A Betrothal (John 4:1-42)

A Familiar Storyline

Imagine you’re watching a sports movie, and a ragtag team of down-and-out players get clobbered in their first game. Or imagine you’re watching a romantic comedy, and the female lead has just met a man who is the opposite of her in every way. These scenes are so common in our culture that you can guess what’s going to happen next. In the first case, we have an underdog story. The scruffy sports team are going to be whipped into shape, and they’re going to rise from the ashes and win the championship in dramatic fashion. In the second scenario, we have a classic opposites-attract comedy. Through a series of awkward but increasingly endearing encounters, the woman and man are going to fall in love and get married.

Every storytelling culture has familiar plots like these with various cues that indicate to the discerning audience what is going to happen next. In the Old Testament, one of the most cherished storylines tells how a man meets his future wife. There are six essential ingredients to this storyline. To illustrate, I’ll refer to the story of Jacob in the book of Genesis.

First, a man makes a journey to a foreign territory. Jacob, you’ll remember, has fled home to escape his murderous brother, Esau. Second, the man meets a woman at a well. Jacob, you’ll recall, meets Rachel when she comes to a well to water her father’s flock. Third, someone draws water in a gesture of care for the other. Fourth, there is a hurried sharing of news as the woman rushes home to tell of the encounter. In Jacob’s story, Rachel runs to the tell her father, Laban. Fifth, there is a show of hospitality to the traveler, usually an offer of food and lodging. In Jacob’s case, Rachel’s father, Laban, welcomes Jacob to stay for a month. Sixth, and last of all, the man and woman are betrothed with the blessing of the surrounding family or community.

While we’ve looked only at Jacob’s story, there are several others that follow this pattern, most notably the betrothal of Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis 24 and the betrothal of Moses and Zipporah in Exodus 2. (The betrothal of Ruth and Boaz follows a similar pattern, although it makes a few minor adaptations.)

With these six elements of the betrothal-at-a-well storyline fresh in our mind, let’s turn now to this morning’s scripture, John 4:1-42.

A Woman at a Well in Foreign Territory

5 [H]e came to a Samaritan city called Sychar—in other words, Jesus is now in foreign territory—near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

In foreign territory, Jesus stops at a well. Is it a coincidence that John tells us it’s Jacob’s well? Could he be inviting his audience to remember what happened long ago when Jacob stopped at a well?

7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Here we see a twist on the third element of the betrothal-at-a-well storyline. A tired Jesus first asks the Samaritan woman for a drink of water. (Even though John doesn’t make it explicit, I assume she gives Jesus a drink even as they continue their conversation.) The twist comes when Jesus in turn offers the woman water of his own—“living water,” that is, water that will ensure a person never go thirsty again. (We’ll learn in a moment just how spiritually thirsty this woman has been.)

A Mismatch

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

Traditional interpretation takes a rather dim view of the woman for having five husbands and living now with a man not her husband. But it’s equally possible—especially in that time and place, in that deeply patriarchal society where women were regularly talked about as property and could be divorced at the smallest whim of a displeased husband—it is equally possible that this woman has been severely mistreated and is desperately seeking some security in life. A grown, unmarried woman in the ancient Near East was in a particularly vulnerable position and would likely not be able to provide for herself. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that this woman is spiritually parched—spiritually thirsty to the point of death, wondering each night how she was going to make it in what seemed like a cruel, unkind world.

19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

If this encounter at a well is leading to a betrothal, it cannot be overstated how mismatched this couple is. First, the woman is not quite what you’d call eligible in her culture, as she has been married five times. She has perhaps herself given up on the idea of marriage. Next, she is a Samaritan, which as we see in the preceding verses means she is not only ethnically different than a Judean but religiously different as well, worshiping on a different mountain and with some different traditions. In short, then, she would appear to be ethnically, religiously, and morally disqualified from a betrothal to this man.

Which makes it all the more astounding what Jesus does here. Jesus reveals himself completely—gives himself to this woman in a way he has not given himself to anyone else. This is the first instance in the gospel of John where Jesus reveals himself to be the messiah. And he says it not to his disciples or fellow Judeans but to a foreign “heathen” of ill repute. Thrice disqualified in the eyes of her world, but she is the one to whom Jesus chooses to give himself completely. If we take nothing else from this story, this one point would be enough. Nothing disqualifies us from God’s love. No misdeed, no failure, no habit, no addiction—nothing disqualifies us (or anyone else!) from the advances of Christ, who gives himself completely to us.

Transformed by Love

27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30 They left the city and were on their way to him. …

If you’ll remember, after the drawing of water comes the hurried sharing of news, which is precisely what we get here. That the Samaritan woman leaves her jar of water suggests just how much of a rush she’s in. She can’t wait to tell others in her town what’s happened to her. (As the CWF group who studied this story on Tuesday pointed out, leaving her jar of water behind may also symbolize that she is leaving behind her old life of despair. She now has water that satisfies.) While many readers take the woman’s proclamation—“Come and see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done!”—as an exclamation of wonder at Jesus’ omniscient or all-knowing character, I’m inclined to think her wonder has more to do with Jesus’ all-accepting character. That is, this man knows everything I’ve ever done and instead of judging and condemning me (as everyone else does), he has given me himself completely. Or in more basic terms: “He loves me!”—rather than “he loves me not.”

A Transfiguration

39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.”

Jesus’ acceptance transforms the Samaritan woman to such an extent that her neighbors look on her with a wonder similar to her own wonder. “How she has changed! How she holds herself, how brightly she beams! Whatever she’s encountered, it must be real. How else would she be so different?” And so they believe too in this incredible love and acceptance—that the messiah would come to them!

As a brief aside, it’s worth noting that today is Transfiguration Sunday. Traditionally we read the scripture where Jesus ascends a mountain with Peter, James, and John, and he is suddenly transformed into a bright, shining figure, his glory completely revealed. But today’s scripture reminds us that Jesus’ glory is not an isolated reality over and against us. It is rather a revelation of all creation’s glory, including our own. John calls Christ the Word, the “logos,” which is to say, Christ is the underlying logic of reality, the pattern of the universe, the fabric in and from and through which we are all woven. He reveals our true nature as beloved, glorious children of God. Thus Paul says, “All of us…seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed [or transfigured] into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (1 Cor 3:21-23). I like how Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12^th-century monk, puts it: “In giving me himself, he [Christ] gave me back myself.” We see this in the Samaritan woman, to whom Jesus gave himself completely—and see how she was transformed—transfigured. How she came to inhabit her true self as a daughter of God.

