"No one has ever seen God," the first epistle of John says.
"Those who say 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also."
The apostle Philip wanted to see God.
"Show us the Father," Philip said to Jesus. "Let us see God. Let us see what God is like."
"Haven't you been paying attention?" Jesus asks him. "I've been showing you God since the day we met. You've seen what God is like. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers* are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. Haven't you been watching?"
That's a paraphrase from an exchange in the Gospel of John (with a bit of Luke tossed in for emphasis). In this story, Philip's request to see God follows a similar request from the apostle Thomas. "You want us to follow you," Thomas says, "but we don't even know where you're going. And if we don't know where you're going, how are we supposed to know the way?"
"Haven't you been paying attention?" Jesus says. "I've been showing you the way since the day we met. You've seen where we're going and you know the way. I am the way."
Philip and Thomas usually get left out of this story. This story, in fact, usually gets left out of this story. It gets stripped away and left on the cutting-room floor by fiercely combative inquisitorial types who aren't interested in the questions Jesus was answering or in learning what he was showing his disciples about what God is like. Instead they treat John 14 like a legal text, not a story but a lawbook to be consulted for fortifying their brief in the lawsuit of Us vs. Them.
That legal brief has no use for Philip's longing or Thomas' frustration. It has no use for all the things Jesus was showing his disciples. It has use only for a single verse from this chapter, excised and extracted from its context here. They seize on this verse, the sixth out of 31, and wield it like a weapon, pointing it menacingly at any potential doubting Thomas and demanding to know if he pledges allegiance to it as a separate thing, standing alone and apart from those other 30 verses and those other 20 chapters and those other 65 books.
Hearing them recite this verse, I'm always reminded somehow of Sam Kinison in Back to School: "Say it! Say it!"
That verse, John 14:6, says this:
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
And for those score-keepers keeping score, let me state for the record that I believe this. This is what we Christians mean by Christ-ian, after all.
But let's break with convention and consider the whole passage, in context. Let's put the story back in the story and let Philip and Thomas have their say as well. The story starts out with Jesus speaking:
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe* in God, believe also in me. 2In my Father's house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?* 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4And you know the way to the place where I am going."
5Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"
6Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you know me, you will know* my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied."
9Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do."
When we read the whole story, "the works themselves" that Jesus has been doing "all this time" seem to be rather important. Which means that we ought to be reading this story in the larger context, too, of all those other stories of the works themselves and all this time. Look at those works, this story says, and you can see what God is like. Look and see, there is the way — the route and the destination at the same time.
That's not at all the impression one gets when hearing the Kinisonesque paralegals shouting verse 6 apart from the rest of this story and apart from the rest of these stories. They're not like Philip, longing to see God. And they're not like Thomas, seeking clearer directions.
They're more like Jonah, furious with God for not realizing how much better they are than those filthy Ninevites. Or like Jonah's counterpart in Jesus' retelling of his story, the Prodigal Son's older brother. All either of them can talk about is how different they believe they are from those sinners over there — the case of Us. vs. Them.
This is why neither Jonah nor the older brother gets a happy ending in those stories. As the story of Jonah ends, the people of Ninevah are celebrating their deliverance but he sits alone in the desert, seething with resentment and "angry enough to die" that these Ninevite scum have been prepared a dwelling-place in the Father's house. The Prodigal Son is welcomed into that house with music and dancing and a rip-roaring party, but the resentful older brother refuses to join the celebration and stands alone, outside, hungry in the dark.
A happier ending is always available. Ninevah is a great city. Your brother is alive and well. Why miss the party? It's right this way. You know the way, or you should. Haven't you been paying attention?
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