Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Way, the Truth, and the Life
Commentary
for the December 7, 2024, Sabbath School Lesson
Thomas said
to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
Jesus answered, "I am the way
and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
John 14:5-6,
NIV
During the 1980s, after moving
to Spokane, Washington and joining a church congregation here, that church decided
to do an annual re-enactment of the Last Supper. The pastor, Marlo Fralich,
wrote the script and did the casting for the players. I was cast as Jesus, and
several other members were cast as his disciples. I suspect my casting was in
part because I had a beard and longish hair. While it was a contemplative
experience, it was also challenging, requiring a lengthy homily consisting of a
patchwork of verses from the various gospels but mostly from John because of
the detailed account there of the washing of the disciples' feet by Jesus. The
difficulty of remembering those lines may be why what was intended to be an
annual event ended after only two years. I do not remember who played Jesus the
second year, but I remember he found the memorization a hard challenge to
overcome.
Despite its short run, the
re-enactment was enjoyed by the congregation and several said it carried deeper
meaning for them to see it acted out by the church members. Passion plays have
long been an attraction for sharing the message of the gospels. Today, two
Spokane area churches present walk-through passion plays. The Spokane South
Hill Seventh-day Adventist Church presents "Journey to Bethlehem" each Christmas season, and the
Spokane Vally Seventh-day Adventist Church presents "Journey to the Cross" each Easter season. Tens
of thousands of Spokanites have attended these events, including many of those
who would be reluctant to attend a regular church service. Maybe this is because
these walk throughs occur outside the church building. Maybe it is because they
can attend anonymously with no commitment to attend further. Whatever the
reason, these events have continued far longer than our Last Supper
re-enactment so have touched many more lives. Even the loss of a beloved
director to death did not derail the ongoing commitment to the project.
The foot washing scene we
re-enacted for the Last Supper has deep significance for the Seventh-day Adventist
Church. Our 23-million-member denomination re-enacts this event as the
Ordinance of Humility each quarter. Originally the men and women went to
separate gender-specific rooms. Eventually some churches allowed participation
as families in special rooms without gender separation. I first attended an
Adventist church as a teenager. I had learned about the biblical Sabbath from a
course I had taken by correspondence from The Voice of Prophecy in the 1960s.
Once I discovered there was a sabbath-keeping church two blocks from our family
home, I resolved to visit them and check out how they compared to what I had
learned. As it turned out, that weekend was the communion sabbath which
included the foot washing. The Seventh-day Adventist Church practices open
communion which means one does not need to be an Adventist to participate in
any part of the service. I participated in every aspect, including the foot washing. I had decided that full participation
would teach me the most about this church. About a year later I was baptized
into church membership in El Paso, Texas while stationed there doing basic
training in the army. I have been a member for all fifty-six years since then.
Why did I make this decision?
Was it because I found the perfect church? No. The Adventist Church has its
flaws in praxis and theology. However, they have come closer to that ideal than
others I have examined. Most denominations have the taint of the abuses that
resulted from the post Nicaean era where church theology became derailed by
issues of power and control over church possessions and the revenue streams
that derive from that. They would have difficulty adhering to Jesus' advice to
the wealthy young man to sell his possessions and come and follow him. (Matthew
19:16-22) This would be difficult for those people who see wealth as a panacea
for life's challenges. As I write this, we are in the Christmas season, a time
when those who are wealthy lavish expensive gifts on others, and those who are
not wealthy go deeply into debt. Feeling they must do no less. When I publicly
questioned this in social media, it brought down scurrilous remarks on my head and
cursing from those who are so heavily invested in this
system. Some even cursed the poor in a Scrooge-like manner for making unwise
choices in life that resulted in the poverty that prevents them from giving
lavish gifts to their families.
No denomination that I am aware
of is free of this worship of wealth. This is in large part due to the simony
of major church offices going to those who contribute the most to church coffers.
They reason that those who contribute the most have the most right to determine
how the funds should be used. This seems to make logical sense, but in reality,
it is little different from oligarchs who are committed to heavily donating to
political campaigns, hoping to steer a country according to their personal
whims, even if the whims of the few are in direct conflict to the desires of
the many. Wealth becomes a powerful incentive to defer heavenly pursuits in the
interests of earthly achievements. Rarely is there a religious order that does
not constantly seek money to enrich their "ministry." We make fun of the
Osteens and their prosperity gospel ilk, but the demand for funds to keep a
global enterprise going that will collapse if more money is not forthcoming
reveals we are little different. We convince ourselves we are more righteous
because we wear $300 suits and no jewelry instead of $1,000 suits and are
adorned with diamond stick pins and Rolex watches. But rather than relying on
God to sustain his work, we rely on constant streams of revenue that leads us
to make strange bedfellows with the wealthy who have their own agenda. We
willingly blind ourselves to the arc of mission slowly bending to follow the
curve of those agendas for fear we will lose such a fecund revenue source if it
does not.
In this and several other ways,
we have drifted from the message of Jesus, the truth he proclaimed. The early
Christians understood this more clearly than we do, although we think that
after two thousand years of theological study, we have a better grasp of the
truth than they did. Without question, we buy into the canons of post Nicaean belief
that arose three centuries after Christ's ministry. We buy into the Council of
Laodicea's demand that women not be ordained. We buy into their demand that
Sunday, called the Lord's Day, replace Saturday, the Sabbath, as a day of rest.
We buy into their demand that dancing and attendance at plays be forbidden.
These are all things, along with many more, decided in the fourth century. They
were not decided by Christ. They were not decided by his apostles. They were
decided by the church once it had the power of the state behind it. Things only
went downhill from there. The Protestant Reformation arose to confront some of
the theological errors that existed but continued to embrace errors they found
useful. At least the Seventh-day Adventist Church, along with other seventh-day
denominations, sought to restore the biblical Sabbath, to remember what was
forgotten. Sunday keepers, not knowing the source of their Sunday observance,
think that abandoning Sunday for Sabbath would be abandoning the resurrection.
But the importance of the resurrection has a central place in the heart of every
Sabbath keeper I ever met. It has not been lost. Instead, it has provided a
deeper connection to Christ who was also a faithful Sabbath keeper. (Luke
4:15-16) In fact, his sermons and miracles on the Sabbath deepened the
meaning and importance of the Sabbath as a symbol of healing, restoration, and
freedom.
We deride other world religions
for not having the truth of Jesus. But in pointing out their errors, we condemn
ourselves, for we have strayed far from the gospel of the first century.
Instead of meeting in one another's homes to praise God and pray for one
another, we meet in lavish, multi-million-dollar temples where we put on an
image of what we think Christianity should be in dress and culture and enforce them
with others who come to meet with us. In 2005, Casting Crowns produced a music
video, "Does Anybody
Hear Her?" part of the lyrics are an indictment of modern
Christianity: "Judgment looms under every steeple. Lofty glances from lofty
people. Can't see past her scarlet letter, and we never even met her." Every
time I play that piece on the piano or watch the music video, it breaks my
heart. It breaks my heart because as a people who should be portals of God's
love, we are instead hard hearted, thinking we have no need for a change. We
are the church of Laodicea, though we act as though we are not. (Revelation
3:17) The way is the way of love. The truth is the truth of love. The life
is the life of love. Jesus said he and his father are one. (John
10:30) And God is love. (1
John 4:8)