“…and the Soul Felt Its Worth”

40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days.

Here we have the fifth, penultimate element in our betrothal-at-the-well story, the show of hospitality. I imagine much of Jesus’ two days was spent with the Samaritans sitting at tables, breaking bread.

41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

The final element of the betrothal-at-the-well story is the betrothal itself. And that’s the one element that seems to be missing. Its absence threatens to undo this entire comparison I’ve been making.

For those who may doubt the case I’ve been trying to make or need a little extra convincing that John intends to portray this scene as a betrothal, I would point out that only verses before today’s scripture (back in John 3:29), Jesus is referred to by John the baptizer as a “bridegroom.” That’s a curious coincidence. And it’s not the only one. In the chapter before that, John 2, Jesus performs the first sign of his ministry. Where? At a wedding.

All of this leads me to believe that a betrothal does take place at the end of today’s scripture. Not a literal betrothal, to be sure, but a spiritual one. “Betrothal” comes from the old English word for “truth,” and it means something like “to be true.” When Christ betroths himself to us, revealing his true self and his desire for us, we learn our own true selves as blessed and beloved children of God. His transfiguration kindles our own.

Or as it is put so beautifully in the Christmas hymn, “O Holy Night”: “Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.” His glory…reveals our own. He appeared…and the soul, finally, felt its worth.

Prayer

God of longing,
Who knows everything we have ever done
And still looks upon us
As the apple of your eye—
Open our hearts to receive and believe
The good news that you love us
As we are
…
May the woman at the well inspire us
To leave behind our old jar of water—
Our old, false self of shame and fear—
And to drink instead
From the living water of your love,
Where our soul knows its worth.
In Christ, whose glory reveals the glory of all creation: Amen.

 

Seeing God's Kingdom (John 3:1-21)

“By Night”

I have a hunch that most major life decisions are made, unofficially at least, at night. Contracts may be signed in the daylight. But before any handshakes are made, the heart must in its own solitude make a critical decision. In any major life decision, the heart must decide to leave behind what it knows.

Sometimes, it’s simply a case of leaving behind less for more: a lesser role at work for a bigger role; a smaller salary for a larger one. Other times, however, it’s a case of leaving behind a community, a place of belonging, a secure way of life. Either way, the heart often makes its deliberations under the cover of night, when it is alone, when there is space to think, when there is freedom to ask questions and consider possibilities. Ask someone how they feel about their job while they’re surrounded by their boss and work colleagues and you’ll likely get a very different answer from what you would hear if you asked them later that night in a quiet kitchen or a deserted bar. And sometimes the heart needs even more cover. Not until we are asleep, sometimes, does it feel free to ask the hard questions and to explore alternatives that might otherwise seem impossible. Hence those sudden awakenings at 3 am, the heart beating fast, having itself stumbled upon the truth that the mind was working so desperately to avoid.

Some people label Nicodemus a coward for visiting Jesus under the cover of night. I have a lot more sympathy for him. I would call him “human.” It’s human to fear what other people will think, to feel the pressure of their judgments. It’s human to weigh heavy decisions privately, away from prying eyes.

“Churchy” People

As a Pharisee curious about Jesus, Nicodemus would have found himself between a rock and a hard place. As you know, the Pharisees were considered experts of the law. The name “Pharisee” derives from a Hebrew word that means “to separate” or “divide.” The word characterizes the Pharisees by their most distinctive behavior, namely dividing between what is good and bad, what is right and wrong, what is lawful and not lawful. In a word, “judging.” The Pharisees were always judging. And they were scrupulous to keep themselves on the side of what was right and lawful, to the point that they would often avoid associating with anyone who might have fallen afoul of the law.

It’s easy to write the Pharisees off as the bad guys -- "those self-righteous hypocrites!" -- but I think we do so at our own risk. They actually serve as helpful mirrors for typical religious behavior. When people refer to certain behaviors of Christians as “churchy,” I think they’re referring to a Pharisaical impulse that is common to all religion: namely, judgment. For reference, dictionaries define “churchy” as “marked by strict conformity or zealous adherence to the [laws] of a church” and consequently marked also by intolerance and narrow-mindedness. Sounds a bit like the Pharisees, doesn’t it?

Anyway, the point is that Nicodemus belongs to a community that is sometimes prone to judge and condemn. If they catch wind that Nicodemus is consorting with the Jesus who just overturned tables in the Temple, the Jesus who quickly makes a name for himself by sharing the same tables as impure and impious “sinners and tax collectors,” then Nicodemus will quickly fall on the wrong side of their judgment. Just like that, he could lose his entire community. His teachers and friends—gone, ashamed of him. Maybe even some of his family.

So he visits Jesus by the cover of night. Not because he is a coward, but because he is human. Afraid, careful…and most importantly, curious about Jesus. His heart has a decision to make. Is it worth leaving behind everything he knows?

Seeing “from Above”

When Nicodemus confesses to Jesus that he knows God is with Jesus, Jesus has a surprising response. He does not commend Nicodemus for getting it right; nor does he acknowledge the truth of Nicodemus’ statement and claim some special privilege for himself. Instead, he makes an invitation: “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (John 3:3). In other words, yes, God is with me, and God is with you too—if only you are “born from above,” you will have the eyes to see it. Jesus essentially invites Nicodemus to see the world differently. As God does. “From above.” To do so—to see as Jesus sees, to see as “from above”—will place him on the same plane in which Jesus lives, the kingdom of God itself, not up there in the clouds somewhere, but right here on this very ground.

Nicodemus gets bogged down in the language here. The phrase “from above” is a double entendre that can also mean “again,” which is what Nicodemus hears. When he presents Jesus with the impossibility of getting back in the womb and being born a second time, he also unwittingly presents the gospel of John with a beautiful metaphor that remains to this day. “Born again.” This seeing differently—seeing as “from above”—into which Jesus invites us, is so different from the conventional way of looking at things that it is indeed like being “born again.”

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the most famous conversion experience in the Bible shows us a man (Saul of Tarsus) who is blinded from above and then later has something like scales fall from his eyes (cf. Acts 9:18). How we see the world is crucial to this new life in the kingdom of God.

