A Life-Giving Way?

Jesus said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. (Jn.14.6).

At the last supper

Picture the scene. Jesus, sitting at table with his friends, at the meal we now call the Last Supper, which we recall at every Eucharist. And he starts saying to them: Look, don't be alarmed or afraid. It's true I'm about to die - within the next 24 hours, in fact. But don't worry. I'm only going ahead of you to my Father's place, to get things ready for you. And when I've done that, when the time's right, I'll come back for you. I am with you, I will be with you always; and pretty soon, you will be with me and with the Father. In any case, you don't need to worry because you know where I'm going. You know the way there, too.

Thomas says, Look, Jesus. We don't know where you're going, actually (you're talking in riddles again). How on earth can we know the way there?

Jesus might have said: Oh don't you worry Thomas. You'll find the way OK. Everyone finds a way to die at last, one way or other. But instead he says: You don't know the way, Thomas? It's me. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.

Not Exclusive

This is a verse that it's practically impossible to be neutral about. As Christians we probably love it: it tells us in simple direct words that this Jesus whom we love and worship and seek to follow, is God's chosen way of saving us. Through Jesus, we have access to God: it actually works. This is the heart of our faith. But for many people on the fringes of the Christian faith, or outside it, it's a difficult verse: it strikes them as triumphalist, imperialistic, totally dismissive of all other religions, or ways of worshipping God, trying to live a good life.

It's a great tragedy that it has come to be read and understood in this exclusive way - I suppose that's inevitable as it starts with 'No one'. But I would hope we can read it in as inclusive a way as possible. It is saying: Look, there is a way people can find and know God: and that way is Jesus. But everyone who comes to God, who knows and loves God, in fact does so because of Jesus, or through Jesus (whether they know it or not). It doesn't say that they actually have to know that, or claim it. Otherwise it would be the case that no one who was not a Christian, no one who followed any other religion, would stand a chance: they would all be rejects, as far as God was concerned. Now, there are people and sections of the Christian church, that actually believe that, have believed it. But I believe, if we phrase it as starkly as that, we must realise how impossible it is. As Professor Stephen Sykes used to say in our systematic theology seminars: What about the first century Japanese? What about the 4th century B.C. Aztec? They had no way of hearing about Jesus, even if they'd wanted to: can we really believe God created all these people, only in order to consign them to hell? And what about the billions of others: Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, people of all the other, so-called 'primitive' faiths?

The Last Battle

Of course, this whole question is something of a mystery, which it's probably best to try to comprehend with the imagination, rather than the intellect.

C.S.Lewis in The Last Battle. Emeth, the good Calormene (neighbours of the Narnians, and their traditional enemies.) All his life Emeth has sought to serve Tash, the god of the Calormenes, and has hated Aslan, because he has been taught they are bitter foes. So he leaps at the opportunity to invade Narnia, at the same time as the coming of a false prophet (a talking ape) who claims that Aslan the Lion has returned. There's a point in the story where the Calormenes have captured the last King of Narnia, and the children (who are previous kings and queens) and are about to throw them into a hut where a soldier is lying in wait to kill them - the claim is that they are being sacrificed to the god Tash. Emeth becomes angry when he realises that the Calormene leader doesn't actually believe in Tash at all, but is merely using religion, as a means of gaining and keeping power over people. But as it turns out, Tash is real. When he appears to that Calormene general, it's as a ferocious demon who carries him off. But it is Aslan who comes and appears to Emeth, and tells him that it was he, Aslan, whom Emeth really sought and desired all along. Emeth describes their conversation:

Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, and though he know it not, it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.
The Last Battle p.149.

It's C.S.Lewis's imaginative way of saying that all true seekers will ultimately find the true God (even if they have sought him with a different name, in a different way). But all who have sought to do deeds of cruelty or evil, or used religion for their own greed and lust for power - even if they have taken the name of Christ on their lips - will find the opposite. Now, this doesn't have the authority of scripture! And it would be quite wrong to say to someone of another faith, Well, you'll all end up being Christians hereafter. This is an idea for our internal use and encouragement only. But it does seem to me to sit comfortably with what we know about God's inclusive love, given to us in Jesus.

Challenge and Examples

So, I'm saying we should read this verse in an inclusive way, rather than an exclusive one, as a reminder of God's gracious invitation to us and to all people to know him through Jesus; but also as a challenge to those of us who claim to know him already. Is the Jesus whom we offer to people really a true and living way?

Just this last week I was talking to someone who was born and brought up in India, where his father was in the Indian Army. When it wasn't appropriate for him to attend the army school any longer, he was sent to a school run by the Christian Brothers, an Irish educational order. And his experience was similar to that of many boys taught by the Christian Brothers: they were strict, and used corporal punishment, to the point of cruelty. It's hard to see how the Jesus they claimed to commend, could be a true and living way to anyone.

But just so that you don't think I'm getting at Catholic religious (and there must be many who were loving, good teachers, to balance the horror stories): a blogging friend of mine has written about his experience in a very evangelical, charismatic church, where the pastor used his position to manipulate the congregation. By sarcasm, mockery, ranting at them, telling tales about members of the congregation in the pulpit, so that it was obvious who he was getting at, constantly giving them the impression they were not as committed to Christ, not genuine Christians like he was, he both made them feel guilty about their faith, and kept them dependent on him because he was the 'real' Christian. This is, actually, a kind of spiritual abuse. And it's possible not only for clergy but for other Christians to abuse people in this way. Again, it does not commend Jesus as a true and living way; it's far more likely to put people off, lead them to reject Jesus.

Application

In contrast, I've just been reading a book by Alan Bartlett, called Humane Christianity. He talks about the kind of things I've mentioned: the examples from church history of how the institutional church has been guilty of appalling cruelty and inhumanity, throughout much of its history. By the way it has understood and taught theology, by the way it has tried to impose discipline, uniformity of practice, etc. By the way it has used its secular power and influence. And he sets out some of the movements throughout church history which have been more genuinely Christ-like, according to the Spirit of Jesus. His key thought is: God is always the lifegiver (from 1 Tim.6.13).

The question he asks us is this: Is the Christianity we live, and the Jesus we present, true and life-giving? Or life-denying? We should always beware, be very ware, if there is a point at which we stop saying, This is how I have resolved to live in obedience to the Lord who has saved me, and start saying, This is how you ought to live. As St Paul says, Who are we to judge the servant of another? Yet this is exactly what the Church, or sections of the Church, has done all through history, and what, notoriously, it's tearing itself apart by doing right now. And this is not true and life-giving, because it alienates people from the life that Jesus gives, which they may never find, if Christians are alienating them from the Jesus of the Church.

Our faith should not try to deny or take away people's life, joy, freedom, intellectual honesty and integrity, personal identity. It should not try to control and manipulate or use them. It should always and only be about introducing them to Jesus, who is the true and living way to God, who is always the lifegiver.

 

A sermon preached at St Nicholas Marston on April 24, 2005