Weekly Inspiration
March 8, 2010
Good Morning!
In this Lenten season we have been looking together at the Gospel of John. I found the following thoughts of the editor of the Christian Century magazine to be a helpful reminder.
“A recurring challenge for
preachers, teachers and readers of the Gospel of John is making sense of its
references to "the Jews." At Jesus' sentencing Pilate goes "out
to the Jews" to tell them that he finds no reason to crucify Jesus
(18:38). After Jesus is dead, John says that two men—Joseph of Arimathea,
who was a disciple of Jesus in secret "because of his fear of the
Jews" (John 19:38), and Nicodemus, earlier described as "a leader of
the Jews" (3:2), who came to see Jesus under cover of darkness (presumably
out of that same fear of the Jews)—claim the body of Jesus for anointing
and burial.
These and other negative references to "the
Jews" are at least partially responsible for the shame of Christian
anti-Semitism. Students of the New Testament understand that "the
Jews" can't really mean all the Jewish people and is usually used by John
to refer to the part of the Jewish leadership that was accommodating and
cooperating with the Romans. After all, Jesus was an observant Jew and so were
his disciples and his mother.
The Fourth Gospel was written in the context of early
Christians' painful separation from Judaism and from the synagogue. For a
while, Christian believers felt persecuted by the community they were leaving.
John's Gospel was written for those believers.
In her very helpful book, Encounters with Jesus: Studies
in the Gospel of John, Frances Taylor Gench explains that "in
John's social environment, adherence to this community bore a cost," and
she quotes David Rensberger's statement, in Johannine
Faith and Liberating Community, that at that time declaring oneself
a Christian believer was "to undertake an act of deliberate downward
mobility."
This understanding in no way justifies the terrible
history of Christian anti-Judaic teaching. It is nevertheless necessary for
Christian preachers and teachers of John to understand and in some way include
this point in sermons, lectures, essays and books.
The obvious problem is that it's hard to squeeze such
lessons into a sermon. The very least we can do is explain that "the
Jews" does not mean all the Jews and that a phrase like "because of
fear of the Jews" does not refer to fear of the entire religious
population.”
I hope you will have a good week!
Tom York
Please keep in your prayers:
Jim Constable, being treated for leukemia at Christ Hospital
Joy: Kathy Wall, whose cousin’s wife, Cindy and her son, Barrett, live in Concepcion, Chile. We heard last week that they are both fine!
