churches in our presbytery decided that
they liked the confession, and began adopting it for their own churches. It
became known as the “Summit Confession,” and the movement it sparked became
known as the “Confessing Church Movement.” The name for the movement harkened
back to the attempt of German churches to create a confession that took a stand
against the Nazis. A number of the folks behind the Summit Confession believed
that the threat of homosexuality, as well as a more progressive view of faith,
was a threat on the level of Nazism.
The confession was introduced at a presbytery meeting in Cranberry,
with the hopes that it would become a binding confession for all churches
within the presbytery. When it was first introduced, I immediately had a
problem with it. I believed that it made theological statements that were at
odds both with the Presbyterian Church and the Bible. The three main tenets of
the confession were that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and a
relationship with God, that all parts of the Bible are applicable to our lives,
and that the only proper sexual relations are those within marriage.
I had issues with all three assertions, not the least of
which was that I saw the whole document as a vehicle to try to oust homosexuals
from the church. But my biggest problems were that I didn’t agree with it’s
understanding of the Bible, not its assertion of Jesus as being the only way to
salvation. First, the Bible. To say that all parts of the Bible are applicable
to our lives is not quite what we believe. We are biblical people, and try to
apply the whole Bible to our lives, but not all parts are applicable. For
instance, the Bible is clearly on the side of permitting slavery. I would be
completely biblical if I were to promote the restoration of slavery to this
country. The Bible clearly recognizes slavery as permissible. It teaches is that
masters are to treat their slaves well, and that slaves are to be obedient to
masters. I think there are times when we recognize that the Bible, while very
much being the Word of God, conveys it’s cultural bias. I believe it when the
Bible says that we are all sinful. And I believe that this sin existed even
among those who wrote Scripture. They were trying to communicate what they
heard from God, but they were sinful themselves and therefore could mistakenly
promote cultural beliefs like slavery, which we recognize as wrong today. Our
task in reading the Bible is to sift out what is cultural so that we can more
clearly recognize what is of God.
Still, my primary objection with the Summit Confession
was their understanding of salvation. When they say that Jesus is the only way
to salvation, they are paraphrasing our passage for this morning, especially
where Jesus says, “I am the way, and the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Their
response to me might even be your response to me, which is to say, “but Jesus just
said he is the only way.” My answer is that this is not what Jesus said. He
said “no one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s something
different. But I’ll come back to this.
My response to the confession, after it was passed and
made binding on all of our churches, was to write a five-page letter to the
presbytery, critiquing the confession, informing the other pastors and churches
that I would not abide by this confession, and that I did not consider it to be
one that was binding on me.
There’s a bit more to why I thought the confession was
wrong. Confessions in our denomination can only be created by our national
church, and through a very democratic process. The process begins at a General
Assembly meeting, which then is the annual meeting of representatives from all
over the U.S. When a General Assembly decides that it might be good to create a
new confession to make it clearer what we believe it votes to do so. In doing
so, it creates a task force representative of the differing theology, ethnicity,
gender, and ages of members of the denomination. The task force then works for
three to five years on the confession. It then presents their confession to a
subsequent General Assembly at the end of their work. The General Assembly votes
on accepting it, and if it does, it sends it out to the whole denomination to
be ratified by 2/3rds of the presbyteries. Then the next General
Assembly must vote it into being. At it’s best, this is a six-year process
involving voices from all over the denomination. The Summit Confession was
created by one pastor and members of one church, presented to our presbytery in
the beginning of a meeting, and made binding by the end of that meeting. Hardly
a Presbyterian way.
When I sent out my letter, those supporting the
confession became VERY angry with me. Many wanted to find a way to get me out
of the presbytery and Calvin Church. They had plans, too. Fortunately, the fact
that our session sent a letter to the presbytery stating that it would not
abide by the confession fuddled those plans. Still, I had a very hard time
deciding whether or not to stay. I came close to leaving Calvin Church. What
kept me here was a day in prayer I spent, where I really sensed God saying to
me, “I called you to this church, not
this presbytery. You care for the church. I’ll care for the presbytery.”
