Sermon 24th July 2011

Today our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches based on the reading from John 15 verses 9-17.

Well! It has been – once again! – quite a week! There were times when I did wonder if I had unwittingly become a contestant on that quirky Japanese game-show. You know, the one where the winner is the person who collects the largest volume of tears in a test-tube! It's hard to recall a day in the past 10 that has not been full of tears – be those sad, happy, hurt, or proud tears. And how many more tears have been shed this weekend, over the horrific events in Norway?

I may want to return to those various types of tears later – not least the ones that I have shed. For now I want to highlight one specific tear-source: this final week of the St Saviour's School year. As per tradition, it included the Year 6 production, which is always a tear-jerker to rival the Leavers' Service! For the record, yes, Friday's service was as tearful as it always is – and quite rightly so. But this year's show was a home-grown version of High School Musical. Shy 11-year-old's who we know well were able to sing, act, and dance their hearts out. Cue the parental pride – and more tears!

It all reminded me of a lovely story told by Eddie Askew, one of my favourite meditative authors. He described a school Nativity play where the shepherds – traditionally dressed up in tea-towels and rugs – had been encouraged to use their own words as they stood around the baby Jesus doll. Tearful parents had to stifle their giggles when one of the youthful shepherds piped up: 'Aaw: doesn't he look just like his dad!'

It was, of course, a line that he had heard some relative use of a new-born baby. He knew that it was a good thing to say at such a time, so he did. We may well laugh to hear it applied to Jesus in this way – but actually I wonder if that isn't the very best note that we could end this series on! It's not at all hard to pick out any number of different key strands that have run through our learning from John's gospel over these past 2 months. That's partly to do with how John wrote; in themes, rather than what we might call straight history. But as we begin now to draw out enduring life-lessons to apply to our Godly way forward from here, I'd very much hope that this theme is high amongst them: become like your heavenly Father; just as His Son is.

Those who went on the parish weekend away discovered all sorts of new angles and insights into John's gospel. If you missed it, whilst we were away we explored another of this book's major themes. In 'Glimpses of Glory' we looked at signs that Jesus performed in John. You can read it all on-line, or ask me for copies. Then you'll see that the new angles and insights part wasn't deliberate: it 'just' happened – much as today's one has done. There have been gems hidden in John's gospel which, for whatever reason, haven't previously glinted at me before this series, or the Ashburnham one. Now they wonderfully have done, though – like this calling has. So I believe that what God most wants is for each of us to become like our heavenly Father; just as His Son is.

This is what has particularly struck me as I have looked back at each of these “I AM” sayings of Jesus. The Father does not just appear in each one of them: He is central to them, every time! I challenge you to make time this summer to re-read all these passages that we have covered. Then try highlighting the word 'Father' in each of them. I reckon that you will be as amazed as I was to see just how big a role He played in what Jesus said and did – right from the start. For example, before Jesus said “I AM the bread of life”, he said, “It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven”. It was also there, in John 6, that Jesus said, “My Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life”. And that's just for starters!

It is just for starters, but, as I said at the time this series began, that statement set out Jesus' agenda for his life, ministry – and his death. He came, in the name of his Father, precisely so that those who believe in him could, and can, have eternal life. “I AM the way, the truth and the life”, Jesus said, remember! It was central to who Jesus was, and to what his Father wanted. So John then shaped his whole gospel around communicating this message to as many people as he could. Again we looked at that from the start, how John carefully chose his material. His aim was to lead his readers to discover the wonderful truth of who Jesus is – and how he shows us what God the Father is like. And yes, the purpose of all this was, and is, so that people like us then grow in the family likeness. We are meant to become more like Jesus, and so more like his Father, who is our Father!

You see, “If you knew me, you would know my Father also”. Those are more words of Jesus from this series – at the time when he claimed “I AM the light of the world”. It goes to show how we really could pick any passage from our series to see this point. The one that does it best, I think, is John 14, where Jesus said: “The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work”. Again and again Jesus made the point: he and his Father are one; they are doing the same work; they have the same purpose. Jesus even made that point by choosing to say “I AM” of himself. It means that he is God, just as his Father is God. And this is who we also are to become like!

