Finding Our Way, Finding The Way
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
April 24, 2005
John 21: 1-14
This week as I was reflecting on the text for this morning, I was reminded of the chorus of the old spiritual, actually, it is an old Christmas song:
Everywhere I go, everywhere I go.
Everywhere I go, somebody talkin’ ‘bout Jesus
That’s what I want to do today…do a little talkin’ ‘bout Jesus. And I begin with some words from one of my favorite preachers, Fred Craddock. Reflecting on our text, Craddock says: “In this scripture lies what is in my judgment the most extraordinary story there is. The story simply is this: ‘Once upon a time, not in a fairy tale, but once upon God’s time, there was a man in the little country of Israel from the town of Nazareth named Jesus. Early in his adult life, those who knew him, or at least many of those who knew him, began to see he was more than the son of Mary, more than the son of Joseph, more than a mere carpenter. There was something about him that made them think ‘God.’ His character, his words, his work, what he did, what he said, the way he behaved, made them believe that when they were in his presence they were in the presence of God. This doesn’t mean that in some obvious way he was different. He didn’t glow in the night, he didn’t dress in unusual clothes, he didn’t have a strange look on his face, he didn’t go around saying a lot of religious things all the time. It is just that who he was and what he did and the way he related to people caused them to say, ‘He is a revelation of God and in him we have seen God’s glory.’…Of course some of those who followed him quit. When the price got too high, they turned away, and this prompted Jesus to say to his immediate friends, ‘Are you going to leave too?’ They said, ‘Where would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” And so it was…that is the reason Jesus came into the world: to reveal God.”
“Lord…how can we know the way?”
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
“I am the way,” says Jesus. “ I am the road.” And as people of faith, as disciples of Jesus, as weak and foolish as we can at times be, we are all on the road that is his – the road that is he – at least that is our intention, our hope, our prayer. That is why we are a part of a Christian church. That is why these folks joined our church today… right?
The Jesus we meet in the Gospel of John makes things pretty clear. He is the way, the truth, and the life. To know Jesus is to know God. It’s true for John. But is it true in your life? Is this how you experience Jesus?
In our Thursday morning men’s Bible study, we have been studying the Gospel of John for three or four years now, it seems. And one issue we keep coming up against in this gospel, and we find it in our text today, is the seeming exclusivity of John. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” For John, it would seem that it is either Jesus’ way or the highway. Jesus is the way… end of discussion. Seems a rather narrow position to take in this pluralistic world of ours today. Jesus is the only experience of God? How can that be?
Reflecting on that question, again with our text in mind, Craddock says, “I do not want to imply that apart from Jesus people had no experience of God. They did and they do. For some, dreams conveyed that special meaning of God; for others, it came through visions; some spoke of voices in the night. Many people saw in nature the hand of the God… How can anyone spend five minutes outside and not think, ‘GOD?’ Some had the experience of God planted in their hearts. Have you ever gotten up in the morning before the rest of the family, gone out on the back steps with a cup of coffee, and cupped your hands around it against the morning chill? Or, late in the evening, have you ever walked down the back roads and along the rivers of your memory? What do you think about? As the old African saying puts it, ‘We know somebody walks in the trees at night.’ People have had experiences, you have had experiences but we just don’t often talk about them.”
So even as a Christian pastor, I have to say that Jesus is not the only way to experience God. And yet… Do you recall the story I told not long ago about the young pastor who early in his career read Albert Schweitzer’s Quest for the Historical Jesus? A classic work, only this young man was not impressed, he found the theology woefully lacking. He lived in Tennessee and read one day in the paper that Schweitzer was going to be in Cleveland to play a dedicatory concert for an organ in a big church. According to the article, he would remain afterwards for conversation and refreshment. The pastor writes, “I bought a Greyhound bus ticket and went to Cleveland. All the way up there I worked on this Quest for the Historical Jesus. I laid out my questions on a separate sheet of paper. I figured that if there was conversation following the concert then there would be room for a question or two.
“I went there; I heard the concert; afterwards I rushed into the church fellowship hall, got a seat in the front row, and waited with my lap of questions. After a while he came in, shaggy hair, big white mustache, stooped, and seventy-five years old. He had played a marvelous concert. You know he was a master organist, medical doctor, philosopher, biblical scholar, lecturer, writer, just about everything. He came in with a cup of tea and stood in front of the group, and there I was, close. Ready! Dr. Schweitzer thanked everybody saying, ‘You’ve been very warm and hospitable to me. I thank you for it, and I wish I could stay longer among you, but I must go back to Africa. I must go back to Africa because my people are poor and diseased and hungry and dying, and I have to go. We have a medical station at Lambarene. If there is anyone here in this room who has the love of Jesus, would you be prompted by that love to go with me and help me?’”
Says the pastor, “I looked down at my questions; they were so absolutely stupid. And I learned again what it means to be a Christian and had hopes that I could be one someday.”
“If there is anyone here who has the love of Jesus….” Why did Albert Schweitzer give up fame, fortune, position and go to be with the sick and dying in Africa? It was something about the love of Jesus. For him, Jesus was the way. I think of the hymn by the Gaithers: “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! There’s something about that name.” (The Chancel Choir sings the hymn)
A colleague writes, “A friend of mine marched through the jungles of New Guinea during the second world war. He encountered native tribesmen whom he found to be living a peaceful but curiously superstitious form of Christianity. Through an interpreter he visited with them about their faith and peculiar customs, showing obvious dislike for some of them. Then an old man got to the heart of the matter when he stood up and observed, “Before we followed Jesus as Lord, we would have cooked and eaten you!”
There’s something about that name. Is Jesus the only way, the only truth? An interesting topic for Bible study. But for me an even more crucial question is: Is he the way for me? Is he the truth for me? What difference is he making in my life? Am I allowing myself to be touched by his spirit that I might follow in his way, freed to love others and empowered to share that love with a hurting world? Free to change? And so Jesus looks at a rich young man who has a rather intellectual interest in discipleship and says to him, “I could use you. I could make your life count for something. Of course, you’ll have to give up a few things.” Says John, “Look at his face and dare to see the face of God. Look at his face and then dare to live as you have never lived before.” “Is there anyone here who knows the love of Jesus…and is ready for that love to make a difference?”
David Livingstone was sent by the Church of Scotland to serve in Africa as a missionary-physician. He ended up serving there for more than three decades. A South African mission society wrote Livingstone that they had some good men they would like to send to help him. But they wanted to know if there was a good road leading to where Livingstone was currently serving. He wrote back to the society: “If you have good men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road.” “How can we know the way?” “I am the way.” And for countless people of faith throughout the ages, that’s just been about all the road they needed. But are we ready to trust he is the way? Even when there are no roadmaps? Are we ready to trust that his way is the way for us?
God knows that I have feet mostly of clay, feet that have dragged, feet that have stumbled along the way and still do. But this is the road I have picked, or perhaps it has picked me. I know I would not have the audacity to stand here and preach each Sunday except for Christ, except for the belief that from time to time I am given something of Christ’s word to speak if I can only get it out through the clutter and confusion of my own speaking and thinking. And I continue to believe that, in the last analysis, whatever other reasons you have for being here yourselves, Christ is at the bottom of why you are here too. If it weren’t for him, for the way he opens before us, with all of its challenges, possibilities and yes, questions, he’s not afraid of questions, but if it weren’t for him, we would be somewhere else. “There’s something in that name.”
I will close with these closing words Schweitzer’s Search for the Historical Jesus: “He comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, he came to those who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: ‘Follow thou me,’ and sets us to the tasks that He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings that they shall pass through in his fellowship, and, as ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.”