This sermon preached byGlynn Cardy 3/5/26 draws on a reflection byJim Palmer, https://jimpalmerblog.wordpress.com/about/

When it comes to the statement attributed to Jesus in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father (namely God) except through me,” there are three options. Either Jesus never said it, and we can ignore it. Or he (or his followers) said it and it means exactly what traditional Christianity claims. Or he (or his followers) said it, and it has been fundamentally misunderstood.

Framed this way, the issue becomes clearer. What often presents itself as a settled conclusion is actually dependent on prior assumptions about authorship, interpretation, and theological framing. Once those assumptions are made visible, the range of possible interpretations opens up in a way that is usually obscured.

The first option. Did Jesus say it? The Gospels were written decades after the life of Jesus, shaped within communities that were already interpreting his significance. The Gospels are not verbatim transcripts, but theological narratives. It becomes necessary to distinguish between what Jesus may have said, how those sayings were remembered, and how they were later framed within developing theological contexts.

Progressive scholars are clear: the Gospel of John is a creation of the later Jesus movement, and it is doubtful that any words ascribed to Jesus in that Gospel were literally said by him. But note, that doesn’t change the impact these words have had and still have on Christian theology. Ignoring this verse doesn’t diminish its power.

The second option is that Jesus (or the author/editor ‘John’) did say these words and they should be interpreted as Jesus being the only way to God, and al lother paths invalid. This option offers a clear reading that aligns with established traditional doctrine. But clarity at the level of assertion does not guarantee coherence at the level of implication.

For what this interpretation does is it establishes right belief as the decisive factor in determining access to God. It also positions entire populations outside that access based on conditions they did not choose (like the place, culture, or faith in which they were born). It introduces a framework in which moral outcomes are not directly aligned with lived reality, but with adherence to a specific claim (so it’s not whether you’re loving and just that matters but what you believe and profess).

At this point, the question is no longer whether the interpretation is clear, but whether it holds together when examined across its full range of implications. Is it for example consistent with the claims that God is love and God is fair or just?

These are not peripheral concerns. They are the natural result of taking the claim seriously. What often happens is that the interpretation is accepted at the level of text, but its application becomes more flexible. Exceptions are introduced, mystery is invoked, or the tension is reframed as something beyond human understanding. But this does not resolve the underlying conflict.

This is where the third option becomes necessary to consider; a recognition that the meaning of the statement may not be exhausted by its most literal reading. If the first option questions whether the words were spoken, and the second insists on a specific interpretation, the third asks whether the interpretation itself has been constrained by the framework in which it has been received.

That is where we delve into the hidden assumptions, like separation theology.

Traditional Christianity, as it is popularly pedalled, assumes that human beings are born estranged from God, that is ‘sinners’, and that this divide must be bridged. According to this framework, Jesus is the sin-defeating bridge. Without him, the separation remains. With him, the separation is resolved. Once this assumption is accepted everything that follows appears necessary - the need for salvation, the role of Jesus’s death and resurrection, the structure of inclusion (those who believe in Jesus) and exclusion (those who don’t).

But what if this assumption itself is flawed? What if separation theology is not an inherent feature of reality but a way of interpreting human experience?

Humanbeings do experience disconnection and alienation. These are real phenomena.But to move from such experience to the conclusion that we are metaphysicallyseparated from God is a significant leap. And once that leap is made, the frameworkbecomes self-reinforcing: Disconnection is interpreted as evidence ofseparation, with reconnection being through the prescribed means, namely thebridge.

To question this separation theology is not simply to challenge one traditional Christian doctrine among many. It is to challenge the foundation upon which the entire traditional doctrinal structure rests. If separation is not real in the way it is being described, then the role assigned to Jesus changes immediately. His significance would have to be understood in a different way. Rather than being the exclusive means by which separation is overcome, he becomes a demonstration of what is already true but not yet recognized.

This is a fundamentally different orientation. It does not begin with the assumption that something is missing that must be supplied from the outside. It begins with the possibility that something is already present but not yet understood. The emphasis moves away from securing access to something external (God out there) and toward recognizing and aligning with something intrinsic (God all around).

Thisis where the metaphor of the road, and its underlying framework, falls short. Theproblem is not that there is one road to God or many roads to God. The problemis the assumption that God is the kind of thing that requires a road at all.

A road implies distance. It implies that we are here and God is somewhere else. It implies that something must bridge that gap. But if what we are calling God is the ground of being, the underlying reality in which all things exist, the ocean in which we swim (to use my favourite metaphor) then the entire framework collapses.

You do not travel to what you are already within. There are no roads to God because there is nowhere where God is not.

This reframes the entire question. The issue is no longer how to reach God, but how we have come to experience ourselves as separate in the first place. The problem shifts from distance to misperception. From lack of access to lack of awareness. Within this reframed context, the language of path or way begins to take on a different meaning. It is no longer about covering distance or gaining entry. It becomes about alignment, awakening, about coming into clearer contact with what is already the case.

Away in this sense therefore is not a route to somewhere else. It is a way of seeing, a way of being, a way of relating that brings one into conscious participation with what has never been absent. This is a fundamental shift in orientation. It does not eliminate the importance of practice, discipline, or transformation, but it changes their function. They are no longer means of achieving access to something external. They are means of removing distortion, of clarifying perception, of aligning one’s life with what is already true.

Once this shift is made, the entire logic of exclusivity begins to lose its footing. If there is no distance to cover, there is no need for a singular route. If there is no external barrier, there is no need for a specific key. The idea that only one path can grant access becomes dependent on a premise that no longer holds.

This does not mean that all approaches are equal in clarity or effectiveness. Some ways of thinking and living may bring a person into deeper alignment with reality, while others may reinforce confusion or distortion. But that is a different claim. It is not about exclusive access. It is about varying degrees of contact with what is already present. This distinction is crucial. It allows for discernment without requiring exclusion. It allows for evaluation without constructing a hierarchy that determines who is ultimately in or out.

Seen in this light, the question shifts again. It is no longer, “which road leads to God?” but “what obscures our recognition of that which what we are already within, and what clarifies it?” That is where the conversation becomes both more precise and more grounded in reality.

The search for a single path to God does not fail because the wrong path has been chosen. It fails because the structure of the search itself is misaligned with the nature of what is being sought. To look for a path assumes distance, separation, and conditional access. It assumes that what we are seeking lies somewhere else, waiting to be reached by those who find the correct route. But if that assumption is mistaken, then the search does not lead us closer to God.

The question is not which path is true, but whether the idea of a path is necessary at all.

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