This is all the context that our series ends in today, in John 15. Ben Hughes provided a great summary of all our learning from John, here and at Ashburnham, when he spoke on Jesus' saying, “I AM the gate for the sheep-pen”. Ben's paraphrase of what Jesus was saying and meant there goes: “I am the good shepherd, I am the door, I now manage the transaction between God and people … I know who should come in and who should not, I am the keeper, the watcher, the counter, the lover, the judge, the protector, I am the good shepherd, I am the way the truth and the life, I am the light, I am your temple itself, I am the door into eternal life … I am your sacrifice, your king, Lord, ruler and friend next door, I am your true neighbour, the bread of life. I am the one and only, I am the shepherd ... it all goes through and by me and if it doesn’t come through me … it is – like lies and deceit. Nobody enters unless it is through me … all else is like a thief. I walk on water … I command the wind and the waves … I have evil and chaos under my feet”.

All that, and more, is what we have learned from and about Jesus through John. And now we reach this part of chapter 15. Here Jesus says to his disciples – again to paraphrase it: “And now the time has come. All that I have tried to teach you, and show you, has brought me here, to Jerusalem, at Passover”. We have already caught a sight of that, even if we didn't look at Jesus washing their feet at the last supper in John 13 in either series. There is no doubt that Jesus is trying hard to prepare his disciples for life without him, though. And what better way could he do that than point them again, for one last time, to his Father! “As the Father has loved me so I have loved you; now remain in my love”, Jesus told them.

Those are the words that could, should, and must ring in our hearts and ears, into this summer, and beyond. Jesus has loved us as his Father has loved him: now we are to remain in his love. If we have grasped anything of who God is, or of what He has shown us, and done in Jesus; if we believe that we have been given the gift of eternal life by his death, then we are to grow in the family likeness. We have already been told how to do that: “I AM the true vine and (just to make that point again!) my Father is the gardener”. So, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you,” Jesus said. As he then went on, “This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples”. Then, in his final words, Jesus told us how to do it: “Love each other, as I have loved you”.

As usual, I've got to the point when it's time to round off – and there's so much more that could be said! There is no time to talk about my tears this week, let alone what Jesus means when he says that we are now his friends if we obey his commandments. Mind you, that is also a point where I began this series – saying that John usually whets our appetite for more! Our time at Ashburnham gave us starting points to look for glimpses of God's glory around and within us. In the same way I hope that these I AM's have inspired us to go further on our journey with Jesus. It's not just about finding out more of what he said or did, I'd hope. It is very much a matter of becoming more like him, as he is like our Father. And, to encourage you, here is news that we will be doing a Jesus-discipleship course together on Sundays in the autumn!

You don't have to wait, to grow or catch glimpses of glory. We each need to take responsibility for responding to this challenge, to grow in the family likeness. John has given us great starting points; and he offers us so much more, if we will just keep on listening. Not least, John points us here to the cross. It's there above all that Jesus shows us what God's love looks like and does – giving, costly, self-sacrificial, for others. And so, as the people Jesus has chosen, the ones he has shown how to love by loving us: love one another, then, as he has loved you – for His glory! And so let's pray ...

Sermon 17th July

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Simon Brindley, preaches based on the gospel of John 15 verses 1-8.

One of the many things that strikes me about John’s gospel, along with just how deep and profound and poetic it feels, is how Jesus takes the ordinary things around him and uses them either just as an illustration or as a means to healing or other miracles. If you were at Ashburnham last weekend, one of the things that kept coming out of Cameron’s teaching was Jesus taking ordinary, familiar things, like a few fish and loaves of bread, or some dirt from the ground, or some water in jars, and transforming them and the stories and accounts that resulted can still have a really deep impact on us. I wonder what he would have used today if he’d been walking around the streets of Lambeth – burgers at McDonald’s maybe, or the 68 bus. Would he have said, “I am the good security guard” as he walked across Halfords car park? Would he have commented on Boris Bikes or the Royal Family or the collapse of the News of the World or a famous footballer’s baby daughter?

