From the Daily Lectionary for Friday in the Fourth Week of Lent
John 7:1–2, 10, 25–30
After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near.
But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret.
Now some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, “Is not this the man whom they are trying to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah? Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.” Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.
Here’s one of the things that interests me most about the Gospel of John: It was the last piece of literature to be included in the New Testament canon; the last of the “official” New Testament books. It was, in the early church, highly controversial. It was considered by some of the church fathers as gnostic, that is to say, highly dualistic with its emphasis on the so-called “children of light,” in opposition to those who live in darkness. Some felt the community of John was exclusive, only admitting members who shared an esoteric knowledge of the true faith. Mainstream Christianity was very public and open to all manner of folk, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, clean, unclean, tax collectors, sinners…. But the main point of contention, for early scholars, was that the Gospel privileged Jesus’ divinity far more than his humanity. This dichotomy would continue as a theological debate for centuries…. One might argue even unto our own day. You remember in the Prologue: “In the beginning was the Word (Jesus the Word made flesh) and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. Through him all things were made.” And Jesus throughout this Gospel reiterates the premise that he is sent from God. The Scottish theologian John Knox mused that in John’s Gospel, “Jesus’ feet never quite touch the ground.”
But the argument that eventually won the day was the recognition that this Gospel also propounds a high anthropology. That is, the startling emphasis on the divinity of those who follow Jesus, a counter-balance if you will. In other words, Jesus is the architype of the community of faith… As he is sent, then so too are we sent… As he is from God, so too are we from God. At one point in this Gospel Jesus tells his disciples as much, and goes so far as to say to them that they will do greater works than he. This very awareness is what separates John from the Synoptic Gospels, which never propose that Jesus is divine.
The church councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon in the fourth and fifth centuries would go all in on the divinity of Jesus, but alas, the divinity of humankind was left behind. I believe that John’s theology is a treatise on the profound responsibility we have as the people of faith. I agree with the scribes of this peculiar community that we are sent just as Jesus was sent… to heal, to welcome, to show mercy and compassion, to do justice…. to resist the corruption of power. It is the divine in our DNA that calls us into such service…into such a life.
During the ordeal we are in, we have an opportunity to practice our godlikeness, our divinity… and that is of course, to Love our neighbor among the myriad ways we can do that. We are “from” the Father, and therefore the health and well-being of our neighbor is our chief concern… and their dignity. To think, as some of our politicians do, that there is a trade-off between health on the one hand, and economic security on the other, is a profound heresy. Follow the high road, good people… always. We are made for Love since the beginning, Know always who and whose you are… and where you are from.
A Collect for Noonday (BCP p. 138)
Blessed Savior, at this hour you hung upon the cross, stretching out your loving arms: Grant that all the peoples of the earth may look to you and be saved; for your mercies’ sake. Amen.
