A Final Word or Two

As you may have noticed, I rather like having the last word – and this is it!  It may be that from time to time I'll be called off the bench – a sort of impact player when the starting preacher's legs are getting weary – but apart from that I'm at the end of a period of regular preaching that has lasted almost exactly 20 years.  So today I'm going to indulge myself and break my own rule that I would not allow myself to break on previous occasions.  I'm not going to address today's readings – I have done so at least 5 times during that period of 20 years – and if you really want to know what I said on those occasions I'm sure I have copies somewhere!

But of course I do want to say something about the Scriptures; and I want to begin with an episode which, looking back, I now realise made a huge impression on me.  When the Reverend George Spargo was being instituted as Vicar of Otaki in 1989 he invited his friend, the Reverend Colin Barnes to be the preacher at the service; and we soon realised that Colin was a passionate lover of the Scriptures, the key word there being "passionate".  His other claim to fame was that he came from Burnley in Lancashire, and had a wonderful accent to prove it.

After a few minutes of preaching he had worked himself up into a bit of a lather on the virtues of the Scriptures, when he suddenly stopped, held his Bible up above his head like a winning captain with a sports trophy, and cried out, "Oooh, it's such a looovely book!"  Of course, many of us laughed, but I remember at the time thinking how wonderful it must be to feel like that about the Bible; and I guess that, although I didn't think of it as a prayer at the time, what I was doing really was to hope (to pray) that one day I might feel passionately about the Scriptures – albeit in my more restrained way as befits a southerner!

Well, over the years my memory of Colin faded; but one day I was talking to another priest who mentioned Colin, and we got talking about him, and I mentioned this incident; and as I recounted it I suddenly realised something: I did feel passionately about the Scriptures.  I could say with Colin "the Bible is a lovely book"; and I could say about Colin, "Thanks be to God!"  And one of the lessons that I have drawn from that little episode is the power of language that comes from the heart.    Colin was infamous for preaching too long – he probably went on a bit on that occasion in Otaki – and I cannot recall anything else he said.  But those six simple words have had an enormous effect on my own faith journey and on my commitment to preaching ever since he spoke them.

Now, I mentioned George Spargo; it's time to turn to a far more recent George, Bishop George Connor.  When Bishop George addressed Synod in May he announced his intention to retire at the end of November – on St Andrew's Day, which will be the 44^th anniversary of his ordination; and this no doubted prompted him to look back over his faith journey.  And he told us that throughout that time four small verses of Scripture had been of special significance to him in shaping his faith journey and his ministry.  I found that very interesting, and started to think about which few verses have been particularly significant for me.  If the Bishop can have his top 4, why shouldn't I?

The obvious difficulty in this approach soon raised its ugly head.  I couldn't agree with myself on my four choices.  And why only four, why not five or six or twenty-three?  The exercise threatened to get so out of hand that I thought it would be best to abandon the idea altogether (or perhaps pinch the Bishop's four and leave out his name!).  Part of the difficulty, of course, is that a particular verse may have particular significance to us at a particular time or in special circumstances.

An obvious example for me is Hebrews 11:8, which I have probably spoken about before.  That says, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going."  That was the crucial verse that, in the end, convinced me to resign from the Law Drafting Office, even though I did not have a clue what the next step was.  Was my sense of call real, or was I grandstanding?  Only when I resigned, did I convince myself that it was real, and six and a half months later I was offered a temporary position on the staff of All Saints, Palmerston North.  But once all that fuss was over, that verse had nothing more to say for me; so it can't claim a position in the final four.

A couple of other contenders are in a similar class.  After I had been ordained a deacon but before being ordained a priest, my first marriage collapsed, and there were many who advised the Bishop to cancel my licence and not ordain me as a priest.  For the record, I agreed with them.  However, our Bishop at the time was Archbishop Brian and he told me that against the advice he had received, and against his own instincts, that was going to go ahead with my ordination to the priesthood.  When I asked him why, he said, "Because I cannot escape the conviction that God is calling you, so you and I really have no choice."  And he drew my attention to Isaiah 43:1, which reads in part, "I have called you by name, and you are mine."  So that could have made the cut.

But in the end I have settled for 2 finalists, two less than the Bishop, which is fitting, perhaps; and it was only after I had chosen them that I realised that they are drawn from my two favourite books, they are related to one another and to Hebrews 11:8, and they are both extraordinarily timely for our two congregations.

