Study Format:
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
John 20:19-23
• In v. 19, the gathered group is referred to as “the disciples” (mathetai). Unlike the synoptic Gospels closed notion of “the Twelve” (the Eleven, at this point, the Twelve minus Judas), John’s Gospel has a much more open-ended concept of discipleship. This gathering probably includes Jesus’ core group, but there is no reason to limit it to them. The writer uses the disciples as a stand-in for the faith community in general, not an indicator of apostolic leadership.
• V. 19 also links this resurrection appearance of Jesus with the previous one of Mary in the garden, by starting “When it was evening on that day.” This cues us in to while the disciples have heard Mary’s report, they have not comprehended the meaning of her words.
• The doors were locked “for fear of the Jews.” Always important to remember that Jesus and all the disciples are Jewish, so it is not a blanket “the Jews” the disciples feared. In the context of the story, there were certainly plenty of people the disciples were afraid of, the Roman occupiers, Pilate, or the Jewish leadership who collaborated with Rome for Jesus’ crucifixion. In the context of the audience for whom the Gospel was written, the writer of John’s Gospel wanted to help his community see in the disciples their own experience of conflict with the local Jewish authorities.
• In v. 19, Jesus’ initial greeting, “Peace be with you,” has two meanings. First, this is a traditional greeting of the time (cf. Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:3; Gal 1:3). It also fulfills Jesus’ promise to his disciples during the Farewell Discourse, to give them his peace (14:27a, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”)
• In v. 20, Jesus showed the disciples the marks of his crucifixion in his hands and his side. The resurrected Jesus is still the crucified one.
• The disciples’ joy (v. 20b, “Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord”) is a fulfillment of another of Jesus’ promises in the Farewell Discourse (16:20, 22, “Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will mourn and have pain, but your pain will turn into joy…So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”)
• In v. 22, when Jesus breathed on the disciples, the word for breath, emphysao is only found here and nowhere else in the New Testament. In Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures (like the ones John’s community would have read) emphysao is the word used in Genesis when God breathed over the waters at creation and in Ezekiel when God breathed life into dry bones. Jesus breathing on them is a sign of the new life they now have through the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit as the breath that sustains life.
• V. 23 about forgiving and retaining sins is both complex to interpret and uses unusual language for the Fourth Gospel. This is the only usage of the verbs “to forgive” (aphiemi) and “to retain” (krateo). Theories on the origin and purpose of this verse abounds. What is important to remember is that the disciples in John’s Gospel are not a fixed group of twelve who become the apostolic leadership of the church. Rather the disciples are a stand-in for the whole Christian community. So this is not a directive for the role of clergy in forgiving and retaining sins, but forgiveness of sins is to be the work of the whole community. This communal work comes from the gift of the Holy Spirit and the command by Jesus that we are sent as he was sent by the Father. Also, in John’s Gospel, sin is not a moral or behavioral problem, like it is in the synoptic Gospels, rather sin is a theological failing. Sin in John’s Gospel is not doing or saying the wrong thing, sin is being blind to the revelation of God in Jesus (cf. John 9 and the man born blind, the Pharisees thought the sin in the story was Jesus healing on the Sabbath, but Jesus revealed that the true sin was the Pharisees not recognizing the healing of the man born blind as a revelation of God). So the work the community is being sent out to do is to continue revealing God to the world.
Acts 2:1-21
• The coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2 is an event whose place in our liturgical and theological imaginations vastly outweighs its place in scripture. This account appears only in the book of Acts, and only in verses 1-4. While the Gospel of John tells of Jesus giving the Holy Spirit, and Paul recounted the Lord appearing to 500 people (1 Cor 15:6), perhaps in the form of his “life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor 15:45), the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost is unique to Luke. Wall posits the shortness of the account is to move the reader more quickly from the coming of the Spirit to the Spirit’s effect on the community’s mission in the world, the point of Luke’s writing of the book of Acts.
• V. 1 starts, “they were all together in one place.” Pentecost is a word used by Greek-speaking Jews to describe the “Feast of Weeks” (Shavuot) a harvest festival celebrated fifty days after Passover (Exod 23:16; 34:22; Lev 23:15-21; Num 28:26; Deut 16:9-12). This also helps explain the presence of “devout Jews from every nation under heaven” (v. 5) in Jerusalem, because this was one of three festivals where Jews were expected to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
• The vivid description of the coming of the Holy Spirit, “like a violent wind” and “tongues of fire” help to build the effect of the Spirit’s power on the gathered community. The passage does not claim the Spirit is fire or wind, but that the Spirit is a perceptible force, and so too is its effect on the community.
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Wall, Robert W. “The Acts of the Apostles.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Eternal Life is Now: A Sermon on John 17:1-11
I did not even make an attempt to memorize the Gospel reading for this morning. At the synod assembly this week, the bishop preached on this text, and he also read the Gospel rather than memorizing it, announcing that in thirty-plus years of ministry he’d never managed to memorize Jesus’ farewell prayer for his disciples. So rather than stumble through an attempt this morning, I decided it was better if we just wonder in it together.
Chapter seventeen sits at a pivotal point in John’s Gospel. If chapters fourteen through sixteen are the shift from Jesus’ ministry to his passion, chapter seventeen is the tipping point of that shift. In this prayer, Jesus turned his attention from his disciples to God. While the Jesus of John’s Gospel was always in control, from here on out that control becomes laser focused on one thing and one thing only, the revelation of the ultimate glory of God through the cross. Fun fact for you to consider: on Good Fridays when I tell the passion story, I always stage it so Jesus is in the very center. Everything else, the disciples in the courtyard, Pilate going out to speak to the crowds, all of that action rotates around Jesus like the spoke of a wheel. The characters of the passion story are like an orchestra, whom Jesus is conducting to uncover the revelation of God’s glory.
But before that, before Jesus directed the disciples like a string section, to rise and fall and rise again through the story of his passion, Jesus gathered them together in a room and prayed for them. And this prayer is the theological climax of Jesus teaching’ ministry, this prayer echoes themes from throughout the Gospel. This prayer also tells us something else incredibly powerful about Jesus, it is a demonstration of just how much “the Word became flesh and lived among us” was about the importance God places in the power of presence. Jesus’ parting words in and among his disciples in the flesh were not a final lesson on mission and discipleship, or a clarification of his purpose, or a call to action. Jesus’ final words weren’t even to them; they were for them. Jesus’ last action as their Teacher was to pray for them, that they may be as intimately connected to God as he himself was, that they may be one with God, as Jesus was, is, and always had been, since “before the world existed,” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
One of the reasons this passage is hard to memorize is Jesus seems to have little regard for time. We humans function on a chronological time scale, traveling in a line with a fixed past, present, and future. But in this prayer, Jesus speaks of his hour as passed, in verse eleven when he said, “I am no longer in the world,” imminent but not yet present, verse one, “Father, the hour has come,” and also yet also in the process of happening, again verse eleven, “I am coming to you.” C. S. Lewis described humanity’s relationship to time as moving along the edge of a ruler, with God being the air around the ruler, touching it at all parts at all times, both behind us, ahead of us, above and below us. In John chapter seventeen, the Word became flesh begins the process of stepping out of flesh again, out of the constraints of human existence, and back into the oneness of God.
All of this is cool, and beautiful, and powerful, but what really caught my attention in the text this week is verse three. Jesus started his prayer by asking God to glorify him, since God had given him authority to give eternal life. Now, Jesus had been talking about eternal life a lot during his ministry. Through chapter twelve, basically up until the farewell discourse with the disciples, eternal life had been his favorite topic of conversation. Eternal life was the primary description of the gift Jesus brought to those who believed in him. But he never explained what he was talking about, leaving his disciples, the crowds, and everyone to wonder what exactly he was offering.
The phrase “eternal life” conjures up a whole host of images. We know “eternal life” does not literally mean living forever, like some sort of weird fountain of life. Though some of the disciples certainly had that impression, which is why Paul had to assure them in First Thessalonians when some of the original followers started dying, that the fact that Jesus had not returned in a few years was not proof he was never coming back. In the two millennia since the death of Jesus, billions upon billions of followers have died, so we know eternal life is not never dying. But given the reality of physical death, we do place a physical construct on eternal life, and think about it as life after death. Eternal life is life in the future.
But listen to how Jesus defined it: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Did you catch that? “And this is eternal life…” Not, “and this will be” eternal life, but “this is” eternal life, that they may know you. Eternal life isn’t time-based or spatial, eternal life is relationship, relationship with God, “that they may be one, as we are one.” Which means eternal life was not only the disciples’ future, it was also their present and also their past. Jesus, who had been with them since before the world began, who had for a while walked with them on the earth, was now returning to the father, and was praying for their protection going forward. Eternal life was not a new thing Jesus was offering them before he died, it was, is, and will be the reality of relationship with Jesus, a relationship not built on the disciples ability to deserve or receive it, but on Jesus’ presence in and with them. And then, we didn’t read this part, but in verse twenty, Jesus said “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word,” which means this prayer is for us as well. Eternal life is not some distant promise for our future, eternal life is our past, present, AND future. Eternal life is now. Dear friends in Christ this is eternal life, we are experiencing eternal life. Not because of anything you’ve done or believed or said, but because Jesus has the authority to give it, and has asked on our behalf, and has made his name known to us, we have eternal life, we always did, and we always will.
Now bear with me here, I know what you might be thinking. You might be thinking, wait a second here, how can this be eternal life? This life, this world, doesn’t feel all that eternal, and if it is, I’m not sure I’m keen on spending all eternity in it. Some parts are great, sunsets and puppies and people you love. But other parts, war and the refugee crisis and climate change, these parts seem not so great, and in fact seem to be bringing on death rather than life. So in a world with all those things, how is this eternal life?
This is eternal life, because eternal life is not a place or a time, eternal life is a relationship, eternal life is in us, it is us. We have eternal life, we are eternal life, and we bring eternal life with us into the world. Doing the work of Jesus, and in fact as we heard in chapter fourteen, doing greater work even than him, because while he was only in the flesh a few years, he has been in us since before the world began, and will be for all of time. When Jesus prayed for his disciples in chapter seventeen, he did not pray that they would be taken out of the world, we didn’t read that far but he does that in verse fifteen, but he prayed that we would be sent into the world, that’s in verse eighteen, that we are sanctified, glorified, made holy, to do the work that Jesus himself had done, to bring about the revelation of God.