Seeing Our Sin (Melt into the Sea)

Personally, I believe that Jesus has some sympathy for Nicodemus, who struggles to understand his words. Jesus proceeds to explain this new sight, this being born from above, in terms that Nicodemus would know. He refers to a story in the book of Numbers, when the Israelites have rebelled against God and then a slew of fiery serpents enter their camp and begin to bite them (cf. Num 21:4-9). God tells Moses to create a statue of a serpent and set it on top of a pole, explaining that everyone who looks upon the serpent will be healed. It is a cryptic story at first glance. Serpents are the problem, and…a serpent is the solution? But a closer look suggests that this story directly addresses the situation of a people who are mired in the repetition of hurtful habits. The message of the story seems to be that only when they have looked their own sin and its consequences squarely in the eye will there be healing. A wound can only be healed when it is seen and acknowledged and exposed.

The strange thing is that Jesus then compares himself to that serpent on the pole. Just as Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness so that people might see their sin and be healed, so Jesus says he himself (“the Son of Man”) must be lifted up. The implication is that when people look upon Jesus crucified, they will see their own sin, their own woundedness, and somehow will be saved.

How? Well, Jesus follows this immediately with one of the most quoted verses of scripture, John 3:16, insisting that all of this flows from God’s saving love. Christ on the cross, refusing to judge and condemn anyone—refusing to condemn the Romans who have crucified him, refusing to condemn the Jewish leaders who have judged and condemned him, refusing to condemn his own followers who have denied and deserted and betrayed him—this nonjudgmental Christ shows us the depths of God’s love as it confronts the worst of humanity’s sin. Jesus ends up on the cross because humanity needs a scapegoat, someone to blame their problems on, someone to judge and condemn. But in Christ on the cross, we see an innocent man scapegoated; we see the error of our sin. And we see it meet a God who refuses to do the same thing, to accuse, to blame, to judge and condemn. What a contrast! The horror of a human blame game that ends in death, met with a God who refuses to play the game, a God whose love is too great for something like judgment and condemnation.

One desert father of the 7^th century, Isaac of Syria, says that the sins of all humanity are like a handful of sand thrown into the ocean when compared to God’s mercy. We see this ocean of God’s mercy in Jesus lifted up, in Christ on the cross, refusing to condemn the Romans or the Jewish leaders or his fickle followers—and not because he’s better than all of them, not in some “I’m taking the higher road” sense, but because his love for all of them is bigger and truer than any of their wrongs or faults. 

God’s Tear upon Our Neck

If you think about it, Moses’ serpent on the pole schtick in the wilderness isn’t so different from the way we sometimes discipline our children. “Go think about what you’ve done.” In other words, consider your wrongdoing, your sin; look it square in the face. See what you’ve done.

Sometimes when my nephew does something that he knows he shouldn’t have done, he literally hides his face—a little bit like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. Or, he’ll immediately shift his attention away from the misdeed, saying, “Anyway…” before he’s off to a completely different subject (perhaps one in which others have done wrong but he is a shining example of virtue). His reaction, I think, is completely human. As adults, our evasion tactics have evolved into more sophisticated practices, such as flipping on the TV or checking our phones. But the principle holds. Seeing our own misdeeds—our sin—is perhaps the hardest thing to do. We so fear the shame and judgment that we avoid looking at our own woundedness and sin. And so “go think about what you’ve done” rarely seems to have any transformational effect. (It’s much easier and safer to stay a Pharisee or a “churchy” person, to judge and condemn and see all the wrong around us.)

But in today’s scripture Jesus hints at a crucial difference in the way God responds to us. Christ on the cross is not just saying, “Go think about what you’ve done.” In a sense, Christ isn’t pointing us at all toward what we’ve done. Christ is pointing us toward God’s love.

There is an old Japanese tale about a teenage son who is beginning to act out in more and more destructive ways, stealing his family’s money and spending it toward dishonorable pursuits. A little bit like the prodigal, except that he’s living at home. Finally the father, who is something like a town mayor and so very concerned not only for his son’s behavior but also the family’s good standing, calls for his brother, who is a monk, to come and help. His brother, the monk, comes and spends a day with the family. All day he says nothing to the nephew, while his brother and sister-in-law are nudging and prodding, hoping he’ll offer some stern reprimand. But he stays silent. Finally it is time to leave, and he says, “I must be getting old.” Turning to his nephew, he says, “Would you help me tie my sandals?” And the nephew, a little miffed, shrugs and then bends down before his uncle and begins to tie his sandals. As he’s doing this, he feels a warm drop on his neck. He looks up toward his uncle…and finds him gazing at him tenderly through tearful eyes. The story ends almost abruptly at this point, indicating simply that the uncle departed and that the nephew changed for the better.

Seeing our own sin is almost impossible, afraid as we are to feel the shame and disapproval. What enables us finally to be honest is a love that eclipses that shame and disapproval. The nephew changes not because he shamed into it, but because he finally feels the safety of his uncle’s love.

Christ on the cross is God’s tear upon our neck. Christ on the cross is God’s love, enabling us to do what we otherwise are unable to do: to see our own sin. To see that our judging, condemning, blaming—it may make us feel good for a moment, but it doesn’t get us anywhere. It keeps us divided. It doesn’t heal wounds. What does heal, what does reconcile, is love.

And it’s like a whole new world. This extraordinary ocean of love that swallows our sins like sand—this love opens our eyes to see much more than just our sin. It opens our eyes to see the kingdom of God right here. “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” Jesus tells Nicodemus (John 3:3). Once we truly know we are loved, we know the same truth holds for everyone else. And it’s like we’re swimming in entirely new waters. An ocean of mercy where judgment and condemnation dissolve and have no place.

Prayer

God of boundless love,
Who looks upon us
Not with judgment
But as on sons and daughters
Who will always be first in your heart:
Where we remain under the impulse
Of our world,
To judge, to condemn, to exclude
…
Turn our eyes upon Jesus,
Whose eyes look with compassion
Upon us all.
In Christ, our Lord and savior: Amen.

A Tale of Two Tables (John 2:13-25)

Scripture: From One Festivity to the Next

13   The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Jesus and his disciples have just finished celebrating at a wedding, where there has been singing and dancing and drinking and eating. When the wine runs out and the festivities are in danger of drying up, Jesus performs his first “sign,” according to the gospel of John. He turns water into wine. The whole episode reverberates with joy and affirmation. It is a little reminiscent of creation, when God looks upon the earth and its creatures and sees that it is good. Jesus looks on the people gathered for this celebration of love, and he sees that it is good. He says, “Yes!” He blesses it.

Just as the wedding wraps up, it is time for the annual Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem. From one festivity to the next—except this one will look a lot different.