Because all he was doing when he spoke of the sheep or the vine was pointing to things immediately around him that were part of the daily lives of the people who were listening, things that they really knew and understood. That way what he had to say would really strike home. Life in 1st century Palestine may have been politically complicated with the Roman occupation and tension between the occupying forces, local Jewish political leaders and Jewish religious leaders, but day-to-day it was probably very simple. It was hot. It was dusty. Food was simple but probably wholesome. The sheep grazed on the hillsides and most people got by, finding enough, they hoped, from the fields or the lakes to feed their families and hoping no one became ill.

It doesn’t say in John’s gospel where Jesus was when he told his followers, “I am the real vine, my Father is the gardener and you are the branches.” I like to think he may have been just walking in the fields. Or they may have just finished sharing a meal in a long, dusky evening….but vines and their grapes would have been on everyone’s land. So they knew all about them and each would have thought about the vines that were familiar to them. We were in Greece recently, just a few hundred miles from where Jesus spoke these words so I was watching out for the vines. Some were younger, small bushes standing in rows with the branches trained off to either side by the gardener, some were large and very old, the branches going off the main stem about 8-10 feet in the air, for yards and yards, supported by wires or the sides of buildings. One of those older vines had split, right down the middle and a huge gap had opened up in the main trunk. I wondered how on earth the water still flowed through the narrow, gnarled strips of wood on either side of that gap, up from the ground, because the grapes still hung in abundance on the branches.

If they had been outside perhaps Jesus pointed to a nearby piece of land with a man tending his vines. “Look” you can imagine him saying, “if you want to be my disciples, you need to be very careful. See that branch on that vine….it is weighed down with bunches of grapes and the gardener is tending it and protecting it. But look at that one over there, can you see it has dried up and there is no fruit on it. See the gardener chopping it off and throwing it in a pile with the other dead branches. If you want to be my disciples, don’t get cut off from me and from what I have taught you. If you want to bear fruit, you need me. You need the relationship between you and me to be strong and you won’t get anywhere just on your own. “Remain in me and I will remain in you” is the way the NIV translation puts it and the same word is used in the Good News. “Remain in me…..” What is Jesus getting at, “Remain in me…….”??

A famous Christian woman of the last century, a writer, a Dutch woman called Corrie ten Boom who lived through the Nazi occupation of Holland during the Second World War wrote a book called “Not Good if Detached”. She was talking about bus tickets that she saw on her travels in America after the war that had two parts. But if one part got detached from the other the ticket was no good and you couldn’t use it. So half the ticket had written on it “Not good if Detached”. If I remember correctly – it’s a while since I read the whole book - she was urging her readers in the same way as Jesus urged his disciples, to stay very close to their Lord…don’t get detached. “The branch of the vine can only give fruit through Him. Without Him we can do nothing” is the way she puts it in the beginning of the book.

Corrie ten Boom and her family were just ordinary Christian people before the war but they decided to help some of the Jewish victims of Nazi oppression in Holland. In the end the entire family was arrested and only she survived internment in Ravensbruck concentration camp. But she learned to trust and to obey, to stay close and to pray, through everything that life threw at her. She learned, she says, that before their dreadful experiences they “had believed, but now they knew that the light of Jesus Christ is stronger than the deepest darkness.” And she had a big impact for many years after the war as she travelled around the world, telling her story. [St Pauls: I’ve got it here if anyone wants to borrow it after the service…..].