Dear friends in Christ, eternal life is not some hazy future promise, eternal life is now. It is, it was, and it always will be, because Jesus, whose voice spoke the very world into existence, prayed for us, on our behalf, that it would be so. So believe it, take heart in it, and rest in it. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Chapter seventeen sits at a pivotal point in John’s Gospel. If chapters fourteen through sixteen are the shift from Jesus’ ministry to his passion, chapter seventeen is the tipping point of that shift. In this prayer, Jesus turned his attention from his disciples to God. While the Jesus of John’s Gospel was always in control, from here on out that control becomes laser focused on one thing and one thing only, the revelation of the ultimate glory of God through the cross. Fun fact for you to consider: on Good Fridays when I tell the passion story, I always stage it so Jesus is in the very center. Everything else, the disciples in the courtyard, Pilate going out to speak to the crowds, all of that action rotates around Jesus like the spoke of a wheel. The characters of the passion story are like an orchestra, whom Jesus is conducting to uncover the revelation of God’s glory.
But before that, before Jesus directed the disciples like a string section, to rise and fall and rise again through the story of his passion, Jesus gathered them together in a room and prayed for them. And this prayer is the theological climax of Jesus teaching’ ministry, this prayer echoes themes from throughout the Gospel. This prayer also tells us something else incredibly powerful about Jesus, it is a demonstration of just how much “the Word became flesh and lived among us” was about the importance God places in the power of presence. Jesus’ parting words in and among his disciples in the flesh were not a final lesson on mission and discipleship, or a clarification of his purpose, or a call to action. Jesus’ final words weren’t even to them; they were for them. Jesus’ last action as their Teacher was to pray for them, that they may be as intimately connected to God as he himself was, that they may be one with God, as Jesus was, is, and always had been, since “before the world existed,” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
One of the reasons this passage is hard to memorize is Jesus seems to have little regard for time. We humans function on a chronological time scale, traveling in a line with a fixed past, present, and future. But in this prayer, Jesus speaks of his hour as passed, in verse eleven when he said, “I am no longer in the world,” imminent but not yet present, verse one, “Father, the hour has come,” and also yet also in the process of happening, again verse eleven, “I am coming to you.” C. S. Lewis described humanity’s relationship to time as moving along the edge of a ruler, with God being the air around the ruler, touching it at all parts at all times, both behind us, ahead of us, above and below us. In John chapter seventeen, the Word became flesh begins the process of stepping out of flesh again, out of the constraints of human existence, and back into the oneness of God.
All of this is cool, and beautiful, and powerful, but what really caught my attention in the text this week is verse three. Jesus started his prayer by asking God to glorify him, since God had given him authority to give eternal life. Now, Jesus had been talking about eternal life a lot during his ministry. Through chapter twelve, basically up until the farewell discourse with the disciples, eternal life had been his favorite topic of conversation. Eternal life was the primary description of the gift Jesus brought to those who believed in him. But he never explained what he was talking about, leaving his disciples, the crowds, and everyone to wonder what exactly he was offering.
The phrase “eternal life” conjures up a whole host of images. We know “eternal life” does not literally mean living forever, like some sort of weird fountain of life. Though some of the disciples certainly had that impression, which is why Paul had to assure them in First Thessalonians when some of the original followers started dying, that the fact that Jesus had not returned in a few years was not proof he was never coming back. In the two millennia since the death of Jesus, billions upon billions of followers have died, so we know eternal life is not never dying. But given the reality of physical death, we do place a physical construct on eternal life, and think about it as life after death. Eternal life is life in the future.
But listen to how Jesus defined it: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Did you catch that? “And this is eternal life…” Not, “and this will be” eternal life, but “this is” eternal life, that they may know you. Eternal life isn’t time-based or spatial, eternal life is relationship, relationship with God, “that they may be one, as we are one.” Which means eternal life was not only the disciples’ future, it was also their present and also their past. Jesus, who had been with them since before the world began, who had for a while walked with them on the earth, was now returning to the father, and was praying for their protection going forward. Eternal life was not a new thing Jesus was offering them before he died, it was, is, and will be the reality of relationship with Jesus, a relationship not built on the disciples ability to deserve or receive it, but on Jesus’ presence in and with them. And then, we didn’t read this part, but in verse twenty, Jesus said “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word,” which means this prayer is for us as well. Eternal life is not some distant promise for our future, eternal life is our past, present, AND future. Eternal life is now. Dear friends in Christ this is eternal life, we are experiencing eternal life. Not because of anything you’ve done or believed or said, but because Jesus has the authority to give it, and has asked on our behalf, and has made his name known to us, we have eternal life, we always did, and we always will.
Now bear with me here, I know what you might be thinking. You might be thinking, wait a second here, how can this be eternal life? This life, this world, doesn’t feel all that eternal, and if it is, I’m not sure I’m keen on spending all eternity in it. Some parts are great, sunsets and puppies and people you love. But other parts, war and the refugee crisis and climate change, these parts seem not so great, and in fact seem to be bringing on death rather than life. So in a world with all those things, how is this eternal life?
This is eternal life, because eternal life is not a place or a time, eternal life is a relationship, eternal life is in us, it is us. We have eternal life, we are eternal life, and we bring eternal life with us into the world. Doing the work of Jesus, and in fact as we heard in chapter fourteen, doing greater work even than him, because while he was only in the flesh a few years, he has been in us since before the world began, and will be for all of time. When Jesus prayed for his disciples in chapter seventeen, he did not pray that they would be taken out of the world, we didn’t read that far but he does that in verse fifteen, but he prayed that we would be sent into the world, that’s in verse eighteen, that we are sanctified, glorified, made holy, to do the work that Jesus himself had done, to bring about the revelation of God.
Dear friends in Christ, eternal life is not some hazy future promise, eternal life is now. It is, it was, and it always will be, because Jesus, whose voice spoke the very world into existence, prayed for us, on our behalf, that it would be so. So believe it, take heart in it, and rest in it. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Conversation Points for John 17:1-11
Study Format:
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The farewell prayer of Jesus is the theological climax of John’s Gospel. Within it are echoes of themes from all of Jesus’ previous teachings. It also is the pivot point between Jesus’ final teaching and his passion and death. It is grounded in the presence of Jesus’ hour. In the prayer, Jesus spoke as if the “hour” is at the same time already accomplished (17:11-12), imminent (17:1, 5), and in process (17:11, 13), bringing past, present, and future together in one moment.
• V. 1a: up until now, Jesus had been addressing his disciples. Now his attention shifted to God, the reader stands with the disciples as outsiders watching Jesus at prayer.
• V. 1-5, Jesus repeatedly spoke of the arrival of his hour and petitioned God to “glorify your Son.” Unlike the prayers at Gethsemane in the synoptic Gospels, the Jesus in John’s gospel demonstrated no agony at his coming death because he recognized the hour as the ultimate purpose of his work and the completion of his revelation of God.
• “Eternal life” had been the primary description of the gift Jesus brings to those who believe in him in chapters 1-12. Since the start of chapter 13, Jesus replaced the eternal life language with love. Eternal life is finally defined here in chapter 17, the gift Jesus brought was/is knowing/being in relationship with/being one with God.
• V. 4 Jesus reviewed his ministry, emphasizing that his work was to reveal God’s glory, which he had now completed. In v. 5, Jesus made clear that the ultimate goal of his “hour” was to return to God.
• V. 7 underscores the point that God is the central source of all Jesus did.
• The line between the historical and the future disciples is blurred throughout the prayer. In v. 9, when Jesus turns from his own glorification to his prayer for the future life of the followers, we see Jesus praying for ALL disciples, not just the ones alive and present with him in the room.
• “World” (kosmos) in v. 9-11 is not a synonym for earth, but stands for the sphere of the enemies of God. V. 20-23 show that Jesus does have a sense of mission for the world, but that mission is lived out by the disciples for whom he is praying. The disciples work is to make God known in the world.
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The farewell prayer of Jesus is the theological climax of John’s Gospel. Within it are echoes of themes from all of Jesus’ previous teachings. It also is the pivot point between Jesus’ final teaching and his passion and death. It is grounded in the presence of Jesus’ hour. In the prayer, Jesus spoke as if the “hour” is at the same time already accomplished (17:11-12), imminent (17:1, 5), and in process (17:11, 13), bringing past, present, and future together in one moment.
• V. 1a: up until now, Jesus had been addressing his disciples. Now his attention shifted to God, the reader stands with the disciples as outsiders watching Jesus at prayer.
• V. 1-5, Jesus repeatedly spoke of the arrival of his hour and petitioned God to “glorify your Son.” Unlike the prayers at Gethsemane in the synoptic Gospels, the Jesus in John’s gospel demonstrated no agony at his coming death because he recognized the hour as the ultimate purpose of his work and the completion of his revelation of God.
• “Eternal life” had been the primary description of the gift Jesus brings to those who believe in him in chapters 1-12. Since the start of chapter 13, Jesus replaced the eternal life language with love. Eternal life is finally defined here in chapter 17, the gift Jesus brought was/is knowing/being in relationship with/being one with God.
• V. 4 Jesus reviewed his ministry, emphasizing that his work was to reveal God’s glory, which he had now completed. In v. 5, Jesus made clear that the ultimate goal of his “hour” was to return to God.
• V. 7 underscores the point that God is the central source of all Jesus did.
• The line between the historical and the future disciples is blurred throughout the prayer. In v. 9, when Jesus turns from his own glorification to his prayer for the future life of the followers, we see Jesus praying for ALL disciples, not just the ones alive and present with him in the room.
• “World” (kosmos) in v. 9-11 is not a synonym for earth, but stands for the sphere of the enemies of God. V. 20-23 show that Jesus does have a sense of mission for the world, but that mission is lived out by the disciples for whom he is praying. The disciples work is to make God known in the world.
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Fun Greek Words You Didn’t Know You Wanted to Know: A Sermon on John 14:15-21
Our Gospel reading for this morning offers us a great opportunity for a preaching tool I like to call “Fun Greek Words You Didn’t Know You Wanted to Know.” Our word for the day is from verse sixteen, when Jesus said, “And I will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.” The word I want to focus on is Advocate. At least, the translation we heard this morning, the New Revised Standard Version, translates it advocate. Other translations have comforter, counselor, friend, helper, or companion. The confusion stems from one of the classic struggle of translating, a word that has a cultural significance in one language that cannot be captured easily in another. The Greek word here is parakletos. Parakletos comes from the verb parakaleo and means “the one who exhorts,” “the one who comforts,” the one who helps,” and “the one who makes appeals on one’s behalf.” With this wide array of meanings, some translations go so far as to not even try a translation and render it simply as Paraclete, a word which has the advantage of having no meaning in English, and, as was mentioned in the Bible conversations this week, sounds more like a tropical fruit than a theology term.
