Jesus, the Way--September 12, 2024

Jesus, the Way--September 12, 2024

[Jesus said:] "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." [John 14:4-7]

Sometimes you have heard a verse from the Bible so many times you assume you already know what it has to say, and that it cannot possibly have anything new to say to you... and so you turn your brain off rather than listening to it. And quite often, that's the very moment we reach for verses to use as weapons, rather than putting our ears and hearts up to them, to let them speak anew.

I think this is one of those times.

I say that because there are LOTS of church folk who know John 14:6 by heart: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," and their first instinct is to weaponize it. We Respectable Religious Folks latch onto this language of "The Way and the Truth" and Jesus' line about "no one coming except through me," and it is really easy for us to do a bit of interpretive sleight-of-hand and end up morphing Jesus' sentence into, "Unless you believe the correct facts about me (which we'll call 'The Truth'), you don't get into heaven." And since that line of thinking uses words and phrases from the verse out of the Bible, it's really easy to tell ourselves that MUST be what Jesus is really saying.

But it's not. Jesus doesn't give us a list of correct facts, orthodox propositions, or theses to memorize as our ticket to heaven. And to be honest, he doesn't give us some prescribed ritual, prayer, or method for locking in our spot in the afterlife by signing with him as our Personal-Lord-and-Savior (TM). Instead, Jesus simply offers us himself. He is the Truth we have been looking for. His is the Way we are on. He is the Life in whom we are fully alive. So for whatever else we thought we meant when we picked up John 14:6 and started waving it around like a club, it means this: in the end, the Way and the Truth... is a Person.

I'm reminded of an insight of the late Frederick Buechner along these very same lines and this very same passage. Buechner writes:

"Some think of a Christian as one who necessarily believes certain things. That Jesus was the son of God, say. Or that Mary was a virgin. Or that the Pope is infallible. Or that all other religions are all wrong. Some think of a Christian as one who necessarily does certain things. Such as going to church. Getting baptized. Giving up liquor and tobacco. Reading the Bible. Doing a good deed a day. Some think of a Christian as just a Nice Guy. Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." (John 14:6) He didn't say that any particular ethic, doctrine, or religion was the way, the truth, and the life. He said that he was. He didn't say that it was by believing or doing anything in particular that you could "come to the Father." He said that it was only by him—by living, participating in, being caught up by, the way of life that he embodied, that was his way."

And of course, that's just it: in the end, the Way and the Truth isn't so much of a "What" but a "Who"--it is Jesus himself, not simply facts about him or principles derived from him like geometric proofs.

In this era of culture wars and religious self-defensiveness, we are so quick to take Jesus' words about being "the Truth" or our particular interpretation and tradition as "The Way" and to turn them into tools to suit our own agendas and litmus tests to let us play the role of gatekeeper. You know how it goes: "Oh, you don't believe in MY group's interpretation of what Jesus said or did or meant? Well, then YOU'RE denying The Capital-T Truth, and you don't get access to God." Or some other such nonsensical variation. Those are all ways of letting us keep control in our own hands and trying to pry power of Jesus' hands. And he's not going for it.

To say that "the Truth" is ultimately Jesus is to say that we don't just memorize correct facts or learn approved faith-statements, but that we are brought into relationship with the One who really knows how the universe is meant to be--and he says that it is all built on self-giving love. To know "the Truth" is by definition to be pulled into Love, because Jesus (who is the Truth) is also the One who brings us into relationship with the God who is Love. We so easily forget that, especially among church folk, who are easily tempted to take their personal pet issues, weaponize them as "The Truth" and use them to keep people away from Jesus, when Jesus himself insists on being the Truth and the Way who brings us to God.

So in this day, maybe we need to stop and take a look at how we've been using the Bible, or our faith traditions and denominations, or the words of Jesus--and where we've just been ransacking those places to find anything we can hit someone else with, we need to stop. Jesus hasn't come to give us ammunition to cut down the people we don't think measure up. He has come--precisely because he IS "the Way" and "the Truth"--to bring anybody and everybody into relationship with the One he called on as "Abba," as Father.

The Truth, in the end, isn't a set of facts to be learned by rote, and the Way isn't a list of rules to be anxiously followed, but a Person who teaches us to walk with him and who loves us even when we have gone off track. That makes all the difference in the world.

Lord Jesus, be our Way, our Truth, and our Life.