CHRIST: THE WAY, TRUTH & LIFE
1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
5th Sunday of Easter, May 7, 2023
Pastor Ritva H Williams
This morning’s gospel lesson takes us back to Maundy Thursday and Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, tells them that he is leaving, and gives them a new commandment:
love one another. As I have loved you you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciple, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35).
Peter asks Jesus, “where are you going?” Jesus does not answer that question (Jesus doesn’t often answer direct questions). Instead he tells Peter, “Where I am going you cannot follow now although you will follow afterward” (13:36). The very idea that Jesus plans to leave, fills the disciples with with anxiety, worry, dread, and fear. Jesus seeks to comfort them, “Do not let your heart be troubled. Trust God, trust me. I’m going ahead to prepare a place for you.”
This is the imagery and language of traveling by caravan in the ancient world. Before any group of people left on a journey, a travel agent would go ahead to prepare rest stops along the way. By the time the caravan arrived at the rest stop, a campsite would be set up, a water supply located, and food prepared. Travelers could spend the night in relative comfort. In the morning the caravan would set out toward the next rest stop, rinse and repeat until they reached their destination.
Jesus says that there are many such rest stops in God’s house, places of welcome, hospitality and community where the disciples may tarry and stay. Although we usually think of God’s house as being out there somewhere in a spiritual realm called heaven, I would like to suggest that God’s house is simultaneously out there and right here. Our reading from 1 Peter tells us that God’s house is built of people:
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:4-5).
St Stephen’s is a house of God made of living stones. We say we aspire to be a spiritual home for all people. In light of today’s scriptures, I think what we really mean is that we aspire to be a welcoming, hospitable, and safe rest stop for on the road of life for all people, but especially for those who experience rejection, discrimination and prejudice because of things beyond their control. Know that whatever the world says about you, you are precious and beloved in God’s sight. Good news is that Christ is here preparing a place for you.
But as the gospel reading continues it takes an interesting turn. Thomas objects that he doesn’t know where Jesus is going or the way to get there. Jesus responds, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
In chapter 5 of her book Freeing Jesus, Diana Butler Bass describes this as a
“beautiful verse, a poetic and parabolic image of the way and The Way, a beckoning for all who know Jesus to willingly embrace the journey. And it would be freeing but for the next sentence, “No one comes to the Father except through me …
This is what is sometimes called a clobber verse. In some Christian circles, if you dare wonder aloud if Jews, Buddhists, or secular people will be in heaven, a concerned friend will pull out this verse, smashing the words into the conversation to shut you up as surely as if wielding a weapon. The emphasis is not on the first half of the verse — “way, truth, and life” — but on the second half, where the weight falls on “no one” and “except through me.” [For these people:] The way is not a way at all. Rather it is a circumscribed sheep pen, with fences of razor wire. There is one way: in. The other way — out — means hell. (pp. 165-66).
Like Butler Bass I have strong feelings about this and other so-called “clobber verses. It cheeses me off when verses like this are used to shut people up, to shut people out, and to put people down. At the same time, I love revealing how clobber verses don’t mean what people think they mean.
So let’s put this verse in context. Christ is trying to prepare the disciples for a future in which Jesus won’t be physically present. Separation, loss and death are real life crises for all of us. Reality check: disease, age, accidents, disasters all too often separate us from the ones we love. How do we go on? Jesus’ answer: Love one another as Christ loves you. Jesus, in word and deed, shows us that the way forward is love, the truth we can rely is that God so loves the world, and the life he calls us to is built of words and deeds of love.
In this context, as Diana Butler Bass insists,
[The word] “except” is like a window that lets light into a closed room. It fits what the Gospel says about Christ coming as light into a world of darkness and serving as the door … that enables people to enter God’s sheepfold. Rather than restricting access to God the word “except” creates access to God.
There would be no way except that the love of God has made a way. God would be distant, unavailable, separated from us except for love. We would be all alone. There would be much to fear except for the way, the way that is wide open to those who trust.
No one comes to God, except for the way, and the truth of God’s unconditional and unbreakable love for the all world, revealed and modeled in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Jesus tells us we will know Christ’s disciples by their love. He says nothing at all about those loving disciples being Christian.
The good news for you today is that wherever you are on the road of life, you are not alone. Christ goes ahead, walks alongside, sometimes even carries you. You will recognize Christ’s presence by the love that is shown to you. Where and how that love shows up is likely to surprise you. The love which welcomes, cares for, and lifts you up in the midst of whatever is troubling your heart may come from a person who looks, sounds, loves, or worships differently than you do. That’s okay. If there is love, Christ is present.
Please pray with me:
We celebrate a faith that is measured not by the usual signs of greatness, but by the marks of love. We celebrate a love that is measured not by romance or emotion, but by acts of compassion and service. We celebrate a life that is measured not by the trappings of wealth or power, but by the lives that are healed and enriched. God, we praise and thank you for your steadfast love for all creation revealed to us in Christ. We praise and thank you for the Holy Spirit who pours your love into our hearts so that we may grow into our salvation, immersed in the one who is your way, truth, and life. Amen.