Language and translation are way more complicated then we often remember. Even though we know the scriptures weren’t written in English, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking we are reading it exactly as it was written. But all translation is interpretation. And even more than that, all hearing is interpretation. We take in language through the filter of our own experience, the words triggering images of our own memories to place them in context. And what I love about John’s Gospel is how it leans into the mystery of that. Rather than carefully spelling out and clearly defining a precise model for discipleship and a specific description of the way the disciples are to move forward, Jesus instead paints this open-ended word picture that is more feeling then context, which, while more confusing and more unclear, is also more all-encompassing and more expansive. The Greek audience heard such opportunity in the word parakletos, and in the long days and weeks and months and years and centuries and yes even millennia following Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the promise of another Paraclete who was abiding with them, with us and was in us gives a breadth of possibility to fill every need. When we are discouraged, the Paraclete is encourager, when we are confused, the Paraclete is exhorter, when we are on trial, the Paraclete is advocate, when we are lost, the Paraclete is guide, when we are weak, the Paraclete is helper, when we are lonely, the Paraclete is friend. All of these things are what Jesus promised his disciples he was leaving with them, another one who would lead them, guide them, be with them, support them, and abide with them. Just as he was in the Father, and the Father in him, and he in them, and them in him, so too with this other continue this relationship, so that they, that we, would never be orphaned.
The other thing that’s key in this verse sixteen where Jesus promised the Father would give them someone to be with them, Jesus promised them another Advocate. Another meaning they already had one. Because Advocate, Paraclete is not another name for the Spirit, it is a description of the function of the Spirit. A function which Jesus himself had held while he was with them in the flesh and now that function was being passed on to another aspect of the Trinity. And the Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth just as Jesus had said a few verses earlier that he was the truth, would continue the disciples’ place in the relationship, a place that grows deeper and richer as we explore new dimensions of it.
If I’ve lost you in the sermon by this point, don’t worry, I confess I’ve lost myself a little bit as well. That is the strangely beautiful thing about the new Advocate whom Jesus has sent, she is constantly beyond our grasp. We try to put images around her, she is the tongues of fire on Pentecost, she is the breath of wind across the water, she is a dove, she is water, she is Wisdom personified. All of these descriptors get us close to the fullness, but keep understanding just beyond our grasp, in a beautifully expanding dance of relationship. Because Paraclete is function not name, and the function is living in love.
And here’s where this gets really cool. Because the one Jesus has given us is so tricky and expansive, defined by the works rather than a spatial reality, then whenever and wherever the works of Christ are being done, there too is the Spirit. The reading for this morning started, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” If you do this, then I will do this. The way this reads, it sounds like a command. But like I’ve mentioned before, the Greek word translated as “if” is ein and ein is a conjunction with a broad range of meanings. In fact, a better translation than “if” in the Greek is probably “because” or “since.” Listen to how the sentence changes when we change that word. “[Since or because] you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Keeping of the commandments is not a demand to be met, rather it is the natural outpouring of relationship with Jesus. And while we’re at it, what commandments are Jesus talking about? Because we’re reading this in isolation, we might flash back to the most well known commandments in scripture, the Ten Commandments brought by Moses from God on Mount Sinai. And certainly those are great commandments, and good guides for living good and healthy relationships. But Jesus spoke these words on the night he was betrayed. And while you might not remember, because we read it several weeks ago, but just a few paragraphs earlier in chapter thirteen, verse thirty-four Jesus said to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” So when Jesus told his disciples that because of his love, they would keep his commandments, those commandments were in fact also to love. The outflowing of life in Jesus is life in love, a love that exhorts and encourages, comforts and challenges, strengthens and helps and guides. Since love is a function of the Spirit, where love is, there the Spirit is also. And where the Spirit is, there too is Jesus, and is the Father, because Jesus is in the Father, and us in Jesus, and Jesus in us, in this expansive grasp of relationship.
Spirit as function of love is always with us, but because it is not as concrete as the embodied Jesus was for his disciples, it can be easy for us to miss the Spirit’s presence at times. So the challenge I have for you this week, and in the weeks to come, is to look for the Paraclete, for the function of the Spirit, around you. Specifically, I invite you to look out for the people who are paracletes for you. Who walk beside you in your life and in your ministry. Who comfort you, challenge you, encourage and exhort you. Who are your advocate, your helper, and your friend. And maybe, if you feel so called this week, take the gamble and tell someone that. Tell someone that they are a paraclete, an embodiment of the Holy Spirit for you. If nothing else, you’ll get to share an interesting Greek word and a bit of gratitude for someone who has supported you.
I also challenge you, and this may be the harder one, to think about someone whom you have been a paraclete for. Someone whom you, maybe even unintentionally, have guided, shaped, mentored, and helped. Someone whom God has used you to be the embodied Spirit of love for. Let yourself feel a bit of pride that you were able to fill that role for another, as well as gratitude that God chose you for such a mysterious and wonderful task.
This is, I think, the work that Jesus left for us, the greater work than these, as we heard last week, as he has gone to the Father. To be the paraclete for each other, to live in love in Christ as Christ as lived in us, and we in him, and us in and with and for each other. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Language and translation are way more complicated then we often remember. Even though we know the scriptures weren’t written in English, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking we are reading it exactly as it was written. But all translation is interpretation. And even more than that, all hearing is interpretation. We take in language through the filter of our own experience, the words triggering images of our own memories to place them in context. And what I love about John’s Gospel is how it leans into the mystery of that. Rather than carefully spelling out and clearly defining a precise model for discipleship and a specific description of the way the disciples are to move forward, Jesus instead paints this open-ended word picture that is more feeling then context, which, while more confusing and more unclear, is also more all-encompassing and more expansive. The Greek audience heard such opportunity in the word parakletos, and in the long days and weeks and months and years and centuries and yes even millennia following Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the promise of another Paraclete who was abiding with them, with us and was in us gives a breadth of possibility to fill every need. When we are discouraged, the Paraclete is encourager, when we are confused, the Paraclete is exhorter, when we are on trial, the Paraclete is advocate, when we are lost, the Paraclete is guide, when we are weak, the Paraclete is helper, when we are lonely, the Paraclete is friend. All of these things are what Jesus promised his disciples he was leaving with them, another one who would lead them, guide them, be with them, support them, and abide with them. Just as he was in the Father, and the Father in him, and he in them, and them in him, so too with this other continue this relationship, so that they, that we, would never be orphaned.
The other thing that’s key in this verse sixteen where Jesus promised the Father would give them someone to be with them, Jesus promised them another Advocate. Another meaning they already had one. Because Advocate, Paraclete is not another name for the Spirit, it is a description of the function of the Spirit. A function which Jesus himself had held while he was with them in the flesh and now that function was being passed on to another aspect of the Trinity. And the Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth just as Jesus had said a few verses earlier that he was the truth, would continue the disciples’ place in the relationship, a place that grows deeper and richer as we explore new dimensions of it.
If I’ve lost you in the sermon by this point, don’t worry, I confess I’ve lost myself a little bit as well. That is the strangely beautiful thing about the new Advocate whom Jesus has sent, she is constantly beyond our grasp. We try to put images around her, she is the tongues of fire on Pentecost, she is the breath of wind across the water, she is a dove, she is water, she is Wisdom personified. All of these descriptors get us close to the fullness, but keep understanding just beyond our grasp, in a beautifully expanding dance of relationship. Because Paraclete is function not name, and the function is living in love.
And here’s where this gets really cool. Because the one Jesus has given us is so tricky and expansive, defined by the works rather than a spatial reality, then whenever and wherever the works of Christ are being done, there too is the Spirit. The reading for this morning started, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” If you do this, then I will do this. The way this reads, it sounds like a command. But like I’ve mentioned before, the Greek word translated as “if” is ein and ein is a conjunction with a broad range of meanings. In fact, a better translation than “if” in the Greek is probably “because” or “since.” Listen to how the sentence changes when we change that word. “[Since or because] you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Keeping of the commandments is not a demand to be met, rather it is the natural outpouring of relationship with Jesus. And while we’re at it, what commandments are Jesus talking about? Because we’re reading this in isolation, we might flash back to the most well known commandments in scripture, the Ten Commandments brought by Moses from God on Mount Sinai. And certainly those are great commandments, and good guides for living good and healthy relationships. But Jesus spoke these words on the night he was betrayed. And while you might not remember, because we read it several weeks ago, but just a few paragraphs earlier in chapter thirteen, verse thirty-four Jesus said to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” So when Jesus told his disciples that because of his love, they would keep his commandments, those commandments were in fact also to love. The outflowing of life in Jesus is life in love, a love that exhorts and encourages, comforts and challenges, strengthens and helps and guides. Since love is a function of the Spirit, where love is, there the Spirit is also. And where the Spirit is, there too is Jesus, and is the Father, because Jesus is in the Father, and us in Jesus, and Jesus in us, in this expansive grasp of relationship.
Spirit as function of love is always with us, but because it is not as concrete as the embodied Jesus was for his disciples, it can be easy for us to miss the Spirit’s presence at times. So the challenge I have for you this week, and in the weeks to come, is to look for the Paraclete, for the function of the Spirit, around you. Specifically, I invite you to look out for the people who are paracletes for you. Who walk beside you in your life and in your ministry. Who comfort you, challenge you, encourage and exhort you. Who are your advocate, your helper, and your friend. And maybe, if you feel so called this week, take the gamble and tell someone that. Tell someone that they are a paraclete, an embodiment of the Holy Spirit for you. If nothing else, you’ll get to share an interesting Greek word and a bit of gratitude for someone who has supported you.
I also challenge you, and this may be the harder one, to think about someone whom you have been a paraclete for. Someone whom you, maybe even unintentionally, have guided, shaped, mentored, and helped. Someone whom God has used you to be the embodied Spirit of love for. Let yourself feel a bit of pride that you were able to fill that role for another, as well as gratitude that God chose you for such a mysterious and wonderful task.
This is, I think, the work that Jesus left for us, the greater work than these, as we heard last week, as he has gone to the Father. To be the paraclete for each other, to live in love in Christ as Christ as lived in us, and we in him, and us in and with and for each other. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Friday, May 19, 2017
Conversation Points for John 14:15-21
Study Format:
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• O’Day notes that “commandments” (entolai), “word” (logos), and “words” (logoi) are all synonyms. Earlier in the Gospel Jesus often cited faithfulness to his word as the mark of belonging to him (5:38; 8:31, 37, 51; 12:47-48). Earlier in the Farewell Discourse, 13:34-35, Jesus established love as the sign of faithfulness to keeping Jesus’ commandments (“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”). Reading v. 15 and v. 21 as bookends on a thought establishes what it means to love Jesus. To love Jesus is to keep his commandments, to keep his commandments is to love Jesus.