They are Isaiah 43:18-19a; and John 5:6.  Here they are: Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  And from John: When Jesus saw him lying there, and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

If I had to try to sum up the message of the Gospel in a relatively few words, these would be where I would start.  I have long ago lost count of the people I have come across who have got stuck somewhere in their own past – who have been in their present condition for a long time.  I remember reading somewhere of a psychiatrist who told a priest that the Church could cut the need for psychiatric services in half if it could convince people first that they are forgiven, and secondly that they need to forgive themselves and others.  That, of course, is the core business of the Church.

I suspect that we all know people who are stuck in grievance mode; who tell the same hard luck story over and over again; and who believe that because of something or other in the past they cannot move one.  I once asked such a person what she and I would talk about if her particular grievance was ever resolved.  After a long, long struggle in silence, she told me that we wouldn't need to talk again because she would then have her life back, which is an interesting expression in itself.  I don't mean to diminish the pain and suffering that has often been experienced in such cases.  But I do want to suggest that the lovely book, and in particular these two extracts, provide a remedy.

First, that question.  Do we want to be healed?  Do we want to let go of the grievance, the bad memory, or whatever it is that is burdening us and stopping us from moving forward?  The man at the pool convinced himself that he could never be healed because others beat him to it – they looked after themselves and didn't stop to help him.  Jesus cut through the self-pity, and told the man to stand on his own two feet.  He raised him again – the man was resurrected.

How was that possible?  Because God was in Christ doing a new thing; it was time to forget the former things and stop dwelling on the past.  That's a message we need to hear time and time again on our faith journey; and it is a message that each of our congregations needs to hold on to as you are being called to leave your comfort zones and to go forward to the inheritance God has in mind for you, even though you do not know where you are going or what it will involve in any detail. 

The same is true for Trish and I, and for Bishop George and Nonie.  So let us pray for one another that we let go of past certainties and perceive the new thing that God is doing in our lives.  And let us hold on tightly to this lovely book as we go!  Amen.

Plain Speaking

Texts: Jeremiah 11:18-20; James 3:13-4:8; Mark 9:30-37

One of the many tensions in being human is that between meeting the expectations of our community on the one hand and being true to ourselves as individuals on the other; and that's as true for Christians as for anyone else.  The great prophets of our faith history – including the giants like Jeremiah – are to be honoured and remembered for their great courage in speaking out, in challenging those in positions of authority and calling them to account.  We have an example of that in our first reading today; at least, we have an example of the cost of doing it.  Jeremiah has been telling anyone who would listen that the people of his time were heading towards disaster – and the political leaders have had enough.  To them he is not a brave voice standing up for what is right: he is a seditious mongrel causing panic and alarm among the people at the very time when unity is necessary.

All that should sound familiar to us.  We have only to look at the war of words that has erupted in Wanganui for a recent example.  Is Ken Mair a divisive ego-tripper causing disharmony in a multicultural city, or a brave voice challenging the power elite to right a longstanding wrong?  Is Mayor Laws defending his own position of power for the sake of it, or is he standing up for the majority of his citizens on an important point of principle?  Is Bev Butler a heroine or a pain in the nether regions of the human anatomy?

Our theme today is ego-tripping; and when we look at our second lesson (ironically, from the plain-speaking St James) and the gospel reading, you can see why.  Both St James and Jesus himself seem to counsel against pushing ourselves forward.  Our Minister of Health might want everyone on the front line, but these two readings seem to suggest that we are all better off serving in the back room!  We should not seek positions of power, but be like powerless children.  We should not speak up, but be humble and even submissive.  And yet – there is Jeremiah, and with him all the other prophets of our faith history, including those of our own age, such as Desmond Tutu.

And there is the inescapable fact that Jesus was crucified for speaking out.

Where does all this leave us?  Well, I think we have already had one clue recently in the story of the healing of the deaf man who could hardly speak.  Remember how we are given quite graphic details of the way in which Jesus healed this man, and if we look at those details we will find that all the way through the story the deafness is treated as the primary complaint.  He is described as "a man who was deaf and could hardly talk".  Jesus first puts his fingers into the man's ears, and then touches the man's tongue.  When healing comes it comes in the same order: "the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly".  The ability to hear precedes the ability to speak.

