There are two ways to approach today's sermon on this topic. One is with the head, the other with the heart. Let’s start with the head. I was taught by my professors, and it’s supported in my study Bible as well as the authors that I read, that John’s gospel is thought to have been written somewhere between 90-120 CE (or common era as it’s now referred to. We used to call that AD) A lot changed between the time of Mark’s gospel (our earliest gospel) and John’s. But one of the first things to ask yourself is when is the author writing? What’s happening around them? What is their lens, or what are they trying to convey to the listener or their particular audience at the time?
So what was happening when John was writing? The Jesus movement began within Judaism, you know this by now. Not a separate religion, but one in which Jews were following Jesus. By the time John is writing, the Jesus movement is moving outside of Judaism. The oppression of the Roman government and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 (ce) and the antagonism that the Romans had for the Jews all influence how John presents Jesus. By the time John is writing, Jesus followers are separating themselves from the orthodox Jews in large part to avoid persecution and oppression from the Romans.
So by the time John is writing, there are two very distinct groups now, and the orthodox Jews are saying to the Christ-followers "You no longer have any part of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses," and the revisionists (the new Christians) respond by saying, "Yes, we do, because the God we meet in Jesus is the 'I am' of Moses and the burning bush.”[1]
You remember the I am of Moses and the burning bush don’t you? God (YWH) is sending Moses to free God’s people from Egypt and Moses essentially says, the people are going to ask who sent me, tell me your name, so I can tell them who sent me…tell me who you are…And God responds, I am. I wrote a paper on this in Seminary. It’s one of those papers I’m most proud of because it allowed me to understand so much better my understand of God. If anyone would like a copy of that to fall asleep to this evening, let me know and I’ll print it out for you. I am is one of those untranslatable Hebrew phrases that people have been trying to translate for centuries. I am might also be translated as I will be, or I exist, or I create, or I continue to create, there’s a continuing effect.
And so every time John is writing, there’s a strong connection, between what Moses experienced as god and Jesus, so we get not one I am saying from Jesus but 7, which ensures up his authority as God incarnate. One of those I am sayings, and the most known is "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.”
John’s gospel is also markedly different in style than the synoptic gospels, with what we call a high Christology. For John the divinity of christ coincides with the beginning of time, the word, logos, or wisdom of being itself, in the Gospel of John is Jesus Christ himself. Other’s have described John’s style as a mystical one, which is focused on the deeply intimate experience of Christ which brings us into being one with God. That experience we’ve talked about before, that oneness with the world and one another. We hear that language more often with John.
Language is tricky, especially when the original language is greek and we’re left understand and translate differently. here’s a road that’s always fun to go down. Wayne is going to fall asleep for the part.
Dwell, or dwelling, is not necessarily translated as a place you go to but can also be understood as a metaphor for a relationship with God, and Jesus promises that his departure will enable his followers to share in that relationship.[2]
Another misunderstanding is of the word way. Many think of it as geography, but the I AM sayings is similar to the gate and shepherd sayings; Jesus identifying himself as a point of access to a life with God and the embodiment of that life.[3]
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Many of you grew up with a red-letter Bible, where all the things Jesus said are printed in red. And many of us have heard people use the saying, "He said it. I believe it. That settles it.”
And in this case, that means, if you pull this verse out of context and accept that translation, it can lead to a kind of thinking that makes you less tolerant of other validity of all the other world religions. And for some, the way is defined as the way to heaven. Or of being saved. Which then becomes the belief that the only way to heaven or being saved in through Jesus, and anyone who doesn’t accept Christ is doomed to eternal damnation.
So if you adhere to that, then I have to ask, what does that say about the God you choose to believe in?
Is God, the source of all being, all creation, all life, and love?….If God is infinite and beyond our understanding, and if God is all-loving, and desires most of all for us to be in relationship with this life if God is the creator of all there is, this vast infinite universe of heaven and sky, ….why would God limit oneself to only one way? This is something my mother said when I was very young. It makes sense to my childlike sensibility. A childlike sensibility is not the same as childish. To enter into this faith and this relationship with God and Christ is to enter into it with curiosity and innocence around the love that we profess God has for all beings. A God who will never allow God’s self to be defined or put in a neat little box for our own security. We don’t get to see God’s face and we don’t get a clear name or idea of what or who God is. That’s the beauty of a God who is beyond our understanding but within our reach.
How do we reconcile that God created only one way with the belief that all children are God’s children?