I was really moved this week at work....last week we were all getting really, really stressed over a very difficult court case we are involved in with a highly litigious and aggressive solicitor on the other side who threw so many serious allegations at my young colleague, let’s call him Stephen, that I feared Stephen might be driven off sick or to the edge of a breakdown. He wasn’t sleeping he told me and his wife was in tears when he got home and told her how nasty it was all getting….and Stephen is a pretty robust and down to earth character. He had just been driven, over many, many months, to the edge of what he could cope with. So I felt really burdened last weekend at Ashburnham and shared this with various friends there and spent some time praying. Stephen is also a Christian and on Monday I got in to find an email saying that he had prayed over the weekend about all that was going on and he really felt the burdens had lifted. He wanted to share with me that prayer really works and to encourage me in my own faith! I wonder whether we had both been trying too much for the last few months in our own strength and forgetting to take our burdens to the one who really understands, the one who knows because he has been here, the one who has been through it all….”Bring your offerings, however small, of loaves and fish to me and let me transform them” says Jesus to the boy in the crowd of 5000. “Let me into your boat in the storm and we will get to the other side together” says Jesus to his disciples. “Do not let your hearts be troubled…. Trust in God; trust also in me.”

At Ashburnham, in case you have not been there before, the buildings stand overlooking a lake and surrounded by acres of beautiful woodlands. So I thought I would walk through the woods and bring home a dry branch and a green branch that I could use as illustrations. I found the dry branch OK and here it is, and it took me a minute or two to realise why it was not going to be easy to find a green branch on the woodland floor..because the green branches are still attached to the trees and it is really difficult to wrench one off and I decided it would be wrong to try. The sap keeps them alive and strong and attached and difficult to break. They remain attached to the tree, like the branches of the vine that keep bearing grapes..

So if Jesus is the real vine and we are the branches, how do we remain in him..how do we stay strong and attached to Him? What is it that makes the difference?

Jesus gives his disciples at least two or three clues in this passage from John’s gospel. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you,” he says in verse 7, “then you will ask for anything you wish and you shall have it.” “If my words remain in you….” I think Jesus wants us to read and to study and to keep coming back to his teaching, his words, as spoken in these precious gospels, these astonishing survivors from the first hundred years or so after Jesus’ death. “Read your Bibles” he might say to us. Let the Bible become familiar to you so that it influences your everyday life and your actions and becomes part of you. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”, it says in the New International Version of Colossians chapter 3 verse 16. Why not today decide, if you do not do so already, to start opening your Bible every day, or at least every weekday. Saturday might be a day off and Sunday a day for Church anyway! You might concentrate on the gospels or the Psalms perhaps if you find them the most helpful….and just see what God might be trying to say to you each day. I opened my New Living Translation (hold it up) just briefly last Monday morning before I went in to work to find that email from my colleague we’re calling Stephen and at 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 2 it said that “a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful.” It was precisely what I needed to hear that day when I had been wondering whether I still had the energy to go on and on supporting my team through their difficulties.

“If my words remain in you, then you will ask for anything you wish and you shall have it.” Of course we know that prayer is not a slot machine, but our experience is that when we really do try to be faithful, when we really do try to live according to Jesus’ teaching then in so many ways we see prayers answered. To spend some time in prayer each day…or maybe just each weekday, because Saturday is a day off and Sunday a day for Church! …is that one of the ways that Jesus is calling us down the centuries to remain in Him? If our faith is fundamentally a relationship, then as with any relationship we need to talk. Should we try to move forward as pray-ers from today? It was only when someone in church said in a meeting many years ago “Well if the Christians are not praying – for the community and for the world and for people they know who are in need – that I finally got my act together and bought a small notebook and started to spend just a few minutes each morning praying. This one is the latest version and for some reason my little Bible and my little prayer notebook have got completely stuck together in the last fortnight or so. I think the cover of the Bible is disintegrating for some reason and just getting sticky, but I thought it was a good illustration. Prayer and Bible reading, Bible reading and prayer.

