The following text has comforted and tormented untold millions of people over time.  Can you see why?

“Don’t be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. My Father’s house has room to spare. If that weren’t the case, would I have told you that I’m going to prepare a place for you? When I go to prepare a place for you, I will return and take you to be with me so that where I am you will be too. You know the way to the place I’m going.”

     Thomas asked, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you have really known me, you will also know the Father. From now on you know him and have seen him.” – John 14:1-7 (CEB)

     On the one hand, Jesus offers great comfort regarding God’s care, which apparently extends somehow beyond the grave.  On the other hand, however, it sure seems like he makes a very exclusivist statement about himself, calling into question whether or not people of other faith traditions will be covered under the same promises.  The latter concern triggers our lizard brains into a frenzy.  Combine it with our present context where we demand clarity and certainty, and we can find ourselves riddled with anxiety.  Yet, for Christian insiders, the certainty is a comfort.  As Pete Enns noted, “believing that we are right about God helps give us a sense of order in an otherwise messy world” (193).

     The bummer of our desire for certainty is that we get more than we bargained for.  As Richard Rohr notes, “religion has turned the biblical idea of faith . . . into a need and even a right to certain knowing, complete predictability, and perfect assurance about whom and what God likes or doesn’t like” (193). When we “get it all figured out” we don’t really need faith anymore, do we?  We’ve got a signed contract from God in our proof-texted theological construct.  This is deeply problematic, however, as Pete Enns notes: “Aligning faith in God and certainty about what we believe and needing to be right in order to maintain a healthy faith—these do not make for a healthy faith in God.  This the sin of certainty” (194).

     Much of the Christian tradition that has formed our current thinking was not born from a pure state with no motives beyond the Spirit’s truth.  Hardly!  As Diana Butler Bass points out, “the creeds were the result of politics, power, patriarchy, and privilege, part of a larger argument about who would shape the Christian narrative, and not some miracle of the Holy Spirit. It was a conflicted history involving humans with messy motives and much self-interest” (197).  It sure is a relief knowing we are no longer susceptible to such lowly motives in our present age...  Sigh.

     So, what do we make of Jesus’ statement of love and also exclusion? Bass reminds us that “the disciples are frightened that their friend and teacher is leaving; Jesus reassures them that, although they cannot follow him into suffering and death, he is present with them through love, trust, and faith in him, not in ideas about him. ‘I have loved you; abide in my love’ (John 15:9)” (168-169).  Lovely. But what about “except through me”?  As one scholar [Craig Koester] says, “the seemingly judgmental phrase ‘no one comes to the Father’ is ‘not the last word’: ‘Except’ is like a window that lets light into a closed room. It fits what the Gospel says about Christ coming as light into a world of darkness and serving as the door . . . that enables people to enter God’s sheepfold. Rather than restricting access to God the word “except” creates access to God. There would be no way except that the love of God has made a way. God would be distant, unavailable, separated from us except for love” (169-170).  As Bass paraphrases, Jesus was saying “I am the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus assured them. Except for my showing you the way of God you’d get lost” (170).  How does this way of thinking about this passage sit with you?

     This jibes well with Jesus instruction that follows (John 15:9-14 CEB):

“As the Father loved me, I too have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy will be in you and your joy will be complete. This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

     If Jesus promoted anything, it was love. This was the central thrust behind the Kin-dom of God he proclaimed.  I think it is worth noting that Jesus didn’t simply tell his disciples to love each other – he told them to love each other as he had loved them.  This serves as a reminder that our vision of love may be too small.  We need to be reminded of the expansiveness of love.  Could it be that we settle for our more shallow understanding of love? I wonder what we have missed out on?  I wonder what others have missed out on because we opted for a smaller love, because love isn’t only something we receive – we are commanded to extend it wherever we go.  Bass recalls:

     In 1979, when I was still in college, a professor assigned a book called Journey Inward, Journey Outward. No surprise that I loved it. The author, Elizabeth O’Connor, told the story of a Christian community organized around two spiritual journeys—the interior one toward knowing our true self and knowing God, and the one directed outward into the world to enact God’s justice and love. These two movements comprise the way of Jesus, a continual flow of breath: in, out; in, out; in, out. “Breathe it all in,” writes poet Mary Oliver. “Love it all out.” This spiritual dynamism was the wellspring of knowing Jesus, of my inner searching and outward service (186).

