Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 22, 2011
Lessons designated by the Common Lectionary include: Acts 7:55-60, Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16, I Peter 2: 2-10 and John 14:1-14.
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (I Peter 2:9). “Jesus said ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” John 14:6.
Following a worship service during one of my retirement “stints” as chaplain on a cruise ship I was seated for dinner with an ostentatiously wealthy and opinionated woman. She was convinced that as our lectionary text from John puts it, “no one comes to the Father except through me,” which she “proved” by reciting that verse. Now, chaplains are not given the privileges of cruise ship opportunities in order to offend or contradict high spending passengers and I could see by the intense look she gave me that my meditation earlier in the day with its emphasis on the inclusive nature of authentic faith had not pleased her. Although I pointed out that earlier in the same passage from John in verses 2 and 3 there is mention of “many rooms” or “dwelling places” where the divine presence is promised, she remained convinced that my liberal critique of this passage was at best in a grey area of normative Christianity.
As I reflect upon it now, perhaps she was right. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the language about going to prepare dwelling places in the Father’s house points to the claim that Jesus is the exclusive way to God. And, in turn, doesn’t that imply only those who embrace the Christian way can find salvation, i.e., a healthy and harmonious relationship with God, self, neighbor and environment? Yet, for me that conclusion is difficult if not impossible, because many of my Muslim and Jewish friends have clearly achieved that quality of harmony with God and neighbor outside the dwelling places of Christianity.
A better way to interpret this lection from John is admit that this exclusive understanding of Christ’s way to God does reflect that early Christian community of John’s self-understanding. But it makes that exclusive claim of approaching God not out of a sense of moral superiority. Rather it is simply a confession of loyalty to Christ during a time of deep cultural conflict and the threat of persecution.
If that is the case, then it might be appropriate to ask if the perspective John offers in our lection this week could be instructive to those of us in contemporary American congregations as we struggle with what it means to follow Christ. We of the “mainline” or “oldline” denominations are often critiqued as having so bought into the culture of materialism, nationalistic exceptionalism and hedonistic morality that we are indistinguishable from the general population. In what sense then are we in the words of our lection of I Peter “a chosen race and a royal priesthood?” It seems the issue that’s raised in this week’s lectionary readings might well be that question: How are we distinctive?
The answer, it seems to me, is that when we take Jesus seriously, learn something of his life and teaching, value his community building efforts, understand how he encountered the marginalized poor and disenfranchised within his larger community and made them cherished friends, and attempt to make that our own in the way we live, we have a good chance of becoming very distinctive indeed!
All through history, this reality is revealed in the lives of the saints, those who have followed Jesus. I’ve known them in every congregation of which I’ve been a part. Immanuel Church has many of them, reaching out with unselfish love to help some life within the congregation or neighborhood or larger world achieve a status of acceptance and inclusion within the community that affirms and lessens pain and loneliness. And that’s always been true. In my reading this week I came across the role a nineteenth century Congregational missionary, Samuel A. Worcester, played in his losing struggle for justice among the Cherokee Indians in Georgia’s Great Smokey Mountains. His story is told in a book by Paul VanDevelder entitled, “Savages and Scoundrels.”
In 1841, the State of Georgia declared the Cherokee government a non-entity and passed a resolution extending state sovereignty over Indian lands. When Worcester visited the Cherokees without obtaining a license to travel in that area from the governor of that state he was arrested, found guilty and sentenced to four years of hard labor at a state-owned quarry. All of this violated due process and a denial of the missionary’s civil liberties. Worcester was accused of encouraging the Cherokees to remain on their land and to defend their rights before the Supreme Court in nation’s capital. When the word got out that nine missionaries had been shackled in leg irons and put to work making large rocks into small ones at a state-owned rock quarry, it became something of a public relations nightmare for the Governor and the state government. The Governor attempted to issue a pardon with the hope the missionaries would simply go away, but Worcester refused, indicating he’d await the decision of the Court in Washington. In his opinion, what the state of Georgia was doing to the Cherokees was making a moral and legal mockery of the Bill of Rights, and until the court acted, he and his comrades were content to split rocks.
Although the Supreme Court decided in Worcester’s favor, under the Andrew Jackson administration it didn’t have the power to enforce the decision. Georgia simply ignored it, and sadly when Chief Justice Marshall was replaced by Roger B. Taney one of the great injustices of our nation’s history took place in the forced march of the Cherokee nation to the Oklahoma territory during which thousands died on that tragic journey.
Even so, history remembers the Christian missionary, Samuel A. Worcester, whose life was characterized by courage and compassion inspired by ChristÉand was a rather distinctive witness!
Ralph Ahlberg
