John 14: 1-6 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
There is something seductive in authoritative pronouncements. There is a longing for spiritual certainty in all of us that authority can satisfy in this way, at least for a time.
Pastor Michelle preached abut the context of this gospel passage. I never connected this with the foot washing Jesus does immediately before this gospel passage. Reading what Lutheran pastor Sarah Henrich wrote about both the context and translation was also helpful:
In the face of his negative prediction about Peter's betrayal, almost as if such a betrayal does not matter, Jesus says, "Don't worry. Trust God and trust me." One can translate the pistuete in 14:1 (occurring twice) as either an imperative or an indicative form. "Trust me" or perhaps better, "Keep on trusting me" would translate the imperative. "You do trust me" would be the indicative. There's something so appealing to our contemporary cynical ears about hearing Jesus say, "Don't worry...just trust me" that it is hard not to go with that translation. So 14:1 can suggest that the disciples' hearts ought not to be troubled since they still trust God and Jesus as they always have or because they will replace being troubled with belief or trust as commanded. I opt for the imperative. "Trust God and trust me," Jesus says and then follows up with reasons for asking them to trust in the face of impending chaos.
Is being Christian important? Is Christianity exclusively the way to personal salvation? Is it exclusively the way to humankind's corporate salvation? Are people blessed when they profess their Christian faith and what does that mean? What does "through me" mean in this gospel of John?
Must Christians believe certain things to be Christian? In the Immaculate Conception? In the inerrant nature of the scripture? In a physically empty tomb? In the superiority and exclusivity of being Christian?
Must Christians do certain things to be Christian? Go to church? Be baptized? Read the Bible? Give up life's pleasures? Do something good? Be nice?
To even ask these questions it is probably obvious that I don't think any of these are criteria for determining who is Christian. If pushed I might say a Christian is someone who's engagement in life has been or is being transformed by Jesus Christ or the stories in the gospels. How to judge if someone meets that definition I would not even attempt to guess.
In Corinthians 4:13 Paul's letter observes "when we are slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now." Last week was Good Shepherd Sunday. The voice I recognize in Jesus comes through this passage in Paul's letter far more clearly than any apologetic proclaiming Christian superiority to all other religions. Death on the cross was far more about a different kind of identity that cut across every label man has devised to separate one group from another than membership in a new group.
Ten years ago the Barna group conducted research on tens of thousands of Americans, ages 16 to 29 years old. The primary descriptors this demographic associated with Christians were the following: hypocritical, “get saved,” anti-homosexual, sheltered, too political, and judgmental. Today we can probably add “misogynistic,” “colonial,” and “white supremacist” to that list.
A religious demographic — many white evangelicals — feel the need to couple their Christianity with a partisan identity and collectively placed themselves, or been placed, on one side of a culture war in which no one seems to be winning, but all sides are becoming increasingly suspicious, cynical, and self-protective.
And there is the temptation for others to respond in kind. We cannot define Christianity as what we believe and consider all other definitions are hypocritical as if our lives were not. Some think of us think it is possible to reclaim the word Christian and have it mean what it did before. I doubt that reclamation will happen quickly if at all.
It might be beneficial not to use the term Christian for a while.
I recently watched a film I hadn't seen since childhood called The Next Voice You Hear starring James Whitmore and Nancy Davis. The story is about a "typical" 1950s family with mom, dad, and a cute kid - who have different reactions when God starts speaking on the radio at 8:30 every evening. I was a bit disappointed how ham-handed the film felt now in handling its message. There was quite some time spent "proving" that the voice on the radio was the voice of God. The "proofs" provided were interesting, The voice broadcast globally, could not be recorded, and simultaneously spoke in multiple people's native languages.
I think of it now, in the context of this blog, and suddenly the film gives me the ability to express a simple insight. What if not only the language is different but how the voice of God speaks to us is uses the metaphors and poetry of whatever faith is closest to the listener's heart?
It helps me imagine a beautiful vision where there are many rooms being uniquely prepared at this very moment.
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