Speaker: Pastor Stephen “Tig” Intagliata
Bible Passage: John 14:1-7
Summary: Jesus’ words “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” are often used by Christians to exclude and condemn people who don’t have a relationship with Jesus. But are there other ways to understand this passage that are more inclusive and respectful of people outside of our understanding of the Christian faith? And what if Jesus directed his words more towards Christians than those outside the Christian faith?
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 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? 3 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. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
–John 14:1-7 NRSVue
This morning we’re continuing our series on The “I am” Statements of Jesus. Today’s I am statement is from John 14:6, where Jesus says “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Before we dig into that text, I want to say a little bit about the context and the verses that come before the I am statement.
John 14 is in the middle of what’s known as the Farewell Discourse of Jesus. It’s a time when he is preparing his disciples for his upcoming suffering and his death on the cross. So as we might imagine, the mood was pretty somber.
Understandably, his disciples are distraught, and they’re scared about what the future holds. Jesus acknowledges their fear and anxiety at the beginning of the chapter when he says “Do not let your hearts be troubled; believe in me”.
And then he comforts them by telling him that he’s going to “prepare a place” for his disciples. He says “in my Father’s house there are many mansions”.
How many of you have heard a preacher talk about these mansions, and how big and fancy the mansions will be for faithful Christians when they get to heaven?
Actually the original word is “rooms”, but when the King James Version was written in the 1600’s, a “mansion” was thought of as a modest dwelling, not a huge palace. So something different than what we think of today.
Actually the Greek word used here for “rooms” is related to the same word Jesus used for “remain” or “abide” which we saw when we looked at the “I am the Vine” statement, when Jesus said “abide in me, as I abide in you”.
Just like Jesus promised then that he would be with his disciples here on earth, Jesus is saying here that they will be together always, even after he’s gone.
And whether they’ll be in a big mansion or a little hut made of wood scraps, just being with Jesus will be all that matters. There will be this permanent abiding, communion between him and those who know him.
And then the conversation moves to knowing the way to that place where Jesus is going. And that’s where Thomas raises the question “Lord, we do not know where you’re going. How can we know the way?
And Jesus’ response to him is our “I am” verse: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Now this verse raises a lot of questions in my mind. For example:
Is Jesus the only way to salvation/heaven?
Which criteria do we use to determine if someone is a Christian? For example:
- Praying a prayer inviting him into our heart i.e. “the sinners prayer”?
- Knowing the Bible well, and memorizing a lot of verses?
- Say that we’re doing our best to try to live like Jesus?
- Actually living a Christlike life? (whether you’re a Christian or not)?
What about people of other faiths or those who never have heard of Jesus?
Is this verse aimed more at Christians, or those outside the Christian faith?
This verse has the dubious distinction of being one of what’s known as the “clobber texts” in scripture.
These are verses used to prove the exclusivity of Jesus, that he is the only path to knowing God, and believing in him is the only way to “be saved” and have eternal life in heaven.
“The Bible says it, I believe it and end of discussion”. And it’s been used to clobber and silence and condemn all kinds of people of other faiths or who have no faith in Jesus.
Here’s another “clobber text”, this time from one of the apostle Paul’s letters.
“For there is one God, there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for many.”
Now let’s look for a minute at Jesus’ identity. A lot of people in our world say that Jesus was a great moral teacher, but that’s it. He was just a human and not God. And if that’s the case, then the clobber text doesn’t have any clout to judge other people.
Well, the great British theologian and author, C.S. Lewis, had something to say about this argument. He wrote in his classic book Mere Christianity something that’s come to be known as his “Liar, Lunatic, Lord” defense:
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic…or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice… He has not left (being a great human teacher) open to us.
Lewis makes the point that Jesus truly was who he said he was, the Son of God, the promised Messiah of Israel.
This is classic orthodox Christianity, and personally, I believe it. I wouldn’t be standing here in this pulpit if I didn’t. I believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, the truest and fullest revelation of God.
But that takes us back to the questions I mentioned earlier. What about people who don’t fit our criteria of being a Christian? Do we have a right to clobber and condemn them to hell? Or are there other ways to think of other faiths and relate to people who aren’t Christians?
That’s what I want to spend the rest of our time looking at.
