Sermon thoughts and other musings

Mapquest and God

Did you know that if you enter "heaven" as the city on a Mapquest search, it responds "Multiple cities found"? Anyway, Mapquest is a symbol for me of the certainty people want from their lives. Enter a precise destination, receive precise directions. Know every turn in advance. And supposedly we'll never be lost again.

The disciples seemed to want to find their way to heaven with Mapquest-like certainty. They want Jesus to show them the way, at which point Jesus gives that most famous response: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Unfortunately, this statement is generally seized upon by exclusivist Christians to claim that Jesus is excluding others from access to heaven. But if we understand his statement in that way, "I am the way" reduces Jesus to being a mere tool in our desire to get to heaven. Jesus becomes the way to get to where we want to go.

But that isn't what Jesus is about. Jesus, I believe, is saying that he is the destination itself; he is the journey itself. Jesus is the way, period. Christianity is about a way of being, not about getting to heaven or avoiding hell.

Jesus is the way - to claim Jesus is to claim the way of peace, the way of love, the way of harmony. Come to think of it, that does sound like heaven, doesn't it?