"Many Mansions or One Way?"

John 14:1-14

It is an old joke, one you’ve probably heard before, but nevertheless, it’s perfect for this Sunday, and I must tell it:

A man died and was ushered into heaven, which appeared to be an enormous house. An angel began to escort him down a long hallway past “many rooms.”

"What's in that room?" the man asked, pointing to a very somber-looking group of people chanting a Gregorian mass. "That's the Roman Catholic room," said the angel. "Very high church."

"What's in that room?" the man asked, pointing to a group of people with painted bodies and elaborate headdresses, drumming and dancing and singing loudly. "That's the Native American group," said the angel. "Very spirited."

"What's in that room?" asked the man, pointing to a group of people meditating to the sound of an enormous gong. "That's the Zen Buddhist group," said the angel. "They’re so quiet. You hardly know they’re here."

Then the angel stopped the man, as they were about to round a corner. "Now, when we get to the next room," said the angel, "I would appreciate it if you would tiptoe past. We mustn't make any sound." "Why'?" asked the man. "Because in that room there's a bunch of fundamentalist Christians; and they think they're the only ones here."

I’m not a big joke teller, but I knew I had to tell this one because it sets up perfectly a central dilemma found in this passage from John 14.

On the one hand, we have the infamous verse, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” For those Christians sitting in their own room in heaven, sure that they are the only ones there, this verse offers all the proof they need of the exclusivity of Christianity. Jesus seems to be saying very clearly here, “I am the way. Me. I’m it. I’m your only way to be saved.”

Interestingly, just a few verses before this one is the verse: “In my Father’s house are many mansions,” or some translations say “dwelling places.” Those who would argue that there are many paths to the truth, cite this verse. The many mansions may refer, they say, to the heavenly places in which Hindus and Buddhists and Jews will dwell – alongside Christians. Obviously, this is the setup of the joke I just told. There’s room – and a room – for everybody in the hereafter.

So, in about four short verses in John 14, you have the outlines of the great debate about religious pluralism that has raised for centuries: between those who argue for what’s called a universalist view (there are many paths to the Truth) verses those who argue for the particularist way (nope, there’s only one path – and it just happens to be mine). Many mansions or one way? Which is it?

Harvey Cox was one of my professors in seminary. He’s an ordained Baptist minister married to a Jewish woman for many years now. Not surprisingly, he locates himself on the “universalist” pole of the religious pluralism debate. He’s been very active in interfaith dialogues sponsored by groups like the World Council of Churches and he’s written a lot on the subject. OK, so he’s a “many mansions” guy through and through, right? Yes but… he’s also a “Jesus is the way” guy. In fact, he writes, “I do not believe these two (verses) are contradictory. From Jesus, I have learned that he is the way and that in God’s house there are many mansions.”[1] Huh? What he’s saying is that we’re using the wrong conjunction. It’s not “many mansions or one way.” It’s “many mansions and one way.” Huh?

It’s probably no surprise to you that I locate myself as a universalist. In fact, I would agree with the theologian Marcus Borg, that if to be a Christian meant that I had to declare other religions false, I don’t think I could be a Christian.[2] But for the true-believing universalist, no less than for the true-believing particularist, changing that conjunction to “and” poses a problem. What could that mean? What does it mean to say that Jesus is the way and also believe that he is not everybody’s way?

Marcus Borg tells the story of a Hindu professor whom he heard preach a sermon at a Christian seminary. As luck would have it, the text for the day was this “one way” passage. About it, the Hindu scholar said: “This verse is absolutely true – Jesus is the only way.” But he went on to say, “And that way – of dying to an old way of being and being born into a new way of being – is known in all the religions of the world.”[3]

In other words, being “born again” is something that happens not just to evangelical Christians, but to people of every faith. At the core of the world’s great religions is this idea that we need to be remade, need to be transformed into a new person more fully grounded in the Divine Reality, more fully abiding in the Truth. So, in some Native American traditions, you have the vision quest – a person goes out into the wilderness for days and through a series of trials and challenges and dreams emerges with a new vision for their life. Buddhists, through a series of spiritual practices, hope to achieve enlightenment – a whole new way of perceiving the world and themselves. Islam is essentially a path of surrender to Allah that reorients the whole person.

