Jesus-the-Friendship-of-God

Here’s the end of the gospel portion read at Valerie’s funeral: “Thomas said, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” 

It’s a tough text for a preacher in a multi-faith world. It can easily seem as if Christians are claiming unique access to the divine homecoming based on having chosen – or inherited – the right religious beliefs. But Jesus isn’t talking about Christianity. He’s not talking about beliefs. He is talking about the human embodiment of the Friendship of God as the way home to God. 

In the preaching moment, there was lots of material for a homily without venturing into those difficult waters. So it  was not until a few days later that I realized the way the text and the occasion might have worked together. You see, I was preaching at the funeral of a friend. Not just my friend, though she was that. But a friend. Friend was who she was, her vocation (though she might have cleared her throat at quite so lofty a word). Valerie’s charism was to have friends, and to be a friend. 

The church was full of her friends, including her family, the friends who knew her most intimately. We acknowledged that she was a bit terrifying in the clarity of her purpose, that she had “a way” of approaching life. Full on, celebrating, inviting, laughing, decorating. Every year on Good Friday I think of her telling me of the Bermudian tradition of flying kites on that day. Playing at resurrection as the sun goes dark. Catch the wind, the lift, the promise of light on that darkest of days; trust that the Holy Wind will lift the Holy One. 

Lift the little ones, too. Lift the ones who are included by friendship in the resurrection. Do I make too much of our friend if I see her as part of some holy thing called Friendship? Of some holy thing that held her and called her into a vocation – a life – of friendship? Do I make too much of her embrace of that invitation to be friend and to befriend? 

I don’t know. It’s not a thing you can prove or disprove. It doesn’t come from the textbook, from the assembly instructions or the owner’s manual. It is the face of a mystery. 

It is the face of this mystery: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” It's one of seven “I am” statements, unique to John’s gospel, that are themselves rooted in a still more ancient mystery, the encounter in which Moses stops long enough to notice that the burning bush wasn’t consumed: 

VOICE: “I have heard the cry of my people [my friends] and I am sending you to bring them out of oppression, to be the friend I send.” 

MOSES: “And who are you, so I can tell them who is sending me.” 

VOICE: “Tell them that “I AM” has sent you to them.” 

I AM:

"the bread of life.” 

“the light of the world.” 

“the door.” 

“the good shepherd.” 

“the resurrection and the life.” 

“the way, and the truth, and the life.” 

“the true vine.” 

These seven statements link Jesus both to Moses and to the voice out of the fire, as John skilfully builds an sense of Jesus' intimacy with I AM, with the same I AM who sends him, as once Moses was sent, into the costly purpose of freedom. 

“No-one comes to the Father except through me.” The way home to “I AM” is in the Friendship of this Friend: 

Friend who feeds, 

Friend who illuminates, 

Friend who opens,

Friend who tends, 

Friend whose rising raises all, 

Friend who leads all home, 

whose truth is connection, 

whose life is gift for all, 

Friend through whom the wild energy of “I AM” flows to nourish all. 

Jesus' words do not establish exclusive truth claims for a religion called “Christianity”. They present Jesus as an embodiment of the promise of I AM to bring all creation home. They make a claim, not about the narrowness of truth, but about its amazing breadth, about its capacity to overcome every estrangement through cosmic friendship. Jesus' words are a thorough contradiction of any claim of exclusivity, a contradiction supported by the universal authority of friendship. 

The Tablelands of Gros Morne National Park are among a very small number of places on earth where the boundary between the earth’s crust and its mantle has pushed to the surface of the earth. At this boundary, the Mohorovicic Discontinuity, we can catch a glimpse of the upper mantle, the soft and shifting tectonic source of the planet’s topography, by earthquakes, volcanoes, sea-floor spreading and mountain-building. Without the dynamic and often-destructive energy from the upper mantle, the planet would be entirely covered by water. 


That’s as close as I can get to what I feel when I imagine the voice Who speaks out of the burning bush, across the holy ground to where Moses stands, sandals in hand: “Tell them that I AM has sent you.” The wild, crashing, tectonic I AM hears the humans’ cry, and befriends us. 

There are those who have food, but do not feed, 

whose light is for their own path only, 

whose doors are not to invite, but to exclude, 

who do not tend, but pass by on the other side, 

whose ascent is not for sharing, but for them alone, 

who mistake “mine” for “home”, 

whose “truth” manufactures enemies out of difference, 

whose life is a cistern of self-regard, not a nourishing vine. 

And there is a Friend – Jesus-the-Friendship-of-God – who bids us be friends, who bids us befriend. No-one comes home to I AM but by friendship.