• V. 16 is the first appearance of the word parakletos in John’s Gospel. There are many translations of this word, in the NRSV it is translated as “Advocate.” In other translations is it translated “Comforter” (King James Version), “Counselor” (New International Version), “Friend” (The Message), “Helper” (English Standard Version), and “Companion” (Common English Bible). The noun parakletos derives from the verb parakaleo, which has a wide range of meanings, thus the wide range of English translations. Among the meanings are “to exhort and encourage,” “to comfort and console,” “to call upon for help,” and “to appeal.” The noun form can mean “the one who exhorts,” “the one who comforts,” the one who helps,” and “the one who makes appeals on one’s behalf.” To solve this, some translations simply translate the word as “Paraclete,” rather than settle for one English noun, since the Greek audience would have heard the whole range of meanings in the one word.
• The modifier “another” in v. 16 seems to suggest that Jesus was also a Paraclete (cf 1 John 2:1, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;”). Paraclete then is not another name for the Holy Spirit, but a way of describing the functions of the Spirit. This deepens the concept of the oneness of God and Jesus, and now the Spirit, who all have the same functions, all share in the same work. This is made clearer in describing the Paraclete as the “Spirit of truth,” since in 14:6, Jesus made clear that he is truth.
• As has been a common theme throughout John’s Gospel, “knowing” the Paraclete is defined as the Paraclete abiding (meno, same as from John 1:14) with the community. The Paraclete ensures that relationship with Jesus and thus the Father does not end with Jesus’ death.
• V. 18 Jesus promised to come again. Orphan was a common metaphor for disciples left without their masters, but here it also draws deeply on the familial imagery Jesus used in 13:33 (“little children…”).
• V. 18-20 alludes to Jesus’ resurrection but it also alludes to the eschatological fulfillment of the promise. Time and space collapse in this promise.
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• O’Day notes that “commandments” (entolai), “word” (logos), and “words” (logoi) are all synonyms. Earlier in the Gospel Jesus often cited faithfulness to his word as the mark of belonging to him (5:38; 8:31, 37, 51; 12:47-48). Earlier in the Farewell Discourse, 13:34-35, Jesus established love as the sign of faithfulness to keeping Jesus’ commandments (“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”). Reading v. 15 and v. 21 as bookends on a thought establishes what it means to love Jesus. To love Jesus is to keep his commandments, to keep his commandments is to love Jesus.
• V. 16 is the first appearance of the word parakletos in John’s Gospel. There are many translations of this word, in the NRSV it is translated as “Advocate.” In other translations is it translated “Comforter” (King James Version), “Counselor” (New International Version), “Friend” (The Message), “Helper” (English Standard Version), and “Companion” (Common English Bible). The noun parakletos derives from the verb parakaleo, which has a wide range of meanings, thus the wide range of English translations. Among the meanings are “to exhort and encourage,” “to comfort and console,” “to call upon for help,” and “to appeal.” The noun form can mean “the one who exhorts,” “the one who comforts,” the one who helps,” and “the one who makes appeals on one’s behalf.” To solve this, some translations simply translate the word as “Paraclete,” rather than settle for one English noun, since the Greek audience would have heard the whole range of meanings in the one word.
• The modifier “another” in v. 16 seems to suggest that Jesus was also a Paraclete (cf 1 John 2:1, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;”). Paraclete then is not another name for the Holy Spirit, but a way of describing the functions of the Spirit. This deepens the concept of the oneness of God and Jesus, and now the Spirit, who all have the same functions, all share in the same work. This is made clearer in describing the Paraclete as the “Spirit of truth,” since in 14:6, Jesus made clear that he is truth.
• As has been a common theme throughout John’s Gospel, “knowing” the Paraclete is defined as the Paraclete abiding (meno, same as from John 1:14) with the community. The Paraclete ensures that relationship with Jesus and thus the Father does not end with Jesus’ death.
• V. 18 Jesus promised to come again. Orphan was a common metaphor for disciples left without their masters, but here it also draws deeply on the familial imagery Jesus used in 13:33 (“little children…”).
• V. 18-20 alludes to Jesus’ resurrection but it also alludes to the eschatological fulfillment of the promise. Time and space collapse in this promise.
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Monday, May 15, 2017
Freedom to Wander: A Sermon on John 14:1-14
I took a few days off last week for a quick vacation in Washington, DC. I lived in DC for a few years before seminary and it is one of my very favorite places in the world. And one of my very favorite things to do in DC is wander. On Tuesday, I started the day wandering through at Arlington National Cemetery. It’s a pretty big place, but I didn’t think much of the long, rambling route I took, until one of the rangers stopped me, “Didn’t I see you over on the other side earlier? Did you walk all the way over here? We have shuttle tours, you know. Maybe next time you come, you could take one.” From there I had a 1 pm ticket to the new African American Museum and even though there is a metro line that connects the two spots, it was a nice day so I decided, of course, to walk to the museum. I then walked all over the museum, one exhibit, per the guide boasted over a mile of display route. I did take the metro back from the museum to a friend’s apartment for dinner, and then walked from her place to back to my hotel, even though, once again, there was a metro line connecting the two. All told, I was on my feet from about 10 am until 8 pm, and by the time I got back to the hotel, those feet were informing me that that much walking was not the best way to recover from the marathon I’d run the weekend before. But did I learn my lesson? Of course not! On Thursday, even though it rained the entire day, I did basically the same thing. I went for an easy jog yesterday and I have to tell you, I am still a bit paying the price for all that walking.
I love walking, and especially walking in DC, because it forces me into a slower pace of life. I am by nature a pretty hard-driving, goal-oriented person. I like to know where I’m going, have a detailed map of every step and turn along the way, and plot out the fastest, best, most efficient path to get there. But when I’m in DC, I just wander. This freedom provides space for me to see things I would have missed, if I had stayed focused on a fixed goal. On Thursday, in the rain, I discovered the Old Post Office tower, one of my favorite views of the city, now located in the Trump hotel, is once again open for visitors. On the elevator ride up, I chatted with a park ranger and we reminisced about the old food court that used to be located in the atrium of the building, now replaced by a gaudy and rather ostentatious bar. “A bit overdone, if you ask me,” remarked the ranger. “And gross, because there’s a bird that lives up here. Last thing you want is a bird flying over your over-priced cocktail.” It’s moments like that, that I miss when I’m goal-orientedly charging through life, over-anxious if I cannot see fifteen steps ahead. Time spent wandering helps me reorient myself, remind myself I can only one or two steps ahead, because the path can change rapidly and if I’m looking too far out, I am liable to miss the turn and end up in the wrong place anyway.
What makes this possible for me in DC is not just that I’m on vacation and don’t have a fixed time schedule, but that I know the city. I lived there long enough to have an internal sense of where I am and what’s around me at all times. I’ve been on vacation in places I am unfamiliar, and I cannot settle into wandering if I don’t know where I am, if I don’t have a touch point to guide me. If I’m afraid I might get lost, I become beholden to a map, to a schedule, to a precise set of instructions. In unfamiliar territory I want to know exactly where I am, where I’m going, and exactly how to get there. But in the familiarity of the DC grid system I have the confidence to take risks and know I will find my way back again. It took me years to find this familiarity and to trust it. And having been away from the city for a while, it can sometimes take me a while to find it again. But once I sink into the rhythm of the city, I find that I don’t need to know how to get to where I’m going, it is enough to know where I am.
Our Gospel reading for this morning is once again from the Farewell Discourse, from Jesus’ final words to his disciples before he headed out to be crucified. The disciples don’t know at this point what is to come, though with how clearly Jesus had spelled out his impending death they probably should have, but even in their ignorance, they could certainly sense that the meal, and Jesus, had taken on a more somber tone.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” our reading opened this morning. Which is the sort of line that immediately makes your heart troubled. It’s like when someone comes up to you and says, “Don’t worry but…” What are you immediately beginning to do? Worry, right? Because nothing good ever follows, “don’t worry but…”
To set the scene, Jesus and his disciples were sitting around a table after a meal. It was the day before Passover, they were in Jerusalem, they’re relaxed, they’re happy, and suddenly Jesus was all, “do not let your hearts be troubled.” So of course, immediately, their hearts began to feel a bit troubled. They hadn’t been thinking about feeling troubled before he said it but now that you mentioned it, yeah, feeling a little bit troubled. Jesus went on and said some weird things about his Father’s house, which in the Hebrew scriptures is often a metaphor for heaven, and preparing a place for them, “and you know the way to the place where I am going.” To which Thomas, good old calls it like it is Thomas, piped up, um, Jesus, what are you talking about. “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” To which Jesus answered, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Which is not an answer to the question at all. Thomas was like, “give us directions,” and Jesus responded like a bad self-help book, “follow your zen.” Completely unhelpful. What even is zen, and if I knew how to follow it, I wouldn’t be reading this book in the first place. And then Jesus went on down the rabbit hole, talking in seemingly more confusing riddles, “no one gets 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.”
This time it was Philip who was like, wait. “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Give us a hint here Jesus, a sense of direction, a focus, a purpose. Give us a road map for where you want us to go, and how we are to get there, and we will do it. I always give the disciples a lot of flack for their cluelessness in the Gospels, but that’s mainly because I relate to them so much. I think the disciples could sense that Jesus had something really important he was trying to tell them, but they just could not figure out what he was saying. They felt lost and confused, and especially with that whole bit about how he was going to the Father’s house, which could not possibly mean what they thought it meant, because how could he possibly be talking about dying, and so they were begging him, just tell us what you want us to do.
And what’s ironic is so often this passage gets read just like that. Like a roadmap for how to live. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one gets to the Father except through me.” This line gets held up as the criteria for salvation. Jesus said no one gets to the Father except through him, so you better have gone through Jesus. Now hear me out, because I’m not saying that Jesus is not the way to salvation, what I’m saying is this phrase “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” is not actually a helpful road map for how to get there. A road map is head knowledge, but I am the way, and the truth, and the life, is heart knowledge. It is the sort of thing you cannot know so much as feel. It’s like air, all around us, it’s what gives us life, but if we try to hold on too tightly, it slips through our grasp. If nothing else, Thomas and Philip’s questions show us that even those closest to him, those who had spent by this point almost three years following him, sitting at his feet, hanging on to his every word, even they, when presented with this weird I Am statement were like, huh?
