The Gospel for Friday, February 20, 2004
John 10:31-42
The Jews fetched stones to stone him, so Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many good works from my Father; for which of these are you stoning me?’ The Jews answered him, ‘We are stoning you, not for doing a good work, but for blasphemy; though you are only a man, you claim to be God.’ Jesus answered: Is it not written in your Law: I said, you are gods? So it uses the word ‘gods’ of those people to whom the word of God was addressed—and scripture cannot be set aside. Yet to someone whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world you say, ‘You are blaspheming’ because I said, ‘I am Son of God.’ If I am not doing my Father’s work, there is no need to believe me; but if I am doing it, then even if you refuse to believe in me, at least believe in the work I do; then you will know for certain that the Father is in me and I am in the Father. They again wanted to arrest him then, but he eluded their clutches. He went back again to the far side of the Jordan to the district where John had been baptising at first and he stayed there. Many people who came to him said, ‘John gave no signs, but all he said about this man was true’; and many of them believed in him. -- The New Jerusalem Bible. 1995, c1985. Doubleday: Garden City, N.Y.
A Study
This is reminiscent of Jesus' call to the crowd for a sinless man to cast the first stone toward the adultress. Jesus carefully turned the cold perverted logic of their own created understanding of the law to undermine their conviction to kill him for blasphemy. Since they dealt only in surface realities, not the truth, they couldn't fall back on an interpretation of the scripture. The psalm which Jesus quoted (Psalm 82) had men calling their human judges "gods." Yet the formalist elite have put themselves into a box. The scriptures, if they are to be inerrant, must be understood literally and followed and obeyed.
Having thus temporarily stunned them, Jesus escaped and crossed the Jordan back into John Baptist territory, where he was welcomed as The One John foretold, and "many of them believed in him."
This passage underlines John's distaste and contempt for the religious elite who persecuted Jesus -- just as the religious elite 60 years later were persecuting the Christian Jews to whom John's gospel is addressed. By holding the opponents of Jesus' time up to the cold light of day for the Christian Jews of John's present day, John was able to strengthen their conviction and their faith in the divinity and wisdom of Jesus. And John was able to demonstrate that having the "facts on your side" was not necessarily a good thing.
A Reflection
Thomas Aquinas is quoted, "To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible."
Doubt creeps in because God gave us minds to think. When things aren't going exactly the way we want, or when they turn really sour, we say "why me?" or "Oh, God!" as if God had singled us out at that time and that place to reveal just a bit more of the imperfection of the universe. And to one without faith, as Aquinas said, "no explanation is possible."
But this is anti-faith at work! With faith, we are convicted that God does not pick us out to have a bad day. When nature and human nature (and often our own thoughtless acts) line up to zing us, the hand of God can be felt only when we ask him for comfort, only when we [finally] turn to him and search for advice. And then, we often seek advice to repair a situation that would not have happened had we acted in obedience to him, or sought his will before exerting our own.
When we are caught up in loving God with all our heart and soul and mind and might, we can not find the time to worship his creations: cars, houses, toys, pleasures.
When we are caught up in loving our neighbors as ourselves -- or better, loving each other as Christ loves us -- we cannot form the thoughts that let us be selfish or vain or hurtful.
When we disobey Jesus' two great commandments, for which of his deeds are we stoning him?
7:05:35 AM 
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