In my third year of seminary, I took a class called “Teaching and Preaching Texts of Terror.”  The idea behind the title was that there are passages in scripture that scare the daylights out of us – and this was a course designed for us to face our terrors – with some companions.  We each had to pick our top two most terrifying texts. (That was a challenge all by itself!) Our Gospel lesson for today was one of the two that I picked.

      The text of terror for me is Jesus’ claim that no one comes to the Father except through him.  And the corollary interpretation that has wreaked havoc through the ages in the name of Jesus – that whether we like it or not, it's true – that we are deceiving ourselves if we think that anyone can come to God any other way than through Jesus.  Jesus or bust.  Jesus the gate keeper.  Jesus holding all the tickets.  Jesus the ego-maniac.  Jesus the anti-Semite!  Jesus on the shields of the Crusaders.  Jesus on the lips of any who go on convert or destroy missions.  Jesus on the minds of those who commit all kinds of hate crimes.  Jesus in the prayers of of the "in groups" as they justify the exclusion of others.  Isn't it ironic, then, that this passage begins with "Let not your hearts be troubled." – "Do not give in to your distress."

      When I uprooted my family to come to seminary a dozen years ago, we were grieving a lot of loss.  Saying goodbye to a life we loved was excruciatingly hard.  And it happened that we had to leave our home in Northern Virginia two weeks before we could move in to our apartment in Cambridge.  We had two weeks in the twilight between ending and beginning again.

      A friend offered us her house as a place for us to stay while she was on vacation, in exchange for caring for her dog, a husky named Chica .  The instructions were fairly simple and straight-forward and included a warning that Chica liked to “bolt” so we should be very careful not to let her near an open door when we were coming and going.  We all agreed that we could be very careful.  And on the first day we were, indeed, very careful.  By the end of the second day, my daughters, who were 10 and 8, got into an argument about whose turn it was to close the door and Chica did not hang around to find out who would win the argument.  Chica bolted.  Chica bolted so fast that all we saw was a flash of her tail as she headed for the freedom of the woods.

      We set off after her, armed with a flashlight, her leash, and some cut up pieces of meat to entice her back.  We called and called, and walked and called.  Chica was like the Roadrunner in the cartoons – zipping and stopping and zipping – never closer than 100 yards away, sometimes out of sight altogether.  As it got darker, we sat down.  We decided that maybe our strategy should be to be quiet and let her get curious enough to come find us.  We sat still and quiet for 20 minutes or so getting eaten up by mosquitoes.  Chica was not the least bit curious about us.  We started walking and calling again.  We couldn’t see her at all anymore.  My attempts to remain calm were interrupted by thoughts like “huskies are the dogs that run the Iditarod (a dogsled race of more than 1100 miles over two weeks) and then still have to be chained at night so they don’t run away…I have a friend whose husky ran away and ended up in another state.”  The girls and I were being overcome by distress.  What on earth would we tell our friends?  I tell you this story not because I believe that this is the worst thing that could ever happen –far from it – (this was not evil, this was not death).  I tell you this story to remind myself, and you, just how easy it is to give in to distress, to have troubled hearts.  The kids were blaming each other.  I was mad at them and madder still at myself for agreeing to take care of Chica.

      Suddenly we saw a very old woman with an even older looking dog walking very slowly toward us down the path, looking like they were barely able to move.  When they got near us the old woman asked sweetly “Did you lose your dog?”  “She’s not our dog,” I snapped, irritated, but then the feelings of despair washed over me, and I could feel the tears welling up,  I continued, softening, “But we are supposed to be taking care of her and she ran away and now she won’t come back.”  The old woman nodded at her ancient, overweight collie and said, “Laddie is really good at getting lost dogs.”  I thought to myself, “Oh yeah. Right.  That dog can hardly MOVE!”  I didn’t dare to make eye contact with the girls.   I said nothing.  What was there to say?  I’m in the woods in the dark with two kids and a crazy lady and her old dog and no Chica in sight.  I have a LOT of mosquito bites.  Finally, the woman said, “Laddie, get the dog.”  And Laddie offered the deepest, oldest “woof” I’ve ever heard.  In a split second, Chica came out of nowhere and sat in front of Laddie.  The girls and I stood there with our mouths hanging wide open.  The woman said quietly, “Now give them a minute together and then you will be able to put the leash on her.”  Well I did as I was told and waited for her next instruction.  After a moment, she nodded, and I attached the leash to Chica’s collar, thanked the woman and Laddie, and we walked back to the house utterly amazed at what we had seen - and at the same time wondering if it had really happened.