The thing about discipleship with Jesus is it is less about rules than it is about relationship. Jesus wasn’t giving the disciples and us a guidebook for how to get to heaven, he was giving them the promise of relationship, an internal sense of who they were and whose they were, so that wherever they wandered, they might find their way home again. This internal sense of self that Jesus had demonstrated in his own ministry, a confidence that allowed him to break social conventions and wander into Samaria to speak with a Samaritan woman, to heal on the Sabbath and bring sight to a man born blind, to call out to a dead man and bring him back to life, and eventually to defeat death through death on a cross, it was this same internal confidence that Jesus was giving to his disciples. From now on, Jesus was saying to them, you won’t be able to see me, to follow me with your eyes and your ears, so you will have to follow me with your heart and your soul. But because I am in the Father and the Father is in me, then you too are in me and in the Father, and yes it makes no sense when you try to reason it out, so just trust yourself. Trust your instincts, trust the promise, trust the internal sense of me in you that I am leading and guiding and molding and shaping you. Will you get lost, will you take wrong turns and end up wandering out of the way sometimes. Yep, that happens. But forgiveness is present and grace is boundless, and many great things will take place along the way. So put aside your need for a map, and enter into the wandering dance of relationship. Thanks be to God. Amen.
I love walking, and especially walking in DC, because it forces me into a slower pace of life. I am by nature a pretty hard-driving, goal-oriented person. I like to know where I’m going, have a detailed map of every step and turn along the way, and plot out the fastest, best, most efficient path to get there. But when I’m in DC, I just wander. This freedom provides space for me to see things I would have missed, if I had stayed focused on a fixed goal. On Thursday, in the rain, I discovered the Old Post Office tower, one of my favorite views of the city, now located in the Trump hotel, is once again open for visitors. On the elevator ride up, I chatted with a park ranger and we reminisced about the old food court that used to be located in the atrium of the building, now replaced by a gaudy and rather ostentatious bar. “A bit overdone, if you ask me,” remarked the ranger. “And gross, because there’s a bird that lives up here. Last thing you want is a bird flying over your over-priced cocktail.” It’s moments like that, that I miss when I’m goal-orientedly charging through life, over-anxious if I cannot see fifteen steps ahead. Time spent wandering helps me reorient myself, remind myself I can only one or two steps ahead, because the path can change rapidly and if I’m looking too far out, I am liable to miss the turn and end up in the wrong place anyway.
What makes this possible for me in DC is not just that I’m on vacation and don’t have a fixed time schedule, but that I know the city. I lived there long enough to have an internal sense of where I am and what’s around me at all times. I’ve been on vacation in places I am unfamiliar, and I cannot settle into wandering if I don’t know where I am, if I don’t have a touch point to guide me. If I’m afraid I might get lost, I become beholden to a map, to a schedule, to a precise set of instructions. In unfamiliar territory I want to know exactly where I am, where I’m going, and exactly how to get there. But in the familiarity of the DC grid system I have the confidence to take risks and know I will find my way back again. It took me years to find this familiarity and to trust it. And having been away from the city for a while, it can sometimes take me a while to find it again. But once I sink into the rhythm of the city, I find that I don’t need to know how to get to where I’m going, it is enough to know where I am.
Our Gospel reading for this morning is once again from the Farewell Discourse, from Jesus’ final words to his disciples before he headed out to be crucified. The disciples don’t know at this point what is to come, though with how clearly Jesus had spelled out his impending death they probably should have, but even in their ignorance, they could certainly sense that the meal, and Jesus, had taken on a more somber tone.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” our reading opened this morning. Which is the sort of line that immediately makes your heart troubled. It’s like when someone comes up to you and says, “Don’t worry but…” What are you immediately beginning to do? Worry, right? Because nothing good ever follows, “don’t worry but…”
To set the scene, Jesus and his disciples were sitting around a table after a meal. It was the day before Passover, they were in Jerusalem, they’re relaxed, they’re happy, and suddenly Jesus was all, “do not let your hearts be troubled.” So of course, immediately, their hearts began to feel a bit troubled. They hadn’t been thinking about feeling troubled before he said it but now that you mentioned it, yeah, feeling a little bit troubled. Jesus went on and said some weird things about his Father’s house, which in the Hebrew scriptures is often a metaphor for heaven, and preparing a place for them, “and you know the way to the place where I am going.” To which Thomas, good old calls it like it is Thomas, piped up, um, Jesus, what are you talking about. “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” To which Jesus answered, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Which is not an answer to the question at all. Thomas was like, “give us directions,” and Jesus responded like a bad self-help book, “follow your zen.” Completely unhelpful. What even is zen, and if I knew how to follow it, I wouldn’t be reading this book in the first place. And then Jesus went on down the rabbit hole, talking in seemingly more confusing riddles, “no one gets 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.”
This time it was Philip who was like, wait. “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Give us a hint here Jesus, a sense of direction, a focus, a purpose. Give us a road map for where you want us to go, and how we are to get there, and we will do it. I always give the disciples a lot of flack for their cluelessness in the Gospels, but that’s mainly because I relate to them so much. I think the disciples could sense that Jesus had something really important he was trying to tell them, but they just could not figure out what he was saying. They felt lost and confused, and especially with that whole bit about how he was going to the Father’s house, which could not possibly mean what they thought it meant, because how could he possibly be talking about dying, and so they were begging him, just tell us what you want us to do.
And what’s ironic is so often this passage gets read just like that. Like a roadmap for how to live. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one gets to the Father except through me.” This line gets held up as the criteria for salvation. Jesus said no one gets to the Father except through him, so you better have gone through Jesus. Now hear me out, because I’m not saying that Jesus is not the way to salvation, what I’m saying is this phrase “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” is not actually a helpful road map for how to get there. A road map is head knowledge, but I am the way, and the truth, and the life, is heart knowledge. It is the sort of thing you cannot know so much as feel. It’s like air, all around us, it’s what gives us life, but if we try to hold on too tightly, it slips through our grasp. If nothing else, Thomas and Philip’s questions show us that even those closest to him, those who had spent by this point almost three years following him, sitting at his feet, hanging on to his every word, even they, when presented with this weird I Am statement were like, huh?
The thing about discipleship with Jesus is it is less about rules than it is about relationship. Jesus wasn’t giving the disciples and us a guidebook for how to get to heaven, he was giving them the promise of relationship, an internal sense of who they were and whose they were, so that wherever they wandered, they might find their way home again. This internal sense of self that Jesus had demonstrated in his own ministry, a confidence that allowed him to break social conventions and wander into Samaria to speak with a Samaritan woman, to heal on the Sabbath and bring sight to a man born blind, to call out to a dead man and bring him back to life, and eventually to defeat death through death on a cross, it was this same internal confidence that Jesus was giving to his disciples. From now on, Jesus was saying to them, you won’t be able to see me, to follow me with your eyes and your ears, so you will have to follow me with your heart and your soul. But because I am in the Father and the Father is in me, then you too are in me and in the Father, and yes it makes no sense when you try to reason it out, so just trust yourself. Trust your instincts, trust the promise, trust the internal sense of me in you that I am leading and guiding and molding and shaping you. Will you get lost, will you take wrong turns and end up wandering out of the way sometimes. Yep, that happens. But forgiveness is present and grace is boundless, and many great things will take place along the way. So put aside your need for a map, and enter into the wandering dance of relationship. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Friday, May 12, 2017
Conversation Points for John 14:1-14
Study Format:
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The verb translated “troubled” in v. 1 (tarasso), appears three other times in John’s Gospel (11:33; 12:27; 13:21). In all of those cases it refers not to sadness, but to Jesus’ agitation and disturbance in the face of the power of death and evil. So when Jesus implored the disciples not to let their hearts be “troubled,” he was not telling them not to be sad, but rather to stand firm in the face of the powers of death and evil that seemed to be winning the day.
• Jewish (and Christian) tradition usually identify the “Father’s house” as the heavenly dwelling place, and that imagery certainly lie behind this image. But Jesus is talking about more than just heaven. John’s Gospel is based on the mutual relationship and indwelling between God and Jesus. Location in John’s Gospel is a symbol for relationship. The noun translated as “dwelling place” further strengthens this interpretation of being not just about a location but about relationship. It is the Greek word mone, which takes its root from the Greek meno, to remain or to abide. Meno is used frequently in John’s Gospel to speak of relationships. For example 1:14, “the Word became flesh and lived (meno) among us.” 15:4, “Abide (meno) in me as I abide (meno) in you.”
• V. 2b in the NIV and the NRSV footnote is translated “if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you.” The question is over the difficulty of translating the Greek word hoti, that or for. O’Day prefers the NIV and the NRSV footnote, which translate hoti as “that” because it fits with John’s Gospel that Jesus is making a declarative statement about his mission, to go to prepare a place for them.
• “I will come again” in v. 3 points this promise to the traditional early Christian expectation of Christ’s return at the end of time, it is about God’s ultimate power over life and death. This language places the disciples within the promise already, bringing the tension of already/not yet of the kingdom of God that is present throughout John’s Gospel.
• “I am the way…” is one of the “I am” sayings in John’s Gospel (cf. 6:35; 8:12; 9:5; 11:25; 15:1). “I am” is a reference to God speaking to Moses at the burning bush, I am who I am (Exodus 3:14).
• “The way” (v. 6) is a many layered image in ancient near East culture. In the Jewish wisdom tradition, “way” (derek in Hebrew) denotes the lifestyle of the wise. In the Psalms, “way” is a metaphor for life lived according to the law and/or to the will and desire of God. Similar to John 10 (I am the Good Shepherd, I am the gate), by describing himself as the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus reveals himself to be both access to and embodiment of life with God.
• Reading v. 6 is complicated in modern context, because it has often been used as a bludgeon against other religious traditions. O’Day reminds us that “It is important to try to hear this joyous, world-changing theological affirmation in the first-century context of the Fourth Gospel. This is not, as is the case in the twentieth century, the sweeping claim of a major world religion, but it is the conviction of a religious minority…who had discovered that its understanding of the truth of god carries with it a great price.” It is problematic to read this section as exclusionary, because that is outside the worldview of the writer of the Fourth Gospel, who was writing to a community who was being excluded. Says O’Day, “The Fourth Gospel is not concerned with the fate, for example, of Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists, nor with the superiority or inferiority of Judaism and Christianity as they are configured in the modern world. These verses are the confessional celebration of a particular faith community, convinced of the truth and life it has received in the incarnation.”
