Monthly Archives: August 2010

Way.

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Some of you have been scratching your heads since yesterday. I started talking about Jesus’ statement from John 14: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” I told a story about a woman and a ladder.

What does that story have to do with the claim that Jesus is making?

Here’s the thing. I don’t think he’s making a claim, building an argument. I think Jesus is building a relationship.

Jesus and his disciples are at a meal, not a debate, not an argument with the religious leaders. Jesus has said that he’s going to leave them but that he’ll be back. And then he says, “You know the way to the place I am going.”

Thomas points out that they don’t know where he’s going so how could they know the way? He saying, “If we don’t know the destination, how can we know what direction to go?”

At that point, we would love to predict Jesus’ next words: “I’ll bet he’s going to say, ‘it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.’” That’s what we would say. We want to focus on process, on developing, on growing.

And Jesus doesn’t say anything about the journey. And he doesn’t say anything about the destination.  Instead he says, “I am the way.” It’s not a where that Jesus is going to. It’s a who.

I don’t think he’s trying to be tricky or complicated when talking with his disciples. I don’t even think he’s trying to do a foreshadowing of “Who’s on first.” (“You want a way? You’re talking to the way.”)

I think that in these last few moments, Jesus is being as clear and simple as he can be: You can’t get there if you aren’t with me, and if you are with me, you are there.

come and talk to me

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In John 14, Jesus sounds exclusive: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” It is a difficult text for many people. Maybe you. I could skip it, but I want to explore around it a bit.

To start, a story.

I was taking pictures of a crowd in a store. I wanted to get a better shot. There was a ladder. I asked a person from the store, “Who could I talk to about standing on that ladder?”

She smiled. “That would be me,” she said.

She led me to the ladder. I climbed up. She moved away to where she could see the crowd more clearly herself.

I was panning across the crowd when I noticed someone waving at me. It was a younger woman in a store shirt. “I have to ask you to come down.” I kept shooting but pointed at the woman who had given me permission who was out of view of the staffer.

The younger woman went to a guy who was doing crowd control. He motioned that I needed to get down. I pointed at the woman and kept shooting.

The younger woman headed for the front of the store, where store security was. The guy wandered over to the woman who had given me permission. I could see him say, “did you?” and her say “yes.”

I kept shooting.

Security came to the foot of the ladder: “You have to come down.”

The woman who had given me permission came to him and said, “It’s okay. I said he could.”

“Just checking,” said Security.

It was difficult for me to keep shooting.  I don’t defy authority. But I asked for permission from the person who could give it. The right relationship let me say, “talk to her” and see clearly.

in praise of staying put

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I love Don Miller. He inspires and challenges me (even when we don’t agree).

Of course, that makes it sound like we’ve talked. We haven’t. I’ve read.

The other day, I was thinking about interviewing hm, about questions I would ask him if I had the opportunity. I was thinking about the new things he talked about doing in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life. I was thinking in particular about asking him what he learned from starting a nonprofit.

And then I wondered what would someone learn from not starting something new?

I’m not arguing with Don. Not at all. The point of his book is that it’s worthwhile to look at the story your life is telling. If you don’t like that story, start rewriting it.

What is easy to do when reading that is to think it necessary to make some huge change. Ride a bike across the country. Start a new organization for mentoring kids. Learn about story. Write a book.

But what if  rewriting your story means staying put? What if it means learning to love more carefully and thoughtfully the people you already love? What if it means learning that the opposite of complacent may not be ambitious or accomplished, it may be content? What if it meant that the opposite of mere busy-ness may not be focused activity, it may be stillness. What if rather than starting a new project or business or campaign, maybe it means finishing the old one well?

In writing to his apprentice Timothy, Paul reviews what can happen when people get consumed and then says, “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.” (1 Timothy 6:11).

Sometimes pursuing happens by faithfully staying.

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(That link to the book is an affiliate link. I stand to gain a bit if you buy the book through that link. But, of course, you gain more. I did.)

Waiting for mansions

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In the King James version of John 14, Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Many people have read that and thought, “Sweet. I’m gonna get me a mansion. I’ll be living good then, after I’m dead, in heaven.”

Somehow, I’m thinking that Jesus wasn’t thinking about heaven being a place where everyone gets their own mansion. In fact, the word probably should have been translated as dwelling place or room. As I read through these sentences about Jesus going and Jesus coming, there are a couple images that come to mind, neither of which has much to do with getting a mansion.

The first is this: the idea of going to prepare a place is exactly what happened before supper that night. A couple guys went and prepared the place. There was going to be a special, intimate, between friends dinner and someone had to get it ready. When it was ready, they went. And then the host played servant.

The second is this: There is a story that in first-century Jewish culture, after the couple was engaged (betrothed), the guy went home and started working on a room, an addition to the family home. He did his best work. He was making a place for his bride. When it was ready – when his dad said it was ready – he went to get her, with great fanfare, sometimes in the middle of the night.

The heart of the story wasn’t the cool room. The heart of the story was the caring groom.

Jesus wasn’t talking about some abstract distant place. He was looking his closest friends in the eye and saying. “I’m leaving, I’ll get things ready, I’ll come back.”

When people get all excited about how heaven will be, they miss thinking about who heaven will be.

Across chapter lines

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Many Bible reading plans have people read a certain number of chapters each day. If you were doing that kind of plan, and the dividing line came at the end of John 13, on one day you would read about Jesus’ prediction that Peter would deny him three times. And you would lay your Bible down (or close the window at Biblegateway.com) thinking about Peter’s impending failure.

The next day, you would start reading in John 14 about Jesus going to prepare a place for his followers. And unless you were very disciplined in remembering what you read previously, you wouldn’t connect the story of Peter with the story of many houses.

Or maybe your reading plan includes both chapter 13 and 14 on the same day, but the big white space and the fact that chapter breaks “always” reflect breaks in thought let you separate the stories.

But the more I look at this section of John, where Peter raises the question most on his mind (where are you going) and where Jesus answers Peter’s question (I’m going to get stuff ready for you), the more I see Jesus connecting the two. Peter’s fervent affirmation that he would follow Jesus grew out of fear. If Jesus left, Peter was losing everything. His teacher, his calling, his work, his new name. If Jesus left, he had nothing. No wonder he was so intense.

And Jesus says two things:

1. you are going to deny me.

2. but relax, I’m not staying gone.

Both are answers to Peter and to the rest of the disciples. Both say that there is a difference between how things look at the moment and how things really are. And the connection would be missed if we let the chapters (and the headers) distract us from the story.

Read for the story.