In the other gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Jesus only travels to Jerusalem once during the time of his ministry. It is a momentous occasion, as he is effectively walking to his death. You might remember how when he arrives, the air is charged with conflict. He enters the Temple and quickly becomes upset at the economic injustice that he sees, as the very institution that was meant to support the poor and disenfranchised is now instead exploiting them. He quotes from Jeremiah, calling the Temple a “den of robbers,” before turning over the moneychangers’ tables.  

But the gospel of John records multiple visits to Jerusalem. And interestingly, John remembers Jesus overturning the moneychangers’ tables at the beginning of his ministry (during his first visit) rather than at the end of his ministry just before his death. Why this incongruity? Does John simply remember the sequence of events differently than Matthew, Mark, and Luke? Or did Jesus overturn the tables two different times? Ultimately, we don’t know. And perhaps that’s just as well. The truth that the gospels want to convey has less to do with historical accuracy—what happened when—and more to do with the message of Jesus that each of them received. The message of Jesus that John receives, that he remembers, involves a stark contrast between Jesus’ “table manners” at two events. On the one hand is a feast far away from the Temple, where Jesus blesses the people gathered around tables and makes sure every cup is filled. On the other hand is a festival in the heart of the religious world, in the Temple itself, where Jesus disturbs the gathering and overturns the tables.

Scripture: Turning a Profit

Before exploring this contrast—Jesus’ joy outside the Temple and his profound exasperation within it—let’s listen to how John tells the story:

14 In the Temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.

For most Passover pilgrims to Jerusalem, it was difficult to bring their own animals for sacrifice. But the Temple met this need by selling its own sacrificial animals. Now, it’s important to pause here and remember that Jesus is not opposed to Temple sacrifice itself. According to John, he made festival pilgrimages to the Temple more than once, worshiping there with fellow Jews. So I don’t think Jesus would have been irked by a fair trade that allowed pilgrims from far away to participate in Temple worship. What would have irked Jesus were some reported practices by which the merchants and money changers at the Temple turned a profit at the expense of the people, practices such as wrongfully identifying some pilgrims’ animals as “blemished” and requiring them to purchase a new animal from the temple, or more simply hiking up the prices. Jesus would have been similarly upset with money changers who added an unnecessary fee for their exchanging currencies. Many pilgrims from far away would only have Roman or Greek coinage on them, but the Temple only accepted shekels for its annual tax. The money changers would have had ample opportunity to pad by their pockets by exploiting pilgrims who were obligated to pay their dues but did not have the proper currency.[1]

Scripture: A Tale of Two “Houses”

15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the Temple, both the sheep and the cattle. (It’s worth noting here that Jesus with his whip is not acting violently against the Temple merchants but rather driving out the herd of animals.) He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

More literally, that last statement is, “Stop making my Father’s house a house of trade.” In other words, Jesus distinguishes between the conflicting purposes of two different “houses.” In a house of trade, the goal is profit. More. Accumulating. In the house of God, the goal is much simpler: to make space for God. If anything, this purpose is opposite the purpose of trade. It’s not about more but about less. It’s not about accumulating but about emptying. To make space for God is to “let go” of all the interests and concerns that get in the way.

Scripture: Two Different Lessons about Money

I can’t help but think here of two other gospel passages that are not especially popular but seem especially relevant here. In his sermon on the mount, Jesus says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth” (Matt 6:19). A little bit later in his ministry, he reiterates this point in the story of the rich fool who builds barns to accumulate his surplus harvest. When Jesus reports that his fate will be to lose everything including his life, he adds, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves” (Luke 12:21). Jesus is clearly not a capitalist. He is not keen on “storing up,” or accumulating, on making a profit beyond what is needed. Schooled in the Jewish faith, he knows well the story of God’s provision of manna in the wilderness, how God provides according to the need of everyone, and anything saved or kept goes rotten. To take more than we need in a world of limited resources is to take away from others. It spoils or rots the fabric of our community. Basil of Caesarea, a 4^th-century bishop, who took this lesson to heart, articulates it in cutting fashion: “If you want storehouses, you have them in the stomachs of the poor.” “If we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need.” And perhaps sharpest of all: “The more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in love.”

I share these difficult scriptures and Basil’s jaw-dropping words not as someone who has followed them, but as someone who stands convicted by them. I grew up in a world that taught me a very different message. I learned that profit is earned and therefore just and good. I learned that many poor people are lazy and only have themselves to blame. But more than anything, I learned that money is what makes the world go around. That the more of it you have, the better. That it’s a powerful resource, and if you want to do good in the world, you have to leverage it.

But I think back to last week’s wedding, where the wine ran out early and the tables around Jesus went momentarily dry. Why was that? The host family clearly did not have the resources to meet the demands of the crowd. They were poor. But does that deprive them of a joyous occasion? Jesus’ first “sign”—and remember, Jesus’ miracles were not meant as demonstrations of power but as “signs” that signify an important message—Jesus’ first “sign” seems to suggest that where there is love, there will be enough for everyone at the table. That where the priority is not wealth but relationships, there will be enough for everyone at the table. It is an entirely different lesson from the one that I learned growing up in this world.

Scripture: Turning Things Around

17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This Temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of the Temple of his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

23   When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.

Today’s scripture concludes on something of a damp note, namely Jesus being wary of the attention and acclaim that he is receiving for his signs—because he “[knows] what [is] in everyone” (John 2:25). He knows how people see his signs: as a promise of power and control, not as an invitation into a gratuitous love.

The festival of Passover celebrates the story of an enslaved people’s liberation. Unfortunately, as Jesus enters the Temple, he sees plenty of evidence to suggest that the people are enslaved again. By the shekel. By the dollar. By the promise that more money will make things better.

In a way, his overturning the tables becomes a marker for a new Passover, a new liberation, as Jesus invites people into God’s priority. Not profits but people. Not control but care. The money changers and merchants in the Temple had been turning a profit at the expense of people. In so doing, they had turned the Temple from a house of God into a house of trade. But Jesus comes to turn things around, to liberate people from this enslavement. And as we see so often, Jesus does his work at tables.

We see this first in the wedding in Cana, where Jesus’ sign shows that love supplies what is lacking at the table, that the joyous union of relationships supplies make up what is missing at the table. We see Jesus’ liberation next at the Temple. This time the picture is a negative of the original, as Jesus overturns tables of profits and greed.