• V. 12-14 link the believer’s work and Jesus’ own work, just as Jesus’ work was God’s work. The disciples’ work will be greater (v. 12b) not because of any intrinsic value of the disciples, but because Jesus’ work will be finished whereas theirs, to build on the foundation which Jesus created, will continue.
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The verb translated “troubled” in v. 1 (tarasso), appears three other times in John’s Gospel (11:33; 12:27; 13:21). In all of those cases it refers not to sadness, but to Jesus’ agitation and disturbance in the face of the power of death and evil. So when Jesus implored the disciples not to let their hearts be “troubled,” he was not telling them not to be sad, but rather to stand firm in the face of the powers of death and evil that seemed to be winning the day.
• Jewish (and Christian) tradition usually identify the “Father’s house” as the heavenly dwelling place, and that imagery certainly lie behind this image. But Jesus is talking about more than just heaven. John’s Gospel is based on the mutual relationship and indwelling between God and Jesus. Location in John’s Gospel is a symbol for relationship. The noun translated as “dwelling place” further strengthens this interpretation of being not just about a location but about relationship. It is the Greek word mone, which takes its root from the Greek meno, to remain or to abide. Meno is used frequently in John’s Gospel to speak of relationships. For example 1:14, “the Word became flesh and lived (meno) among us.” 15:4, “Abide (meno) in me as I abide (meno) in you.”
• V. 2b in the NIV and the NRSV footnote is translated “if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you.” The question is over the difficulty of translating the Greek word hoti, that or for. O’Day prefers the NIV and the NRSV footnote, which translate hoti as “that” because it fits with John’s Gospel that Jesus is making a declarative statement about his mission, to go to prepare a place for them.
• “I will come again” in v. 3 points this promise to the traditional early Christian expectation of Christ’s return at the end of time, it is about God’s ultimate power over life and death. This language places the disciples within the promise already, bringing the tension of already/not yet of the kingdom of God that is present throughout John’s Gospel.
• “I am the way…” is one of the “I am” sayings in John’s Gospel (cf. 6:35; 8:12; 9:5; 11:25; 15:1). “I am” is a reference to God speaking to Moses at the burning bush, I am who I am (Exodus 3:14).
• “The way” (v. 6) is a many layered image in ancient near East culture. In the Jewish wisdom tradition, “way” (derek in Hebrew) denotes the lifestyle of the wise. In the Psalms, “way” is a metaphor for life lived according to the law and/or to the will and desire of God. Similar to John 10 (I am the Good Shepherd, I am the gate), by describing himself as the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus reveals himself to be both access to and embodiment of life with God.
• Reading v. 6 is complicated in modern context, because it has often been used as a bludgeon against other religious traditions. O’Day reminds us that “It is important to try to hear this joyous, world-changing theological affirmation in the first-century context of the Fourth Gospel. This is not, as is the case in the twentieth century, the sweeping claim of a major world religion, but it is the conviction of a religious minority…who had discovered that its understanding of the truth of god carries with it a great price.” It is problematic to read this section as exclusionary, because that is outside the worldview of the writer of the Fourth Gospel, who was writing to a community who was being excluded. Says O’Day, “The Fourth Gospel is not concerned with the fate, for example, of Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists, nor with the superiority or inferiority of Judaism and Christianity as they are configured in the modern world. These verses are the confessional celebration of a particular faith community, convinced of the truth and life it has received in the incarnation.”
• V. 12-14 link the believer’s work and Jesus’ own work, just as Jesus’ work was God’s work. The disciples’ work will be greater (v. 12b) not because of any intrinsic value of the disciples, but because Jesus’ work will be finished whereas theirs, to build on the foundation which Jesus created, will continue.
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Monday, May 8, 2017
A Good Shepherd Sunday Sermon about Ducks: A Sermon on John 10:1-10
Well it’s Good Shepherd Sunday, and I don’t know a lot about sheep, but I do have a lot of experience with ducks. My father, despite being born and raised in Los Angeles, has always considered himself a bit of a gentleman farmer, so I grew up around poultry. Strongest in my memory are our two pet Peking ducks, Lucky and Suzie. We got the pair as ducklings when I was about six, so most of my formative years were spent sharing the backyard with these feathered companions.
When we first got them we kept them in a birdcage in the kitchen, occasionally taking them out for romps in the bathtub. Peking ducks get rather large though, so it wasn’t long before they outgrew the birdcage. During the day they had range of the backyard. For the nighttime, Dad built them a little enclosed pen. And here’s the part of the story that these Good Shepherd readings reminded me of. To help him get the ducks into their pen, Dad trained our miniature schnauzer to herd ducks. That’s right, we didn’t have a sheep dog, we had a duck dog. Every evening Dad would call her, and our purebred show dog would come tearing out of the house to herd the ducks. Dad would walk on one side of the backyard, and the dog would take the other, and the two of them would corral the two ducks across the yard and down the drawbridge into the pen. Dad would then raise the drawbridge and tie it off, and the ducks were safe for the evening. In the morning, he would release the drawbridge and the ducks would waddle up for another day of eating bugs and playing in their wading pool. With this relaxed life, it is may be no surprise that the ducks lived to be about seven, which is a really long life for a duck.
In our Gospel reading for this morning, Jesus described himself as both the good shepherd and the gate for the sheep. The good shepherd imagery I think we’re pretty familiar and comfortable with; after all, everyone likes the famous Sunday school pictures of Jesus in flowing robes holding cute, fluffy sheep. Now, a whole sermon series could be preached on the reality of First Century shepherding, and how sheep are never actually as cuddly and clean as Sunday school art depicts them, but that wasn’t the part that caught my attention this week. What caught my attention this week was the gate.
“I am the gate for the sheep,” Jesus said. “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” “I am the gate.” When we talk about Jesus as a gate, there is, I think, this tendency to think about Jesus as the gatekeeper, standing guard over the entrance deciding who can go in and come out. But Jesus didn’t say he was the gatekeeper, he said he was the gate. So then I think we have to ask ourselves, what is the purpose of gates?
The Peking ducks Lucky and Suzie were not my family’s first foray into poultry. Our first duck was a Mallard, also named Lucky, though it turns out he was not particularly aptly named. We got Lucky when I was about three and once he got big enough, Dad set him loose in the backyard. I don’t think he even had a house, just a wading pool. One morning, I woke up to discover that Lucky was gone. We lived on a creek, and my parents told me that Lucky had escaped through the fence and gone to live with the other ducks on the creek downtown. Whenever we went downtown, we would stop and see the ducks and I would look to see Lucky among the mix. I was in my mid-twenties before my parents finally told me that Lucky had not run away, he had in fact been eaten by a bobcat, and my father had hurried to clean up the remains of the family pet before his small children woke up. Thus the fully enclosed pen and the herding ritual for our next set feathered friends. The pen wasn’t about a cute habit; it was about keeping them safe from the thieves and bandits that saw our well-fed ducks as an easy and delicious meal. So the purpose of the gate was to let the ducks in and out of the pen, so that they would have the right mix of freedom and security, of law and Gospel, if you will, for a long, healthy and fulfilling life. The gate didn’t have an opinion on the ducks, there was no duck test they had to pass in order to get into the pen, the gate just opened and closed, open to give the ducks freedom, closed to keep them safe.
Jesus said that he came that they, that we, may have life, and have it abundantly. Sometimes I think we have a tendency to confuse abundant life with getting whatever we want. But Jesus as the gate reminds us that true abundant life means a life with some rules. The ducks probably would have preferred to have free range of the backyard all night and not be chased by a dog every evening, but this would more than likely have ended in them getting eaten. And being eaten, at least in my book, does not constitute abundant life. For the ducks to truly have abundant life, abundant life being defined as a life free of being eaten by bobcats, their life had to include some limits.
These limits did not just bring abundant life for the ducks; it also brought abundant life for the rest of the family. The evening enclosure was not the ducks’ only barrier. When the ducks first moved from the birdcage to the backyard Dad let the ducks roam wherever they pleased. But my brother and I were four and seven at the time, and Peking ducks are big and a bit territorial. My brother especially was always a smaller kid, and when the male duck stretched himself out, he was pretty similar in size to David. Dad had built us a play structure in the backyard, which he soon discovered we were never using, because we were both terrified of being chased by the ducks. So Dad built a fence dividing the backyard in two, half for the kids and half for the ducks. Nobody got everything they wanted, but everyone got enough, and kids and ducks were able to coexist happily for many years.
Jesus delivered this teaching about the shepherd and the gate to the Pharisees who had just finished kicking the man born blind whom Jesus had healed out of the community. Remember when we read that story in Lent? This is the teaching that directly follows it. Reading this text during the Easter season allows us to look back on this teaching through the lens of resurrection and understand more fully the promise he was trying to convey. When Jesus told the Pharisees he was the gate for the sheep, so that the sheep could go out and come in and have abundant life, Jesus wasn’t telling them that everything was great and they would have whatever they wanted. Unlike the Pharisees, with their strict rules for determining who was in and who was out, Jesus wasn’t setting himself up as a gatekeeper who, if you could get past him, was a ticket to some sort of free-for-all. Jesus the gate means life has limits. But those limits are good, those limits bring abundant life. Abundant life is about living within the pasture Jesus marked off for us, allowing us to come and go as we need in that necessary balance of law and Gospel. The other thing that this teaching tells us is that abundant life only extends so far that it doesn’t impinge on someone else’s abundant life. For the Pharisees, abundant life meant a strict observation of the Sabbath. Which was all well and good for them until, if you remember, their strict interpretation would have kept the man born blind from being healed on the Sabbath. At which point, Jesus seemed to be saying, their views could no longer extend that far, because they would be preventing the abundant life of another. Like the backyard was divided for ducks and kids, so too must our own freedom have limits, so that all of Jesus’ sheep can live lives rich with abundance.
This is the abundant life Jesus promises us, the abundant life he died and rose again to give us. Not, like the Pharisees believed, a free-for-all where they got everything they wanted and everyone else got nothing. But a life that was rich and full and well-lived for all, where we all live within the limits of protection, so that we may experience the fullness of abundance. And protecting us, guarding us, watching over us, and yes even restraining us, is Jesus the Good Shepherd, Jesus the gate, who leads us to pastures abundant. Thanks be to God. Amen.
