Easter 5A
May 3, 2026
St. Dunstan’s
The Rev. Patricia Templeton
Every three years the Episcopal Church holds a national convention, a time to enact new legislation governing the denomination, and to chart the course of the church for the coming years.
Several years ago the actions of the convention produced this headline that I have kept in a file for years, “Episcopal Convention refuses to affirm Jesus as Lord.”
As you might expect, the reality behind this headline was a little more nuanced and complex than those words might lead one to believe.
The resolution the headline referred to said this: “The General Convention of the Episcopal Church declares its unchanging commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the only name by which any person may be saved.
“Be it further resolved,” it continued, “that we acknowledge the solemn responsibility placed upon us to share Christ with all people when we hear his words, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
Those are, of course, the very words that we heard in today’s Gospel reading. It is a familiar and beloved passage, one that is often read at funerals.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus tells his disciples. “Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places…I will come and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
And then when the disciple Thomas asks Jesus to explain, he replies, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Beautiful, comforting words. If only Jesus had stopped there.
But he goes on to say, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
No one comes to the Father except through me.
I’ve often wondered whether Jesus looks back with regret on those words. Certainly the world would have been a less violent place over the last two millennia if he had not said them.
My suspicion is that it is those words that made that General Convention resolution controversial. In fact, the resolution was sent to a committee, which recommended discontinuing any further consideration of it.
“We don’t do up and down votes on Jesus,” one convention delegate commented.
The discomfort with the resolution has nothing to do with Episcopalians’ commitment to Jesus. It has everything to do with how these words have been used and abused through the centuries.
One Biblical scholar puts it this way: “These words have been turned into a weapon with which to bludgeon one’s opponents into theological submission.
“They have been used as a litmus test for faith, a rallying cry of Christian triumphalism, proclaiming that Christians have the corner on God and all others are to be condemned.”
And if all others are to be condemned, then it becomes easier to regard them as less than human, or as an evil which must be destroyed.
Somehow I don’t think that is what the Prince of Peace had in mind.
So what are we who profess to follow Jesus to do with these difficult words? Do we simply ignore them, wishing Jesus had known when to stop?
Or is there a way to redeem them from their frequent abuse, to understand them in a way that fits the Jesus we worship, a Jesus who reached out across all boundaries to accept all sorts and conditions of people as God’s beloved children?
To do that, we must start with the context in which these words were spoken. It is the last night of Jesus’ life, hours before his betrayal, arrest, and execution.
Jesus is trying to prepare his friends for what is about to happen. He washes their feet, commanding them to love and serve one another. He shares bread and wine with them. And he tries to ease their fears and worries.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he says, knowing full well that his friends will be devastated and terrified by the events that are to come; knowing that they will not only mourn his death, but will be afraid about what might happen to them because they are his followers.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus tells them, reassuring his friends that they are on the right track. “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
What Jesus is doing here is offering a series of assurances that although he is leaving his friends, although he is dying, he is not abandoning them.
He’s letting them know that no matter how difficult things may get – and in our reading from Acts today we see that things get quite difficult – they can be certain there is a place for them in God’s kingdom.
In the future I will not be physically with you, Jesus says, but following me is still the way for you to go.
Episcopal priest and writer Barbara Brown Taylor notes that when Jesus said these words “he was not addressing an interfaith tribunal as the central figure of a dominant world religion. He was speaking to a small group of friends on the night before he died.”
Jesus was not making a theological proclamation for the ages that night; he was speaking in the language of love.
Think about when you use that language.
“You are the only one for me,” we may say to our spouse or partner. “I could never love anyone the way I love you.”
And that may be true, but it does not mean condemnation of all other loves.
“You’re the best boy in the world,” I frequently told Joseph Henry when he was growing up. And although there may be plenty of evidence to the contrary, that statement will always be true for me.
But my truth does not lessen or negate the love that other parents have for their children.
The language of love is extravagant and exaggerated. It is by nature exclusive. It is how we stake claims on one another.
Jesus was staking a claim on his disciples that night, assuring them that he would love them always, that he would be with them always, and that despite what others might say, following and loving him would lead them to God’s eternal love and care.
To turn Jesus’ words of comfort and love to his friends into a sledgehammer of condemnation and hate seems to me to be the worst kind of betrayal of Christ.
Shortly after Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, she was asked if she thought that belief in Jesus was the only way to get to heaven, if, in fact, no one came to “the Father” except through Jesus.
Here is her response:
“We who practice the Christian tradition understand Jesus as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.”
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” Jesus says to his disciples.
If I had been a delegate at that General Convention I would have been relieved that the resolution that led to the misleading headline was not put to a vote. If it had been, I’m sure I would have voted against it.
But those words are, indeed, true for me. For us here today, Jesus is our way, and our truth, and our life.
And it is precisely because we try to follow the way of Jesus that we must show hospitality to strangers, pray for our enemies and those who persecute us, reach out in love and respect to those who differ from us, and work for justice and peace for all God’s children, including those whose path to God is different from our own.
Amen.