So, “salvation” is not primarily about believing a certain set up things – what Borg calls “salvation by syllables.” No, redemption is actually a much more arduous than an intellectual assent to something. It is committing yourself to a path, a way, a process of transformation.

For Christians, Jesus is that way. “In Jesus, we see what this way of death and rebirth embodied in a person looks like. In Jesus, we see what the truth embodied in a person looks like. And in Jesus, we see what real life embodied in a person looks like. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life for those of us who are following his path.” (From Marcus Borg)

But why not follow another path then? Why not follow the way of Buddha or the way of Islam, if they are also true paths of transformation? Certainly, if you are called to one of these paths, then do it. To use a popular metaphor, they all lead one up the mountain, to the summit. But, to really be on the path of transformation, we can’t jump to another path as soon as ours gets steep or constantly be looking around for another way that seems more interesting, more scenic. If you do, you’ll never reach the summit. Huston Smith, the great scholar of world religions who is also a committed Methodist, says that if you are looking for water, better to dig one well 60 feet deep than to dig six wells 10 feet deep. We need to go deeply into a path if we truly want to be transformed by it.

(But, to nuance that just a bit. Smith calls Christianity his main meal. But, he says, he’s a strong believer in “vitamin supplements,” that is, learning from other faiths. His own immersion into other religious traditions has greatly enriched his faith as a Christian, he says.)

As we commit ourselves to a way of transformation, I believe we are increasingly able to access the “spiritual energy” of that particular path, or what Harvey Cox calls the “primal energy” of a religious tradition. One of the best stories I’ve heard about this primal energy was told by Eric Schiller, a volunteer with Christian Peacemaker Teams.[4] As many of us know, this is a group that puts their lives on the line to try to stop violence in places such as the West Bank and Colombia.

Eric was attending a Quaker conference, during which one of the key speakers said that for him God was revealed through Jesus Christ his Lord and Savior --- very particularist language, right? He then proceeded to deliver a very prophetic message about the effects of materialism and affluence. We are living in Babylon, he said, and the events of 9-11 were the first wounds given to the “beast” (a symbol for the unholy Roman Empire from the book of Revelation). We should all be girding ourselves to oppose the war in Iraq, he said. It was clear, Eric said, that passion and urgency of his message sprang from his deeply rooted biblical faith.

This was all even more interesting because this same speaker began his speech by saying that for him to be an effective instrument of the divine as he spoke, God must be present among them. But he did not pray to Jesus Christ and ask him to be present. Instead, he invited all of those there to invoke the presence of the divine Spirit in terms that were most familiar to each person. What followed, Eric said, “was a holy, blessed babble as persons called upon Abba Elohim, dear Lord Jesus, Hari Krishna, living Spirit within, the blessed Spirit of earth and water that sustains us” and on and on. This man was able to balance a deep, passionate faith in Jesus with an embrace of others’ religious paths.

“It is no small spiritual challenge to balance depth and breadth,” Eric concluded, but “I believe that it is a spiritual imperative. If we so concentrate on our own spiritual way, we can slip into an exclusive view of God that is in danger of leading to religious intolerance. If we lose our faith and roots, we may well lose our … spiritual energy and creative drive.”

In other words: Many mansions and one way. Yes, there are many mansions, and yes, Jesus is the way for us. Maybe this is the reason those two verses are so close together! Perhaps we need both. We need the open-minded tolerance of the one and the primal energy of the other. We need to acknowledge the beauty and truth of other religious traditions. And we need a deeply-rooted commitment to Jesus as the Way, the Truth, the Life if our faith is to be truly transformative. Amen.

