The Gospel for Saturday, February 7, 2004
John 7:14-36
When the festival was half over, Jesus went to the Temple and began to teach. The Jews were astonished and said, ‘How did he learn to read? He has not been educated.’ Jesus answered them: ‘My teaching is not from myself: it comes from the one who sent me; anyone who is prepared to do his will, will know whether my teaching is from God or whether I speak on my own account. When someone speaks on his own account, he is seeking honour for himself; but when he is seeking the honour of the person who sent him, then he is true and altogether without dishonesty. Did not Moses give you the Law? And yet not one of you keeps the Law! ‘Why do you want to kill me?’ The crowd replied, ‘You are mad! Who wants to kill you?’ Jesus answered, ‘One work I did, and you are all amazed at it. Moses ordered you to practise circumcision—not that it began with him, it goes back to the patriarchs—and you circumcise on the Sabbath. Now if someone can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the Law of Moses is not broken, why are you angry with me for making someone completely healthy on a Sabbath? Do not keep judging according to appearances; let your judgement be according to what is right.’ Meanwhile some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, ‘Isn’t this the man they want to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, and they have nothing to say to him! Can it be true the authorities have recognised that he is the Christ? Yet we all know where he comes from, but when the Christ appears no one will know where he comes from.’ Then, as Jesus was teaching in the Temple, he cried out: You know me and you know where I came from. Yet I have not come of my own accord: but he who sent me is true; You do not know him, but I know him because I have my being from him and it was he who sent me. They wanted to arrest him then, but because his hour had not yet come no one laid a hand on him. There were many people in the crowds, however, who believed in him; they were saying, ‘When the Christ comes, will he give more signs than this man has?’ Hearing that talk like this about him was spreading among the people, the Pharisees sent the Temple guards to arrest him. Then Jesus said: For a short time I am with you still; then I shall go back to the one who sent me. You will look for me and will not find me; where I am you cannot come. So the Jews said to one another, ‘Where is he intending to go that we shall not be able to find him? Is he intending to go abroad to the people who are dispersed among the Greeks and to teach the Greeks? What does he mean when he says: “You will look for me and will not find me; where I am, you cannot come?” -- The New Jerusalem Bible. 1995, c1985. Doubleday: Garden City, N.Y.
A Study
John continues to belittle the Jewish leadership of Jerusalem through Jesus' speeches. Much more than in the other three Gospels, John never passes up a chance to depict the leadership, the religious hierarchs, as prototypical villains.
"Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law." Jesus drives a strong logical wedge between the leaders and the Mosaic law from which they claim to derive their authority. He keeps up the attack on the rabbinical leadership with "My teaching is not mine but his who sent me." His teaching did sound authoritative, and he, unlike the leading teachers, did not cite earlier rabbis from whom his teaching could derive authority. He just said it.
John talks about different kinds of Jews in the same passages, though he separates them only in the context of what they say. There were some believers, who thought that the Messiah couldn't do mightier works than Jesus, so he must be the Messiah. And others who were almost ready to believe Jesus was the Messiah, except teaching had always said that no one would know the origin of the Messiah, and they all knew this carpenter's son was from Galilee. And then there were those who wanted to arrest him, the leaders, but were frustrated when they tried. So we have the hot, the lukewarm, and the cold: the believers, the admirers, and the despisers. The advisers seem to be as out of this picture as the believers were in the previous 13 verses.
Many think that it was important that John show the divisions among the Jews while Jesus lived because the Jewish Christians circa 100 A.D. were coming under heavy pressure from some of the Jews, while being tolerated by others and joined by yet others. John seemed to think it important that rabbis who insisted on a single, unified The Jewish Way were just as wrong in 100 A.D. as they were in 33 A.D.
A Reflection
Do we take care to apply discernment to those who assert the privilege of teaching us about God, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit? Are we thoughtful in dividing assertions into those based on the Gospels from the Epistles from the Revelation? Are we astute in separating Dogma from the Divine?
John attacks the priests, I believe, because over the centuries they created the 613 Mitzvot of the Law, and then refused to live it. These intellectual creations of men concerning sacred things are today what we call dogma.
I personally use the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed -- both intellectual creations of men -- to help me remember what I think being a Christian is, and what I think a Christian ought to believe if that Christian has derived his beliefs and his faith from scripture. I believe that the Creeds are not dogmatic, since each statement is strongly and contextually Biblically linked. But there are others who would vehemently disagree with me.
Unfortunately, Creeds seem to be some of the linchpins of denominations of people formally bound together in spiritual associations. I am becoming leery of using the word church when talking about such groups. Jesus told us that the Church is His body, and I don't think he would be very proud of some of his parts today, using the more generic definition.
My denomination is really hung up on the dogma of Apostolic Succession. But it is a real stretch to pull that particular rabbit out of the Gospel hat. My denomination is hard over that only a priest can "consecrate" the elements of the Eucharist. Yet in the early church, Eucharist was a family tradition, celebrated in homes by family members. And the Gospels' usage of the term "priest" is often not a polite one.
But for me at this time and in this place and on this step of my journey, the local institution of my denomination represents a place to become and a place to belong, and my duty as a believer is to do everything I can to help it become the Body. Now, think about it: if you were a belly-button, for instance, would you go and purposefully seek out a terrifically ugly, dysfunctional body? No, you'd find one that worked well together so you could be a good belly-button and serve your purpose for the whole body. Bodies that have already limited the functions of bellybuttons, or that think that bellybuttons are somehow a lower class of body-part, should have trouble attracting you.
But back to John.
John gives us a lens through which to see Jesus, and I think he creates the best intellectual images for me in trying to understand this walk I'm on. My favorite is still
"In the beginning was the Word. ... and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace, and glory."
7:30:20 AM 
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