The Gospel for December 20, 2004
John 5:30-47
By myself I can do nothing; I can judge only as I am told to judge, and my judging is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me. Were I to testify on my own behalf, my testimony would not be true; but there is another witness who speaks on my behalf, and I know that his testimony is true. You sent messengers to John, and he gave his testimony to the truth— not that I depend on human testimony; no, it is for your salvation that I mention it. John was a lamp lit and shining and for a time you were content to enjoy the light that he gave. But my testimony is greater than John’s: the deeds my Father has given me to perform, these same deeds of mine testify that the Father has sent me. Besides, the Father who sent me bears witness to me himself. You have never heard his voice, you have never seen his shape, and his word finds no home in you because you do not believe in the one whom he has sent. You pore over the scriptures, believing that in them you can find eternal life; it is these scriptures that testify to me, and yet you refuse to come to me to receive life! Human glory means nothing to me. Besides, I know you too well: you have no love of God in you. I have come in the name of my Father and you refuse to accept me; if someone else should come in his own name you would accept him. How can you believe, since you look to each other for glory and are not concerned with the glory that comes from the one God? Do not imagine that I am going to accuse you before the Father: you have placed your hopes on Moses, and Moses will be the one who accuses you. If you really believed him you would believe me too, since it was about me that he was writing; but if you will not believe what he wrote, how can you believe what I say? -- The New Jerusalem Bible. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995, c1985
A Study
Jesus has just cured a man at the pool at Bethesda, on the Sabbath, and is explaining to the religious authorities the position which He holds. He describes how those sent by the Father are rejected, while those representing only themselves are honored.
A Reflection
"You pore over the scriptures, believing that in them you can find eternal life; it is these scriptures that testify to me, and yet you refuse to come to me to receive life!"
One of my favorite bumper stickers says, "Worship the Creator, not His creations."
Stepping back from the Book and observing what it contains is instructive. It is a collection of writings by men about our relationship with our Creator. I believe that there is evidence of divine inspiration in their work, along with the work of those who edited, translated, and compiled the texts. I believe that there have been undetected errors introduced that remain, and I believe that there are great missing chunks that we shall someday possess.
In first century Palestine, some of the Pentateuch's ink was still relatively wet: Genesis' final shape was completed only around 400BC by the "priestly" writers.
For a people whose cultic image was 1200-1800 years in the making, the stories of Israel's cult were sometimes (often) all they had, after repeated conquests, exiles, and captivities. So to be attached to the Law, and the writings of the prophets, and the wisdom literature -- that was understandable if not inevitable.
But their attachment had become obsessive; the numerology applied to Torah is the first century's forerunner to the "Code Matrix" phenomenon we see today. The emphasis on Sabbath, with its rules so complex that only the rule-makers could understand them, served no one except the rule-makers; in particular, it did not allow those who needed real Sabbath rest to obtain it. The religious authorities used Torah to maintain their stranglehold on the people, not to lead the people to YHWH. To me, their actions are like someone today using a heavy crucifix as a bludgeon to force others to comply with dictatorial edicts.
And that attitude was the focus of Jesus' accusal to the religious authorities. Jesus wasn't after hypocrisy so much as he was after error. It's rotten to be a religious authority conducting an affair on the side; it's perilously sinful when a religious authority leads a follower astray, pointing him or her toward idolatrous practice when Jesus is there waiting everywhere else we can look.
How about us? Do we worship the Creator, or are we obsessed with our church-y creations?
A Collect
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
2:43:34 PM 
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