     This interpretation of John 14 – beyond certainty of who is in and who is out – is founded entirely differently.  It is in the loving that we experience deeper, more profound love, and ultimately, God.  Not a checklist, but an approach to life.  As Meister Eckhart wrote, “There is a journey you must take. It is a journey without destination. There is no map. Your soul will lead you. And you can take nothing with you” (186-187).  What a different vision than maintaining a belief statement to make sure it is right!  Bass reminds us of how this was lived out by the mystics of the past:

     Not all mystics are remembered, many were martyred by their own church, and a few were made saints. Yet for all their diversity and the uniqueness of their experiences, they tend to express what is within through circles and spirals, poetry and revelations, in visions of love rather than dogma. Theirs was the alternative way, unconcerned with worldly power, seeking only to follow a less-traveled path. “Since I gave myself to Love’s service, whether I lose or win, I am resolved,” wrote the thirteenth-century Dutch mystic Hadewijch of Brabant in language echoing others’. “I will always give her thanks, whether I lose or win; I will stand in her power.” For her, love was the energy of an unreachable destination, the way of a “Being beyond all bliss” (188-189).

     Wow!  I find this so incredibly compelling!  Love’s service – who wouldn’t want to count themselves in Love’s service?  Yet as human beings it is always a choice, always something that must be maintained. Rabbi Jonathon Sacks notes:

     We can obey but also disobey; we can create harmony or discord. The freedom to do good comes hand-in-hand with the freedom to do evil. The result is the entire human drama as Judaism understands it. Our fate does not lie in the stars, nor in the human genome, or in any other form of determinism. We become what we choose to be (206).

     If the past is any predicter of the future, we can safely bet that we will find ourselves being a mixture of hits and misses, wins and losses, at times champions of love and at other times perpetuators of hatred.  Knowing this ahead of time helps our inner perfectionists calm down a bit.  While we wish we could bat a thousand, the best batters usually get a hit only a third of the time.  We can hopefully do better than that, but we will never be 100%. Not even Jesus hit that mark.  But we can celebrate the reality that love always continues to invite expression.  There will always be more opportunities to invite and express love.

     In what areas of your life does accepting and expressing love come easily?  Why?  Where is it more difficult?  Why?  Where do you sense Love inviting you to embrace love and express love?  How might saying yes to such an invitation fulfill Jesus’ statement about being the way, truth, and life that leads to the Divine?

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from Diana Butler Bass’ book, Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence (HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Through me: spiritual practices (the way), authenticity and integrity (the truth), and abundance and joy (life). (Bass, 166)

Commentary from SALT (Matthew Myer Boulton):

Sixth Week of Easter (Year B): John 15:9-17 and Acts 10:44-48

Big Picture:

1) This is the sixth of the seven weeks of Eastertide, and the third of four weeks exploring Jesus’ teachings about living in intimacy with God. Following directly on last week’s passage in which Jesus casts himself as “the vine” and the disciples as the vine’s fruitful branches, here Jesus elaborates on just what sort of “fruit” he has in mind: works of love for the sake of joy.

2) As we saw last week, the key to understanding the “farewell discourse” in John (John 14-17) is to remember that Jesus is engaged here in urgent pastoral care, assuring his distraught disciples that his imminent departure is not abandonment, but rather a move that will make way for an even deeper intimacy. Accordingly, the exhortations in this week’s passage (“love one another”) are expressions of care and reassurance. Hearing Jesus this way shifts the tone from mere imperative (“you must go and do such-and-such”) to warm encouragement and consolation (“take heart, I’m not abandoning you — as you go and do such-and-such, we’ll be together!”).

3) This passage introduces a key theme in the farewell discourse — arguably the central theme, nothing less than the purpose of Jesus’ mission in the first place. That theme is joy. In this passage, and again in chapters 16 and 17, Jesus frames joy as the ultimate goal of his ministry to his disciples, and by extension to the whole world: "that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11). Jesus has come to dwell with humanity, and now will lay down his life, and promises to equip the church and “draw all people” (John 12:32) — and he does these things out of love, he proclaims, a love for the sake of "complete joy."

4) The larger context of the passage from Acts is the Jesus movement’s official shift toward including Gentiles as well as Jews. Just a few verses earlier, Peter has preached on God’s openness to all people: the phrase the NRSV translates as “God shows no partiality” is literally, “God accepts no one’s face” — in other words, God doesn't crassly play favorites, and so God's love isn't restricted to any in-group, but rather spills over, expanding to include supposed outsiders (Acts 10:34). Accordingly, Peter’s question in this week's reading (“Can anyone withhold the water…?”) echoes the Ethiopian eunuch’s rhetorical-yet-subversive remark, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36).

Scripture:

1) In the context of Jesus assuring his disciples that he is by no means abandoning them, these reflections on love, joy, and friendship function as soothing words of solace. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “On one level, I am about to leave you, but on a deeper level, we’ll be even closer than before. Just continue along the path I have shown you — and we’ll be together. Love one another — and you’ll thereby abide in my love, which is to say, you’ll abide in me, as intimate as a vine and its branches. Your love itself will be the sign of all signs that we are acting together, living together, abiding together. Look at my intimacy with God: it’s based on my listening and embodying and abiding in God’s commandments to love, and in this way, God and I are inseparable. So — go and do likewise! Listen and embody my commandment to love, and we’ll be inseparable, too.”

