I AM the way and the truth and the life

Scripture Lessons: Exodus 13: 17-22 and John 14: 1-7 Sermon Title: I AM the Way and the Truth and the Life Preached on July 11, 2021 Do you hate to ask for directions? Does your husband? I hate to, so sometimes I just won’t do it, even if I’m lost. Last week I was in Montreat, North Carolina with several members of our staff for a Music and Worship Conference. For years our church went there every winter for an annual retreat and sent the youth group to a conference there every summer. I’ve been there so many times that last week during the conference I was sure I knew where I was going. I was so sure that I couldn’t ask for directions. It was a matter of pride. What’s true about me is that sometimes I feel like I should know the way. That’s pride or ego talking, but “I AM the way,” he said to his disciples. This is the fifth sermon in a series of eight focused on what some call the “I AM” statements of Jesus. He describes himself in several different ways, and today we come to this significant statement, “I AM the way, and the truth, and the life.” The Scripture Lesson I just read where he describes himself this way comes from the Gospel of John. I’ve read it many times. At 90% of weddings, I’ve read 1st Corinthians 13 and at 90% of funerals I’ve read this passage from the Gospel of John. Why? Maybe because it’s only when we’re faced with death that we’re OK asking for directions. Only when confronted with that great journey into the unknown are we ready to confess that we don’t already know the way, but my friends, today let me say it clearly. Whether it is from death to life, from lost to found, from uneducated to wise, on all great journeys we must be prepared to ask for directions. Let Thomas be our example of how it’s done. Jesus says, “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? 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. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” That phrase at the end makes an assumption: “And you know the way to the place where I am going, right?” It’s like he’s saying, “You’ve been paying attention, going to Sunday School, reading your Bible, singing your hymns, being a good girl or boy, and loving your neighbor, so you ought to know.” Be careful here, for that phrase, “You ought to know,” comes from a little voice inside all our heads and not from the lips of Jesus. “You ought to know” is ego talking, and ego can’t get us to the Promised Land. It just sends us down a spiral of shame. To get to the Promised Land we must be ready to ask the Savior for directions. So, think about what Thomas does here. He’s the one willing to say, “Lord, we do not know the way.” That can be an embarrassing thing to say out loud. Many people go through life very self-conscious about what they don’t know or don’t believe, so they don’t broadcast it. I remember a story a friend told me. His son was getting married to a Roman Catholic woman. In order for the priest to do the wedding, he had to convert. That was fine with him. He was in love, so he was glad to, but he was getting lost in all these classes. He was hearing about all these saints and was getting confused. As he had been born Presbyterian, he wasn’t used to any of it. Finally, he asked the priest who was teaching the class, “Just how much of this stuff do I actually have to believe?” During the journey of faith, we all reach this point sooner or later. The thing to remember when we reach this point is that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt, the opposite of faith is certainty. Those are the words of Christian writer Ann Lamont. Do you know what she means by that? What she means is that there is a difference between knowing the way or thinking you know the way and following the One who is the way. There is a difference, maybe a slight one, between knowing the Bible inside out and taking a step out into the unknown alongside the One who can walk on water. There is a difference between thinking you have it all straight in your head and trusting the Savior with all your questions. Thomas gets that. In his unknowing he shows us what being in a relationship with Jesus looks like. With a certain kind of boldness – let’s call it faith – he bravely asks the question that everyone else was too scared to ask: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Do you hear that? Do you hear what he’s asking? Do you see what’s faithful about asking a question like that? This is how it’s done. Thomas has it right. Do you know how I know he has it right? It’s because Jesus doesn’t push him away for his question. Jesus never shames Thomas for what he doesn’t know. Instead, he just answers: “I AM the way,” he said. That’s important for us to remember today, because in this world today, the social fabric is falling apart and I believe it falls to the Church to show the world how to knit it back together, only right now plenty of our brothers and sisters are all caught up in having the right answers, as though having the right answers