Interestingly, as angry as other pastors were at me, at our next presbytery
meeting they rescinded the confession, and started working on a substitute
“affirmation.” They also asked me to read over and help with the drafting of a
substitute affirmation—one that was very different. In the end, the whole
Confessing Church Movement died a few years later (I’m sure someone will get a
hold of this sermon and get angry with me all over again, anyway).
So what was my problem with their understanding of Jesus
as the only way to salvation? I think it was a misuse of our passage for today.
I believe that our passage for this morning may be one of the most misapplied,
and misused passages of the whole Bible. People consistently use it to proclaim
Christians to be saved, and people of all other religions to be damned. And on
the surface this passage seems to support this belief. The problem is that this
belief goes against what the passage says. It turns the passage into an answer
to a question that was never asked by the disciples. No one in this passage is
asking whether Christians are saved and others not.
First of all, the disciples were Jewish, not Christian,
so they weren’t going to ask if Christians are saved and others not. As Jews they
knew they were saved and chosen. They weren’t wondering what their fate was. They
knew they were already saved, and by following Jesus, they had become even more
certain of their salvation.
They were asking a completely different question of Jesus.
They didn’t want to know who was saved and who wasn’t. They wanted to know how
they could follow Jesus to heaven, since he had just told them that this is
where he was going. We read this passage as a question on salvation because
we’re tribal. What I mean is that to be human is to have a need to be part of a
group that gives us an identity and a sense of security. For example, those of
us from the Pittsburgh area are part of the Steeler, Penguin, and Pirate
tribes. Those from the Zelienople/Cranberry area are part of the Seneca Valley
tribe. All us are part of the national, U.S. tribe (a tribe that forges our
national identity and gives us a sense of security). And we are part of a
multitude of tribes that include our ancestral heritage, or ethnicity, our
gender, and many of our interests. We all are part of tribes, and to be
Christian is to be tribal to some extent. When you are part of a tribe, you
want assurances that your tribe is better than the others, and that others are
worse. This is how many Christians use our passage for today. They have a need
to prove that the Christian tribe is the ONLY true religious tribe, and that
all others lead to damnation. It’s a tool to both make us feel safer about our
ultimate salvation, and to recruit others.
I am not reducing Christianity just to its tribal
elements. I’m simply pointing out that our tribal need can be an extension of
our sin, and it can actually cause us to misuse Scripture. Jesus was trying to
lead people beyond tribalism. He was breaking down walls, not building them up.
Part of the Jewish anger against him was the way he treated people outside of
the Jewish tribe. Read the gospels and notice what he did. He consistently
reached out in love to those damned by the Jews. He touched and helped a
Samaritan women by the well, one who had been divorced five times and was not
living with a man she wasn’t married to. One who was clearly damned for being
part of the wrong tribe (the Samaritans) and a sinner in that tribe. He healed
the slave of a Roman soldier, a Syro-Phoenician woman, a Canaanite woman, and
so many whose physical ailments targeted them by the Jews as suffering from
physical infirmities that were clear demonstrations of their sin. Each person Jesus
healed or blessed was part of a different tribe from the Jews, and he accepted
them in. The early Christian movement did the same. It accepted Gentiles into
the Jewish tribe. Outrageous!... at least according to the Jews of the time.
Jesus wasn’t declaring a new tribe by saying he was the
ONLY way to salvation. He was simply answering an important question from his
followers on another topic. Our passage is part of a progression—part of a series
of teachings begun in chapter 13 of John’s gospel that Jesus kept moving deeper
and deeper and deeper. In chapter 13, Jesus starts by teaching them how they
were to be after he left them. Their implicit question is, “How do you want us
to serve you?” He takes a towel and washes their feet, telling them to follow
his example. Their question is, “What is that example?” His answer is for them
to become servants, doing whatever necessary, whatever lowly, to help people.
Jesus then tells them of his impending betrayal. They
ask, “Who will betray?” He tells them it is the one dipping his bread into the
bowl. Next, he tells them that he will be going away. “Where?” they ask. He says
that he is going to be with the Father, and that he will prepare places in
heaven for them. He then says that they will know the way there. “How can they
know the way? What is the way?” they ask. This is the question that leads to
our passage for today. They are expecting explicit directions: do this, do
that, and you will find your way. His answer isn’t directions. It’s a
relationship.