According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, there are 10,000 distinct religions in the world, and 150 of them have over 1 million adherents. That’s a lot of people who are Christian and who’s eternal destiny is in question.
I’m reminded of my time as a student at UCLA, when along “Bruin Walk”–the main pedestrian route to get to classes– there were tables staffed by every kind of religious group you could think of.
I sat at the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship table. There was a Catholic student group table, a Scientology table, a Hare Krishna table, an Hasidic Jew table, and many, many more faiths represented on Bruin Walk.
We live in a diverse society here in the U.S., and most of us rub shoulders with people who aren’t Christian fairly regularly. How many of you have co workers, neighbors, friends or family members who would not identify as Christian?
In such a diverse world, it’s understandable that a lot of people believe in what’s known as religious pluralism, which believes that:
- All religions are equally valid
- No one religion can claim to be normative for all people and superior to all others.
Embracing pluralism is an attractive philosophy of life, because it’s respectful of others no matter what they believe, and it’s a lot more peaceful and non-judgmental than the “clobber” approach.
But one challenge with religious pluralism is that if you look at the different religions, there are differences, contradictions, so they can’t all be equally true.
Some religions are monotheistic—like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. I believe we all worship the same God. And these three Abrahamic faiths as they’re called—have other things in common like the Golden Rule, and caring for the poor.
But some other religions are polytheistic—they believe in many gods. They may have some similarities with Christianity, but there are major differences.
And then there are some religions and faiths that are hard to accept as good because they have some views and practices because they downright harmful. For example, the Aztecs and Incas religious worldview practiced human sacrifice,
and there are religious cults like Jim Jones “People’s Temple”, where blind obedience to someone they thought was a messiah led to the poisoning of over 900 people. That’s where the phrase “they drank the Kool-aid” comes from.
So if we say we believe in religious pluralism, most of us would admit that we would need to do some sifting through them to rule some groups out.
Now there’s another approach to other faiths that widens the door of coming to the God through Jesus. It was articulated by a respected Catholic theologian in the last century named Karl Rahner.
Rahner came up with this idea he called “anonymous Christians”, where he suggested that people who are faithful adherents of other religions will be saved through Jesus.
So the idea is if Hindus are faithful Hindus, and Muslims are faithful Muslims, and Jews are faithful Jews, etc., then they will be saved…through Jesus. That shows a lot of respect for sincere people of other faiths, and it ultimately up to God to determine whose “in” and whose “out”.
And really, that applies to other people as well, like people who have never had a chance to hear about Jesus, or people with limited cognitive abilities, or children who die before they can make a decision to make Jesus Lord of their lives.
C.S. Lewis reflected on this issue, and asked “Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined only to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in him? But the truth is that God has not told us what His arrangements about other people are.”
In other words, we let God be the ultimate judge, not us.
You know, there are a lot of people out there who aren’t Christians who live more like Jesus than a lot of us Christians. Think of people like Gandhi, who loved the way of Jesus, but said how Christians actually lived turned him away from Christianity.
Two of my closest friends call themselves agnostic or atheist, but they are some of the most generous, caring, loving—and Christlike– people that I know. We all know people like that, right?
I heard a quote recently by author Huston Smith, who wrote what’s considered the definitive book on world religions. He said “God is defined by Jesus, but not confined to Jesus”.
Wow, that’s deep, huh? A contemporary Catholic author I have appreciated is Richard Rohr. I’ve gained much spiritual nourishment from his writings. One of Rohr’s most recent books is The Universal Christ, and in the book he coined the phrase “The Cosmic Christ”.
According to Rohr, the Cosmic Christ is “the spirit that is embedded in—and makes up—everything in the universe, and Jesus is the embodiment of that spirit. He says “whatever evokes from you the flow of love is operating as Christ for you.” So that opens the door up to all kinds of people, right?
Now I’ll be honest and say that this stretches me a bit, maybe too far. It seems that Rohr is separating the human, historical Jesus from this cosmic, universal, divine Jesus, and while I’m attracted to it in some ways, I’m not completely comfortable separating them like Rohr does.
Nonetheless, I am challenged by how Rohr and others point to some scriptures that talk about how far and wide God reveals God-self to the world. Like in our call to worship from Isaiah 52:
The Lord will show his holy power to all the nations.
