Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
April 20, 2008

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 NRSV Pretty clear, isn’t it? Jesus is the only way. To get to God, you have to go through Jesus. The only way to get to God is to believe in Jesus. That’s what it says, right? And that’s certainly what Jesus meant, isn’t it? After all, our lectionary passage this morning begins with him saying “Believe in God, believe also in me.” John 14:1 NRSV So there’s no other way to understand the famous saying of Jesus “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Right? The Christian faith is all about believing in Jesus, and that’s the only way to get right with God. Jesus said it. I believe it. That settles it.

So I guess I should just sit down now. There’s nothing more to say; but it is also true that in our tradition here at Monroe UCC the preacher always talks longer than this, whether you want him to or not. So, just to fill in the time, and so it will at least look like I’m earning my pay check, I’ll talk a bit longer. But what to say? I know. I’ll tell you a couple of stories. Neither of them is original with me, but they both refer to our Scripture verse for this morning, and at least they’ll take up some time. First: In his book The Heart of Christianity Marcus Borg tells of once getting into a conversation with a woman on an airplane. When he told her that he was a professor of religion and a Christian theologian and author, she said that she really preferred Buddhism to Christianity because Buddhism is a “way,” a way of living, but Christianity is only about believing certain things. Apparently this woman found wisdom for her life in Buddhism but not in Christianity. I guess she’d never read our Scripture passage this morning. If she had she would have known that Buddhism cannot be the way because it doesn’t believe in Jesus. Too bad for her. She just doesn’t get it.

Second: Some of you have heard or read me telling this second story before, but please bear with me. I’ve still got a lot of time to fill here. An Evangelical Christian, it seems, once challenged a Hindu wise man with John 14:6. It says that Jesus is the way. What do you, Mr. Hindu sage who doesn’t believe in Jesus, make of that? The Hindu man replied: “Oh, yes. I agree with that statement completely. It is very true.” Our good, conservative Christian man was puzzled. It didn’t make any sense to him that someone who doesn’t believe in Jesus could nonetheless agree that Jesus is the way. The Hindu wise man explained: “To understand this statement we must ask: What exactly is the way that Jesus is? He is the way of peace, compassion, mercy, and justice. That is indeed the true way, so I agree with this statement completely.”

Well, obviously this man didn’t get it any more than Borg’s Buddhist woman on the airplane. I mean, we’ve already established that the verse means that the only way to God is through believing in Jesus, right? So his mumbo jumbo about “what is the way that Jesus is” is just a word game to justify his lack of belief, right? Right. Good. We’ve taken care of that. So maybe I can just sit down now.

And yet…. Borg’s story about the woman on the airplane who saw a way of living in Buddhism but only belief and not a way of living in Christianity is starting to bother me a bit. Jesus said specifically “I am the way.” And that Hindu sage in the other story saw a way of living in Jesus that had nothing to do with believing in Jesus. He was an infidel, of course; but there still may be a grain of truth in what he said. After all, Jesus was about peace, compassion, mercy, and justice. This man wasn’t wrong about that even if he is wrong not to believe in Jesus. Hmm. Maybe I need to rethink some things here. Let’s go back to the text itself and take another look, and I guess I won’t be sitting down for a bit after all.

It is true that Chapter 14 of John begins with Jesus saying to his disciples “Believe in God, believe also in me,” but he doesn’t actually say that believing in him is the way. He says “I am the way.” That sounds like he’s saying something different than “believe in me,” doesn’t it? He’s not saying don’t believe in me, of course; but he doesn’t say that that is the way. He says he is the way. Hmm. Maybe that Hindu guy was on to something after all. And certainly Borg’s woman on the airplane was looking for a way that is more than simply believing in Jesus. Maybe I’ll assume for the moment that people need more than believing in Jesus in their lives and that we do need to ask the question “what is the way that Jesus is” and see where those notions lead me.

When we ask “what is the way that Jesus is,” various answers come up. According to John, a big part of that way is precisely believing in him; but surely a “way” has got to be more than merely believing if, at least, “believing” means accepting the truth of certain propositions. And that certainly is what “believing” usually means today. A way is a way of living. It is a way of behaving and a way to relating to other people and all of God’s creation. It is a way of thinking, and not just thinking about Jesus but about ourselves and the whole world. Could Jesus mean all that when in the Gospel of John he says “I am the way”? Let’s assume for the moment that he does and see what his being the way might mean for those things.

If a “way” is a way of behaving and of relating to others, then Jesus being the way surely means that behaving and relating to others like Jesus is the way. So we have ask: How did Jesus behave and relate to other? Well, he cared for everyone he encountered. He treated everyone with respect, especially those to whom the world showed no respect. He treated everyone with compassion and mercy. He condemned injustice wherever he saw it. He behaved and related without violence and rejected the use of violence by his followers. He behaved like one fervently seeking spiritual unity with God. He prayed—at lot. He often went apart from the demands of his daily life to spend time with God. He trusted his life to God always, even when he knew that doing that would lead to his execution by the Romans. He died, and he rose again. That’s how he behaved and related to others.

It really is beginning to look like that woman on Borg’s airplane was missing something fundamental about Christianity. Christianity really is a way every bit as much as Buddhism is a way. And really, the Christian and the Buddhist ways of living aren’t all that different. It really is beginning to look like maybe that Hindu sage in the other story I told was right. The way that Jesus is is not, or at least is not only, the way of believing in him. It is the way that he lived and the way that he taught us. It is a way that is true for everyone and not just for us Christians, as that Hindu wise man said.

And oh, what a difference that makes! We can’t just sit back, believe in Jesus, and figure we’ve got it made, that that’s all we need to do to be faithful Christians. If Jesus is the way not only of believing but also of living—and it sure looks like he is—then we have to decide how we are going to live as followers of the one who is the way. Are we going to care for everyone we encounter? Are we going to treat everyone with respect, especially those to whom the world gives no respect? Will we live lives marked by compassion, mercy, and a passion for justice for all of God’s people? Will we embrace nonviolence, not merely as a tactic but as a way of life? Will we fervently seek spiritual unity with God in lives of prayer, retreat, and other spiritual disciplines? Will we trust our lives to God, even if some day that may mean losing them? Will we die to the things that keep us from the way that Jesus is and will we rise into the whole, free lives that his way offers us? These are really important questions, and really difficult ones; but it turns out that they are questions we cannot avoid if we are truly to live as Christians.

They are questions for us individually, and they are questions for us collectively as a congregation of God’s Christian people. Our call is to follow the way that Jesus is both in our personal lives and in our life together. And I am convinced that the time has come for Monroe Congregational UCC to ask once more: How is God calling us to live the way of Christ today? After the service this morning we will gather to discuss that vital question. I have some ideas about possible answers, but answering this question is certainly not my job alone. It is the job of all of us, for the Holy Spirit works primarily through God’s people gathered together as the Body of Christ. So I hope as many of you as possible will come to our gathering after worship. Come with your ideas and your hopes. Come to hear the ideas and hopes of others. Come to be part of the Body of Christ as we discern together new ways in which we will seek to follow the way of Christ.

My! We have come a long way from where I started this sermon, haven’t we? I thought our text said that all we have to do is believe in Jesus, but I guess not. We do believe in Jesus, of course. We wouldn’t be Christians if we didn’t. But the way of Jesus is not merely the way of believing in Jesus. It is the way of living like Jesus. Believing in him is fairly easy. Living like him can be really difficult. Still, he is the way. He is our way. So lets get on with living the way, both in our own lives and in our life together. With his help, we can do it. Amen.