From a message I gave in Putney Meeting:

I was at Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting and there was this fellow who said he was from North Carolina when visitors were recognized.  He was dressed several measures more conservatively than the rest of us and had come for a memorial service.  Just before Meeting ended (when there was no time for any response . . . I mean any messages that would go deeper) he stood up and said "Jesus said I am the Truth the Way and the Life.  No one comes to the Father but through me."  And then he sat down.

Perfect evangelical moment, I thought.  He just had to get it in.  My  stereotype on display . . .

But then I thought, what if it isn't that Jesus is the only way to God and Spirit, but that The Way, The Truth, and The Life is something bigger than Jesus that he was aligning himself with, and in fact personifying.

It is, after all, a reasonable assumption that no one comes to God but through the way, truth and the life.  The stumbling block so many people have is that Jesus is the only source of spirituality.  But perhaps that isn't the message at all. Perhaps the message is that Jesus is part of that larger only source that in fact we too are part of. 

There were 7 "I am" statements, each following a sign.  I AM is how God identified itself to Moses in the burning bush.  The big message here that John wants us to get is that Jesus was Divine, was the messiah, and became part of that divinity through his humanity.  These were statements that were more about who Jesus was and what we should see in him.

So maybe it's also our job to be the "truth, the way and the life.  To embody that.  Take it on.  To become that, like the artist who is always becoming, not just stating a preference, but making our lives express it.  Not just to find a source of deep joy, but to be joy.

It doesn't diminsh Jesus any see how he is emobodying that same divine which we can (at our best) also do.  And Jesus came to show truth (to preach the good news), not to be a stumbling block to people.  Better to think of this passage as honey, offered, than vinegar threatened.