For the last couple of months, we’ve watched a programme on BBC2 on a Sunday evening called “Race across the world”. If you’ve not seen it let me explain. (By the way, if you have been watching but haven’t yet watched the final LOOK AWAY NOW!)
5 teams of 2 people started off a journey from Mexico City with a limited budget. They had to travel from Mexico City to Ushuaia Argentina, on the Southernmost tip of South America. The first couple to reach Ushuaia won £20,000. By a winning margin of around a minute – after 2 months – uncle and nephew Emon and Jamiul claimed the prize.
The men are both Muslims – though Emon admitted he was less devout than his nephew. But clearly the values of their faith, in terms of compassion for others, was important. For they both were deeply affected by scenes of child poverty in Sao Paulo Brazil. So much so that they immediately donated £10,000 to a charity working with street children in Brazil and have since given £5,000 to a similar charity in Bangladesh.
They came across as really good people.
And it with those men in mind that I read the Gospel reading for this Sunday and, in particular, John 14:6
‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’
This is one of those Bible verses that can get people all hot under the collar. Depending on how we understand it. On the one hand it suggests quite clearly that only belief in Jesus ensures we will come to the father i.e. have eternal life. And what’s the problem with that many will say.
The problem with that approach for some other Christians, is that it excludes other people from God. People like Emon and Jamiul. Good people who aren’t Christians.
Who’s right?
A constant theme in John’s Gospel is criticism of “the Jews”. Those words in themselves can be misunderstood. When John talks of “the Jews” he means Jews who weren’t followers of Jesus. (Like the Jewish members of the Sanhedrin who arrest and murder Stephen in the reading from Acts for today.) But there were plenty of people in the early Church who were followers of Jesus but who still thought of themselves as Jewish.
“The Jews” believed that the only way to God was through study of the Scriptures, the Torah, and by trying to uphold the many Jewish laws. These were things Jesus had frequently criticised.
Therefore, for John’s original readers, Jesus statement “I am the way” is showing that the way to the Father is through following Jesus and modelling our lives on him. (Just like Jesus is saying in John 10:9 “I am the gate”) It is as if John is recording Jesus saying, “Don’t be like ‘the Jews’. The way to the Father isn’t through studying the Jewish scriptures and learning them off by heart and trying to follow all the Jewish laws. The way to the Father is by modelling your life on me.”
You may be wondering what this visit to the first century church has to do with us. Well I think it is important to help us understand why John felt he should record Jesus saying, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. John needed his readers in the first century to know that Jesus wasn’t just some other rabbi or prophet. Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. And as God’s Son, Jesus is the way to God, he speaks God’s truth and is the life God wants us to have (life, in all its fulness.)
But what of now?
As I said, this verse can be used as a way of saying other faiths are inferior to our faith. Or as a way of excluding people from God’s kingdom.
I’ve heard it said by other Christians that we shouldn’t emphasise this verse because other people have other ways to God, so we ought not to offend them by believing that ours is the way to God.
I feel we can miss the point. If other people have other religions or no religion at all, that is fine. And who knows maybe God in his grace and mercy helps people find a way to him through their faith.
(Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said “We’ll be surprised at who we find when we get to heaven. God has extremely low standards”. In other words, through his grace and mercy God may well welcome into his Kingdom people we think should not be there. People of other faith and people of none maybe? And whilst I believe faith in Jesus Christ is most important, I hope that God’s mercy extends to people like Emon and Jamiul. Of course, I don’t know.)
But as long as we are respectful of others’ views, I see nothing wrong in us stating that we believe that Jesus is the way to God. This is what we believe to be true - that Jesus is God’s son and through him we know God and come to God.
Professor Karl Barth was a Swiss theologian of the 20th century. Perhaps one of the greatest. On one occasion he was lecturing to a group of students at Princeton university in America. One student asked Professor Barth "Sir, don't you think that God has revealed himself in other religions and not only in Christianity?" Barth's answer stunned the crowd. With a modest thunder he answered, "No, God has not revealed himself in any religion, including Christianity. He has revealed himself in his Son."
And that I think is the key point. It is what John was trying to emphasise 2,000 years ago. That the way to God is through his Son. Not by being a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim. But by accepting that God’s Son is the way, the truth and the life, for if we have seen the Son we have seen the Father.
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