were a substitute for being in right relationship. What I mean by that is that I’m back in school and I’m having a hard time with some of what’s required of me. I’m working towards my doctorate, and lately, all my classes have been on Zoom, which requires a certain level of computer literacy that I don’t have, but not only that, I haven’t been in class in a while and a lot has changed since I was in seminary. I joined this class and I’d try to participate but it seemed like I kept on putting my foot in my mouth. Without thinking, I offended a classmate. Not knowing what I had done, just reading her face, and seeing hurt there, I worried that I had slammed the door on a friendship before it even began. I contacted her and I asked her, “Did I offend you? I didn’t mean to. How can I make it right?” This story might sound like the end of a friendship, but it wasn’t. In asking those questions, a friendship began, because it doesn’t matter whether you have all the right answers. Relationships can be built by having the courage to ask the right questions. Have I offended you? Why are you so upset? Can you show me the way? “I AM the way,” he said. “I AM the way.” This statement reminds me of a certain kind of knowledge that’s far more important than a grasp on facts or figures. A knowledge that sometimes we forget about. At the beginning of the pandemic, I was honored to talk with Meri Kate Marcum. Meri Kate is an elder on the session, so she’s one of our church’s elected leaders. She’s also a seminary student, so she’s training to be a pastor, and she’s the director of the preschool over at the Methodist Church. At the beginning of the pandemic, she called me, and we were talking about preschools, and who was doing what and what should be done. Meri Kate had already been talking with Betsy Sherwood, our preschool director, and the two of them were on the same page. They were both feeling like there wasn’t much of a point to having virtual preschool, even though it was technically possible to do it, just as the elementary, middle, high schools, and colleges had. Unlike those schools, “virtual preschool doesn’t make any sense,” they said, “because the main thing you need to learn in preschool is how to get along with your classmates and you can’t do that virtually.” Now you can learn some important things virtually, but: You can’t learn how to share. You can’t learn to keep your hands to yourself. You can’t learn to apologize. You can’t learn how to make friends. “I AM the way,” he said. What does he mean? He means, don’t worry so much about what you know or don’t know. Worry more about asking the right questions that build up the right relationships, because we’re all heading towards the father’s house with many rooms, and if we can’t learn how to live together now, sharing that great big house is going to get difficult. Have you ever lived in a house with a know it all? One of my favorite proverbs from Scripture is Proverbs 21: 9: It is better to live on the roof of a house than in it with a contentious wife. Had a woman written that proverb it might have said, “It’s better to live locked in the bathroom than with a man who thinks he’s never wrong.” How dangerous it is to go through life with certainty. How foolish it is to rush to conclusions. Have you ever thought about how much damage false assumptions do to the world around us, and yet, people walk around thinking that they’ve got it already, certain that they know the way while the road to a better future is paved by those who are willing to ask the Savior the right question: “Lord, we do not know the way.” Clearly, we don’t. We don’t know the way to equality, and what we think we know about people who look different than we do is keeping us from getting there. We don’t know the way to peace, and what we think we know about our enemies is keeping us from getting there. We don’t know the way to heaven, and what we think we know about heaven and who is going there is keeping us from it. Let us be bold then, to ask the Savior for directions. Today you’ve been given another ribbon. This one is supposed to be orange. You might be looking at the color ribbon you received thinking, “Whoever called this ribbon orange doesn’t know his colors. Maybe he should go back to preschool.” Gold looked like orange when I picked it out, I’m sorry. What I want you to do with your whatever colored ribbon is this: write down a question you’d like to ask Jesus. Did you know that you can do that? Of course you can, because your questions, your needs, your secrets, your shames, your fears, they won’t keep you from having a relationship with our God. Voicing them to Him is the way to start one. “I AM the way, and the truth, and the life,” which means you don’t have to be. You don’t have to have it all together to be worthy of his love. You don’t have to know it all to be precious in his sight. Take security in his boundless love and ask. Write your question, and find that in trusting Him with it, you’ll receive from the Lord far more than an answer. Amen.