"The Way, the Truth and the Life! (Fifth Sunday of Easter)"
Rev. Dr. Charles Maahs, Bishop Emeritus
Thursday, May 19, 2011
John 14:1-14
Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ!
This feels a little strange tonight. Here I am filling in for our Pastors who are attending a seminar on how to improve their preaching, and here I am preaching for them. I told Pastor Susan I’m expecting a top-notch sermon this coming Sunday, from either her or Pastor Roger, but then, neither you nor I may be in Church to hear it. (I mean, this counts this evening, doesn’t it?)
The first class I attended in the Seminary years ago now, the professor who was going to teach us how to preach, began with this little story of how he intended to do that: It seems, he said, that as he was driving into North Dakota many years before that, he saw a sign that said on the road he was going to take, “Pick out your ruts now, you will be in them for the next 30 miles!” (Apologies to any one here who came from ND, where I know now today they have beautifully paved roads…) Of course, the point the professor was trying to make is that he was going to teach us a method of how to prepare and then deliver our sermons. And he was right. I have basically followed in preparing and delivering sermons the same way I was taught a long time ago. Some of it was what you might expect:
+ Speak clearly and use some illustrations and gestures
+ Stand behind the pulpit when you preach
+ Prepare your sermons on the basis of the scripture text that is appointed for that
Sunday.
Be scriptural, be Biblical in your preaching…a theologian by the name of Karl Barth once said, “Preach like you have the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other hand”. That is, interpret the Bible, but apply it to the hearer’s daily life and faith. And, I have learned to accept a thank you…A friend, after a service, said to me, “Good sermon.” I responded by saying, I should have developed this point better etc, etc. and he finally said, “I didn’t mean it was that good!” Now, I always say just one word in response: “Thanks!”
I’ll do two of those three tonight. I’ll try to speak clearly, use some gestures and illustrations, and I’ll be using the Gospel lesson as the basis for my sermon, the familiar passage from John 14:1-6, where we hear from Jesus, that he is “the way, the truth, and the life”. Because many Pastors these days, for example, Pastor Susan and Pastor Roger, preach out front now most of the time and do that exceptionally well, I’ll give that a try although it’s not the rut I’m used to. But 2 out of 3 is always good!
Our Gospel Lesson from John 14:1-6 is a very familiar text. It is not only used for sermons when the lesson comes up on the Fifth Sunday of Easter as it does this week, but it is often used for a funeral sermon, which I have used often myself, when preaching for a funeral of a member. Why this lesson? Because it is a lesson that offers comfort and assurance to family members grieving at the loss of a loved one. Listen again to these comforting words spoken by Jesus to his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. (some translations say “rooms”---but it means the same thing---a place to be with God!) If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.”
And then, of course, the reassuring words of Jesus in response to Thomas the disciple about how are we to know the way, Jesus saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Now that is a very clear message and explanation of who we are as Christians and in whom we believe. Through Jesus and his teaching and life, his death and resurrection, we know the way, the truth and the life. We believe in a Jesus Christ who has been resurrected from the dead, and through our faith in him, will show us and lead us to the path of eternal life.
That’s a very inclusive word for us who believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, but what about those who do not claim to be Christian, who may even be our un-churched neighbors, or those who belong to another major religion, a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu? In the spring of 2002, I was asked to speak at an Interfaith Conference in Hagerstown, Maryland. I was teaching that Spring at our Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg, PA. This was right after 9/11 and it was intended to be a conference where Christians, Jews, and Muslims could meet together to learn about each other’s faith. It was very well attended. I was surprised to see, on a Wednesday evening, about 350 people in the audience, with a good mixture of Christians, Jews, and Muslims present for the meeting.
I was given my topic and the theme was: “Why do you love being a Christian?” and told to say everything I loved about being a Christian in ten minutes! So I split it down into three parts. (1) I spoke about the Gospel which we mean to be the good news of Jesus Christ that we know from the Word of God in the Scriptures. That good news lets us know that we are justified by the gift of faith, not by our works. (2) Then I talked about the Sacraments, Baptism and Holy Communion, where we are nurtured in our faith as Christians; that gives us the strength and courage to live out our faith in love and service. (By this time, anybody listening closely would have recognized that I was speaking not only as a Christian, but as a LUTHERAN Christian!)
(3) My third point had to do with the Church itself, where we find unity but also much diversity, even within Christian denominations, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic. For example, even among Lutherans, because of some differing interpretations of particular scripture passages, some around human sexuality and what it means, and policy changes that have enabled us to partner ecumenically with Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Moravians, and Reformed Christians, two new Lutheran denominations have been started in the past ten years.
Then what about the “other”- that is, people who are not of our faith - and the question if there is room for what we might call “pluralism” in our Christian tradition? That is, can these people of their faith be included in the salvation that God will provide, as it says in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 56:7, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, for all peoples.” “All peoples,” God says, “are welcome to come into my house.”
Finally, I spoke about our lesson for this evening, John 14, and how Jesus says that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by him. And there I choose to make a distinction about what appears to exclude those who do not believe in Jesus as their Savior. I said, “This lesson applies to me and all Christians who believe that Jesus is our Savior, but that does not exclude others from the loving grace of God the Father.”
Why? Because everyone’s faith is a response to the experience of the presence of God. Religion, our rituals, our music, even our theology, is a human attempt to express what we have experienced. Therefore we have to be careful about claiming that one religious form is the only one that is authentic or real. In addition, we can hardly evaluate the potential power of another religious tradition if we know nothing about it, and there is extensive literature available for us to read and teach in our churches.
Finally, by claiming to judge others, we have often lived in contradiction to the spirit of Jesus Christ, who welcomes everyone. I had a teacher who would always say, “When you draw a line in the sand, and put other people on the other side - people you don’t think deserve the love of God, or who are there because you believe them to be terrible sinners - be careful: you can be sure that Jesus is on the side of the line with those who have been marginalized.”
However, that means that we must be true to our own faith as well, while respecting and trying to understand other ways. That is always important….
A final note about what is supposed to happen this Saturday, May 21. Here’s the newspaper in the other hand. I know this has received wide publicity and I’ve had people ask me about it. Namely, as this full page ad says, “Judgment Day: May 21, 2011.” And what is meant is The Rapture, the beginning of the end. Trying to be funny, I told one friend, who is not a believer, that he should be careful on Saturday not to be riding in the passenger seat, because if his wife is driving, and she is a believer, he might find himself suddenly alone in the car which no longer has a driver!!!
I don’t see anything in the ad, or what I heard on the radio the other day about the prediction that the so called prophet, Harold Camping made, that has anything whatsoever to do with John 14, and Jesus’ comforting and reassuring word that he is the way, the truth, and the life.” That is a message of hope. The ad is a message of fear. Chaos, a world wide earthquake, and the end of the world itself, sinners remaining on earth being terribly punished….
We, as Lutherans, preach a message of hope, not fear. We will pray again this evening the Lord’s Prayer in which we will say, “Thy Kingdom come.” In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther asked, “What does this mean?” And he answered: “In fact, God’s kingdom comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it also comes to us.”
And so it will tonight, not in some catastrophic event, nor in something someone dreamed up called the Rapture, which has no scriptural basis whatsoever. But God’s kingdom will come to us most assuredly in the words of comfort and assurance that Jesus speaks to us in the Word, and in the receiving of the bread and wine in Holy Communion. For he is for us: The Way, the Truth, and the Life. Amen.