This is the way

 

John 14: 1-14
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
May 3, 2026

Photo of a lighted sign that reads "THIS WAY" and an arrow pointing up. The sign is reflected in the dark surface on which it is displayed.

Last week on my day off I went to the movies here in Newark and found a pamphlet in a bathroom stall, titled “Four things God wants you to know”. One, you need to be saved from sin’s penalty. Two, you cannot save yourself. Three, Jesus has provided for your salvation. Four, you can be saved today. Your part is to believe, repent, confess your sin to Jesus, confess Jesus before others, and trust him to keep you. That’s what God wants you to know.



Funny how the word “love” wasn’t mentioned as one of the four things, huh? How many of you have ever found something similar to this in a restroom or on your car windshield or your front door or had one handed to you? How did you feel about that encounter? My first thought was to rescue this from the public bathroom. Part of our first amendment rights is the right to not practice any religion nor have one foisted upon us. People should be able to answer the call of nature without being interrupted by the call of a god they do or do not believe in.



One of the ways we human beings think we can get other people to change is by interrupting someone’s beliefs, behavior, thinking, emotions, what is sometimes called an intervention. We interrupt the usual pattern, including our own behavior, by doing something different, introducing a different way of being.



I think this is what Jesus and others like him were trying to do. Jesus was interrupting the ways of empire and how those ways had wormed their way into his people’s way of being with God and with each other. Because when you’re trying to survive an occupation and the oppression of your people, your faith and your culture, sometimes assimilation or a rigid rejection of it looks like survival, like your best option.



No judgment. We’re all human. We’ve all done this to one extent or another. Empire, greed, exploitation, all the isms, Christian Nationalism, the Crusades, war, genocide is self-interest taken to an extreme. For our own survival, humanity has been largely motivated by self-interest, but if we don’t interrupt that, it is also what will end not only humanity but life on this planet.



We can see this interruption of self-interest even in this story. On the night that he is betrayed, the night before his arrest and execution, Jesus is telling the disciples that their hearts should not be troubled. Which at first glance sounds like so much codependent nonsense. It would make so much more sense if Jesus said, “Hey, I’m the one they’re going to crucify but sure, it’s all about you guys. Don’t worry about me. Yeah, it’s gonna be horrible, like really the worst, but my dad will take care of me.” Instead, he loves on them. He gives them grace. He chooses community over individuality.



So when he says to his disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”, that way is love, that truth is love, and that life is love. No one comes to God or to wholeness or to solidarity or liberation without love. No one gets pried off their self-interest without love.



I sometimes wonder if Judas was eager for revolution, and so he betrayed Jesus to get something started. Sometimes we’ve tried revolution as a way to interrupt other’s self-interest, greed, power, corruption, oppression, and there are times it looked like it worked because the oppressor was thrown over. And yet lives were lost, blood was shed, and after a period of time, those who were oppressed have now become the oppressor. Because of course the oppressed are also motivated by self-interest. And love has the power to interrupt that.



Like the love that is given at this Table. Which is why we need to keep coming back to it. Because self-interest is how we have survived for thousands of years. But love is how we truly live and what we live for. Love that is unconditional, unmerited, and unlimited is what sets us free. Love that is freely offered. Love that is greater than fear. Love that has never truly been tried in this so-called Christian nation.



What Jesus offered wasn’t a revolution but an evolution. The only interruption we can truly achieve is in our own hearts, allowing ourselves to be transformed from self-interest to self-gift. If we try to change others without changing ourselves, we’ve only started our own little war of choice. Because it is so much easier to call people out on their bullshit than it is to deal with our own. People are not the enemy—hatred is.



Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me” not because he’s afraid of being forgotten but because this is how we transform the human heart. We come to this Table not with how we want to change other people but with how we want to interrupt our propensity for self-interest with Jesus’ propensity for self-gift. And the gift we’re giving to others is not how to be saved and become a good Christian but ourselves as a self-giving human. That’s the place we are going. The kindom of God. Where we choose the planet and each other. Where there’s room for everyone. No matter who you are. No matter what. This is the Way. Amen.

Benediction – enfleshed.com


Let not your hearts be troubled.
This is the Way:
God has chosen to make a home in us.
In a way, the whole cosmos,
everyone we have ever loved,
everyone who is still yet to be,
all that is birthed by life and love, abides in us.
There is nothing around us that is not also within.
And so we are sent to practice love towards every living thing,
knowing that all is connected,
and our hope rests in each other.