"LOVE REJOICES IN TRUTH"
a message by Rev. Dr. Bruce Havens
Coral Isles Church, U.C.C.
November 17, 2024
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
John 14:1-14 NRSV
1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believe because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
Let’s get right down to it, shall we? “The way, the truth, and the life?” It sounds so good! Who doesn’t want that? I’m sure we can count out, maybe, psychopaths and some other outliers. But I think everyone here, anyone tuning in online, and even most of those attending church somewhere, sometime, wants to have the way, the truth, and the life. I know I certainly want to know and follow the way, the truth and the life.
Now, the problem of course is the definition of those items. I imagine not many of you would be shocked to know many other Christians think our understanding of Christian faith is wrong. Theirs is the only correct one. Any others aren’t valid. They tend to think that anyone who doesn’t believe like they believe is not a Christian and is not going to be “saved” or go to heaven. This passage, as you may know, is one of the “clobber” passages they use to emphasize this beliefs.
Well, as you also can imagine, I don’t agree. So let me break down this passage a bit and explain why a “literal” interpretation may not be so literal or so correct. The basis of their argument is that they believe their beliefs are older and therefore truer. The failure here is that they really don’t know history. They only know what they’ve heard for years and never critically examined. Most of the time, I have discovered that they simply don’t know the full history of a particular Scripture, a particular theological argument, or of the historical setting itself.
There’s a story that reminds me of. At Thanksgiving one year a woman observed her mother cutting the ends off a ham before she put it in the oven and asked her why? Her mother said she didn’t know why; it was just what her mother always did. So the woman asked grandma and got the same answer. That’s what HER mother did. She went to ask great grandma, and she said, “Simple, I didn’t have a pan big enough to fit the ham in. I had to cut off the end to get it into the pan before I cooked it.” So a lot of Christian theology that is proclaimed as “inerrant” is simply like a ham with its ends cut off. It only tells part of the story.
Let’s break it down: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Here is some historical and theological truth to think about. John repeatedly portrays Jesus using the phrase, “I am.” As you know the Hebrew name for God translates as “I am.” So, in part, Jesus is saying two things at once. He is one with God, and his life, his way show the truth of God’s purposes.
Remember, ALL the gospels were written, in part, to fight the perception that Jesus, who was rejected by the religious leaders of his own faith, and executed as a political threat by the political leaders was rejected by God. So they had to explain that despite that, Jesus was NOT rejected by God, nor was he a sinner or a blasphemer. He was a beloved child of God. So, in John, when Jesus says “I am” he is both saying he is what he says he is AND he is in essence one with God. So in fact, this makes his statement even more powerfully: GOD is the way, the truth, and the life and Jesus is an incarnate – an embodied - testimony to that.
To put it another way, Christ was the embodiment of way, truth, life that is God. To want to go “the way” is to do what Jesus did, not just believe he is the way. To follow Jesus means to see his way, his works, his life, his sacrifice. Jesus himself says if we don’t believe in him [ a certain way ] then “believe in the works he did.” I believe he means for us to do things his way. I believe that is what makes for life and truth not just to think nicely of Jesus.
Now, to show off that I don’t just tell you my opinions, and to show off my research skills a bit, listen to what Eugene Peterson, a bonafide scripture scholar and expert says:
“Only when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way do we get the Jesus life.” Isolating only the so-called “Jesus truth” yields a disembodied orthodoxy: all the right words with no behavior to make the words believable. More important is the “Jesus Way” of loving God and loving neighbor.
Here’s two more real theologians, so you can believe him, and not just a simple preacher man like me: theologian Huston Smith says that God is “defined by Jesus, not confined to Jesus.” Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong has said, “I walk the Christ-path into the mystery of God, but I do not believe that God is a Christian.” The common core to both of these slogans is that one can affirm the validity of other religious traditions without abandoning Christianity.[1]
So when I look at Jesus’ way, let me not surprise you again about what I see. I see Jesus’ way being one that sought to heal anyone in need, embraced the powerless as worthy, blessed children, welcomed the foreigner because that was what God commanded in the Hebrew Scriptures, which was Jesus’ Bible – if I’m not mistaken!
His truth was love your neighbor as yourself. It was not hate your neighbor for being different from you. That was never a truth. His truth was the same as his way and even more radical– pray for your enemies, do good to those who do evil to you, bless those who curse you. This is the Christianity I embrace, even though I do not always live up to it. This is the way, the truth, and the life this church embraces, embodies, and proclaims!
But listen, the radical life Jesus lived led to a cross. He did not defeat Caesar. He did not win over the fundamentalists of his religion who had sold out to the powers of Rome to keep their privilege. They crucified him. He suffered and died at the hands of those who intended to hold onto power any way they had to. But never forget, the power of our claim is that even that crucifixion, that death could not defeat his way, his truth, or his life. We proclaim Christ crucified and we proclaim Christ is risen. That claim is the key to what it means when we say “love rejoices in the truth.”
This morning, I just stopped by to tell you that truth still lives. The resurrection of Christ is the way, the truth and the life that God promises. God’s truth cannot be defeated by falsehoods twisted, painted up like lipstick on a pig, and retold over and over. God’s life is still visible wherever anyone trusts the way, lives the truth and embodies the life of Jesus. I just stopped by to tell you we have a God who knows the way, knows the truth, and knows what life really is all about.
And I want to tell you that God has shown it, revealed it to us in Jesus. Jesus IS the way, the truth, and the life that God gives us. Jesus way, Jesus’ truth, Jesus’ life is the revelation God gives to us that we may see the way, know the truth, and live the life that leads us to God’s reality. AMEN.
[1] Carl Gregg, www.patheos.com/blogs/carlgregg/2011/05.
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