And that seems to me to be the gist of this very direct teaching from St James this morning.  He distinguishes between "the wisdom that comes from heaven", and the wisdom that is "earthly, unspiritual, of the devil".  In other words, when someone speaks out we need first to discern to whom he or she has been listening before speaking out; and we can get a pretty clear idea of that, not just from the content of what is said, but the tone and manner in which it is said.

St James describes the wisdom that comes from heaven as "first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness".  Every politician, every court lawyer, and in fact every one of us who ever gets into a debate with anyone else should ponder those words long and hard.  Is my argument 'pure'?  Whatever else St James meant by that word, I think there are at least two ways in which our arguments may fail that test.  First, are we expressing ourselves in pure language, free from foul and abusive terms?  Secondly, are our motives pure in pressing our argument, or do we have a selfish agenda?  Are we pushing what we honestly believe to be a just cause, or are we more interested in winning the argument to show how clever we are or to save face?

Are we peace-loving?  Even though we disagree with someone on an issue – and maybe it's a very important issue – are we seeking to resolve the issue in a way that promotes peace, rather than ongoing discord?  Are we considerate of the feelings of those who disagree with us?  How different the battle over the proposed stadium might have been if all concerned had followed St James teaching here!

And St James is equally clear about the other side of the coin.  What he calls earthly, unspiritual wisdom that comes from the devil causes "fights and quarrels" among us, which come from "bitter envy and selfish ambition" in our hearts.  These are tough words, but pretty well on the mark, I think.  And to me what this whole passage calls into question is our widely accepted belief that democracy works best as a sort of free for all where each individual and each group pushes his, her or its barrow as hard and as selfishly as possible, and somehow or other what is best for all of us is supposed to emerge from that chaos.  But is that what it means to live in a free society – that each is free to be selfish?

I believe that our Christian faith tells us that each of us is free to consider our neighbour's interests as well as our own, and free to advocate what is best for others even at our own cost.  One of the great issues facing our society in the years to come will be the provision of health care.  While none of us like the idea, there will be – even if there isn't already – some form of rationing required.  We simply cannot provide all our citizens with every conceivable surgical procedure and every conceivable drug.  Someone somewhere will have to make tough decisions.   So do people like me join Grey Power and advocate for more treatment for oldies like me – based, perhaps, on how long we have been paying taxes – or do we stand back and look at what is best for the people as a whole?  Should we give priority to my grandchildren's generation, then my children's, and only then to my own?

What I'm suggesting in all this is that St James and Jesus are not talking about relatively minor matters within the community of faith.  While both readings have something useful to say to us as a diocese facing an electoral college, and as congregations about to have Vestry elections, they should guide us at a much deeper lever than that.

In all aspects of our lives we need to seek first the wisdom that comes from heaven; and that is particularly true when we find ourselves getting into an argument.  When I first went through Law school I was taught that my first duty was to the Court, and only after that was my duty to my client.  Why?  Because a properly functioning judicial system is in the best interests of all of us, including my client.  Sadly, there seems to be reason to doubt that such a view is still taught today.  As we become ever more obsessed with the rights of the individual, so we move ever further away from the kingdom of God.

I want to end with the story of two religious brothers who came to Sheffield University to teach us in our debating society their form of debating.  The rules were very simple.  First, the proposition for debate was read out by the chairperson.  (Until then, neither speaker knew what is was to be.)  Then there was silence for 15 minutes.  After that, the person for the proposition spoke one sentence in support.  Then the opposing speaker spoke two sentences.  The first sentence was his summary of what the first speaker had said.  The second sentence was designed to refute the first speaker's statement.  That was the first round.  Altogether there were 8 rounds.  In each round the number of sentences for each speaker increased by one; but in each case the first sentence had to be a summary of what the other speaker had just said.

When the eighth round finished, there was another period of 15 minutes silence.  At the end of that period, the speaker for the proposition had 5 minutes to summarise the case against the proposition, and the other speaker had 5 minutes to summarise the case for it.  The audience was then asked to vote on which of the speakers had most accurately summarised his opponent's case throughout the whole process.

In discussions afterwards, the brothers explained the purpose of their approach in one line: to learn to listen respectfully, first to our inner wisdom, and then to those who disagree with us.  That's wisdom that comes from heaven.  St James could not have put it any better.