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When beginning to use languages like believers and non-believers we begin to separate ourselves from one another. They may even be kinder, more generous, more loving than most Christians that we know, but we separate them out through language because they’ve chosen another path like Judaism which is, let me remind you the path that Jesus walked. Does choosing Hinduism, or Buddhism or Islam or no religion at all but rather loving-kindness, as their path really separate someone from a God who wants nothing more than to be in relationship with us? If someone believes in love and kindness and in giving to a world in need, are they condemned to hell?
When one religion becomes a security blanket or a club that allows you access into something that excludes the admittance of all others if they have another loving way, then it seems to me, we’ve gone in the opposite direction of everything Jesus stood for again in his acceptance and embrace of all people in love.
We’ve witnessed the worst of this thinking in history with the crusades and religious wars when one side claims the truth at the expense of another’s belief. When we call people like Mahatma Gandhi a non-believer who does not have true access to God but call people who use hateful language and racial slurs “saved” because they believe in Christ, don’t we have it backward?
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So let’s take a step back and ask; what could Jesus be saying…well the first thing I do, when reading a verse, is to read what's happening in the scripture, rather than pulling one line out of context-
This verse is part of what’s referred to in my Bible as Jesus’s farewell discourse. Jesus has just had a farewell meal and farewell foot washing, bringing us to his final words. Final words he’s giving to the brothers and sisters he has made his family for his adult life.
Dwell is not a place you go to, but a metaphor for a relationship with God, and Jesus promises that his departure will enable his followers to share in that relationship.
Another misunderstanding is of the word way. Many think of it as geography, but the I AM sayings is similar to the gate and shepherd sayings, sayings, identifying himself as a point of access to life with God and the embodiment of that life.
And finally, the keywords "by" or "through." (No one comes to the Father except THROUGH me.) From the Greek, these words can be translated "except by the way I come to the Father." That understanding makes a great difference! [4]
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So what is the way that Jesus comes to the Father?
The father and son language used is perhaps our greatest understanding because it points to the intimacy of that relationship. And it’s precisely that intimacy that allows a new relationship with God as the father for us all.
That intimacy that Jesus brings is what brings me to Jesus. When he looked into the eyes of all the closest people in his life in order to say goodbye…..Imagine, being a mother or a father, and saying goodbye to your children.
This is his goodbye speech. It’s what Barbara Brown Taylor refers to as love language. And his disciples are looking for reassurance and promise. And Jesus gives that to them, out of love, like a parent to their children.
She observes that Jesus is not speaking at an interfaith conference with Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and Muslims present, and telling them that their religious traditions are a sham. He is speaking to a small group of his closest friends on the night before he died. The language is love language. He was “giving them everything he could think of to help them survive without him.” Shortly after this, Jesus reminds the disciples, “In my father house are many rooms.”
No one will ever love you like I’ve loved you. I can imagine saying that to my children and I don’t need to be on my death bed to feel that kind of love in my bones.
This love comes with a reassurance that Jesus’s family are loved and that how he lives and how he dies, they will experience too.
"I am the only one for you. You have made the right choice. No one can lead you to God better than I." (from Barbara Brown Taylor, "The Only Way to God," a sermon at Duke Chapel, May 2, 1999)
I can also understand these words as an assurance into a heavenly dwelling place, but I can do that without condemning others to hell for not following Christ.….I understand these words as an assurance that I’m on the right path for me. And that path includes the intimacy of a man walks and talks like me so that the I am of a nameless God comes to life in a way that allows me to experience this life, this life in a way that brings me into deep emotional intimacy with the creator of all beings.
I can, we can profess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior because of our experience of him in the darkest hours of life. I can turn to his Mother Mary in hours of need and experience time and time again answers to prayers that I experience as miracles in life. I can witness all of this to you as the path I’ve chosen and none of this should make me feel as though I need to claim Jesus as the only way to God for everyone in order for me to feel secure in it. It’s the way I’ve chosen. If someone chooses another way than amen for them. And with an open heart and mind, perhaps their faith can teach me something I hadn’t seen before that deepens my faith in Jesus and doesn’t threaten it.
The peace of this world does not come from claiming any one religion, any one identity as the only way. Peace comes when we can love and celebrate our paths, while recognizing the first truth in the garden, in the beginning, that we are all Children of the same god, born into love, created to love and will die into that same love.
[1] https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/2005/05/i-am-a-mystic.aspx?
[2] New interpreters Study Bible
[3] IBID
[4] Is Jesus the Only Way to God? Posted on Sun Jun 23 2002: Mel Williams