Then thirdly, in verse 10, just on from the main passage today, Jesus says to his hearers, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. It is not just the thinking and the praying, it is when you put what I say into practice, Jesus seems to be saying, that you will continue to know that closeness of relationship that I describe as “remaining in me”. Of course we all know that this can be hard…it would be quite wrong to suggest otherwise and thank God that forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian good news, but are our lives not richer when we do try to do what Jesus commands us to do? “This then is what I command you: love one another” is how Jesus sums it up at the end of this little section of John’s gospel, at verse 17.

Remain in me and you will bear fruit, is then Jesus’ promise to his disciples. Learn that the invitation to live with me alongside you in your life is not to restrict you and burden you or tie you down, it is to bless you because I know what is best for you.

The warning, in Jesus’ words today, is that cut off from him we will dry up and like the dry branch [break it] no longer bear fruit.

The promise, on the other hand, is of much fruit, and fruit in our lives that endures, lives of real and lasting value. Yes, we know this is not easy, it would be wrong to suggest otherwise, but I do believe it is worth keep coming back to and working for, because Jesus gives us glimpses of what is possible in our lives, our relationships, our communities, He gives us glimpses of glory.

The vine I liked best on our holiday in Greece is in a little village called Halki on the island of Naxos. It’s a place we have been to 3 or 4 times. The village centre is on a small hill, some of the old buildings are still in ruins but some have been restored and sell really beautiful pottery and wooden gifts carved from olive wood (I think Phil Brooks and Jenny got something from there yesterday at their wedding). There is a beautiful old distillery where they make a traditional liqueur from large fruit like lemons and a little traditional barbers using a cut-throat razor. And in the tiny centre of the village square is a small café with all the seats set out across the square. Up the side of the café grows a very old vine and the roof of the café is effectively formed by the branches of that vine spread out across all the tables and loaded with bunches and bunches of grapes. It is a beautiful and peaceful place, a picture for me of the kind of image Jesus wanted to encourage in the minds eyes of those who were listening to him that day. Think of the best vine you know he seems to me to be saying. That is what I want your lives to be like. The gardener will come along every now and then and prune you, but only so you can bear even more fruit…

[I have left at the back of the church this morning a bowl of water…if you want to, if you feel you need to, as you leave, I would invite you just quietly to dip your finger in the water and to touch it… perhaps to your head, perhaps to your hands (probably best not to your mouth, for health and safety reasons!), as a way of physically making some reconnection with Jesus Christ this morning and allowing any part of your life that has become dry to become stronger again as you seek to remain in Him, to remain strong….]

Amen

Sermon 3rd July 2011

Today, our Curate, Gill Tayleur, preaches based on the reading from John 14: 1-14.

I AM THE WAY THE TRUTH & THE LIFE

As an elderly man was driving down the motorway, his mobile phone rang. Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "George, I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on the M4. Please be careful!"
"Honey," said George, "It's not just one car...It's hundreds of them!"

George was going the wrong way!

This morning we’re looking at the 6th in our series of Jesus’ seven
“I AM” claims. Today it’s “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
As we’ve seen looking at the first 5, these I AM statements, all make huge claims. And they were, and are, controversial. Perhaps none more controversial than this one. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no-one comes to the Father except through me.”
What a thing to say! What does it mean? And if it means what it seems to, that Jesus is the only way to God, how outrageous, how arrogant is that?! Who did Jesus think he was?

But first we’d better look at the context of these words. Jesus said them during the long evening he spent with his followers the night before he was crucified. That evening, at his Last Supper with them,
he talked a lot, his last chance to teach them before he died. They didn’t understand much of it at the time, but would later. This passage we’ve just read is typical; Jesus said he’s going away,
and they didn’t get it. They didn’t understand where he was going or how he would get there – even though he had told them before
that he had to die, on a cross. Thomas spoke up for them, and asked,
“Lord we don’t know where you’re going, so how can we know the way?” It was in reply to this question, that Jesus made this extraordinary claim. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no-one comes to the Father except through me.”