  

 

The Retiring Sort

Texts: Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50

I must confess that my record as a sensitive new age guy – or at least as a politically correct liberal on gender issues – has one black mark.  I'm still not comfortable with women playing rugby; which explains why, of all the many regular columnists in the ODT, the one I have never read is Farah Palmer.  Never, that is, until last Thursday, when I felt strangely drawn to it.  It was meant to be.  She was writing about retirement, albeit under a rather strange heading "All Blacks' trouncing of Wallabies spurs fresh outlook".

Actually, before I go any further with Farah, perhaps I should apologise for using the word "retirement" in a holy place like this.  One of the strange things about my present situation is that people keep telling me that that word is no longer acceptable in polite society.  I received an email recently in which a friend told me never to use the "R-word" again.  Over the years in ministry I have often come across people who wont talk about cancer by name; the nearest they'll get to it is to say the "C-word".  Things that frighten us must not be named.  Sir Howard Morrison didn't die this week - he passed away.

Well, I understand why any reference to death or to terminal illness might frighten us (even though our faith teaches otherwise); but why does retirement have the same effect?  Why is retirement so awful we dare not speak its name?  According to a recent report on so-called baby-boomers, they have no intention of retiring until they're eighty, if then.  Of course, although we talk of baby-boomers as a generation, they are also a class.  We mean people of a certain age and belonging to a certain income group – middle class and upwards, don't we?  Tell a fifty-five year-old coal miner that he's a baby-boomer and he'll have no idea what you're talking about.  Tell him he now has the right to keep working into his eighties, and you may find he doesn't welcome the news.

So we may be talking only about middle-class, reasonably high income earners.  Which gets us back to Farah.  Actually, she's a bit of a fraud – she's not nearly old enough to retire properly.  What she is doing is leaving her present employment to have a baby, but to her that was traumatic enough.  And in writing about it she was honest enough to give us some idea as to why people like her prefer not to think about – you know, the R-word.  Here's her opening paragraph: Monday was my last day at work.  I struggled to leave, and kept finding last-minute things to do and people to meet.  My work-related ego was struggling.  How could they cope without me?  Would I be missed?

Two or three good strong clues there, aren't there?  "My work-related ego" is a revealing phrase in itself.  Then she wonders how they'll cope without her – a clear sign of the indispensability self-delusional syndrome.  On the other hand, will they even miss her?  Notice, she doesn't wonder how she will cope without them, or whether or not she will miss them.

Farah is not alone.  A few years ago on a clergy retreat a retired bishop talked to me about how difficult he was finding it to adjust to his new life of retirement: "Suddenly, nobody wants me any more", he told me.  And a recently retired priest told me that he was now "unpaid, unlicensed and unwanted".

All of which seems to me to raise some very deep questions in terms of our faith.  Last week our theme, interestingly enough, was "Ego-tripping"; and in our gospel passage Jesus told his disciples off for jockeying with each other for positions of power.  The greatest among us, he said, must be the servant of all.  That bishop and that priest would have experienced many times the frustrations of today's busy world.  They would have noted the decrease in the number of people with time to volunteer, in the church or in many other groups and clubs in the community.  There would have been many times, especially in the so-called working-life of the Bishop, when he was going from committee meeting to committee meeting, wondering when he would ever have time to pray, to reflect, and to minister to people in need.  Now they have that time to be a neighbour, a friend, a visitor, a family member – without all the burdens and constraints of formal office –and they hate it.

Moses would have understood.  He suffered from a similar condition: in his case, it was the superman self-delusional syndrome.  He was the leader who tried to do it all himself: delegation was not his forte.  Eventually his great mental and physical stamina was not enough; and when the people rebelled yet again, he was ready to throw in the towel.  God's response was to confer on a team of elders the same Spirit with which he had anointed Moses.  Leadership was to be shared with others.

And today's story has a nice little detail.  There were 72 elders in those days, but only 70 made it to the meeting: the other two remained behind in camp.  Yet all 72 were anointed by God.  This infuriated young Joshua, who was P.A. to Moses at the time.  Why should those two get the same deal when they hadn't made it to the meeting?  But Moses has seen the light.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if every one of the people received anointing with the Spirit of God?  Professional jealousy has no place in the community of God; nor is it appropriate for us to place limits on whom God may or may not ordain to leadership positions.  If true leadership in the community of faith is about servanthood, then the more servants there are, the better it is.

