Being an honest pastor, I am not going to lie to you. No, I'm going to tell it to you like it is. I'm going to tell you the truth, and the truth is, I hate this sermon. I hate this sermon. I'm probably not supposed to say that, but I've been here six months now, what the heck. This sermon frustrates the . . . Well, it really frustrates me. I've been bashing my head against the wall, wearing paths in the carpet as I pace to and fro -- I don't want to tell you how tired my darn legs were the other day. I can't remember the last time I've spent so much time on a sermon with seemingly so little to show for it. No polished stories, no poetic images, no air-tight theological logic -- no, it seems I just have a bunch of broken pieces which I've cobbled together into -- well, into I don't know what.

But I've gotten ahead of myself. I should begin at the beginning, and this sermon begins a long time ago. In a way, I first started working on this sermon over a year ago. You see, I was traveling around in Greece, eating olives, visiting ruins, drinking wine, and being the good pastor that I am, even brushing up on some of my Biblical Greek. While I was there, however, I was also continuing to search for a call to ministry. I was using internet cafes to correspond with various churches, and if some wanted telephone interviews, I would make the arrangements from Greece.

Thus it was that while I was in the Greek town of Meteora, which has those medieval monasteries impossibly perched on high outcroppings of rock -- you've probably seen pictures of them -- while I was in Meteora, I had a phone interview with another Presbyterian church in Texas, which shall remain nameless. The interview went fairly well, I thought. The problem came after the interview, as I looked at their website. There on the church's homepage, in large letters, a portion of our Scripture lesson for today scrolled across the page. John 14:6 -- "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

I didn't like it. I didn't like it. It wasn't just that I didn't like it -- it really bothered me. Now, to understand the context in which this took place, you have to understand my life situation in the months preceding my trip to Greece. It was the same situation to which I anticipated returning soon. That situation was one in which I was unemployed, single, and living at home with my parents. Hmm. Let me tell you, when you are searching for God's call and you are unemployed, single, and living at home with your parents -- well, you are likely to mistake the slightest sound as God's call. Therefore, part of me didn't want to be bothered, and after all I thought the interview had gone fairly well.

But I was bothered. Deeply. I spent days thinking about that website, thinking about that verse, praying about it, trying to pinpoint exactly what it was that bothered me. I wrote about it in my journal on several occasions, I talked about it with friends and loved ones. I even emailed some of my non-Christian friends to ask them how such a website, with that verse, would strike them.

How do we deal with that verse in the multicultural, multi-religious world in which we live? For me at the time, that wasn't just an abstract question. I faced the very real possibility that my future might depend on my answer.

Part of what bothered me about that verse, part of what bothers me still, is the way that it has been used, and is used still. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." In interfaith dialogue, in discussions with non-Christians, that statement has been used dogmatically. It begins the conversation by implicitly stating that the other is wrong. Maybe the other is wrong, but that is not where I want to begin. I want to go into dialogue not first with a list of proclamations and doctrinal statements about who God is, but with an open ear and open heart. This verse has been used to beat others over the head, to try to scare them into conversion. Historically it has lent itself to a certain triumphalism. Seeing that verse scroll across the website, it felt to me not so much as a humble invitation but rather like an arrogant statement -- "we've got the way, the truth is ours." Maybe that was not the intention, but that is how it felt to me.

I wondered if I could work in a church with such a verse so boldly displayed across its website. Conscious of how I have experienced God through Muslims and Buddhists and Jews, I felt I would feel too ashamed to work in such a place.

I eventually emailed the committee, expressed my commitment to interfaith dialogue, and asked them about their own understanding. They responded that they were open to such dialogue, but they felt they must hold the fact that God loves everyone in tension with the fact that "Muslims and Buddhists stand condemned."

For me, our conversation was basically over after that.

For those who are reticent to use this verse to condemn non-Christians, there is another way with which to engage in interfaith dialogue. This way was evident for me recently in the interfaith dialogue in which I participated at Chautauqua in New York. On the last day of our discussions together, several people, including the theologian in residence, said, "Perhaps all we can say is that this is the truth for me." This is the truth for me. Jesus Christ is the truth for me. Maybe for you the truth is something else, but for me, Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.

This idea that we each have our own truth is known as relativism, and I find it offensive. It is too cheap. It sells the gospel short. Saying that Jesus Christ is the truth for me places my own religious experience, not God, at the center of my faith. It is individualistic, it allows us to each set up our own private temples to our own private gods. If there is a truth for you and a truth for me, then why should I care about your truth? This relativistic answer avoids altogether the dilemma of how to relate with other faiths -- it flees from the difficult but important task of engaging in dialogue and growth together with people who are different. Rather than hitting people over the head with assertions about who God is, relativists go to the other extreme and refuse altogether to make any such claims.

This swings too far in the other direction. After all, the gospel isn't about me, it isn't about us, it is about something much bigger than us, it is the good news of who God is and what God is doing. Saying that, "I believe Jesus is the truth for me" sounds like saying, "I believe gravity is true for me." What is that? Either there is gravity or there isn't, either there is justice or there isn't, either God is the creator, sustainer, and redeemer or not. I may have my own understanding of God, but I certainly don't affirm that God is only God for me. We are called to more than that, our proclamation is bigger than that. Go tell it on the mountain, we don't shout from the mountaintop that "Jesus Christ is Lord for me", rather we are called to proclaim in word and in deed that "Jesus Christ is Lord" -- Lord over all the world, and beyond. What we proclaim about Jesus is not just relevant to us, but to everyone. That's why it is good news.

