Is it what we say, or is it what we do?

What are we to make of Jesus' statement in the Gospel of John "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to [God] except through me" (14:6), and then the Apostle's invitation that if one believes in the Lord Jesus then they will be saved (Acts 16:31)? Such statements suggest that access to God is available exclusively through Jesus Christ and no other. This exclusivism has naturally led to exclusion, for if there is only one way then there can be no other ways. Sadly, far too many relationships have been damaged and wars started because people think that they alone have access to God!

I wrestle with this idea of knowing and professing certain truths about God in the context of the work I do as a hospice chaplain, particularly when visiting those with dementia. For if salvation is defined by the act of knowing and professing certain truths then what happens when people are no longer able to say and remember those things? During a visit, I am often repeatedly asked my name because the knowledge of who I am is not retained. I am also forgotten shortly after I leave. Yet the profession of faith that Jesus is the way, truth and life, and that he is Lord, seems to require both a functioning mind and memory. If so, what is the fate of those who have never professed this and no longer have the capacity to do so? Are God's presence and reality unavailable to those who lack the words and memory to understand and speak these (so-called) truths?

Here I am also reminded of my own faith journey. I came back to my faith after 20-years of professed atheism not because I believed certain things were true, but because I needed God in my life again. When I re-committed my life back to God I did not have it all worked out theologically. I came back to my faith because I needed to once again "taste and see that [God] is good" (Psalm 34:8). Since then my life has been positively transformed in ways I cannot begin to describe. Whilst I claimed Jesus as my guide into knowing God, I did not start by professing him to be all that God is. My point here is that my faith journey began not with knowledge, but with a cry of desolation. I sought God, and God heard my cry.

There was a time in my life when I weaponised my faith, alienated people, and did much harm. Yet sitting with people with dementia has brought me to the realisation that salvation is entirely God's work. We are not the way, the truth, and the life. People have rightly become suspicious of those who seek to put barriers around God in the name of truth. Instead, God is known in the silence, and in the good we do for each other:

"Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and praise [God]" (Matthew 5:16)