John chapter 2 is a tale of two “tables”—the table of the wedding feast and the table of the Temple merchants. But both tables tell the same story. Whether he’s turning water into wine or turning tables upside down, Jesus is turning the world right side up as he invites us away from the quest for profit and into the care for one another. He teaches us a fundamental lesson which runs counter to what our world teaches. He teaches us that God’s love does not trickle down from wealth, but rather surges up from willing hearts and open hands.

Prayer

Lord of the feast,
Whose love sets the table
And supplies our need
…
Here in your house,
Help us to let go
Of thoughts that do not serve us or others
And habits of needless saving.
Grant us faith in the power of your love
To turn this world right side up. In Christ, who invites us to turn around: Amen.

 

---

[1] Feasting on the Gospels: John (Eds. Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, et al.; Vol. 1; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015), 54. 

Survival into Celebration (John 2:1-11)

The First “Lesson”

Before today’s passage, Jesus calls his disciples to follow him. Their relationship is quickly established. They call him, “Rabbi”—teacher.

Normally in those days, a teacher would have taken his students to a school-like setting or perhaps to the desert. He would have taught lessons. He would have trained them in the practice of important spiritual disciplines. This is what we see, for example, in John the Baptist, who attracted quite a crowd in the desert, where he taught repentance and practiced baptism.

What is the first thing Jesus does with his disciples?  Does he sit them down for a lesson?  Does he initiate them in the practice of certain spiritual disciplines?  In the other gospels, he does. Perhaps most famously, in the gospel of Matthew Jesus calls his disciples and then teaches them his most timeless lesson, the Sermon on the Mount, where almost everything he says is spiritual dynamite, liable to blow you to bits, like blessed are the poor and love your enemy and don’t worry about tomorrow, only seek God’s kingdom.

But according to the gospel of John, Jesus does something else before he teaches or trains his disciples. He takes them to a party—a wedding in Cana of Galilee! Perhaps you’ve heard how significant such an event was in Jesus’ time. Weddings then were village events, a gathering of family and friends and all the folks around. For a full week—seven days!—they would eat and drink, talk and laugh, sing and dance. They would celebrate love—not the sappy, romantic idea that passes for love in Hollywood, but the sacred union of two persons from which would spring new life: new life between two families, new life in the birth of baby boys and girls, new life in the hearts of the married couple.

The gospel of John loves to use symbol and metaphor. It’s John who popularizes the ideas of Jesus as the bread of life, the water of life, the great shepherd, and the lamb of God. And so I can’t help but think that John is using this wedding feast as a symbol too. “Begin as you mean to go on,” we often say, and here John shows us how Jesus means to go on. His very first “lesson” is a celebration of love.

More Than a Tick-Tock Life

Sometimes I wonder if this lesson has been lost amidst the church’s tragic love affair with “eternal life.” Eternal life conjures up a horizontal image of life: life with no end, a heart that keeps beating forever and ever, tick-tock, tick-tock. But as I think Jesus shows his disciples in his very first experience with them, life is about much more than a mechanical, tick-tock heart that beats forever. Such a life is meaningless (or even torturous) if it is not filled, from top to bottom, vertically, with love. Such a life is meaningless (or even torturous) if it is not filled with the eating and drinking, singing and dancing, if it is not filled with relationships of love, which invariably cultivate forgiveness and tenderness, generosity and compassion. A mechanical, tick-tock heart is nothing compared to a heart that laughs and cries, that gives and forgives, that celebrates life and lives in love. Perhaps it would help to remember this the next time we quote John 3:16. Perhaps instead of “eternal life,” we might say, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him may not live a mechanical, tick-tock life, but a life filled with love—and love never ends.”

Water into Wine

If Jesus’ first “lesson” is a wedding, a symbol that real life is found in loving…then what Jesus actually does at the wedding only amplifies the lesson.

For when the wine runs out, Jesus turns to a collection of stone water containers. Rocks and water had an important place in Jewish history. They meant survival—the horizontal kind of life. On more than one occasion in the wilderness, Moses had struck a rock and miraculously water had sprung forth for the thirsty Israelites to drink. In the Jewish mindset, rocks and water meant survival.

But at this wedding, the challenge is not survival. The challenge is celebration. When the wine runs out, Jesus’ mother fears the worst: that the rejoicing will run dry too. So now we see a new miracle, a new wonder, a symbol again of what life means for Jesus. He turns rocks and water into wine and rejoicing. He turns the symbols of survival into a symbol of celebration. Jesus has come to give us life, not just the horizontal kind that keeps going but the kind that is worth living, the vertical kind, filled top to bottom with love.

Love Is the Beginning

Not long before today’s scene, Jesus himself was baptized. At that point he hadn’t healed a single person, he hadn’t taught an inspiring lesson, he hadn’t preached a great sermon. In the gospels’ account of things, he’s done practically nothing at that point. But even so, he hears the voice of God proclaim, “You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  Whereas our world preaches that hard work and achievement come first, and only afterward affirmation and love—that love must be earned—we see the opposite in the life of Jesus. The love of God is at the beginning of the story before he’s done a thing. The love of God is what begins the story. It’s only after Jesus hears these words of love and blessing from God that he embarks on an unforgettable three-year adventure that will forever change history.

It’s almost, then, as if today Jesus shares with the disciples the truth of his baptism. By taking them to a wedding instead of teaching a lesson in a classroom or training them in some spiritual discipline, he is sharing with them his experience. The unconditional love of God is at the beginning of the story. It is what begins the story. If there is no love, there is no life. (I see this myself all across the gospels. I think of the adulterous woman and Zacchaeus, how his call to “go and sin no more” is not given as a condition for his love, but only after he has made clear his love. Only after he has shown his grace. “Neither do I condemn you,” he says first to the woman. For Jesus, love is always the first word. It is what begins the story..)

This truth echoes in all our world. I’m reminded especially of the timeless fairy tale trope of the sleeping princess. Her heart may be beating tick-tock underneath the enchantment, but that’s no kind of life to be living. So what is it that breaks the enchanted sleep?  What is it that raises her to life?  It’s not strength. It’s not intelligence. It’s a kiss. Love is where life begins.

The Good News That There Is More to Life

The good news of today’s story is that
Whenever we’re just surviving,
Whenever our hearts are a mechanical tick-tock,
Whenever the days are nothing more than numbers on a calendar,
Whenever we’re in the wilderness
With nothing but rocks and a trickle of water—
There is more to life.
I can’t tell you where.
I can only tell you
That it tastes a little bit like wine,
That it feels a little bit like a kiss,
That it lets you know you are beloved
And draws you out into the world.

