A few weeks ago in one of our Wednesday evening worship gatherings, I told the story of an episode I watched of the TV show “Criminal Minds.”
It opened with a car pulled off onto the shoulder of a road and a man kneeling beside the car’s flat tire. Another car came down the road and pulled over. A man got out of the car, opened his hood and pulled out a tire iron. He walked back to the man kneeling at the flat tire … and beat him to death with the tire iron.
I made the point that a tire iron is a tool, not a weapon. That’s obvious, right?
Steve Sylvester
But it’s the kind of mistake we make with many things. The Bible, for instance. The Bible is God’s story that frees us and brings us to life, but how many times have you witnessed the Bible being used to belittle, to control, to punish?
In John 14, there’s a line that’s often weaponized: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” In my experience, Christians often use this line to define who’s out, who’s on the sidelines. And it’s often not just adherents of other religions who are out. It’s also Christians who “claim” to know God, but don’t “really” know God.
I remember when I was 15 years old and I traveled up from Missouri with my friend Dave Winship to go to a Christian youth camp for a week in Fall Hall Glen, Wis., south of Black River Falls. At one point we were all on a bus to go tubing on a river. The topic of my being Lutheran came up, something they had not been aware of.
“That’s really too bad,” several of the kids said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well,” they said, “you’re a great kid. We all like you. But you’re going to hell.”
“Well,” they said, “you’re a great kid. We all like you. But you’re going to hell.”
I didn’t let my impending trip to hell bother me, and I had a great time tubing that day. Later, I told my friend Dave what they said, and he replied, “Yeah, they’re kinda weird that way.”
What those kids said actually was more than “kinda weird.” It was hurtful. It was mean. It was un-Christian.
When Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me,” he wasn’t talking about “accepting him as personal Lord and Savior” being the secret handshake for membership in the club. He wasn’t talking about what we believe or what we do.
This was the night before his crucifixion, and he was saying he was preparing to reconcile us with God. He was saying his death would take our broken relationship with God and make it whole again. And his resurrection would be the promise that not even death could undo that mended relationship and God’s promise of eternal love for all of creation.
That’s very different, isn’t it? It’s not, “Here’s how you get in.” Rather, it’s, “Here’s how God will deal with the brokenness that keeps you out.”
It’s not our striving that will heal that brokenness. It’s not our confession of faith or our goodness that will do it. It’s Jesus dying for us. Period. It’s “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
As Christians, we often behave as if we were the gatekeepers. We behave as if we believe it’s our job to separate the sheep from the goats, to say, “Christians over here, everyone else over there,” or even, “The good and right Christians over here, all the pretend Christians over there.”
But we’re not the gatekeepers. We are the megaphone. We are the welcome party. We are the ones who say, “The door is open!” and when people come in, we say, “We are so happy you’re here!”
“We’re not the gatekeepers. We are the megaphone. We are the welcome party.”
We don’t say, “The door is open for people who believe the correct thing” and then welcome people only if they demonstrate they deserve to be rubbing elbows with us.
I know this is kind of heady, but sometimes there’s just no avoiding such topics. In my defense, Jesus gave sermons like this at times as well. In fact, chapters 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 in John’s Gospel are all one long, dense sermon Jesus gave to his disciples before being betrayed by Judas and arrested by the religious authorities.
And in John chapter 14, Jesus got both deep and wide because he knew he was leaving, and the disciples were being sent out. The fate of the world depended on the message they would be taking out with them.
So, when we gather together on Sunday mornings, we gather in order to be sent out, just like the disciples. Just like the disciples, so much depends on the message you will take out with you, a message you will sometimes speak with words and that most of the time you will act out with actions.
It’s very important that you get this message right. It’s not a message about weeding people out and separating the deserving from the undeserving. It’s not a message that checks to see whether people believe what you believe. It’s a message that tells people and shows people they matter.
They matter so much that the Son of God was willing even to die to reconnect them with the God from whom they had wandered. And God doesn’t care what they look like, what they sound like, where they live. God just wants to love them completely and watch over them to the end of time.
So, there you go. That’s your job this week, next week, every day of your life. Let people know how much God loves them. If they’re curious about that message, if they want to know more, invite them to come worship with you some Sunday.
“No one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s not a narrowing down to a few. It’s an opening up to everyone. It’s an opening up to all creation, to all of God’s children, even you.
Steve Sylvester serves as interim pastor of First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hinckley, Minn.
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