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Thomas said to him, \u201cLord, we don\u2019t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?\u201d\xa0 Jesus answered, \u201cI am the way and the truth and the life.\xa0 No one comes to the Father except through me.\xa0 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.\xa0 From now on, you do know him and have seen him.\u201d (John 14:5-7)

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It's good to be back with you, even if it is just digitally for now.\xa0 Many of you will know that I was away on Sabbatical the past while.\xa0 And, if I were to sum up what I took away from this time of rest and study\u2014as no doubt you will all ask me to do\u2014I think I would point to these verses from the Gospel of John.\xa0 Conveniently, what I\u2019d like to say about them also fits with what Pastor Michael said yesterday on Deuteronomy.

Namely, this: that our Life as Christians is to follow in the Way of the one True God.\xa0 There is an exclusivity to Jesus\u2019 statement here that the church has long recognized.\xa0 But it runs much deeper than just us clinging to the \u201cTruth\u201d of the Gospel.\xa0 Jesus also intends that the \u201cWay\u201d we live our lives conforms to his.\xa0

In pursuit of Christian truth, we cannot resort to un-Christian ways and means.\xa0 For example: helping out our neighbours cannot happen in a paternalistic I-know-better-than-you-do sort of way (even if we think we do!).\xa0 No, it can only happen in a loving way (a Christ-like way), a way of mutuality where we humbly seek to listen, understand, and receive even as we give: because that is what Christ-like love entails.\xa0

How different might have the relationships gone with indigenous peoples had the churches chosen this humble, loving way of Jesus, and not only their culture-bound interpretation of the truth of Jesus (which at that time meant a paternalistic drive to \u201ccivilize\u201d these new neighbours for their own good). \xa0I think Jesus\u2019 way still offers much promise to the church today as we seek out new ways of relating with our indigenous neighbours.

But: this Jesus way is a slow, inefficient, difficult, and often impractical way.\xa0 A way that does not honour our time or seemingly accomplish much.\xa0 A way that grinds against the grain of our culture.\xa0 A way that inevitably leads to our death and the death of our own ways, before the new life-giving ways of Jesus take hold.\xa0 The truth of Jesus can only be lived in the way of Jesus if we would seek to bring the life of Jesus to our neighbours and neighbourhoods.\xa0

Eugene Peterson once summed it up: \u201cOnly when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way do we get the Jesus life.\u201d\xa0 For long periods, the church has forgotten this embodied aspect of following and submitting all of life to the Jesus way.\xa0 We have dissected and systematized Jesus\u2019 truth to objective clarity (for the Bible is clear, is it not?).\xa0 But the Jesus way resists such clear-cut flattening.\xa0

When the \u201cword becomes flesh and dwells among us\u201d it all at once becomes a lot more demanding and difficult.\xa0 We find that the Jesus way demands nothing less than all of our lives, in submission to him.\xa0 Nothing less is involved in taking up our cross to follow.\xa0

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