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For centuries, Biblical scholars have used Jesus’ statement that no one comes to God except through him as a justification for the exclusion (and often oppression) of those who are not Christians. Today’s reflection interprets that passage in a more inclusive light, understanding Jesus as centering intimate relationships as opposed to intellectual assent in the journey of faith.

May 7, 2023: Fifth Sunday of Easter

Acts 6:1-7

Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19

1 Peter 2:4-9

John 14:1-12

Jesus as the Way We Walk with Each Other

A reflection by Jeff Vomund

"A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets. But now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me in every way a person can be saved."

- Rose, from Titanic (See the scene here.)
 

James Cameron’s mega, 1997 hit movie, Titanic may or may not be to your cinematic tastes—full disclosure, I loved it—but I never forgot this line from the elderly heroine Rose at the end of the movie. Some viewers found the phrasing too sentimental or even saccharine, but isn’t the love of another precisely what saves us? Aren’t the authentic loves that surround us a vital source of all our coming to wholeness?

I bring this up because there is a tension in how one can read this Sunday’s gospel. First, Jesus tells the disciples that in the Divine Dwelling there are many places to be (John 14:2). This sentence has often been interpreted as indicating Jesus’ understanding of eternal life as inclusive and welcoming to many types of peoples. However, later in the same conversation Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to (our God) except through me (John 14:6).” Some readers understand this text as the gospel’s proclamation that salvation comes only through belief in Jesus as the Christ. In our current day, when we are aware of the billions of people who have never heard of Jesus, much less been given cause to believe in him as the Messiah, this message can sound exclusionary and arbitrary. Thus, there is some tension in how one might interpret this passage.

I want to suggest an understanding Jesus as “the way,” which is grounded in the literary context of Jesus’ remarks and may alleviate the perceived contradiction. This passage comes from John’s extended Last Supper dialogue (Indeed, in John’s gospel the Last supper takes up almost one quarter of the text). Jesus is speaking to his most intimate followers and friends who have accompanied him in ministry. As such, Jesus identifies the relationship with him as revelatory of God, saying in essence: you experience the Divine Love through our love for each other. Jesus as “the way” is not a demand for belief in a Messiah, so much as a confession that our intimate relationships both reveal God and make us whole.

As members of Christ’s body, our vulnerable, intimate relationships are an expression of our relationship with Jesus. Our friendships and loves hold the potential to move us toward wholeness and reveal the mystery of Love – even as Jesus’ relationships did. However, like Jesus’ closest relationships, our intimacies must also be open to learning, forgiveness, and bearing with one another through joy and suffering. That is to say, our relationships are revelatory of God and healing for us only to the extent they move us to greater faithfulness, courage, generosity, integrity, and the like. It is tempting to see our relationships with one another (and the world) as somehow separate from our relationship with God, but Jesus and the Incarnation obliterate that distinction. Our relationship with the people and creation around us in, in fact, the definitive expression of our relationship with the Divine. That is the meaning of the Incarnation. Also, if we do not take this radical step with Jesus, then we allow ourselves room for the dishonest mental contortions by which we can “love” our projection of who God is (generally created in our own image and likeness!) and treat with contempt the creation and creatures by which the ineffable Source of All Life is made manifest.

With that in mind, such critical questions arise as: Who are those life-giving relationships for us? Who are those friends, family members, and lovers who help us to grow in kindness, humility, or just humanity? Who are those challenging, ennobling friendships that keep us asking hard questions and prevent us from settling for easy answers? Perhaps just as important, where are those relationships that have this salvific potential, but in which we have not managed to find sufficient depth? Who are those acquaintances whose lives call us to more, but with whom wehave not bridged the promise of new life? Although none of these questions have easy answers, perhaps the challenge of today’s gospel precisely to ask ourselves how Love dwells in the many relationships that make of our lives, and that comprise our relationship with the Source of All. And not to let ourselves be fooled into thinking that our journey along the Way can be anything other than the self-giving Love that we risk pouring out and receiving as we travel it.