Sermon for Sunday,  January 22, 2006  

IS JESUS THE ONLY WAY TO GOD?

3^rd in a series on Questions from the Street

by

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Scripture: Romans 1:18-23

¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; ²¹ for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools; ²³ and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

That statement is an adaptation of part of the chapter in The Heart Of Christianity that almost 500 of us read last year and then studied together in small groups for ten weeks, and some of the folks who had some misperceptions about this book might be surprised by the commitment Dr. Borg offers us in the statement.

I think the statement offers a very good definition of what it means to belong to the community of Christ.

The next question for many people is, what about others who are not in that community of Christians. Is Jesus the only way to God, the only way to experience God and to know God?

You may be surprised by one of the answers to that question, an answer straight from the Bible: Paul says in the first chapter of his most carefully written letter, the book of Romans, Paul says there are other ways to know God besides Jesus! Paul says, God is not confined to Jesus!

He is laying out an argument that all people have sinned and fallen short of God’s hopes and God’s potential for them and he begins by saying every person since the creation of the world has had a chance to see and know God. How? “Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine nature have been understood and seen through the things God has made.” We can see and know God through God’s creation. So when we fail to honor or thank God or when we fail to live responsibly, it is our fault and we have no excuse.

There is nothing here about Jesus, is there? Paul’s answer to whether Jesus is the only way to know God and to follow God’s ways is, NO! Everyone has had a chance to know and experience God—through God’s creation!

That gives us one answer from the Bible to the question in the sermon title. There are other answers from our hearts. In our new member information sessions we ask people when they have felt closest to God. There are some typical answers that usually come forth and they are answers I identify with as well. People say they feel close to God in nature, in the mountains, hiking or skiing. People say they feel God’s presence at the birth of a child or grandchild when we see again the miracle of life. People say they know they are in God’s presence at the end of life when they are facing the mystery of death and remember again how temporary we are and how each of us has a beginning and an end.

Some people say that when they have experienced other losses or failures or times when they were at the end of their rope, they felt God in a new and closer way than ever before.

And, to our encouragement, some people say they feel close to God in church—through the music, the prayer time, the scripture, through feeling occasionally that the service was designed that morning just for them.

In other words, you yourselves have echoed the same truth that Paul tells us: we can see and experience God in more ways than just in Jesus. This is not to diminish anything we began with about the importance of Jesus. It is to say, for people in the Bible and in our own congregation, God is bigger than Jesus. God is not confined to Jesus. God is defined by Jesus but not confined to Jesus.

There is even better company to be in. Even Jesus says the same thing. There is a quote like this on your study guide: Jesus does not point us to himself; Jesus points us beyond himself to God. I don’t think Jesus ever asks anyone to worship him, does he? What does he invite people to do? He invites people to follow him but not to worship him. And in Mark’s gospel when a man comes to Jesus and asks, “Good teacher, what must I do to live life as fully as possible”, what does Jesus say?

“Why do you call me ‘good’? Only God is good!”  Jesus is subordinating himself to God. Jesus is saying God is bigger than me, more than me, holier than me!

There is another statement in the gospel of Mark where Jesus also differentiates between himself and God, where he points beyond himself to God. Do you remember it?  When someone asks him about the end times, the end of the world, what does he say? “I don’t know about that,” he says. “Only the father knows.”

That reference to God as father—in Aramaic the words is even more intimate than father, it is “Daddy”. That is what the Aramaic word “abba” means. Most of what Jesus says and teaches about God and about life in God’s paths is not new or unique. Did you know that? Most of what Jesus does is summarize and organize the best of his Hebrew heritage and capsulizes it for us. He quotes his Bible using mostly Psalms, Isaiah, and Deuteronomy. Even the Golden Rule is not original with Jesus but was taught by Rabbi Hillel some years before Jesus lived.

Most of what Jesus taught and stood for was the very best of his Jewish heritage and his Hebrew Bible. But some scholars believe that what he did that may have been unique is in his intimate way of talking about God and the intimacy he invites us to have with God—God as a daddy, a gentle, compassionate, caring father. “Only the father knows some things, Jesus says.

And then there is a troubling place where he talks about God as father that may now have a whole different light on it as we look at whether Jesus is the only way to God. Does Jesus himself ever address the question in the sermon title? Be careful as you think about this.

Jesus does say in the gospel of John that no one comes to the father but by him. He does not say that no one comes to know God except through him. He says that he is the way to know God as father. That is the very important distinction that Professor William Barclay makes in his booklet, Who Is Jesus? on our foyer table. Perhaps Jesus is very aware of the importance of his unique window into God as father/daddy instead of judge or rule giver and is reminding us of that unique insight.