When we first got them we kept them in a birdcage in the kitchen, occasionally taking them out for romps in the bathtub. Peking ducks get rather large though, so it wasn’t long before they outgrew the birdcage. During the day they had range of the backyard. For the nighttime, Dad built them a little enclosed pen. And here’s the part of the story that these Good Shepherd readings reminded me of. To help him get the ducks into their pen, Dad trained our miniature schnauzer to herd ducks. That’s right, we didn’t have a sheep dog, we had a duck dog. Every evening Dad would call her, and our purebred show dog would come tearing out of the house to herd the ducks. Dad would walk on one side of the backyard, and the dog would take the other, and the two of them would corral the two ducks across the yard and down the drawbridge into the pen. Dad would then raise the drawbridge and tie it off, and the ducks were safe for the evening. In the morning, he would release the drawbridge and the ducks would waddle up for another day of eating bugs and playing in their wading pool. With this relaxed life, it is may be no surprise that the ducks lived to be about seven, which is a really long life for a duck.
In our Gospel reading for this morning, Jesus described himself as both the good shepherd and the gate for the sheep. The good shepherd imagery I think we’re pretty familiar and comfortable with; after all, everyone likes the famous Sunday school pictures of Jesus in flowing robes holding cute, fluffy sheep. Now, a whole sermon series could be preached on the reality of First Century shepherding, and how sheep are never actually as cuddly and clean as Sunday school art depicts them, but that wasn’t the part that caught my attention this week. What caught my attention this week was the gate.
“I am the gate for the sheep,” Jesus said. “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” “I am the gate.” When we talk about Jesus as a gate, there is, I think, this tendency to think about Jesus as the gatekeeper, standing guard over the entrance deciding who can go in and come out. But Jesus didn’t say he was the gatekeeper, he said he was the gate. So then I think we have to ask ourselves, what is the purpose of gates?
The Peking ducks Lucky and Suzie were not my family’s first foray into poultry. Our first duck was a Mallard, also named Lucky, though it turns out he was not particularly aptly named. We got Lucky when I was about three and once he got big enough, Dad set him loose in the backyard. I don’t think he even had a house, just a wading pool. One morning, I woke up to discover that Lucky was gone. We lived on a creek, and my parents told me that Lucky had escaped through the fence and gone to live with the other ducks on the creek downtown. Whenever we went downtown, we would stop and see the ducks and I would look to see Lucky among the mix. I was in my mid-twenties before my parents finally told me that Lucky had not run away, he had in fact been eaten by a bobcat, and my father had hurried to clean up the remains of the family pet before his small children woke up. Thus the fully enclosed pen and the herding ritual for our next set feathered friends. The pen wasn’t about a cute habit; it was about keeping them safe from the thieves and bandits that saw our well-fed ducks as an easy and delicious meal. So the purpose of the gate was to let the ducks in and out of the pen, so that they would have the right mix of freedom and security, of law and Gospel, if you will, for a long, healthy and fulfilling life. The gate didn’t have an opinion on the ducks, there was no duck test they had to pass in order to get into the pen, the gate just opened and closed, open to give the ducks freedom, closed to keep them safe.
Jesus said that he came that they, that we, may have life, and have it abundantly. Sometimes I think we have a tendency to confuse abundant life with getting whatever we want. But Jesus as the gate reminds us that true abundant life means a life with some rules. The ducks probably would have preferred to have free range of the backyard all night and not be chased by a dog every evening, but this would more than likely have ended in them getting eaten. And being eaten, at least in my book, does not constitute abundant life. For the ducks to truly have abundant life, abundant life being defined as a life free of being eaten by bobcats, their life had to include some limits.
These limits did not just bring abundant life for the ducks; it also brought abundant life for the rest of the family. The evening enclosure was not the ducks’ only barrier. When the ducks first moved from the birdcage to the backyard Dad let the ducks roam wherever they pleased. But my brother and I were four and seven at the time, and Peking ducks are big and a bit territorial. My brother especially was always a smaller kid, and when the male duck stretched himself out, he was pretty similar in size to David. Dad had built us a play structure in the backyard, which he soon discovered we were never using, because we were both terrified of being chased by the ducks. So Dad built a fence dividing the backyard in two, half for the kids and half for the ducks. Nobody got everything they wanted, but everyone got enough, and kids and ducks were able to coexist happily for many years.
Jesus delivered this teaching about the shepherd and the gate to the Pharisees who had just finished kicking the man born blind whom Jesus had healed out of the community. Remember when we read that story in Lent? This is the teaching that directly follows it. Reading this text during the Easter season allows us to look back on this teaching through the lens of resurrection and understand more fully the promise he was trying to convey. When Jesus told the Pharisees he was the gate for the sheep, so that the sheep could go out and come in and have abundant life, Jesus wasn’t telling them that everything was great and they would have whatever they wanted. Unlike the Pharisees, with their strict rules for determining who was in and who was out, Jesus wasn’t setting himself up as a gatekeeper who, if you could get past him, was a ticket to some sort of free-for-all. Jesus the gate means life has limits. But those limits are good, those limits bring abundant life. Abundant life is about living within the pasture Jesus marked off for us, allowing us to come and go as we need in that necessary balance of law and Gospel. The other thing that this teaching tells us is that abundant life only extends so far that it doesn’t impinge on someone else’s abundant life. For the Pharisees, abundant life meant a strict observation of the Sabbath. Which was all well and good for them until, if you remember, their strict interpretation would have kept the man born blind from being healed on the Sabbath. At which point, Jesus seemed to be saying, their views could no longer extend that far, because they would be preventing the abundant life of another. Like the backyard was divided for ducks and kids, so too must our own freedom have limits, so that all of Jesus’ sheep can live lives rich with abundance.
This is the abundant life Jesus promises us, the abundant life he died and rose again to give us. Not, like the Pharisees believed, a free-for-all where they got everything they wanted and everyone else got nothing. But a life that was rich and full and well-lived for all, where we all live within the limits of protection, so that we may experience the fullness of abundance. And protecting us, guarding us, watching over us, and yes even restraining us, is Jesus the Good Shepherd, Jesus the gate, who leads us to pastures abundant. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Thursday, May 4, 2017
Conversation Points for John 10:1-10
Study Format:
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Remember back in Lent when we heard the story of Jesus giving sight to the man born blind? This is Jesus’ teachings that follow that story. In 9:39, Jesus said, “I came into the world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” The Pharisees then asked, “Surely, we are not blind, are we?” To which Jesus responded, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold…” In this reading, he is talking to the Pharisees who just cast the man born blind out of the community.
• V. 3-5 builds around the intimacy of the sheep and shepherd based on the sheep’s ability to recognize the shepherd’s voice.
• A sheepfold was usually built alongside the house with a separate entrance gate that would be the only way to access the sheepfold.
• V. 6, “Jesus used this figure of speech…” The Greek word translated “figure of speech” is paroimia. There is not a good English translation for it. It could be proverb or parable or even riddle. Unlike an allegory where each thing directly represents another thing, paroimia has an openness, inviting the reader to consider many different interpretations of the meanings. “Figure of speech” is an attempt to capture the open-endedness of the word that proverb does not have in English.
• Imagery about sheep and shepherds is common in the Old Testament. God is often portrayed as the shepherd and God’s people as sheep. Ezekiel 34 portrays the kings of Israel as bad shepherds, which stands in particular contrast to God the good shepherd.
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Remember back in Lent when we heard the story of Jesus giving sight to the man born blind? This is Jesus’ teachings that follow that story. In 9:39, Jesus said, “I came into the world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” The Pharisees then asked, “Surely, we are not blind, are we?” To which Jesus responded, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold…” In this reading, he is talking to the Pharisees who just cast the man born blind out of the community.
• V. 3-5 builds around the intimacy of the sheep and shepherd based on the sheep’s ability to recognize the shepherd’s voice.
• A sheepfold was usually built alongside the house with a separate entrance gate that would be the only way to access the sheepfold.
• V. 6, “Jesus used this figure of speech…” The Greek word translated “figure of speech” is paroimia. There is not a good English translation for it. It could be proverb or parable or even riddle. Unlike an allegory where each thing directly represents another thing, paroimia has an openness, inviting the reader to consider many different interpretations of the meanings. “Figure of speech” is an attempt to capture the open-endedness of the word that proverb does not have in English.
• Imagery about sheep and shepherds is common in the Old Testament. God is often portrayed as the shepherd and God’s people as sheep. Ezekiel 34 portrays the kings of Israel as bad shepherds, which stands in particular contrast to God the good shepherd.
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Monday, May 1, 2017
Glimpses of the Promise: A Sermon on Luke 24:13-35
Each week there’s a couple different choices for which picture to put on the front of the bulletin, and I picked this one because the people look so surprised I thought it was funny. And this is a funny story, if you think about it. I think it was Melody in Bible chat on Wednesday that remarked that this story reads a bit like a Saturday Night Live sketch. Two disciples were walking along the road and they ran into Jesus. Only for some reason, even though they were his disciples and thus presumably knew him pretty well, they didn’t recognize its Jesus. He asked them what they were talking about, and they responded, “are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place?” And then went on to tell Jesus himself all about Jesus’ own life, ministry, and death, “but we had hoped he would be the one to restore Israel.” Which of course is ironic, because Jesus was, is, the only person who fully understands the significance of his own life and death. A death which, in dying, restored Israel. But Cleopas powered on, “Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and… they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.” They were telling Jesus about his own resurrection. To which Jesus was like, how dense are you people! “Oh how foolish you are, and how slow of heart…” And then Jesus launched into an explanation of how they should have read in scripture about how all this was predicted, beginning with Moses and all the prophets. Which, if you think this was a rather long conversation, remember they had seven miles of walking to have it. Seven miles of walking, at no point in which did the disciples recognize that the random stranger delivering a Sunday school lesson to them was the same guy who they’d been walking with and learning from for a year.
So they got to where they were going, and Jesus continued to walk along his way, but the disciples urged him to stop and have dinner with them. This is actually a super interesting part of the story, but it’s easy to miss because it’s so different from our culture. See in the Ancient Near East, hospitality was super important. There weren’t hotels or rest areas or gas stations or any of the amenities we have today to support travelers. If you were traveling, you were totally dependent on the hospitality of others. If someone did not offer you hospitality when you needed it, it could cost you your life. So it was a cultural requirement to extend hospitality as a host. But there was also a cultural requirement for a traveler to be a good guest and not assume hospitality would be extended. So instead they would do this cultural dance beforehand, where the host would offer, the guest would refuse, and then the host would offer again, and the guest at that point was expected to accept. This was the proper etiquette of the time. And if it seems weird to you, we have no less weird etiquette habits. Why is it considered polite to say “Gezuntite” when someone sneezes, none of us speak German. Or the “Minnesota good-bye” where you have to say good-bye a whole bunch of times before you actually leave. Cultural norms are just different, not bad or wrong, and this whole host offers, guest refuses, host offers again, guest accepts, was just the expected dance of manners for the time, no different than our expectation of please and thank you.
