"I am the way ..."

American activist and labour organizer Cesar Chavez said, “When we are really honest with ourselves, we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of [people] we are. It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life. I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of [humanity] is to sacrifice ourselves for others in totally nonviolent struggle for justice.”

I came across this quote in Common Prayer today and was struck yet again by the simplicity of the Way that Jesus proclaimed, as well as its universality.  His way, the Way we are called into, is that way of death and resurrection.  

How often in our personal experiences have we found that in the great tragedies or losses in life we discover some new resource within us our around us that is able to transform our lives?  Similarly, in the lives or organisations or even the structures of society, out of great calamity can come creative new ways of being.

A story is in my head without a hyperlink to its source but I think it may have been told in one of Marcus Borg's books.  In a seminary in the USA where for reasons understood only in the USA there was a Hindu man on the faculty who participated inclusively with the other members of the faculty in leading the college community in worship in the Christian way.  The text for the day was John 14:6 - Jesus said "I am the way the truth and the live.  No one comes to the Father but by me."

The Hindu man began his homily with words that must have been the least expected.  He said, "I believe those words of Jesus are absolutely true."  So often, when we hear these words we see them as reinforcing our instinctive desire for an exclusive claim that Jesus the person is the way, but this Hindu preacher went on to explain that in his understanding of the major religious traditions of the world, there was this common thread that they way in which a disciple finds life, true life and ultimate meaning is through a death and resurrection experience.  They may use different language to describe it, but when it is all boiled down they mean the same thing.

He went on to suggest that if we were to understand this wisdom of Jesus in inclusive rather than exclusive terms we would find ourselves calling all people into a common experience of true transformation that they really do understand and into which we are called by Jesus.

Its worth thinking about.