The first half of today's gospel also
serves as one of the appointed choices for the burial service. And
it certainly makes sense what with Jesus offering words of comfort
(“Do not let your hearts be troubled”) and assurance (“In my
father's house are many dwelling places . . . I go to prepare a place
for you”). But I have to admit that this is my least favorite
funeral gospel and one I try to convince people not to choose when
planning a funeral service for family members and/or loved ones.
Why is that, you may ask. The short
answer is because it pulls a small section out of context from the
larger picture of what Jesus was saying. By pulling this passage out
of context, by isolating it, you end up with a passage that is
extremely exclusionary and one in which Christians have used to
condemn non-Christians to the eternal fires of hell. Much like
reading, “Wives be subject to your husbands,” while ignoring the
responsibilities of husbands has been used to control women, this
passage has done damage to any number of people, as well as to
Christians in general.
“No one comes to the Father except
through me” is not the be all and end all here. We need context.
We need the before and after to understand what Jesus is saying.
Ending with that verse is no different than ending with, “Wives be
subject to your husbands.” What comes before and what comes after
are vitally important. Which is why I'm not a fan of using the first
part of today's gospel at funerals. Not only because of the lack of
context, but also because there are bound to be people in attendance
who will hear only that they are being excluded, at best, and damned,
at worst.
Enough of my rant about why we
shouldn't be using the first part of today's gospel at funerals.
Let's look at the context of this whole passage.
Today's passage is part of the Farewell
Discourse, that long, long conversation/monologue Jesus has with the
remaining eleven disciples after Judas leaves to betray him. Early
in this discourse Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that
you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love
one another.” Jesus makes clear here that the binding force
between the disciples, and ultimately between them and the world, is
love.
This idea of love permeates John's
gospel. The first time he uses that word is in the famous 3:16
passage: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so
that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal
life.” But love is also present in the very beginning of the
gospel when John writes of the creation, of the union of Word and
God, and of light shining in darkness.
As we move through John's gospel we see
many places where Jesus and God are spoken of as being one.
Obviously we see that in the prologue: “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We see it
when Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am,” and when he says,
“The Father and I are one.” And we see it in today's passage
when Jesus says, “If you know me you know my Father . . . Whoever
has seen me has seen the Father . . . Believe me that I am in the
Father and the Father is in me.”
What we have, then, is a theme that God
is not only based in love, but is love itself in action. We also
have an image of the unity of being in God the Father and God the
Son, Jesus Christ. So the Father is the Son is the Father. God the
Father is love, therefore God the Son is love incarnate. Everything
Jesus does is done from a position of love. So, to answer Tina
Turner when she asked, “What's love got to do with it?” . . .
Everything.
Love is not self-focused, it is
other-focused. In the next chapter Jesus will make this crystal
clear when he says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down
one's life for one's friends.” That is the ultimate other-focused
act of love. Because, really, love is sacrificial.
In the heat of early love, we will
sacrifice our desires for the one we love. Parents sacrifice in many
ways for their children. Right now, instead of screaming and
protesting and terrorizing people because we can't get our hair cut,
we should be willing to make a few sacrifices for the well-being of
our neighbors. As Paul said, “Love does not insist on its own way;
it does not rejoice in wrong doing; it bears all things, endures all
things.”
As a commentator on John wrote, “The
mutual love of Christians and their acceptance of the love of which
Jesus gave proof by laying down his life is the great public symbol
of faith. Where it is lacking there is no Christianity, only a
parched husk of forms and formulas.”
That same author wrote, “In the long
span of church life the basic crime tends to be hatred of the other.”
As I look out on society in general, hatred of the other seems to
have become our national pastime. Armed men storm capital buildings
because they only care about themselves. A security guard is shot
for trying to enforce a mandatory mask order. A clerk has an angry,
maskless customer blow his nose on her. Politicians work to divide
rather than unify. These are not loving acts, let alone Christian
behaviors.
So, to tie all this together, “I am
the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me,” is not an exclusionary statement as most might
understand it. It doesn't mean only the right kind of Christians
will be saved. It doesn't mean only those who have “accepted Jesus
as their personal savior” at some altar call are saved.
What it means is that if we want to
come to the Father we we must travel the path Jesus trod. We must
strive to love others, not conveniently, but honestly and
sacrificially. It's a love that abides and endures. It's a love
that sends us into darkness, conflict, suffering, and death so that
we may walk with others in those places. It's a love that may take
us where we do not want to go. It's a love that challenges us to
give of ourselves so that others may be blessed.
“No one comes to the Father except
through me” isn't an end statement, as it appears in the funeral
reading. It is, rather, the starting line. As we continue to move
forward and work to re-imagine how we do everything from collect
pledges to minister to those in need, let us never forget that the
way to the Father is through love.
Amen.
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