History adds an interesting footnote to this story.  God decided that Moses' leadership would end before the people entered the Promised Land; and that he would be succeeded by Joshua.  Did they miss Moses?  Probably.  Did they cope without him? Yes.  Was Moses indispensable?  No.

Our gospel reading shows our human nature hadn't changed much by the time of Jesus.  Last week the disciples were competing with each other.  This week we see them outraged because an "outsider" is healing someone in Jesus' name.  That's their job, and they don't want anyone else doing it, thank you very much.  Turf wars are not unknown within the Church, are they?  They should be, of course, but sometimes our human nature doesn't look as transformed as we would like to think.

And always, St James the Blunt has his own take on all this.  Related, perhaps, to our fear of retirement, is our unwillingness to accept that sometimes we need the help of others.  Long experience in the church tells me that those who are most willing to help others in need are often least able to accept help when they are ill or in need of some kind.  Could that be about pride?  Do we have this image of ourselves as strong and able to cope in all circumstances?  Do we forget that Jesus graciously allowed others to minister to him, so that we should be able to do the same from time to time?  Those who give us a glass of water will surely receive their reward, we're told.  But what if we refuse the glass of water because we're perfectly capable of getting our own drink, thank you very much?

And talking of water, I want to end with a verse from a poem by Saxon M. Wright, quoted in her column by my new friend, Farah:

Take a bucket and fill it with water,

Put your hand in it up to the wrist

Pull it out and the hole that's remaining

Is a measure of how much you'll be missed.

 

I'm thinking of having that printed and framed for the 31^st October!

What Do We Want?

Texts: Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35

Today we continue our journey through this amazing sixth chapter of St John's gospel; and not for the first time I wish I knew more about musical composition, because I think there is a sense in which St John has composed this chapter like a piece of music.  I seem to remember reading an essay on a piece of music by J.S. Bach, which I think was called The Goldberg Variations.  And if I understood the point rightly, I think what Bach did in that piece of music was to start off with a small musical phrase, and then write an astonishing number of variations of that one phrase.

As I say, my ignorance of music is so awful that it may be another piece of music, with a different title, and by a different composer!  But the point I'm trying to get at is this; when I started re-reading this chapter in preparation for this series of sermons, it seemed to me that St John has done something similar.  He has brought together a number of discrete images, themes, memories or whatever, and woven them together in varying patterns without ever quite repeating himself, and certainly without contradicting himself.

If you were hear last week you may recall some of the themes that we found in that long opening sequence from this chapter – the story of the feeding of the five thousand, followed by the story of Jesus walking on the water.  I suggested that the overall theme of the whole gospel is St John's vision of Jesus as the One who has come from above, the One sent by the Father to meet our deepest hunger for God; and if that is right we may agree with those commentators who say that this chapter is the very heart of this gospel, because that idea of Jesus coming to us from above recurs throughout this chapter.  Today we find two examples of it.  First, when the crowds ask Jesus what they must do (what is required of them by God), he tells them to "believe in the one he has sent".

Remember that this teaching is being given in the synagogue at Capernaum, so his audience is Jewish.  They might have expected his answer to draw on the Torah, the Law of God; they might have expected what we know as the Summary of the Law.  But no, Jesus calls on them to believe in the one whom God has sent (that is, himself).  And the second reference is even clearer: in verse 33 Jesus says this: "For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

Which leads us to the second theme we identified last week.  Why did Jesus come down from heaven?  According to St John, he comes to bring us "life" or "eternal life"; and that thought is woven in and out of this chapter, and the wider gospel.  We're so use to the term that we might overlook the fact that it is very common in this gospel, but not in the others.  Conversely, the others talk frequently of the "Kingdom of God" or the "Kingdom of Heaven", as St Matthew prefers; but that term is almost absent from this gospel.  So in some sense, St John is using this notion of "eternal life" in place of the term "kingdom of God" favoured by the other gospel writers.  But only in some sense.  If the "kingdom of God" means something like the realm or rule of God, or the sovereignty of God, it still has a sense in which  we, the people of God, are separate from God, subjects of God, or as St Paul puts it, citizens of heaven.  But St John seems to go even further than this.  He says that Jesus has brought to us God's own life, his divinity, and, as it were, infuses that life into those who believe in him.  What he means seems to be in accord with that astonishing expression we find in Second Peter (so important to the Orthodox Churches), when we are told that we "may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires".  In Christ, we become like him, with dual natures, the human and the divine.