For me, sometimes, it’s a cat’s attention.
For me, sometimes, it’s an honest conversation.
For me, sometimes, it’s a walk in the woods.
For me, sometimes, it’s a guest sitting at my table.
For me, sometimes, it’s a dream that wakes me up in the middle of the night.
Whatever it is for you, know this—
It is also Christ,
Whose love transforms
Survival into celebration,
And gives us not just a life that keeps going,
But a life that’s worth living.

Prayer

Smiling Christ,
Who celebrated
Weddings and wine
And most of all
The wonder of love—
We study your teaching,
We try to practice your way.
Let us never lose sight, though,
Of what is first and foremost.
In the mid-winter routine of our lives,
Grant us an epiphany, a revelation.
Amid the odds and ends of our days,
Share with us your love,
Which turns survival into celebration.
Amen.

"I Saw You" (John 1:35-51)

Scripture: “What Are You Looking for?”

³⁵ The next day John (that is, John the Baptizer) again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶ and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” ³⁷ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸ When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?”

When Jesus asks the two followers of John the Baptizer (one of whom we later learn is Andrew), “What are you looking for?” he invites them to be honest about their motivations. It is a question that can quickly cut through the superficial reasons we give for the things we do. A question that peels back the layers. Not unlike the question “Why?” asked repeatedly.

If I say I go to church because I am a Christian, I am still on the stand, asking myself, “Yes, but what am I looking for?” If my answer is Christ, the question comes back still, “Yes, but what I am looking for in Christ?”

When I first started attending church, what I was most looking for was probably approval. I remember wearing shoes I didn’t really like, stiff clothes I wasn’t really fond of—but I did it because that’s what respectable people did when they went to church. I wanted validation, approval, respect. I went to church for the same reason that I followed the rules. I wanted my parents and teachers to like me.

When I went to college, I continued to attend church. At this stage, my motivations had evolved. I continued to look for approval, of course. I knew my parents would ask what I’d done on Sunday. But I was also beginning to look for community, for people who shared a similar worldview and similar values.

By the time I was studying abroad in England, community was my primary motivation for attending church. I didn’t know anyone when I arrived in Sheffield. I was looking for friends. In the end, I can trace nearly all the friends I made in England back to the little church that I attended.

I know there are other reasons folks go to church. People are looking for many things when they attend church. One woman at the previous church that I served recounted how her father went to church to make business connections, to network, to expand his list of clients and garner the goodwill of more powerful businessmen in the community.

Today we’re celebrating Epiphany, which literally means “appearance.” If Christmas is about God becoming flesh and dwelling among us, about a little baby being born, then Epiphany is about the moment when this little baby is revealed to outsiders, when God appears to the wider world. One story that we traditionally tell at Epiphany is the story of the wise men, the magi, who travel to Bethlehem from a land far, far away in the east. They have seen a star in the sky. What exactly are they looking for? A newborn king, yes. But why? Are they looking for profitable political connections? Is that why they come with gifts, intending to pay the king homage? Are they looking for the approval of someone—perhaps their parents who raised them to pay attention to the stars, or perhaps God himself? Are they looking for a meaning in life they have not yet found?

Scripture: “Come and See”

They (the two disciples of John the Baptizer who have started to follow Jesus) said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” ³⁹ He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. ⁴⁰ One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹ He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). ⁴² He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

Whatever the motivations of Jesus’ new followers, whatever they are looking for, Jesus insists that they keep their eyes open. “Come and see,” he says.

I remember once going on a hike with my family in Canada. The destination of the hike was a grand vista of the valley below, where a lake was cradled between several mountains. But the highlight of the hike for me was not the vista. It was several hundred yards before the vista, where we stopped to eat lunch on a pile of large rocks. While we were eating and everyone was silent, we heard animals scurrying about. There, camouflaged among the rocks, we spied a family of marmots gathering grass and vegetation for their own lunch. A half hour later, we stood at the top of the mountain and enjoyed the grand vista that we’d been looking for. But as we walked back down the mountain, I realized that the real treasure for me had been eating on the rocks with the marmots. It wasn’t the reason we’d gone hiking. It wasn’t what I’d originally been looking for. But our eyes were open enough to see this unexpected phenomenon, and it became for me the most cherished memory of that hike.

When Jesus says, “Come and see,” I think he’s inviting his new followers to look for whatever they’re looking for, but to look with their eyes open. He’s inviting them to seek, but to seek with a heart open to something even better than whatever they have in mind.

I’ll be honest… I have sometimes been a bit of a theological snob, judging my old self and other people for all the less than pious reasons that they have attended church. I’ve thought to myself, “Most people just go out of habit. Most people just go because that’s what you do if you want to be a well-respected member of the community.” It’s a narrow and ungenerous critique; I’m certain that we are all here because, whatever other reasons we might have, we genuinely are looking for a fuller, better, more abundant life with one another and with God. In truth,  our motivations are always mixed, some good perhaps, some less healthy perhaps. But that doesn’t seem to bother Jesus so much. “Come and see,” he says, inviting us to keep looking, but with the plea that whatever we’re looking for, we keep our eyes open to see something different than we expect.

Scripture: “No Deceit”—
Or, Honest and Open

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” ⁴⁴ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” ⁴⁶ Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Nathanael’s skeptical question sounds rather snarky, doesn’t it? There’s good reason, however, to believe that his skepticism may have come from a reasonable place. Nowhere in the Old Testament do we hear of Nazareth. It is literally a no-name town. Nathanael may just be honestly expressing his doubts about the messiah coming from a place for which there are no prophecies, a place from which no one expected the messiah to come.

Philip said to him, “Come and see.” (The gospel of John loves wordplay. It’s no accident that Philip here invites Nathanael with the same invitation that Jesus earlier invited the disciples of John the Baptizer. “Come and see” is something of a motto for the gospel of John, a slogan that both invites seeking and at the same time an openness to something different than whatever is being sought.)

⁴⁷ When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”

Just as Nathanael’s skeptical question may have sounded snarky, so too Jesus’ first words upon seeing Nathanael. But another possibility is that Jesus is genuinely praising Nathanael for his honesty. In the gospel of John, “deceit” is a trademark of the devil, whom Jesus calls “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). For Jesus to call Nathanael someone without “deceit” is high praise indeed. He appreciates Nathanael’s honesty. Yes, on the one hand, Nathanael’s honesty predisposes him to disregard anyone coming from Nazareth. But on the other hand, it appears to incline Nathanael to take everyone seriously, to acknowledge that his own perspective is limited. And so the flipside to Nathanael’s honesty is a kind of openness. Instead of writing off this possible messiah because he does not come from where Nathanael would expect, he asks questions. Just as the encouragement “Come and see” invites a person to keep his eyes open, so Nathanael keeps his own eyes open for something other than what he expects.

