Expanded Comments
The introductory reflection sent earlier was background for the position of some conservative Christian biblical literalists. The black and white judgments they offer are familiar to many of us. Although we may say their position, insisting on a full intentional confession of Jesus as Savior as required for salvation, is fundamentalist, I suggest this is not enough. What is needed is some careful deepening of our own theologies to be able to offer a fuller truth. I will begin that attempt, and invite you into crafting an alternate interpretation of the Johannine text that reflects the loving God that Jesus reveals.
The text of John 14:6, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” is true. We are not going to toss it out. Jesus is the fullness of the revelation of God. His humanness is indeed our door, our gate, our way to full return to the Father. I invite us to begin with that humanness in our reflection, and to begin with it not theologically but biologically. Humanness is a biological reality. This means the Word, that same word that spoke the universe into being in the beginning, the same Word that spoke on Sinai, that gave the Law, that spoke through the prophets and was written on parchment skins, took another step. That Word wrote itself into human DNA. The human genome became the new text. This is what “The Word became flesh” means. It means the Word pressed humanness, with all its brokenness, to itself.
This wedding between the divine and the human took place in the concreteness of Jewish particularity. Jesus was not generic. He was a Jew. I suggest all of this is revelatory for us. First, the union is with human DNA. The double helix identifies every human being. Moreover, it is found, with varying arrangement, in every living thing. Athanasius once said, “What is not assumed is not redeemed.” By implication then, what is assumed, is redeemed. What human being lacks DNA? Does the passage from John simply mean that Jesus has assumed our humanness, and in doing so has bridged the whole estranged human community back to the heart of his Father? Does it mean that by simply being human one is somehow connected to this Savior because of a common humanness? Does it also mean that a good part of the human family does not know this startling good news?
Does being a Christian simply mean knowing one’s Savior and entering into a direct relationship with him? If this is true, then we have very good reason for evangelization. How would you like to be someone who lives all your life not knowing your humble humanness is espoused to the Mystery of the universe? Wouldn’t you want someone to tell you? Would you want to find this out only when you died? Would you only then discover how your dear and precious religious practices were a loving pre-evangelization customized to keep your religious longing alive, that they were wedding rehearsals?
The message of salvation has often been delivered by its evangelists with a baseball bat. But with the God that Jesus presents there are no shotgun weddings. Perhaps the people some of our Christian companions so glibly condemn to hell have been overshadowed by the Spirit that blows where it will. We see the fruits…charity, joy, peace, patience… Perhaps they will not know in this life the treasure they carry and that carries them. It just might be that he will remain in the womb of their particular faith…unless by our gentle word and touch we might midwife him into their world.
