Fifth Sunday of Easter
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Readings: Acts 7: 55-end and John 14: 1-14
What is God like? Maybe as youngsters we tried to picture God, or were impressed by a representation we’d seen of him in a church window or a children’s bible story book. (I say ‘him’; because most representations of God are male, and if I said ‘her’ you would probably feel uncomfortable, and you certainly can’t really call God ‘it.’ I suppose if you want to be gender-neutral you could adopt modern practice and call God ‘they’, which would at least encompass the idea of the Trinity: but for the moment we’ll stick with ‘him.’) In my childhood church there was the classic picture of God behind the altar – an old man, grey flowing hair, sitting on a throne surrounded by cherubs. It is quite difficult to move away from that image, because we don’t know what to put in its place. What is God like?
In today’s gospel, Jesus is preparing the twelve disciples for the time when he wouldn’t be with them any longer. The comforting news was that he was going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house. This was quite a difficult concept for the disciples to grasp. Ideas of heaven for the first-century Jew were very sketchy. So, in the discussion, two of the disciples ask a question – questions that others would probably have liked to ask, but were afraid to do so.
Thomas asked, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Philip requested, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” The two questions go together, really. To Philip, Jesus replied, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father; I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.” Not terribly complicated really. After all, we see traits of fathers in their sons, and no doubt fathers sometimes look on their sons and think ‘that was me forty years ago.’
But, of course, we are not in the same situation as the disciples, having seen neither the Father nor Jesus face to face. But we’re left with a great promise. In response to Thomas’s question, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way” Jesus gives what was, I suspect, an unexpected reply. “I am the way, and the truth and the life.” Thomas didn’t get an answer about place, or time-scale, but he was told how to get there. God is like Jesus, and can only be reached through Jesus; through following and imitating him. As Jane Williams comments, “A simple and utterly annoying answer. No system given, no sets of rules, no course of study with diplomas at the end, but a commitment to a person, whose life, death and resurrection reveal the world’s saviour and creator.”
After saying “I am the way, the truth and the life”, Jesus continues with one of those verses in the bible that has given rise to much discussion. He adds “No one comes to the Father except through me.” This has often been interpreted as a warning to those who would choose other ways of faith; that only Christians, confessing Christians, can come into God’s presence after this life.” It came as a relief to me to have it explained that ‘no-one comes to the Father except through me’ could be taken as a promise; not as a warning. It could all depend upon how you say it.
Who does go to heaven? Theologians tend to hold one of three views. There are ‘exclusivists’, such as the Swiss theologian Karl Barth, who died in 1968. He adopted the position that there is no knowledge of God to be had apart from Christ. This view accepts the words of Jesus – no-one comes to the Father except through me – exactly as it stands. But the question then arises – what of those who have not heard the gospel of Christ? Surely the doctrine that salvation is only possible through Christ is inconsistent with belief in the universal saving will of God. One of my old college lecturers from King’s, London, Professor Keith Ward, writing in ‘What the bible really teaches’, says this: If we interpret John 14:6 literally, “it follows that only a small minority of the earth’s population can ever come to God, since few of them have even heard of Jesus, and even fewer have had a realistic chance of professing faith in him…On this interpretation, salvation is for the very few, and God is content to condemn millions to hell for no particular fault of their own.”
He continues, “Common human decency might lead us to doubt such an extraordinary interpretation of John’s gospel. A realisation that God is a God of unlimited love should definitely lead us to reject that interpretation.” And, of course, earlier in chapter 14, we have just heard Jesus promise that ‘in my Father’s house are many dwelling-places.” And earlier in John’s gospel, he says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also.”
I said theologians tend to choose one of three views about all this, and the second is the pluralist view. This says that all the religious traditions of humanity are equally valid manifestations of, and paths to, the same core of religious reality. The 20th-century writer John Hick was keen on this idea. He argued for a need to move away from a Christ-centered to a God-centered approach, and that it is necessary to recognize that all religions lead to the same God. Many Christians might throw up their hands in horror at this thought, and wonder where this leaves personal faith in Jesus. So some modern thinkers have introduced the idea of ‘parallelism’. This allows for the distinctive features of each religion to be respected, rather than trying to shoehorn all the religions into the same basic pattern.
Then, thirdly, there is the idea of inclusivism. I would describe myself as an inclusivist, believing that, on the whole, all people can go to heaven. Inclusivists believe that Christianity makes space for other religions. Although Christianity represents the normative revelation of God, salvation is nonetheless possible for those who belong to other religious traditions. The leading Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner, who died in 1984, said that “God wishes that all shall be saved, even though not all know Christ.” Even the Roman Catholics in the Second Vatican Council of 1965 affirmed that rays of divine truth were indeed to be found in other religions.
So are you an inclusivist, an exclusivist, or somewhere in between? If this all seems very technical, it does us no harm sometimes to think more seriously about what we believe. In one of our Eucharistic Prayers, we talk about Jesus ‘bearing the sins of the whole world.’ It’s a staggering thought. How that can be is a divine mystery, in the correct sense of the word ‘mystery.’ But I do believe it.
The Church too often becomes pre-occupied with itself and its membership: who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’; what the rules are; who ‘can’ and who ‘can’t’, from issues ranging from eligibility for baptism and marriage to PCC membership!
The same Jesus who said ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’ also said ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you.’ We haven’t said much about the first part of that statement. But the priest John Pridmore says, “The way to God is the way of Jesus. That way is both the path he trod, and the path he is; it is the way of the Cross.” I leave the last word to Professor Ward. “Christians have the amazing privilege to know that salvation only comes through Jesus Christ, but it would be quite wrong for them to think that salvation only comes to them….That same God, that same Christ, saves all creation by uniting them in the Christ through whom all things were created, on whom all things are patterned, and in whom all things will find their true fulfilment.”