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[1] From the article “Many Mansions or One Way? The Crisis in Interfaith Dialogue” first published in The Christian Century August 17-24, 1998. Obviously, the title of my sermon comes from his article. Thanks, Harvey!

[2] From his book The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith.

[3] From Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but not Literally.

[4] From a posting found in a CPT chat room.

“Minimum Protection, Maximum Support”

Eastertide

Psalm 23

There are probably no other chapters of the Bible that any of us know by heart other than the 23rd psalm. You may remember snippets of some other psalm, or a cluster of verses, but I’m betting that there is no other chapter that so many of us can still – to this day – recite from memory.

Shall we try it? If you need help, it’s in your order of worship. The psalm there is in the King James Version, since that’s the version I’m guessing many of memorized it in.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I
will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

What is it about this psalm? Why is it the only Biblical passage most of us can recite from memory? Several summers ago, I worked as a chaplain intern at Mt. Diablo Medical Center in Concord. As part of that job, I had to make – as we interns referred to them – “cold calls.” I would walk into a patient’s hospital room and strike up a conversation with them, hoping that I could be, in some small way, spiritually useful.

It was a very hard thing to do. I had no idea what I was going to encounter as I walked into a patient’s room – a person sitting up, perkily eating her tray of food? Or a man halfway to death, barely conscious, coiled up on the bed? Someone who wanted me to be there or someone who barely tolerated my presence?

One day, I started up a conversation with a woman who was going in for surgery in a few minutes. I can’t remember the nature of the surgery – it wasn’t life-threatening, but it wasn’t a tonsillectomy either. But it was clear that she was scared, as are most people who are awaiting surgery. We talked a bit, and I held her hand. She was still obviously frightened, and I felt pretty useless. Finally, it was time to go. I really wanted to leave her with some comforting image, some word of solace. And that’s when it came to me… “Do you want me to say the 23rd psalm?” I asked. Tears appeared in her eyes, and she nodded yes. I began, and almost immediately, she started saying it with me. By the end, it was clear that the psalm had worked its spiritual magic in her soul. She was at peace. After that, I recited the 23rd psalm with many people: families standing around the bed of a dying mother and grandmother, a person who had just received a diagnosis of cancer. It never failed to offer solace.

What is it about this psalm that can calm our fears? That can offer us comfort when nothing else can? It’s not just Christians who love it, by the way. Rabbi Harold Kushner, who wrote a book on the 23rd Psalm a few years ago, says that no matter how grievous a funeral was, no matter how tragic a memorial service, if he just started to recite he familiar words of this Psalm, it “tranquilized the congregation.” He referred to it often in the months after September 11. In fact, he says that “in just a mere 57 words of Hebrew, the author of the 23rd Psalm gives us a more practical theology than we can find in many books.”[1]

I have turned to this psalm myself as much as anybody. Even when I was going through a time of deep doubt and cynicism about the Christian faith, I would – almost reluctantly – find comfort in these words in times of distress or anxiety. What is it about this psalm? As I read and reread it this week, trying to figure out its magic, I wasn’t able to get past the first verse. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The Lord is my shepherd – OK, I have no difficulty with that. But “I shall not want.” Excuse me?

Rabbi Kushner tells the story of a minister who sat by the bed of a dying woman. Having no words of his own – much like me – he took her hand and began reciting the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” At which point, the woman opened her eyes for a moment and weakly said: “But I do want!” I’m really glad no one said that to me when I was a hospital chaplain, because at the time I’m not sure what I would have done with it.

Of course, we want. That woman wanted not to die. She wanted to see her grandchildren grow up. Of course, we want. We want to be healthy. We want to be healed. We want the pain – whether physical, emotional or spiritual – to go away. Of course, we want. We want our children to find their heart’s desires, we want our parents to not have to suffer as their bodies age and die. We want a lot of things, and having God or Jesus as our shepherd does not mean that all those wants are going to be supplied. Children die young. Our parents suffer. We will see many of our deepest dreams go unfulfilled. It seems that, rather than providing solace, the first sentence of this psalm should make us depressed – or angry. No, none of us is given all we want, so please don’t throw that “magic God” stuff in my face.