Let’s look at the claim in detail then. Jesus said “I am the Way”.
The Jews talked a lot about THE WAY in which people must walk, God’s WAYS. God said to Moses, “You shall not turn aside to the right or the left; you shall walk in all the WAYS the Lord has commanded you.”
Isaiah said, “Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, this is the WAY, walk in it”. And the Psalmist prayed,
“Show me your WAY O Lord”.
So the Jews knew a lot about God’s WAY
in which they should walk.
And Jesus said, “I AM the Way”. What did he mean?

Say you’re in a strange place and ask someone for directions.
The person you ask says, Take the 1st right, cross the square, 2nd left, past the church, right at the roundabout with the pub, and the road you want is 3rd on the left.” You might get there, or you might not!
But suppose the person says, “Come, I’ll take you there.” In that case, the person IS the way, and you can’t miss it.

That’s what Jesus does for us. Other religious leaders might give us advice and directions, might point us to God. But Jesus takes us by the hand and leads us. We can go with him, follow him. He doesn’t tell us ABOUT the way or point to the way; he IS the way, himself.

The way to what? To God the Father. Jesus said, “no-one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus is the way to knowing God
as our Father. He says he’s the only way to turn your relationship with God, if you have one at all, from scary critical boss to loving father.
To turn the relationship from fear and uncertainty, “what does God really think of me, dare I approach him?” to absolute confidence, acceptance and love.

My children, teenagers, know that if they do something they shouldn’t, I’ll be cross, maybe very cross, but I won’t fire them or kick them out! They know I’ll still love them; I’ll never give up on them.
I’m a normal mother, no better than others, but how far I would go, as a parent, to save them from some trouble or suffering. Typically, when a child falls into an icy pond or fast flowing river, the parent leaps in, with no consideration of danger to themselves.
God loves us like that – he would go to extremes of his own suffering for us. And that’s exactly what he did. God our loving Father, became a man, Jesus, and suffered a horrible death on the cross,
for love of us. Our sin, our self centredness, cuts us off from God, and on the cross, Jesus took our penalty, paid the price for that sin, so that we can know God as our Father. God loves you and me so much
we CANNOT be fired! He’ll never give up on us, no matter what!

Jesus is the Way to that kind of relationship with God. Straight after saying no-one goes to the Father except by me”, he said, “If you really knew me, you would know my father as well”. It’s all about knowing God as father.

Jesus said, I am the Way. The Way to knowing God as loving Father.

Then Jesus said, “I am the Truth”. Many people have taught the truth, pointed to the truth and explained the truth, but Jesus claimed to embody it. I am the truth.

Jesus didn’t just teach the truth, although he did – he taught the truth
about God and humankind, about sin and forgiveness, and love, the truth about the problems of the world. But more than just teaching the truth, Jesus showed us the truth, and he said he WAS the Truth.
If you want to know the truth about God, look at Jesus. He said “Anyone who has seen me has seen the father.” Jesus personifies the truth about God.

We all base our lives upon some truth or other, something we believe in. That truth may be what we learned as a child, about the way to live. Maybe about the importance of the equality of humankind,
or the need to treat others as we’d like to be treated, or the supremacy of love. But whatever truth we build our lives on, at some point, it’s going to let us down. Perhaps because we can’t live up to it ourselves, when we don’t constantly live by that truth all the time.
Or perhaps because others we trusted don’t live up to it. Sooner or later, our truth will let us down.

So maybe we turn from a particular truth or rule for living, and turn
to love as the ultimate truth or way to live. We search for a true love,
the love we hope will complete us. Perhaps we build our life upon our love for our nearest and dearest, specially close friends, partner or children. But sooner or later love will let us down too, because those we love will at some point let us down, or lie to us, or not be there for us. Ultimately, our loves will let us down, because people aren’t perfect, they’re flawed - they’re like you and me!

So whatever our truth, whatever our rule for living, it’ll fail us, because we and others won’t be able to live up to it all the time, and because it can’t love us perfectly. And it can’t forgive us when we fall, it can’t lift us up and restore us.

