The Way, the Truth and the Life

1993 (Year A), 2 May (Easter 4)

All Hallows Bow

In another time, and at another place the preacher said something like this as he prepared to leave. ‘Examine yourselves, to see you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realise that Christ is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test ... Now we pray to God that you will not do anything wrong ... This is why I (say) these things, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my authority – the authority the Lord gave me for building you up not tearing you down. Finally, brothers, (he would’ve of course said, ‘and sisters’) good-bye. Aim for perfection. Listen to my appeal. Be of one mind. Live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you’. When he’d said all that he might’ve knelt down and prayed with them. They might all have wept as they embraced and kissed because what grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again.

But that’s another time and another place and anyway I’m coming back in July.

Paul’s intention of saying all that so long ago, would’ve been to keep his listeners on the Way, in the Truth and within the Life of Christ. I have to say that the intention of the preacher has changed very little but the words and the examples have changed dramatically. Then Paul talked about orderly worship, theology, and human relationships, some of which, when we read them now seems amazingly outdated. He goes on and on about the position of men, women and slaves in the order of things. That’s changed dramatically since his time. He is concerned about how people should act and he was particularly strong about sexual immorality.

I hope I talk theology and I do speak about human relationships. They’re at the very heart of our humanity, our identity. Most of our experiences of God come through them. In them our faith takes flesh. They are as crucial now as they were to Paul. Of course at St Peter’s there’s less need to dwell on orderly worship. We manage that quite well. I might have to speak about morality but the examples would be vastly different from Paul. Behaving morally would now have to include not getting muddled up in the production of millions of pounds worth of bank notes in Downham Road.

I would have to encourage you to stand alongside the poor, and to protest against the inhuman treatment of those who come to live in our communities. To encourage you to ask questions of those in authority, rather than get you meekly to accept it as Paul did. Questions like why is it necessary to enter people’s houses early in the morning causing panic so extreme that it results in death. I would get you to think about the use and availability of drugs in our communities and the pain that they bring to families. Just some of the things Paul would never have had to think: about when he spoke about Jesus. Yet the common themes are still there, clear for us all to see.

He had to deal with relationships which bring pain to ourselves, our neighbours and to God. The relationships which don’t reflect the creative love of God. On the contrary they are destructive and bring death. Our refusal to be reconciled to one another. Our desire for our own glory rather God’s and our pursuit of all kinds idols. All these are things which affected the church in Paul’s time and have not changed one iota since.

Our world, like his has a propensity for death. If given the chance it seems to desire death rather than life. Drugs, increasing unemployment, unsatisfactory housing, inhumanity of government. They all bring death. And Easter proclaims that this is not the Way and the Truth and the Life for us. Easter offers us an alternative. Easter beckons us to see another Way another Truth another Life. And the alternative is this. It is absurd to see violence and death as a matter of course. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing has to be put up with. Easter faith doesn’t mean considering Christ’s resurrection to be true and hoping for a better life after death. Easter faith means first of all getting oneself up and participating in God’s creative power. Creative power which brings forth life from death. God makes the impossible possible. God calls into existence the things that do not exist. God is the creator.

That’s the message from one who is about to go away. That is the message of the Way the Truth and the Life. The message is a plea to choose that Way, that Truth and that Life rather than any other and to encourage you to get others to choose as well.

So, ‘Let us go out
from our customs and our habits and learn to hope from the Bible. Let us go out
and cross frontiers
so that we may infect people with hope Let us ignore the barriers,
and look only to the One who breaks them down. He is risen
Jesus is risen indeed
Blessed be the Lord for ever and ever’.

AMEN