So it was cultural what Jesus did there, but it was also theological. By not inviting himself in, Jesus made a statement about the nature of faith. Faith, Jesus, is not something to be forced on us; rather it is a voluntary, spontaneous response to God. God could have created us all as believers, could have forced us to worship, but true relationship and devotion cannot come through force. So instead God created us with the ability to have faith, with the capacity to believe, and then determinedly walks alongside us until the dance of manners coaxes us to respond in faith.
Jesus accepted the disciples’ invitation, even though they still didn’t know who he was. And then, finally, after seven miles of walking and talking, Jesus “took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them…and their eyes were opened, and they recognized him [pause] and he vanished from their sight.” That’s right, after all that, they finally figured out who he was, and he just disappeared. See how this thing totally resembles a Saturday Night Live sketch. It’s a crazy story!
It’s a crazy story, but I think it also tells us a lot about the nature of faith, and of resurrection, and how we experience faith and resurrection in our own lives. Because here’s what this story tells us about faith and resurrection. First off, faith and resurrection cannot be taught or reasoned through, they can only be experienced. The disciples were walking with Jesus for seven miles. After they told him all about himself, he then told them all of the signs they should have known from scripture about who he was, and still, even though he was literally standing in front of them explaining it to them, they didn’t recognize him. There are all kinds of theories as to what is meant by verse sixteen, “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” What I think it means is sometimes when we are too close to something, we cannot see it clearly. When we are in the middle of a crisis or a conflict, fear or concern, whatever the issue at hand is is simply too close to us for us to be able to see the whole picture. The disciples couldn’t recognize Jesus because the reality of his death, the grief of their loss, was too close, too fresh, for them to be able to see how there could be life on the other side of it, how resurrection could be possible. I can think of periods of my own life, where I have been mired in grief or fear or sadness, and when someone has explained to me how it would be ok or I would get through this or whatever, while I could hear what they were saying, the thing I was grieving was still too close to allow me to see the way forward. It was only later, after time had passed, that I could look back and say yes, there was the path I was on all along. But in the midst of it, more often than not, we cannot see, our eyes simply cannot focus on something so close.
Another reason the disciples maybe couldn’t recognize Jesus is because he did not look like what they were expecting. They thought he would be the one to redeem Israel, and he was, but redemption took a very different path than they thought it would. They thought redemption would look like conquering armies and mighty warriors and Rome out of town at a run. Instead resurrection looked like a baby in a manger, like a teacher who ate with lepers and tax collectors, like an innocent man dying the death of a political prisoner. It was redemption, but it was so far outside of their view of what redemption might be, that we maybe cannot blame them for missing it the first time.
Jesus explaining the scriptures to them wasn’t enough. But what was enough was the experience of Jesus. When he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. When they didn’t have to think but only receive, that suddenly their eyes were opened and they recognized him. Because faith, resurrection, isn’t something we can think our way to, it is something that sneaks up on us. It is the first deep breath when you’ve been holding it in fear. It is the sun through the clouds after a storm. It is the day that even through your grief you know you will love again. It is the first outstretched hand to mend a broken relationship, or the recognition that the relationship is over and that though it hurts you will be ok. Logic cannot get you there, reason cannot get you there. Only time, and patience, and the persistence of those who walk along side you, calmly waiting for the moment when your eyes will be opened to the faith, to the resurrection, that is already present in front of you.
They recognized him, and then he vanished from their sight. Because these signs, these moments of clarity, they are fleeting. We don’t always get long moments of clarity, especially in times of grief or pain or sadness, but what we get is enough, that spark to get us through, to show us the way forward. And though the glimpse was fleeting, it was enough to change the disciples. They left Emmaus and rushed back to Jerusalem to tell the others all about how he had been made known to them. And then they went out from that place, and the whole rest of the book of Acts is about how those fleeting moments of clarity opened their eyes and propelled them to share this good news with the world.
We only get a glimpse of the promise, but in truth a glimpse is all we need. And we get a glimpse of it every Sunday when we gather, like the disciples did that evening, around a table. A table where bread is broken and wine is shared. Where we hear the words that this bread is broken for us, and blessed, and given. It is just a taste of bread, just a sip of wine. But it is enough, enough to open our eyes to a glimpse of the promise. So this morning, like all the Sunday mornings before, and all the Sunday mornings yet to have come, I invite you to this table. Come and break bread together. Come meet Jesus in the breaking of this bread, and receive a glimpse of the kingdom. Come even if cannot recognize it, because this is not a meal you need to see. In fact, it is not a meal you even can see. The promise God makes us in this meal is bigger than our understanding. Love like this cannot be seen or explained or reasoned with, it can only be experienced. Come taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen.
So they got to where they were going, and Jesus continued to walk along his way, but the disciples urged him to stop and have dinner with them. This is actually a super interesting part of the story, but it’s easy to miss because it’s so different from our culture. See in the Ancient Near East, hospitality was super important. There weren’t hotels or rest areas or gas stations or any of the amenities we have today to support travelers. If you were traveling, you were totally dependent on the hospitality of others. If someone did not offer you hospitality when you needed it, it could cost you your life. So it was a cultural requirement to extend hospitality as a host. But there was also a cultural requirement for a traveler to be a good guest and not assume hospitality would be extended. So instead they would do this cultural dance beforehand, where the host would offer, the guest would refuse, and then the host would offer again, and the guest at that point was expected to accept. This was the proper etiquette of the time. And if it seems weird to you, we have no less weird etiquette habits. Why is it considered polite to say “Gezuntite” when someone sneezes, none of us speak German. Or the “Minnesota good-bye” where you have to say good-bye a whole bunch of times before you actually leave. Cultural norms are just different, not bad or wrong, and this whole host offers, guest refuses, host offers again, guest accepts, was just the expected dance of manners for the time, no different than our expectation of please and thank you.
So it was cultural what Jesus did there, but it was also theological. By not inviting himself in, Jesus made a statement about the nature of faith. Faith, Jesus, is not something to be forced on us; rather it is a voluntary, spontaneous response to God. God could have created us all as believers, could have forced us to worship, but true relationship and devotion cannot come through force. So instead God created us with the ability to have faith, with the capacity to believe, and then determinedly walks alongside us until the dance of manners coaxes us to respond in faith.
Jesus accepted the disciples’ invitation, even though they still didn’t know who he was. And then, finally, after seven miles of walking and talking, Jesus “took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them…and their eyes were opened, and they recognized him [pause] and he vanished from their sight.” That’s right, after all that, they finally figured out who he was, and he just disappeared. See how this thing totally resembles a Saturday Night Live sketch. It’s a crazy story!
It’s a crazy story, but I think it also tells us a lot about the nature of faith, and of resurrection, and how we experience faith and resurrection in our own lives. Because here’s what this story tells us about faith and resurrection. First off, faith and resurrection cannot be taught or reasoned through, they can only be experienced. The disciples were walking with Jesus for seven miles. After they told him all about himself, he then told them all of the signs they should have known from scripture about who he was, and still, even though he was literally standing in front of them explaining it to them, they didn’t recognize him. There are all kinds of theories as to what is meant by verse sixteen, “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” What I think it means is sometimes when we are too close to something, we cannot see it clearly. When we are in the middle of a crisis or a conflict, fear or concern, whatever the issue at hand is is simply too close to us for us to be able to see the whole picture. The disciples couldn’t recognize Jesus because the reality of his death, the grief of their loss, was too close, too fresh, for them to be able to see how there could be life on the other side of it, how resurrection could be possible. I can think of periods of my own life, where I have been mired in grief or fear or sadness, and when someone has explained to me how it would be ok or I would get through this or whatever, while I could hear what they were saying, the thing I was grieving was still too close to allow me to see the way forward. It was only later, after time had passed, that I could look back and say yes, there was the path I was on all along. But in the midst of it, more often than not, we cannot see, our eyes simply cannot focus on something so close.
Another reason the disciples maybe couldn’t recognize Jesus is because he did not look like what they were expecting. They thought he would be the one to redeem Israel, and he was, but redemption took a very different path than they thought it would. They thought redemption would look like conquering armies and mighty warriors and Rome out of town at a run. Instead resurrection looked like a baby in a manger, like a teacher who ate with lepers and tax collectors, like an innocent man dying the death of a political prisoner. It was redemption, but it was so far outside of their view of what redemption might be, that we maybe cannot blame them for missing it the first time.
Jesus explaining the scriptures to them wasn’t enough. But what was enough was the experience of Jesus. When he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. When they didn’t have to think but only receive, that suddenly their eyes were opened and they recognized him. Because faith, resurrection, isn’t something we can think our way to, it is something that sneaks up on us. It is the first deep breath when you’ve been holding it in fear. It is the sun through the clouds after a storm. It is the day that even through your grief you know you will love again. It is the first outstretched hand to mend a broken relationship, or the recognition that the relationship is over and that though it hurts you will be ok. Logic cannot get you there, reason cannot get you there. Only time, and patience, and the persistence of those who walk along side you, calmly waiting for the moment when your eyes will be opened to the faith, to the resurrection, that is already present in front of you.
They recognized him, and then he vanished from their sight. Because these signs, these moments of clarity, they are fleeting. We don’t always get long moments of clarity, especially in times of grief or pain or sadness, but what we get is enough, that spark to get us through, to show us the way forward. And though the glimpse was fleeting, it was enough to change the disciples. They left Emmaus and rushed back to Jerusalem to tell the others all about how he had been made known to them. And then they went out from that place, and the whole rest of the book of Acts is about how those fleeting moments of clarity opened their eyes and propelled them to share this good news with the world.
We only get a glimpse of the promise, but in truth a glimpse is all we need. And we get a glimpse of it every Sunday when we gather, like the disciples did that evening, around a table. A table where bread is broken and wine is shared. Where we hear the words that this bread is broken for us, and blessed, and given. It is just a taste of bread, just a sip of wine. But it is enough, enough to open our eyes to a glimpse of the promise. So this morning, like all the Sunday mornings before, and all the Sunday mornings yet to have come, I invite you to this table. Come and break bread together. Come meet Jesus in the breaking of this bread, and receive a glimpse of the kingdom. Come even if cannot recognize it, because this is not a meal you need to see. In fact, it is not a meal you even can see. The promise God makes us in this meal is bigger than our understanding. Love like this cannot be seen or explained or reasoned with, it can only be experienced. Come taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen.
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