From the Daily Lectionary for Thursday in the Twelfth Week after Pentecost
John 7:14-36
About the middle of the festival Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. The Jews were astonished at it, saying, “How does this man have such learning, when he has never been taught?” Then Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine but his who sent me. Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own. Those who speak on their own seek their own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is nothing false in him.
“Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you looking for an opportunity to kill me?” The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is trying to kill you?” Jesus answered them, “I performed one work, and all of you are astonished. Moses gave you circumcision (it is, of course, not from Moses, but from the patriarchs), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath in order that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I healed a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement.”
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. Yet many in the crowd believed in him and were saying, “When the Messiah comes, will he do more signs than this man has done?”
The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering such things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent temple police to arrest him. Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will search for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.” The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, ‘You will search for me and you will not find me’ and, ‘Where I am, you cannot come’?”
One thing that the Gospel of John and the Synoptic Gospels have in common is that they all depict a tension, an outright enmity between Jesus and his teachings, and the Jewish leadership. The scribes, Pharisees, and the priestly class represent the institution of Judaism. They are the institutionalized guardians, stewards of the faith. Jesus represents a renewed interpretation of Judaism relative to the present circumstances in his world, a world occupied by imperial power. Certainly, in John’s Gospel, Jesus’ life and teachings take on a wider, more cosmopolitan, more universal theological system as compared to the “Torah-centric” teachings in the Synoptics. But still, there is a line drawn, in all four Gospels, between institutional faith and the radical and novel vision of the Jesus movement.
One may well argue that the Gospels point out the difference between “religion” and spirituality; religion being institutional and therefore inherently dogmatic; and spirituality being open to new possibilities, new revelation. It seems to be a pattern that institutions tend towards self-interest and self-perpetuation, and even more problematic, they tend towards rigid control. If one were a fish, religion would be a fish-bowl, whereas, spirituality would be the ocean. There are those of our culture who have opted out of the fish-bowl. They declare that they are “spiritual,” but not “religious.”
I am a priest of the church, and therefore a part of the institution. The Episcopal Church is a church of bishops, that is to say, we have an institutional hierarchy. Some argue that such a structure is an anachronism, that it no longer serves a meaningful purpose in our post-modern consciousness. But I would argue that we need institutions to connect us to our traditions, our history, the wisdom handed down to us over generations. Our Book of Common Prayer is an emblem of our being connected to an historical church. Wisdom evolves, it is begotten over time, and the church as an institution is the steward of such wisdom, and curators of its practice.
All that said, even though we are an institution, we don’t have to act institutionally, that is to say, we are not confined to the proverbial fish-bowl. Even institutions change and grow, mature with new knowledge. We hold to the institutional church lightly. The institution is a means, not an end. It is a useful tool, not a finished product. Perhaps the genius of the Episcopal Church is its ability to be an institution without being institutional. The question is not whether we change or not. Change is a given. The question is how do we change with integrity, serving the truth, and giving ourselves over to Love? We have to remember that God is ever about making all things new, and Love is God’s means, a process in which we are deeply implied.
As members of an institutional church, perhaps our role is to nurture institutional change. That applies in and outside the church. That happens by being open to imaginative speculation, the wisdom gained through experience… no small amount of humility and gratitude, and a fierce embrace of the truth, as best we can discern it. As followers of the Way of Jesus, we carry our history with us; but we also make history, whether in the fish-bowl, or in the deep of the ocean.
A Prayer for the Church (BCP p. 816)
Gracious God, we pray for your Holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen.