Then everyone on earth will see the salvation of our God.
Or verses like Colossians 1:19-20 where the apostle Paul says:
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Or verses like what was brought up last week during sermon response time, where Jesus says in John 10:16 I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.
This idea of God reaching all people with his love and salvation is known as universalism, and while most Christians would disagree with it, there are many who believe it because they believe that God’s love and desire for all to know his love and grace is so strong that it can and will eventually embrace everyone.
Author Rob Bell talks about this in his book Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.
Which is stronger and more powerful, the hardness of the human heart or God’s unrelenting, infinite, expansive love?
An untold number of serious disciples of Jesus across hundreds of years have assumed, affirmed, and trusted that no one can resist God’s pursuit forever, because God’s love will eventually melt even the hardest of hearts. -Rob Bell
This begs the question: Why do we get so upset if God wants to touch more people with his love and grace, beyond our boundaries of what a Christian is?
We saw this attitude with Jonah from the Old Testament, when he was upset with God for forgiving and saving the people of Ninevah.
We also see it in the older brother in the Prodigal Son story. Instead of rejoicing that more people experience God’s love and grace, he’s angry and would rather see his brother rejected by his father instead of embraced into his loving arms.
I want to wrap things up by looking at one of the questions I asked at the beginning: Are Jesus words “I am the way and the truth and the life” meant for people of other faiths, or for Christians?”
Pastor Carl Gregg believes it’s for Christians, because Jesus was responding to a question from Thomas, one of his followers. He says we forget the part that says “to him”.
“Jesus’ statement is a response to a question by Christians, and Jesus’ answer is directed to Christians and about Christians.” So maybe it’s more a call to discipleship than a clobber text for those outside the faith.
So let’s look at what this verse might mean for those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus.
In Eugene Peterson’s book, The Jesus Way, he reflected on this verse and said “only when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way do we get the Jesus life.”. He says that too many of us focus on the “truth” part but neglect the “way” part, i.e. living the Jesus way in how we live our everyday life.
Carl Gregg expands on what Peterson says by saying this:
What haunts me now is not whether faithful Hindus, Muslims, and Jews are saved…
There’s too much wonderful, beautiful, and challenging involved with being a Christian to worry too much about everyone else’s religion. Today the questions I ask myself are:
Am I living the Jesus truth? Am I living the Jesus way? Am I living the Jesus life?
And another author, Dan Clendenin, says something along the same lines:
At the end of the day, it’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that bother me, such as the many questions about religious pluralism, but the parts that I do understand, like loving God with my whole heart and loving my neighbor as myself.
You know, our passage today has to do with following Jesus in the context of knowing that he is preparing a place for us to dwell, abide with him in the present and also in the future, our heavenly home after he comes again.
I appreciate the perspectives of Zack Hunt in our book club book Unraptured. Here’s one of his ideas that I like:
But even though Paul fervently believed we would soon be caught up with Jesus in the twinkling of an eye, he didn’t believe that was a justification for checking out of this life. Rather it was a call to double down on discipleship. Christ’s imminent return was reason to incarnate the good news to as many people as possible…
God is at work transforming the world and has invited us to participate in that restorative work until Jesus returns to bring that to fruition.
I want to leave us with some wise words about our “I am” passage in John 14 from my former seminary professor and mentor, Willard Swartley, from his commentary on John in the Believer’s Church Bible Commentary.
We must be careful not to use this text to club other religions. Rather, we bear testimony to Jesus as truth in our Christian experience. We value noble ethical insights of other religions and affirm those devout in their faith (Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and others). This does not mean compromising our beliefs. Rather, witness to Jesus as way, truth and life for Christians is essential to honest interreligious dialogue.
Prayer: God, Thank you for the vastness of your love and grace—it’s so expansive we can’t even comprehend it. Help us to experience it more in our own lives and in our relationships with other people.
Forgive us for being stingy and limiting with your love and grace, and for the pride, hatred, and judgmental spirit that it causes in us.
Help us to show more grace toward others and toward ourselves. Create in us a clean heart, a heart that is humble, understanding, and curious toward people who believe and see things differently from us. Help us to keep you at the center of our lives, and to follow you more closely as the way, the truth and the life. Amen.
