The Christian Trump Card

I have found a place to pause and reflect. It's been a little while since my last post but that's because April was crazy month for me. Since I last posted (which I did shortly after my show at the high school), I visited Vancouver and Victoria to see my friends the Hildebrandts and the Dwyers (it is strange to refer to peers as chunks of family like that) as well to see one of my favorite comedians, Patton Oswalt. Then I came back to film more sketches for my May 1st show, went on the local radio station to promote the show, went to a farewell party for my dear friend Annalea, I filmed and edited baptism videos for some of the youth as well as the entire baptism service (which I then edited like it were an episode of Lost, though I did not add a smoke monster), did my show (which had a low turnout because it was a Sunday night and it was the last day of the local fair, but actually went very well) and then spent the last week getting my sermon ready for this weekend. I applied for a BC driver's license (since I'm here for another year), voted in an election, avoided a royal wedding, and loosely followed the story of the end of a madman (and also rediscovered my love for parentheses).

Busy, in other words.

Throughout this whole process, I have had a few conversations with a variety of folk and for some reason the conversation would lead to a mentioning of a passage of the Bible from John 14. It's the one that Christians use frequently use and reference and has been for me one used flippantly and always explained weird. By the way, this is sort of a condensed version of my sermon because of the prevalent discussions that lead up to it. This discussion cuts to the heart of what has pained me in my Christianity because it feels like we have been fundamentally missing the point as Christians.

The phrase that I am referring to is when Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me". In some conversations, this was a part of the problem of Christianity that makes it exclusionary and for others this is why they will not look to anything but the Bible for Truth. 

While I was growing up, that's how it was taught to me. That phrase was always taken to mean, "You need to accept Jesus as your savior and that you need to ask for forgiveness." That bothered me on the basis that the statement to explain to Jesus' words took a leap in logic and connected dots that don't very obviously connect. However, I was always told that that's what it is and I figured that maybe I would understand later because I must just be stupid. It has been proven in the past, so I went along with it.

However, it never was resolved, instead it was used a Christian trump card.

Now, without repeating my whole sermon (which will hopefully be online in the next few days), I want to cut to the chase.

The problem, I believe, with the Judeo-Christian religions is that it focuses on the wrong idea. We generally take the point of doing the religion rituals and being forgiven is so that we are blameless before God and so He will give us a pass. So we do whatever it is that we need to do to be considered clean, holy, righteous, blameless in His eyes. In the Old Testament, it was giving sacrifices. In Christianity, it's "accepting Jesus into your heart"(whatever that means).

If the point were to be blameless and forgiven by God, then why does God get upset at the sacrifices given in Isaiah 1 or why does Jesus clear the temple and throw out all the people selling animals for sacrifices in the Gospels?

I think the idea is that forgiveness is not the point. It is about changing your ways to get on with what we are really here for. What are we here for? To make things the way they should be. Bringing order to chaos. This is God's will that you see again and again in the Bible. You see it with how nature works.

My one friend's problem with asking God for forgiveness is that it makes us think that when we ask God for forgiveness, we think that that's being forgiven. However, it misses what being forgiven is. Doing that doesn't change us. Frequently as Christians, we have short-circuited what the process of forgiveness is. It's not just having our sins wiped away, but it's actually about moving on. Putting our past behind us. Putting the wrong actions we have done and putting them in the past and moving on towards being better. Putting the wrong actions of others that hurt us in the past. Actions and words that say we are less than or worthless. If we can't put our past behind us, it becomes much more difficult to do what I believe is our goal which is putting things back the way they should be.

That's why when Jesus stood up against the religious leaders which had a system in place that actually discouraged people from changing with them earning money off the sacrifices and having a strict set of religious rules which would be impossible for a person to uphold, it would inevitably lead him to a death sentence. We frequently dwell on Jesus' death on the cross as a sacrifice for mankind's sins, but the other side of it is what led him to the cross. It was his fight for injustice and fight to bring about change in the lives of people that would allow them to come alongside the real goal of God which is to put things back the way they should be.

The Way, I believe, is the way of a becoming the sacrifice. Living in a way that strives to put things back together, the way they should be.

The Truth, I believe that Jesus was getting at, was that he was teaching from the same law as the Pharisees, but he was teaching what the real goal of the law and religion was.

The Life is the fact that when we can help in the ongoing redemptive work, then that's where life thrives. When relationships are mended. When mercy is given. When we clothe the naked, feed the hungry, heal the sick, defend the case of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. These bring life. To you, to people, to the world.

Unfortunately, Christians still fall in the trap of thinking the point is being blameless before God. It's just our sacrifice has been upgraded to Jesus. But the sacrifice is still meaningless to them.

Ironically, it means that when people take the phrase "the way, the truth, and the life" to mean we need to ask forgiveness of Jesus as our sacrifice they may actually have taken it the exact opposite way it meant to be taken.

UPDATE: I figured I should add a more complete end instead of leaving things sort of up in the air. Specifically, the idea of forgiveness. I still believe that forgiveness is important. I hinted at it half way through, where forgiveness is actually more than the mere asking for forgiveness, but it also involves changing and putting our past behind us.

I'll use the same example as I did at the end of my sermon. Christians talk a lot about being cleaned and being made "white as snow" or "having the slate wiped clean". However, being a clean slate is not the point of Christianity. Instead, I believe our slates (or lives for those unable to follow the metaphor) should state that:
'God is good'
'God is love'
'God is justice'
'God is mercy'
'God is working'
'Christ is the way, the truth, and the life'

However, if our slates are cluttered with the sins and lies of others or with our own past and our continuing sin, then it becomes much more difficult for our slates to say those things. We find life in the ongoing work of the world's redemption, but we need to put to death the sins of our past. 

"I watch the heavens and I find a calling

Something I can do to change what's coming

Stay close to me while the sky is falling

Don't wanna be left alone, don't wanna be alone

World's on fire and

It's more than I can handle

I'll tap into the water

I try to pull my ship

I try to bring more

More than I can handle

Bring it to the table

Bring what I am able"

- "World on Fire" from the Sarah McLachlan album "Afterglow"