      So I imagine it is with John the Evangelist’s audience – we hear this text, appropriately, I think, a full five Sundays into the Easter season.  The lilies are dead but the horror of the cross and the struggle to make sense of Love that can endure even the most degrading death are still fresh in our minds.  Or maybe we can’t make sense of it.  The early hearers of the Gospel of John already knew the way this story ended, you know. It’s not a trip diary after all – it was written generations after Jesus had died.  Perhaps they despaired about all they’d lost.  Perhaps they despaired that the dominant cultural voices, the voices of the powers and principalities, might be right – there would be no place for them – not here, not there, not ever.  Perhaps they were grieving in the twilight between ending and beginning again. 

      In today’s gospel reading, John’s Jesus is speaking words of assurance and compassion for people who feared that there would be no place for them in God’s realm.  “Do not give in to your distress,” he said.  “Believe in God, believe also in me.  There is a place prepared for you in God’s house.”  Thomas doubted they could get there even if there was such a place.  But Jesus said – “You know the way, you know me.  I am the way.  I am.” 

      I am.  That’s the revelation of the Holy One in the wilderness.  That is God talk.  While I may hear Jesus’ words that no one comes to God except through him as a most audacious, even offensive claim –– it was not that claim but the words just before that ended up getting him killed according to John.  It was Jesus’ claim that he was One with God that prompted his execution, in the Gospel according to John.  But don’t miss this.  In Jesus, God is shown to be one with the ones God loves.  The Word become flesh and dwelling among us.  This is the news!

      So what is the difference between a guy like Jesus saying "Nobody gets to the Father except through me" and some high-falutin' priest whose ministry is confined to a church saying it?  Huge I'd say.  If Jesus' ministry was a street-based ministry (or the ancient equivalent), then it seems to me that what he's saying is an assurance that God is neither confined to one particular room nor owned by a particular people – and that includes us Christians.  Jesus, I daresay, did not know what a Christian was because Christians had not been invented yet.  In spite of the apparent egotism, I imagine that he's saying “I am one of you and God is among us and we will find God only in and through each other, together.”  This is the core claim of Christian identity.(1)  So is this true?  Is it true?

      We Episcopalians are mighty uncomfortable declaring things that we don’t believe are true – that is, factual – in church.  But take us to a basketball game where an underdog team scores an incredible shot, and the one who made the shot runs around with her index fingers extended upward, and we, with the crowd, may shout “we’re number one, we’re number one…”  Is that true?  Do we believe it?  Number one in what?  In the league?  In the state?  In the world?  All irrelevant.  What is true is that they are number one in our hearts.  It’s as true as when I hear Emmanuelites ask the rhetorical question, “Where else can you hear the best musicians in the world perform during a Sunday worship service?”

      Whether we are cheering a team, listening to glorious music, or professing our faith, we are, offering our consent…freely choosing to associate ourselves with a myth we find uplifting, informative.( 2)  The consequences are considerable when we associate ourselves with the truth of Jesus’ claim – the stakes are very high.  And I’m afraid sometimes that it has not been a big conceptual leap for Christians to go from shouting “we’re number one” to putting Jesus’ name on our various weapons which keep other people down while we make our way up to heaven. 

      Now today we will welcome John Tolmie Ryan into the community of faith and we will recommit ourselves to that community.  Here’s what I want Jack to know as he begins to live into his life as a baptized Christian.  Here’s what I want us all to remember.  We are not called to discern or declare who does and does not get to God.  We are called to live into the realm of God –as Jesus did, exuding compassion out of every pore.  We are called to pray in Jesus’ name that in our every word and action we are striving for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every human being. We are called to seek and serve the redeeming work of God – which we call the Christ – in all persons.  That is our only way.