BUT in Jesus, the truth has become a person, someone who can love and forgive us. All other truths and loves will let us down, but Jesus won’t! He is The Truth on which to build our lives.

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth”. And then he said, “I am the Life”. I’m not just the way to knowing God, not just the truth worth building on. I am the life that will enable you to. When we come to Jesus, when we recognise him as the way and the truth, he fills us with his life. His life, his power, comes to change us, to regenerate us, to empower us, to live with Jesus as our way and our truth.

This is true! We can have the life of Jesus in us! The power of Jesus in us! In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he says the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in those who believe in Him.

A lot of people would say they try to live by Jesus’ teachings, to love their neighbours as themselves, to do as they would be done by, and so on. But who can say they manage to do so consistently? Who can really put others first all the time? I don’t know about you, but I know that I can’t follow Jesus faithfully and live his way in my own strength.
We need his power, his life, to enable us, to change us. And yes to forgive us and pick us up and get us going again when we fail, as we do. Jesus can be the Life within us for all that.

Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no-one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s the enormous, wonderful claim Jesus made.

But I can’t finish without saying something about the exclusivity of this claim and Jesus’ apparent arrogance in saying it. “no-one comes to the Father except through me.”
The only way you can really come to God, and know him as your loving Father, is through Jesus. The only way you can really build your life on the ultimate personal truth, is through Jesus. The only way to really fully know God’s life in you, now and for all eternity after death,
is through Jesus. Wasn’t it shockingly arrogant, for him to say all that?

But when we look at what he did, Jesus doesn’t seem arrogant at all.
He was humble – but never modest. He was very humble in how he dealt with people, so kind and gentle to people when they were fragile, so sensitive and respectful to those society despised, so forgiving to those who recognised their sin. And he served and waited on his followers, even washing their dirty smelly feet,
as a servant would.
Jesus wasn’t arrogant, he was humble –
but he wasn’t modest.
That is, what he said about who he was, these great I AM statements we’re looking at –
they pointed to himself, again and again.
He didn’t point away from himself to God;
he made these huge claims.
So, Jesus wasn’t modest, but was humble.

And humble is exactly the way his followers should be!
Not only because of Jesus’ example,
but because we know that the only reason we have found the way to God,
is NOT because we deserve it in any way, but ONLY because of God’s love and forgiveness. Only because of Jesus’ death for us, as we remember at Holy Communion this morning.

Yes, Jesus’ claims to be the only way to God are exclusive – BUT they’re the most inclusive exclusivity possible! This way to God is open to EVERYONE! EVERYONE can come to God through Jesus. This invitation is open to ALL! How inclusive is that?! The most inclusive exclusivity possible.

And the alternative to this exclusivity is some other exclusivity.
If the way to God was only open to good people, then what about the bad? What about those who’ve grown up with drink & drugs & crime & abuse and have little chance of living a so called good life?
That would be exclusive! What about you and me, when we fail to meet our own ideals? Would we be included as good people
who can find a way to God? Could we reach him by our own efforts? Jesus being the only way to God, makes it open to absolutely everyone, the good, the bad and the ugly! It’s that inclusive.

So, how might we respond to these words of Jesus?
“I am the Way the Truth and the Life; no-one comes to the Father
except through me.” If you’ve already come to Jesus as the Way to the Father, if you’re already a Christian, may I encourage you
to prioritise the time and effort and enthusiasm you give
to KNOWING God through Jesus? To getting to know him better and following him? Imagine having a fabulous loving father who wants to be with you and do exciting fun stuff with you, and not bothering with him? Let’s make the most of knowing our wonderful loving father God.

And if you’ve not really accepted these claims of Jesus, may I encourage you to explore them further? This morning we’ve heard Jesus say the astonishing thing that we can know the God of the universe as our loving Father! We’ve heard Jesus say he’s the truth to build our lives upon, and that his life can be our life, to transform and empower us.
What a claim!
What an offer!
It’s too great to be ignored!