How do we find the middle way? How do we make witness with conviction about the God we know in Jesus Christ without hitting others over the head?

What does our Scripture lesson have to tell us about these issues?

First of all, I think it is important to note that for John, as for all of the apostles and gospel writers, Jesus was not just a teacher. Jesus did not come just to show us how to live. He didn't come just to give us some new thoughts about God and God's will. Rather, Jesus was more than that. Jesus didn't come just to show the way -- Jesus was the way. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

This is one of the famous "I AM" statements of John's gospel. In John's gospel, Jesus says, "I AM the bread of life." "I AM the light of the world." "I AM the resurrection and the life." The Greek language in which this was written is like Spanish in that the subject of the verb is implied in the conjugation of the verb. When I say "puedo" in Spanish, it means "I can" -- the "I" is understood, I don't have to say, "yo." It is the same in Greek, except that in these "I AM" statements, the "I" is explicitly stated, "ego eimi". Doing so gives emphasis to the subject, and in this gospel, it serves as a grammatical witness to the divinity of Christ. Therefore, when Jesus says, "I AM the way, the truth, and the life," he is saying that he himself is a revelation of God. What Jesus is revealing is not primarily theoretical, it is personal. As Christians, we know God primarily through the person of Christ -- through his life, death, resurrection, and continued presence with us. When God shares with us, God primarily gives us not information but God's very presence. Having a relationship with God, in other words, is more important than knowing about God -- indeed, there is no knowledge of God apart from relationship, relationship is always primary.

As I pondered this passage a year ago in Greece, I wrote in my journal, "If you are searching for a path, here is a path that will satisfy, not because of where it leads, I don't exactly know that, but because of who is on it with you. If you want truth, here is truth, it is in relationship with this person, relationship with his body, the church. If you want life, which is to say a different kind of life, more depth to life, something that fills you up rather than drains you away, then I say there is life in this one, there is life in being with him." In such a way is Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life.

It is the second half of this verse with which I have more difficulty. "No one comes to the Father except through me." These words are interpreted by many as indicating that non-Christian faiths are somehow invalid, that there is no salvation in Islam or Buddhism or whatever. I think it is important to note a few things about the context of this passage, however. It was addressed not to non-Christians, but to a small, struggling Christian community. In other words, in the context of John's gospel these words were not used to hit non-Christians over the head or to scare them into conversion, and I hardly think we are being faithful when we do so. Rather, these words presumably strengthened a struggling community in their faith.

Furthermore, it is the same Jesus of John's gospel who says elsewhere, "And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also . . ." And earlier in our Scripture lesson, "In my Father's house, there are many dwelling places."

But in spite of knowing a bit more about the context of this verse, this sentence still bothers me. In trying to better understand how to deal with it, how to interpret it, I looked at many sources -- Biblical scholars and preachers. Almost all of them did what I assume most smart Biblical scholars and preachers do, what I would probably do if I were smarter myself -- they ignored that verse and the problems it poses. At this point, I called up my father, a retired pastor, for advice. His first words were, "Could you pick a more difficult passage?" The main thing he said was, "God help you, you are preaching on one of the most difficult passages in the Bible."

Now I've reached the point at which I can say, I hate this sermon. I hate this sermon because I don't know what to do with this problematic verse. My experience with people of other faiths won't let me use this verse to condemn them. But neither do I know how to interpret this verse. I feel like I have been playing ping-pong against a superior opponent, I keep looking for an angle, for a weak spot, for a way to understand, but I can't find it. This passage humbles me.

Commentator Gerard Sloy an doesn't really solve the problem, but he does help to frame the question. He writes, "At this point the scope of Johannine theology, and by extension the Christian faith, comes under challenge. Images of bumper stickers arise in which a single index finger is held aloft. "One way," they proclaim, defiantly eliminating all who think otherwise about the gospel and all Jews and all Muslims; necessarily, too, eliminating the peoples of black Africa and India, and of China, Japan, and Korea, who have some good ideas about the "way" (Tao, Do) but distinctly non-Johannine ideas about God. Are all other approaches to God or to ultimacy in the universe eliminated by John's Gospel on the principle of "Jesus said: . . . "? . . . What did he [John] think about the faith of Parthians, Nubians, and the peoples of the western isles? Perhaps he did not think of it at all. John was exercised over what he knew. So must the Christian be. That means that Jesus must be proclaimed as the one way to God to whoever is willing to listen, while leaving the faith and the fate of those who have never heard the gospel to a God who is equal to the problem." (Gerard Sloyan, John: Interpretation, a Bible commentary for teaching and preaching, Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988, p. 179)

In the end, that is not far from where I come down myself. I am not willing to say that there is salvation in Islam or Buddhism or anything else, I don't believe I have that authority, I cannot witness to that truth, it is not the truth in which I believe. But neither am I willing to say that there is no salvation in Islam or Buddhism or anything else. Neither am I willing to say that Muslims and Buddhists stand condemned. I won't do it. I won't do it, not even to escape being single, unemployed, and living with my parents. Instead, what I can say, what I will say, what I believe is the privilege and duty of all Christians to say, with both conviction and humility, is that there is salvation in Jesus Christ. Not just for me, but for everyone.

For me, our conversation was basically over after that.

How do we find the middle way? How do we make witness with conviction about the God we know in Jesus Christ without hitting others over the head?

What does our Scripture lesson have to tell us about these issues?