2) And then it’s as if Jesus adds: “And here’s the point of all this: I want us to be so close that my joy is yours, so that your joy will be perfect joy, complete joy, joy in all its fullness. Isn’t that what all loving parents want for their children? Complete joy? That’s what God wants for you! And so: even though the stars may seem to fall over the days ahead, as I am handed over and sent down into the valley of the shadow of death, remember this: what I want for you, and what I promise you, and what I give to you — is joy.”

3) To what may this “complete joy” be compared? A little later in the farewell discourse, Jesus compares it to childbirth: “When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:21-22). Jesus’ mission is for the sake of joy, yes — but not just any joy. Think of it, he says, like the joy of a new mother, strong and creative, exhausted and exultant, a joy that is no stranger to anguish, and above all the joy of having brought new life into the world. From this angle, we may put the poetry this way: every Christian disciple is a mother or a midwife!

4) What do we typically call a relationship characterized by this confluence of listening, love, togetherness, creativity, and joy? In this week’s passage Jesus calls it friendship, another note of assurance and consolation for his disciples, as if he's saying: “I no longer call you ‘servants’ but rather ‘friends’ — and of course I would never abandon my friends! On the contrary, I will lay down my life for my friends — precisely so we can be even closer in our life together, abiding in one another, so that your joy may be complete.”

5) While Jesus mentions many imperatives in John’s gospel (“abide,” “believe,” etc.), he gives his disciples only one commandment: to “love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34-35; 15:12). And so the emphasis in this passage on “keeping commandments” betrays no authoritarianism, but rather the opposite: we should do nothing, and follow no command, that does not build up our neighbors in love, ourselves in love, and the world in love. In other words, Jesus is calling not for the sort of forced "obedience" found in relationships of coercion, but rather the sort found among genuine friends, companions who listen to each other in loving-kindness (the English word “obedience” is from the Latin ob (“to”) and audire (“listen”)).

6) Likewise, Jesus assures his disciples that his love doesn’t depend on them; rather, they can depend on his love, come what may. The poignancy here, and therefore the consolation, is almost unbearable: for these “friends” to whom Jesus speaks in this passage will deny and desert him later that very night! It’s as if he’s saying, “You don’t know it yet, but just a few hours from now you will have good reason to doubt yourself, your faith, your integrity as never before. But don’t worry. You didn’t choose me; I chose you. You may find yourself fickle and afraid, but my love for you is steadfast. Nothing you do can change it — even the unspeakable things you will do tonight. I chose you, I choose you, and I commission you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last: works of love for the sake of joy.”

Takeaways:

1) For some Christians today, faith is the most important dimension of a disciple’s life. For others, love is the ultimate goal toward which any truly living faith will lead. But for John, there is yet another, even higher aim, for the sake of which faith and love abide. Jesus calls it “complete joy.” This is the “for what” of God’s love and deliverance, the “for what” of salvation, the “for what” of Jesus’ ministry and therefore the ministry of the church. For joy! Faith, yes — but faith for the sake of joy. Love, yes — but love for the sake of joy. “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11).

2) What kind of joy? In this week’s passage, Jesus evokes the delight-in-being-together of genuine friendship — and in our own best relationships, we can catch glimpses of what he has in mind. And just a bit later in the farewell discourse, he explicitly compares “complete joy” to the jubilation of a new mother: her spent, exhilarated delight following the anguish of labor, celebrating the new life that has come into the world. And indeed, as we approach Mother’s Day, it’s fitting to reflect on how mothering can help us understand God’s love for us.

3) Finally, in light of this week’s passage from Acts, we can add this: Love seeks a world in which this “complete joy” is not just for a privileged few, but rather for everyone. Peter’s rhetorical-yet-subversive question — “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47) — echoes the Ethiopian eunuch: “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36). Potential obstacles and withholders abound, of course, and the next chapter in Acts chronicles the ensuing inclusion/exclusion controversy that Peter's openness provoked in the early Christian community (sound familiar?). But the way Peter puts his question is telling, both then and now: “Can anyone withhold the water...?” Like love, water tends to permeate and overflow limitations. Like joy, water resists attempts to contain it. The Holy Spirit goes where She wills: as Peter goes on to explain, “Who was I that I could hinder God?” (Acts 11:17). After all, God’s love had already overflowed Peter’s denials and desertion, including him precisely when, by all appearances, he might well have been excluded. Far be it from Peter, then (and far be it from us!), to presume to withhold or prevent. God’s love for the sake of creation’s joy knows no bounds.

p.s. For more on love, joy, and midwifery, check out Mary, Midwives, and God's Kairos.