The third theme that St John plays on again in this passage is the disparity between what the crowds want and what Jesus has come to offer us.  Last week we saw Jesus trying to escape from the crowds who were besieging him because they had seen the miracles he performed in healing the sick.  So they all went off and rounded up anyone who needed healing, and followed Jesus even though he had tried to withdraw from them.  This week, having followed Jesus across the lake and experienced the miraculous feeding, they are looking for him again.  Once more St John seems to be laying a lot of stress on these details – who crossed the lake, how did they get there, and how did they get back?  In one sense we may see these things as trivial, not worth going on about; but St John doesn't deal with trivialities.

I suspect there are at least two things going on here.  First, he is repeating the idea that the crowds pursue Jesus for the wrong reason.  Last week it was free medical care; this week it is a free lunch.  Jesus himself rebukes them when they once again catch up with him: "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill." Secondly, there may well be a subtext here: they were looking for Jesus, expecting to find him among them still on the far side of the lake.  But he wasn't there.  Where was he?  In Capernaum, in the synagogue, teaching, where they should have been on the Sabbath.  Manna was not provided on the Sabbath.

The fourth theme, of course, is the reference back to the great Exodus and the pilgrimage through the wilderness.  Perhaps they have begun to see some connection between the feeding of the five thousand and that great historical event.  Clearly, Moses has popped into their minds, Moses the Law-giver and Moses the provider of manna.  Perhaps that's why they phrased their original question to Jesus in the clumsy way they did: ""What must we do to do the works God requires?"  Very much a legal question, that one.  And that leads on to the provision of manna.  Jesus disabuses them: Moses didn't give them manna to eat; that came from heaven.  And now here for you is the true bread of heaven – "food that endures to eternal life".

Another important way in which this gospel differs from the others is that St John, in dealing with the Last Supper and all that happened on what we call Maundy Thursday, makes no reference to the institution of the Lord's Supper (the Eucharist).  Some scholars suggest that he substitutes the story of the foot-washing for that episode; but it is surely incredible that St John would not see the need for any reference to the Eucharist.  Surely it is beyond argument that he did not refer to the Eucharist in his version of the Last Supper for a very good reason: he had already dealt with it in this chapter.  We will come to that directly in a week or two, but already we can see how he is laying the groundwork.  The bread comes down from heaven; the bread gives life; Jesus is himself the bread.

And on that Eucharistic note, let's give the last word to St Paul.  "There is one body", he says and in our liturgy we agree: "we who are many are one body for we all share the one bread".  And he says one more thing in today's reading that ought to sound very familiar to us: "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace."  Today, as we come to the Lord's Table to share in Communion, we will be surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and included in that crowd will be St John and St Paul.  We are, after all, in communion with them and all the saints.

What  then does God require of us?  Only that we believe.

The Truth of God Incarnate

Texts: 1 Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-51

One of the things that I touched on last week was some of the differences between the so-called synoptic gospels on the one hand, and the Gospel of St John on the other; and that's where I want to start this week.  One of the delights of reading Scripture for me is that a lot of it comes out of the arguments and debates of the times in which it was written.  The classic example of this is always said to be the letters of St Paul to the Corinthians.  Reading them is like listening to one side of a telephone conversation and trying to work out what the other party to the call is saying.  Throughout much of those letters St Paul is clearly responding to criticism levelled against him, and by reading his response it is possible to get a pretty clear picture of what that criticism was.

We can do something similar with the four gospels by asking ourselves a simple question: why were they written?  And the first thing we can say about that is that none of them were written until about 35 years after the crucifixion, presumably because of the early Christian belief that Christ would return during the lifetime of the first generation of Christians, including the Apostles.  When Christ returned the end of time would occur and all would be revealed.  There would be no need for Scripture, gospels or anything of that kind.  However, Jesus did not return, and that first generation started to die off.  Without the Apostles, how were future generations to be told the story of Christ?  The only alternative was to write it down before the last of the witnesses had died.

