Witness and Communication

This sermon on Thomas's question, 'How can we know the way?' asks whether Christian language is private language, confined to 'islands of thought' and beyond normal understanding compared with the 'real world' of scientific language and discovery. Yet, adopting this, we have cut ourselves off from the depths of our own being and narrowed the horizon of our understanding. But the exclusiveness of Jesus' answer to Thomas – 'No-one can come … except through me' – has become an embarrassment. It need not be exclusive; the same light that shines for us through Jesus may shine through Isaiah, Plato, Zoroaster, Buddha and others. We have much to learn but we cannot learn unless our learning comes from the depth of our own (Christian) experience.