Jesus is not the only way to know God. I believe Jesus is the best way. I believe we will not experience God as father and caring parent unless we take Jesus more seriously. And I am an enthusiastic follower of Jesus but for me God is defined by Jesus but not confined to Jesus.

How about that other question that comes up in this way? Who is going to get into heaven? Isn’t it just those persons who think like we do and say the right words that you are supposed to say? Or, as some congregations tell it, if you don’t practice your faith just the way we tell you, you are doomed to hell. That was the message from one of the congregations in the article in 5280 that Theresa Young visited in her search for a church a few months ago. I commend that article to you if you have not yet picked one up from the foyer table.

Some preachers will say, only we have the real truth and no one else does. Phillip Yancey talks about that by saying some Christians cannot tolerate anyone who sins differently from the way they sin!

On the subject of exclusivism and whether any one faith or religion has all the truth, I remember the old joke about the Methodist tour bus that went off the road and many were killed and found themselves being given an introduction to heaven by St Peter. Peter was leading them around heaven and taking them to the different floors where different groups had a place. As they were going up, he told the group about the floor reserved for Episcopalians and the one reserved for Lutherans but he cautioned them that as they passed the fourth floor, they were to become very quiet and not talk at all. When they had passed the fourth floor, one man asked why they had to be quiet, and Peter said, “Well, that’s the Baptist floor and they think they are the only ones here!” You can substitute any group you want in that joke.

Bible scholar J. B. Phillips wrote a little book many years ago now entitled, Your God Is Too Small, and he made the point that God is bigger and more gracious and more welcoming than we think. God is more gracious than many church folk whom I know, and it was that welcoming God that Jesus pointed to and that got him into trouble because he was as welcoming and accepting as God is and the religious folks didn’t think he was judgmental enough. They wanted to discriminate against some people Jesus wanted to invite in!

The other question that follows along our sermon topic is:  Well, what about the Jews? Since they don’t accept Jesus as the Messiah doesn’t that mean that they are surely going to hell? That is of course, the belief of many very prominent leaders in today’s church including Rick Warren who has said that recently in TV interviews, and even though he says it gently, he still says it. One other church executive in America said it less gently in the 1980’s when he boldly announced, “God does not hear the prayer of a Jew” which must have been quite a surprise to Moses and Isaiah and King David in his psalm writing and all the others in the Bible including Paul who saw himself first as a Jew.

Incidentally Paul struggles with this question also in this same book of Romans, chapters 9-11 and he is much more welcoming to his fellow Jews than people are today. Look at those chapters for how he sees this issue.

And be with us January 30 when Dr. Pam Eisenbaum speaks with us about the “Jewishness of Jesus”. One of our goals when we take people to Israel every couple of years is to help us see how close we are to our Jewish brothers and sisters and one of the places that I feel closest to Jesus is in Capernaum when we can sit in the remains of the synagogue there that is built on the very foundation of the synagogue that Jesus himself worshiped in and taught in every Sabbath. Jesus was a faithful practicing Jew all of his life.

I believe, if we are so blessed, we will see our Jewish neighbors in heaven and we need to make peace with that if we have not already done so. We worship the same God.

If we can know God in other ways besides Jesus, then why is Jesus important? Because of the statement we began worship with. Jesus is the best way to see God. For me God is not confined to Jesus but God is defined by Jesus—better than anywhere else. I am a passionate follower of Jesus Christ and I am spending my life in doing what St. Andrew did—inviting other people to come and take a look for yourself and see if, in the compassion and love and justice and courage and integrity of Jesus of Nazareth, see if you do not see God as well.

And I think we need more disciples of Jesus—people who are committed to his life and his example and his teachings, people who are not just admirers of Jesus or name droppers or spectators in church a few times a year but people who are willing to make the commitment and sacrifices he calls us to—people whose ethics follow their words.

What a time in American history to think about ethics and talk about ethics! One observant Jew writing about Jack Abramoff told about how offended he was by Abramoff pretending to be observant as a Jew when he has apparently led Congress through a terrible scandal. And I encourage you if you value integrity and honesty in government to watch very carefully to see if there is a true effort to reform our congressional system of glorified bribery where legislators pass laws that do not benefit the common good and the common people but really serve the interests of large contributors. Do you think we will demand real reform or will we settle for window dressing and cosmetic changes? What are you willing to settle for and how seriously are you about ethics in government? Ethics is connected to the faith that we say is important to us.

We can know God best through the person and teaching and life and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth who is Christ, the Messiah, the one sent to save us. Does this mean that we can gain any insights from any other religions? Does this mean that non-Christians have had no insight or experience of God? That is next week’s sermon topic. I will see you next week!

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