But is supplying our wants really what is promised here? Kushner says the original Hebrew of this verse is more accurately captured by some more recent translations, such as: “The Lord is my shepherd. What more do I need?” It’s a subtle shift, but it makes me ask a subtly different question. Of course, we want. We want many things, and none of those things are guaranteed to us. But what do we really need?

We must not need safety, protection, the assurance that everything is going to be alright for us and our loved ones. Because we don’t get that. And, indeed, I don’t think the psalm is promising that. The Good Shepherd does not keep the psalmist out of the valley of the shadow of death. No, the person who wrote this psalm had to walk through it. He or she had to walk through the death of a loved one, or the betrayal of friends, or loneliness or fear. There was no protection from that. The Good Shepherd does not keep the psalmist’s enemies away—no, they are there, watching as the psalmist is fed from God’s table. But they are there. The Good Shepherd does not even keep the psalmist away from the presence of evil – evil is present, it’s just that the psalmist doesn’t fear it. There’s no protection here. So what is there? What do we really need that this psalm offers?

Some of you are familiar with the name of William Sloane Coffin, who died two years ago. He is often talked about in the same breath as Martin Luther King, Jr., as one of the great moral leaders of our country. He was a relentless activist for peace and justice, opposed U.S. military intervention from Vietnam to the Iraq War and was an ardent supporter of LGBT rights long before other clergy were. He’s also one of the most eloquent preachers I’ve read. His most requested sermon is a eulogy he gave at Riverside Church in New York City for his beloved son, Alex, only 10 days after Alex was killed in a car accident.

“As almost all of you know,” that eulogy begins, “a week ago last Monday night, driving in a terrible storm, my son – Alexander—who to his friends was a real day-brightener, and to his family was ‘fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky’ – my 24-year-old Alexander, who enjoyed beating his old man at every game and in every race, beat his father to the grave.”[2]

“Immediately after such a tragedy, people must come to your rescue,” he said. “People who only want to hold your hand, not to quote anybody or even say anything, people who simply bring food and flowers – the basics of beauty and life – people who sign letters simply, ‘Your brokenhearted sister.’” In the eulogy, he contrasted those people with others – often his own pastoral colleagues -- who quoted some verse from Scripture as a way of offering comfort that was, he says, only thinly disguised self-protection – as a way to pretty up a situation whose bleakness they simply couldn’t face. “Like God herself,” Coffin said, “Scripture is not around for anyone’s protection, just for everyone’s unending support. That’s what hundreds of you understood so beautifully. You gave me what God gives all of us – minimum protection, maximum support. I swear to you, I wouldn’t be standing here were I not upheld.”

Minimum protection, maximum support. This is what we are promised, says this great man of the faith, and I believe he is right. And this is what we are promised in this great psalm. What we need is not for anything bad to ever happen. What we need is the assurance that we will not be utterly destroyed by the things that do happen. What we need is not protection from pain and loss – not even God can give that – but assurance that pain and loss do not need to define our lives forever, that on the other side of the valley of the shadow of death there is land of light and warmth. What we need is to know that, even as we walk through that valley, we are being accompanied by someone who is walking with us, grieving with us. “My own consolation,” William Coffin said in his eulogy, “was in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.” Minimum protection. Maximum support.

God will not – God can not, I think – protect us from pain and loss, but this psalm assures us that we will survive the worst life, and death, can bring us. We will hurt, but we will heal. We will grieve, but we will grow whole again. For God – and God’s people – are surely with us. Amen.

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[1] From The Lord is my Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the 23rd Psalm.
[2] See http://www.pbs.org/now/society/eulogy.html.