Scripture: “Heaven Opened”

 ⁴⁸ Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” ⁴⁹ Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

I began that hike in Canada as someone looking for a grand vista. The irony is that the real treasure of the hike all began not with what I saw, but with what saw me. Before I or anyone else saw the marmot family, they assuredly saw us, the loud human interlopers unfurling our backpacks and supplies on their rocky home. But they did not hide. They carried on with their own lunch, and eventually we saw the creatures who had first seen us.

Philip had said to Nathanael, “Come and see.” But when Nathanael comes and sees, he hears Jesus say, “I saw you!” Nathanael had come with Philip with the intention of seeing Jesus, only to discover that Jesus has first seen him.

This unexpected reversal is the same surprise at the heart of Epiphany. We’re all looking for something. Churchgoers like us are looking for something when we go to church. Shoppers are looking for something on the other side of a mouse-click or the other side of a cash register’s ring. Drug addicts are looking for something in every hit that they seek. Some philosophers would suggest that, religious or not, we’re all looking for God in each of these ventures, our motivations always mixed, never quite what they might seem on the surface.

But the surprise of Epiphany is that we discover in our seeking that we are actually being sought. The surprise of Epiphany is that even as we never find exactly what we’re looking for, we are nonetheless found by something even better than what we were looking for.

Listen to how Jesus explains this to Nathanael:

⁵⁰ Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” ⁵¹ And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

“Heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending” is an unmistakable reference to what we often call “Jacob’s ladder”—that is, the dream that Jacob has in the wilderness of angels going to and from heaven. If you’ll recall, when Jacob wakes up from his dream, he exclaims, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” (Gen 28:16). Jesus seems to suggest a similar experience for us who are honestly seeking God. When we are honest, when we keep our eyes open for more than what we know or expect, then we might well find ourselves face to face with heaven, exclaiming, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” So it was for Nathanael, who stood face to face with a messiah hailing from a no-name town.

I can’t help but think of how Jesus will later insist that the kingdom of God is already among us. For Jesus, it’s not so much a matter of building the kingdom of God or controlling the world around us, but rather a way of seeing the world differently. When Jesus bids us, “Come and see,” he bids us keep our eyes open to see the unexpected glory of God. With our eyes thus open, he shows us again and again how heaven has already been opened. And we discover that heaven’s opening is not found amid wealth, power, or status. Contrary to the world’s expectations, heaven’s opening is found in places like our enemies, whom we come to see are God’s children too. Heaven’s opening is found in our need, yes our neediness, where we can finally receive the grace of God. Heaven’s opening is found in simplicity and sharing, where we discover abundance means being rich in relationships, not things.

The band U2 had a hit song in the 1980s, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking for.” Their lead singer, Bono, once described the song as a gospel song. A lot of religious folks scratched their heads. What kind of faith would say, “I haven’t found what I’m looking for”? But I think what Bono meant is what we see in today’s scripture. The good news isn’t so much that we ever find what we’re looking for, but that in the honest looking, we discover we are found. And in being found, we discover that heaven has already been opened. Or as Jacob puts it: “The Lord is indeed in this place—and we didn’t know it!”

Prayer

Loving God,
Who seeks us
Even as we’re not so sure
What we are seeking ourselves
…
Grant us open eyes
To see you already seeing us,
To see heaven already opened
In the way of Christ,
Our lord and savior: Amen.

"Pointing" (John 1:19-34)

Scripture: A Holy Man, or Just a Voice

19    This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”  21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” 22 Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 23 He said,

               “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,

               ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’”

as the prophet Isaiah said.

There is an old tale from eastern Europe about a group of Jewish people making a pilgrimage to see a holy man. Before they leave, one of the pilgrims asks their local rabbi, “How can we know for sure that this holy man is not a fraud? How can we know that he is truly a righteous man.” The rabbi responded, “You shall know in this way: if he does not tell you what to do. But if he does tell you what to do, then beware.”

I can’t know for certain why the rabbi gives this advice, but I think he is warning his flock about leaders who are power-hungry, who want control over their followers. Wisdom is something to be shared, not something to be enforced upon others. Wisdom is a gift for others, not a means of stroking one’s own ego. “Take what you like and leave the rest,” as they say in many 12-step programs.

By all accounts, John the Baptizer was a holy man. We can see this, perhaps, in his humble disposition. “Who are you?” the religious professionals from Jerusalem ask him. His response is not to claim some greatness or some authority. Rather he freely acknowledges that he has no special credentials. He is neither the messiah, nor Elijah, nor some long-awaited prophet. He is simply a voice in the wilderness, as Isaiah had once prophesied about.

I’m reminded of what we read at the beginning of the gospel of John last week, where we learned that all creation comes into being through the Word, which is God. Which is all to say, all the goodness of life begins with a word. A voice. An invitation. Last week I suggested that the Word that is God is most like a proposal, God on bended knee. In his own way, John the Baptizer is echoing that proposal. He’s a voice echoing the Word. He’s rough around the edges, sure, and he tends to focus on the pitfalls of missing out on God’s proposal—but at the end of the day, he’s there to proclaim that God’s kingdom is coming near and everyone is invited.

Scripture: It’s Like This

24   Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, 27 the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” 28 This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

Do you remember how it felt as a child, spending a day at the river or the ocean? I remember losing track of everything in the water—time, grudges, grievances, worries…everything would recede. The water had a cleansing quality. It could wash away, at least temporarily, the many burdens I carried, the many emotional stains that plagued me. And when I was done, when I got out of the water, the return to life felt a little bit like a fresh start.

Historians speculate about baptism meant for the people who came to be baptized by John. Similar rituals were used for a variety of purposes: from conversion to the Jewish faith to purification before worship at the temple. All that we know about John’s baptism is that it was a baptism “of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”(Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3; cf. Matt 3:6, 8). In other words, it marked the moment when an individual repented (or changed his or her mind) and felt afresh the reality of God’s forgiveness.