What Jesus is saying is really profound—let me give you
an analogy. I want you to imagine that you are lost and looking for directions
to get somewhere important. You stop your car and ask someone for directions.
Now imagine that this person—obviously one of love and not a danger—says to
you, “I’ll take you there. He jumps in the car and drives you. Along the way,
he does more. He teaches, revealing to you the deeper truths of life. At the
same time, he injects you with life. It’s like asking for directions, and the
person drives, opens our lives on the way, and injects with B-vitamins and pure
oxygen. In the process, he also becomes your companion for life—one you want!
When he says that, “No
one comes to the Father except through me,” he’s telling us that everyone
who has an experience of God has that experience through him. I want you to
look at this differently. He’s saying that if you have a direct experience of
God that you don’t necessarily connect with Christ, it is still an experience
through Christ. For example, as I mentioned several weeks ago, your experience
of God through nature is an experience of God through Christ. You may not
recognize it as such, but Jesus has said, “No
one comes to the Father except through me.” It’s not a statement about who
is saved and who isn’t. It’s a statement about the fact that your experiences
of God in life, whether you recognize them as such, are through Christ.
What he’s also saying to them and us is that our
relationship with him opens us to God in everything. He’s saying that God isn’t
a mystery up above. God is in them, you, and me because we are in Jesus and he
in us. So if you want to discover God in your life, all you need to do is to open
up to Christ—however you understand
him—and you’ll discover God. What he’s not saying is that you have to
have Christ figured out, or even that you have to have your theology completely
worked out. You only have to become open.
Let me close with a great example of this. This past
Thursday we got to hear of a “Christ to the Father” experience from one the
people joining Calvin Presbyterian Church. Her name is Ellen, and Ellen has
been struggling with cancer for the past two years. She was diagnosed a month
after the birth of her son. Ellen has gone through a lot. She has gone through
all sorts of chemotherapy, and last fall she had a bone marrow transplant.
Facing the transplant, a procedure that posed all sorts of dangers, she was
worried. What if she didn’t make it? She wanted to raise her son. She hadn’t
really grown up in church, or with much faith, but she felt that she needed to
know if God both existed and was really with her.
Late last summer, at about 2 a.m. one morning, she
couldn’t sleep. So she went out onto her front porch to sit. She was scared. So
she called out to God. She asked God for some sort of sign that God was with
her and that everything would be okay. After her prayer she felt a sense of
peace, and this helped her to sleep. The next morning she went out again on her
porch to have her coffee there. She thought a bit about her prayer the night
before, and as she did she felt something tickle her finger. She looked down
and noticed a butterfly. It mesmerized her. It stayed on her finger for at
least five minutes. Then, as she looked up from the butterfly, she noticed
butterflies everywhere, fluttering around the trees, bushes, and porch. She
felt a very clear sense that God was with her, and that she would be fine. That
was her sign.
Bringing this into our passage, Jesus (whom the butterfly
is a symbol of) was the WAY to the Father. She experience God through Jesus.
And she didn’t even necessarily know it, at least not at a conscious level.
It’s so easy to get caught up in using this passage to
say to people, “I’m in, you’re out.” My favorite use of this passage came from
one of our members who is now a pastor, the Rev. Steve Cramer. When he was
being examined to become a pastor by all the other pastors and elders at a
presbytery meeting, he was asked a question relating to this passage. A pastor,
using “I am the way, and the truth, and
the life,” as the basis for his question, asked Steve if he believed that
Christianity and Christ was the only way to salvation. It was a bit of a trap.
Steve replied perfectly: “It is for me. I can’t speak for everyone, but he is
the way of salvation for me. My calling is just to invite others into the same
relationship with Christ as me.” Brilliant answer, and the right one.
Only God gets to decide who is saved and who isn’t, and
God doesn’t consult with us. What matters for us is simply that we open up to
Christ as the way for us to discover God in our lives.
Amen.
