A New Kind of Christianity - Brian McLaren [109]
Here, “my Father’s house” doesn’t mean heaven above; it means the temple down here on earth, and a fascinating discussion of the temple follows this incident, in which Jesus says—quite shockingly, really—“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (2:19). John even intrudes into the narrative to explain that Jesus is cryptically referring to his body.24 The temple will soon be irrelevant, Jesus will say shortly (4:21); his body will become the new temple.
So what does Jesus mean here in chapter 14 by “my Father’s house”? Wouldn’t it make sense for us to assume, unless there’s contrary evidence, that he has the same thing (the temple, not heaven) in mind—especially because he’s about to enter a three-day period in which the temple of his body is destroyed and then raised? An era of faith centered in a single temple in a single holy city is coming to an end. A new era will begin (after three days), in which the one temple will be replaced by another: the many human lives who will constitute the “body of Christ,” the “household of God,” and the “living stones” of the new temple.25
Jesus, then, wouldn’t be telling them that there is a place for them in heaven after they die (although, thankfully, there is). He would be telling them there will be a place for them in the new people-of-God-as-temple that Jesus is preparing the way for over these next three days. In this way, then, it appears clear that the term “my Father’s house”—like the terms “life,” “abundant life,” and “life of the ages”—is, like Jesus’s core message of the kingdom of God, not about the afterlife but about this life.26 The close relationship or equivalence between “my Father’s house” and “kingdom of God” becomes clearer if we compare the “house of my Father” with the “kingdom of my Father” or “God’s home” with “God’s kingdom.” All of these phrases suggest the same reality: life lived in loving relationship with God and others, so that God’s will is joyfully done on earth as it is in heaven, and so that God’s presence spreads throughout the world in Spirit-inhabited human lives.27
So we could paraphrase 14:1–4 like this:
Don’t be worried, my friends, even though I’ve told you I’m leaving you. Trust God, and trust me. By going away, I’m going to make it possible for you to be with me again where I am now at this moment:28 dwelling in the presence of God, living in the kingdom of God, bearing the presence of God to this world. There’s plenty of room for you in this venture! So don’t worry. You know the way to the place I’m going.
And it’s that last sentence that so bothers Thomas he can’t keep quiet for another moment. He asks a question, and it is a thousand miles away from, “What about people who never heard about you? What about people of other religions? Will they go to heaven?” He says, no doubt with some exasperation, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (14:5, emphasis mine).
What is Thomas asking here? It’s absolutely clear that Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Zoroastrians, followers of indigenous religions in Africa and South America, much less modern secular atheists or skeptics couldn’t be farther from his mind. Thomas and his fellow disciples, in their dismay that their leader will now go somewhere they can’t follow, are thinking about one thing: themselves, and only themselves. When Jesus says they know the way to meet him beyond their impending separation, they haven’t a clue as to what he’s talking about. So Thomas speaks out. And that is the context for Jesus’s oft-quoted words: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him” (14:6–7).29
At this risk of overfeeding a thriving horse, let me say it again. Jesus isn’t making an abstract statement about the fate of unbelievers at the final judgment;