That's a good explanation in general terms, but what about the individual gospels?  Can we say something about why each of them was written?  Well, yes we can, by studying the differences between them, because they reflect the issues of their time.  The first one, Mark's Gospel, was primarily concerned to get the basic story down on paper and published, so there is little theological argument in it, and pains taken to avoid giving offence to Rome.  Then came St Matthew, and he is clearly anxious to convince his fellow Jews that Jesus is the promised Messiah.  Hence he goes immediately into a genealogical account designed to prove that Jesus is from the House of David.  He had to be if he were to be recognised as the Messiah.  So St Matthew is arguing with those who did not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.

Ten years or so later comes the gospel of St Luke, and we know what he was trying to do because he tells us in the opening verses of his gospel.  He is writing for his Greek patron, and claims to have checked the whole story about Jesus very carefully so he can give Theophilus an accurate account.  And there is no surprise that in his account we find an emphasis on Jesus reaching beyond the House of Israel to the Gentiles.  (St Luke follows this theme up in his Book of Acts, of course, as he records the struggle by Jewish Christians to accept that the gospel is for Gentiles as well as Jews.)

So, when the first gospels were written, the argument was largely within the Jewish community, and over the issue of whether or not Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited Messiah.  By the time St Luke was writing, the argument was between Jews and Gentiles; was the gospel for all people, or only for Jews and those who first converted to Judaism.  Twenty or so years later, when St John's Gospel appears, the issue has shifted again.  Now the central argument is about the divinity of Christ.  Was Jesus simply a prophet, a very great one, certainly, but still a human being with a prophetic ministry?  Or was he God incarnate?

That is the central issue to which the whole gospel is addressed; and one clue to that is to be found at the very beginning of the gospel, in what we know as the Prologue.  St Matthew starts his gospel: A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham.  Compare that with how St John starts his: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  And we only have to wait until verse 14 to get the gist of whom John is talking about: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the Glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.  It's all there really.  If anyone ever tries to tell you that there is nothing in the Bible to support the view that Jesus is divine, just rub their nose in that verse 14!

And this is the issue that we've got to in our journey through this chapter 6; and it's very interesting how St John deals with it.  The other three gospels all record Jesus coming to the synagogue in his hometown and being given a hard time by the locals.  [Incidentally, they do not agree on the identity of his hometown: was it Nazareth or Capernaum?]  But in those accounts we are told that the locals are astonished at the wisdom and authority with which Jesus is teaching them.  Where is he getting this from?  Isn't he merely the carpenter's son?  Isn't Mary his mother, and don't we know his brothers and sisters who live among us?  And they take offence against him for being too big for his boots!  He seems to them to be claiming the authority of a Rabbi, or, worse still, a prophet, when's he's really just a local boy with the gift of the gab!

But look at what St John has done with this episode.  He agrees with the circumstances – Jesus is in the synagogue in Capernaum; but now the issue is something much deeper than any claim by Jesus to be a prophet.  Now, according to St John, what Jesus is claiming is to have come down from heaven.  Clearly, by the time St John is writing his gospel, the issue of the day is the divinity of Christ.  The congregation starts grumbling against Jesus over that claim, but their complaint is on the same grounds as before.  The locals know Mary and Joseph and the rest of the family; how then can Jesus claim some heavenly origin rather than a normal human one?  [We should note in passing John's clever use of the term "grumbling": it's what the Israelites were doing to Moses in the wilderness before the gift of manna from above.]

 

Jesus makes no attempt to soften his stance or change his language; on the contrary, St John has him stress the point over and over.  "I am the bread that came down from heaven"..."No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God"..."here is the bread that comes down from heaven"..."I am the living bread that came down from heaven".  All that would have been hard enough for his listeners to swallow; but, of course, worse was to come, as we shall see next week.

In preparation for that I want to close with one more observation about this gospel in general.  St John is often accused of being anti-Semitic, because he often refers to Jesus' opponents as "the Jews".  The claim is unfair; apart from anything else, St John was a Jew himself.  But again we need to put this gospel in its historical context.  By the time it was written, Christians had been kicked out of the synagogues, and the official Jewish stance was to label Christianity as blasphemous and heretical.  When St John refers to "the Jews" it is against that background; he means the Jewish rulers of his time.

They would certainly have rejected any suggestion that Jesus was divine, because to them that would offend against the fundament teaching that God is One.  And given their attitude to the consumption of blood, the Eucharist would have absolutely appalled them.  It's no surprise that this is the topic to which St John turns our attention next week.