1
12
1
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cefbf91ad5ffd23d62b1c0bf8fa772ea.mp3
94f7236c0f843c9b5e94e5f35fc5883e
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c3662b5357657e3f7f13d9a683ece424.pdf
3f54a1a2eab731cc546d4539c8826732
PDF Text
Text
Jesus, the Truth of God
From the series: Remembering Jesus, Experiencing God
Text: John 14:1-14
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Lent, March 7, 2004
Transcription of the spoken sermon
For a Lesson From the Present, I want to read a paragraph from Walter Wink’s
book, The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man, which is
the book, the reason, why I wanted him here in our midst in the first place, a
very, very interesting study. In the course of his discussion, he writes:
If God is in some sense true humanness, then divinity inverts itself.
Divinity is not a qualitatively different reality. Quite the reverse. Divinity is
fully realized humanity.
Well, that’s only about 180 degrees from anything you’ve ever heard in church.
I’ll read it again.
Quite the reverse. Divinity is fully realized humanity. Only God is, as it
were, human. The goal of life, then, is not to become something we are not,
divine, but to become what we truly are, human. We are not required to
become divine, flawless, perfect, without blemish. We are invited simply to
become human which means growing through our sins and mistakes,
learning by trial and error, being redeemed over and over from compulsive
behavior, becoming ourselves, scars and all,. It means embracing and
transforming those elements in us that we find unacceptable. It means
giving up pretending to be good and instead becoming real. Jesus
incarnated God in his own person in order to show all of us how to
incarnate God, and to incarnate God is what it means to be fully human.
That, too, is the word of God.
The season of Lent invites us to remember Jesus, because in remembering Jesus
we experience God. That is our story. That’s what has been the mark of the
Christian tradition. We find our window to God in Jesus, so our identity
statement claims, and that has been the central thrust of our understanding and
our community experience together. Probably almost every one of us was born
into and nurtured in the Christian tradition. Almost the whole human family that
© Grand Valley State University
�Jesus, the Truth of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
is religious continues in that religious tradition into which they were born. And
so, when we claim Jesus as our window to God we are not claiming an
exclusivism. We are simply claiming that’s our story, and that’s the story that we
celebrate together, and the Lenten season is an invitation to remember Jesus in
order that we might again in a fresh way have the experience of that holy Mystery
that we call God.
And so, this Second Sunday in Lent, I am suggesting to you that Jesus is the truth
of God. Not the truth of God in propositional terms, the kind of factual data like 2
+ 2 ids 4, or that this congregation was founded in 1870 or anything like that, but
rather, that Jesus is the truth of God in the sense that there in the embodiment,
in that incarnation we say God. That that person, that consciousness, that human
being is for us who continue in that flow of Christian tradition, that is the clue as
to the Mystery of the Divine.
I suppose that there is no text that has been quoted to me or quoted against me
more than John 14:6, “Jesus says I am the way, the truth and the life.” And
nobody quotes that to me or against me because he said that, it is what he said
after that - “No one comes to the father but by me.” Therefore, the claim is that
John, the Bible in general, is clearly a book that portrays an exclusive salvation
through Jesus Christ alone. I’m not sure that Jesus said it anyway, but I wish that
John hadn’t said he said it. It would have made things a lot easier. But, as a
matter of fact, I’m not sure that John intended - I’m sure he did not intend – that
that statement would be used in a battle of exclusivism over against a broader
understanding of the grace of God. What he was intending is quite clear in the
context, and certainly something that I would want to affirm.
He was affirming that in Jesus there is the way of life, the truth of life, the way to
God; this is that which is embodied in Jesus is the way and the truth and the life,
and as a matter of fact, it would be impossible to know God or to experience God
apart from that way that Jesus was embodying. I think that that broader
interpretation of that particular statement is clarified in the subsequent
discussion with Phillip. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one
comes to the father but by me,” but now you know the father as you know me.
You have seen the father, and so forth. Phillip says, “What? Show us the father
and we will be satisfied. Come on, Jesus, just open up the abyss of the mystery of
reality and we will be satisfied.”
Jesus said, “You don’t get it, do you, Phillip?”
“Well,. What do you mean I don’t get it?”
“I’ve been with you so long and you still don’t get it. Look at me. You’re looking
at God.”
© Grand Valley State University
�Jesus, the Truth of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
Well, that doesn’t sound so radical to us because we know that’s true, don’t we?
After all, this Jew Jesus who was running with Phillip and Thomas and Peter and
James and John, gathering around campfires and getting their feet dusty in
sandals, eating together and dialoguing together, and I hope joking together, this
Jew Jesus, well, we know, don’t we? This is no ordinary human being. Why, this
was the second person of the Trinity, the pre-existing one who came down from
another realm, donned human garments, stood in our midst. So, of course,
Phillip, how come you don’t get it? Jesus, God.
We who stand 2000 years later who have had the blessing or the plague of all of
those Christological creeds that have elevated Jesus from that Jewish, rather
charismatic leader, an extraordinary human being, no doubt, but nonetheless,
still a human being, we hear that statement to Phillip and it doesn’t shock us
because we think, “Why couldn’t Phillip see,” because we know this was odd.
Well, of course Phillip didn’t get it because Phillip didn’t know this was God.
Phillip thought it was his Jewish brother leader, and if we could go back there
and whisper in Phillip’s ear what we know about Jesus, he’d say “What? I’ve been
with the guy.” And if we take Jesus aside and say, “You know what they’re saying
about you?” he’d say, “About me?”
Jesus would not recognize our exalted Son of God. And so, the radicality of what
he said to Phillip comes back. Phillip is to look into the face of another human
being, Jesus by name, who is saying to him, “Look at me and see me, you see
God.” Now that was a radical claim. We say it theologically and philosophically,
“the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” “No one has ever seen God, the
only begotten son in the bosom of the father, he has made God known.” The first
epistle of John, the fourth chapter, “No one has ever seen God. The one who
dwells in love dwells in God and God dwells in that one.”
It’s all pretty simple. Except that the radicality of the claim was that the human
being was saved. To look into my human visage is to look into the face of God,
because, as a matter of fact, God has emerged in the human.
That is what the Gospel claims.
References:
Walter Wink. The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man.
Augsburg Fortress, 2002.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Lent II
Series
Remembering Jesus, Experiencing God
Scripture Text
John 14:1-14
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Walter Wink: The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man, 2002.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-20040307
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2004-03-07
Title
A name given to the resource
Jesus, the Truth of God
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 7, 2004 entitled "Jesus, the Truth of God", as part of the series "Remembering Jesus, Experiencing God", on the occasion of Lent II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: John 14:1-14.
Human as Divine
Non-exclusivism