Personally, I think John chooses the ritual of baptism because he, like God, is not content with simply being a voice. Just as God is not content remaining a word but becomes flesh and dwells among us, John must find a way to enflesh his message, to ground it in real life experience. Instead of just saying God forgives you and you can begin again, he says, “It’s like this!” And he dunks you in a river, head to toe, submitting you to a rapturous chill that sweeps away time, grievances, grudges, worries, everything.

Scripture: Bearing Witness

29   The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

The teachers and mentors from whom I have learned the most, whose wisdom I seek whenever I am conflicted or in doubt, are people like John the baptizer. They are people who do not claim to have any answers themselves but instead act as signposts or pointers. John the baptizer, who claims to be nothing more than a voice, ends up pointing to Jesus, “Look! Behold! Here is the person who changes everything.” And what’s fascinating to me, is that Jesus will actually do the same thing himself. He doesn’t drink in all the praise and honor, pointing to himself, saying, “It’s all about me.” His primary message is not about himself but about the kingdom of God. His desire is not that everyone wear his colors or carry his flag, but that everyone live the way that he is living, and he makes clear that the way he is living is simply the way that his father (God) lives. Multiple times in the gospel of John, he says, “I can do nothing on my own, nothing apart from God” (John 5:19, 30). In other words, just as John points to Jesus, Jesus points to God.

There is a word for this pointing in the Christian tradition. It is called “witness.”

Witness is not telling others what to do or think. Witness is not about winning people to your side. It is simply sharing your experience. It is simply pointing out what has worked for you.

You may have heard it said that a Christian is no more than one beggar telling another beggar where they found food. That’s what we see in John the baptizer, the first witness to Christ. “It’s like this,” he tells people, dunking them in the water to try to get across that visceral sense of cleansing and newness. “It has nothing to do with me,” he says, “but everything to do with what’s been given to me from God,” and so he points not to himself but to God.

This first Sunday of Christmas, the invitation I hear in today’s scripture is to be more like John. The temptation of religion, I think, is to confuse ourselves with God. To take God’s place rather than make space for God. To become spokespersons for God rather than honest individuals sharing our experience. What John does instead is say, “I’m just a voice. It’s like this, but don’t just take my word for it. Look over here! Behold! Come and see for yourselves.” Instead of taking God’s place, he invites folks into a space where they might encounter God themselves.

A few weeks ago, faced with a difficult experience and decision to make, I called a mentor, an older man in the faith. I shared my dilemma. He quietly asked me a series of questions, inviting me to consider how God was present in the situation and what loving thing God would have me do next. He never told me what to do. He had faith that God would do that. Reflecting on that conversation, it feels very holy to me now. I heard God. Not because my mentor spoke God’s words, but because he pointed to God. He made space for God. He bore witness to God. I hope I can do the same for others.

Prayer

Holy God,
Word made flesh,
Whose life in Jesus
Was itself an honest witness
To your undying love for us—
Inspire us to become witnesses
Who do not take your place
But instead point to you
And make space for others
To have their own encounter with you. 

In Christ, who takes away the sins of the world: Amen.

"Children of God" (John 1:1-14, 18)

Scripture: God on Bended Knee

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

For Matthew and Luke, the Christmas story begins with Joseph and Mary and angels and shepherds and “a decree…from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered” (Luke 2:1). But for the gospel of John, the Christmas story begins a lot earlier, with the sun and the moon and the stars, with the first blades of grass that ever broke through the earth, with the first creatures that ever crept and crawled and swam and flew. For Matthew and Luke, the Christmas story is confined to a time and a place. For the gospel of John, the Christmas story is cosmic. It is timeless rather than time-bound, universal rather than regional.

To put it bluntly, for John, the Christmas story is one and the same as the creation story. John begins his story using the same words that Genesis uses for its creation story: “In the beginning…” (Gen 1:1; John 1:1). But John puts his own twist on creation. While Genesis tells us the “what” of creation (light, sky, plants, animals—these are “what” God created), John takes a more poetic and spiritual perspective and tells us the “how” of creation. And the “how” is simple. Contrary to popular imagination, creation does not begin with divine magic or might. God does not wave a wand or wrestle the elements of creation into submission. Rather God uses words. “In the beginning was the Word…” (John 1:1).  Which is an extremely vulnerable way of doing something. Words alone do not have the force of compulsion. There are no guarantees that a request will meet with an appropriate response, that an invitation will be met with a willing response.

There are only three things (three nouns) that the Bible identifies God with using the equation “God is this” or “God is that.” The Word (John 1:1), Spirit (John 4:24), and love (1 John 4:8). All three seem equally vulnerable, equally powerless. Yet all three reveal something crucial (and counterintuitive) about God. Namely the “how” of God (including the “how” of God’s creation). The “how” of God is love. There is no force in love, no compulsion. What we see in creation may be interpreted as a loving dialogue, a call and response, where God invites the elements of creation into their fullness—“Let there be,” “Let there be”—and the elements of creation respond willingly, rousing themselves to meet the call of love. (E.g., “Let the earth put forth vegetation,” and then moments later “the earth”—its own subject, its own player in the story—“brought forth vegetation.”) So when John says in the beginning was the “Word” (or logos), by “Word” he means something like God’s overture of love. The “Word” is akin to God’s proposal.

The Word—from which all creation emerges—the Word is God getting down on bended knee, a ring in his hand.

Scripture: A Gleam in God’s Eye

2 He [the Word] was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

Sometimes people will refer to a time before they were born and say they were just a “gleam” in their parent’s eye. Well, everything here on earth and in all creation began as just a gleam in God’s eye. John insists that everything in all creation—from birds to bears to dogs to spiders to Mother Teresa to Hitler—everything here has life because of the Word, which is to say, because God loved it and told it so.

And nothing, John says, can take that away. No number of evil deeds, no amount of disease, can change the fact that every person here bears within them the gleam of God’s eye (what some religious traditions have called the “divine spark” within us). Everything in creation echoes with God’s love. And nothing has silenced that echo yet, John says. The darkness has not overtaken the light—the gleam.

Scripture: “Yet the World Did Not Know Him”

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. (Here the gospel of John is referring to another John, namely John the Baptizer, the guy with long hair who lived in the desert and ate locusts and honey and proclaimed that the kingdom of God was coming.) 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. (John’s Christmas story started at the beginning of all creation, where “life” and “light” come into existence through the Word. But here we’re finally approaching a specific expression of the “light,” namely Jesus, whom the gospel of John calls “the true light, which enlightens everyone.” The gospel of John seems to be suggesting that the light of the Word that has shined since creation had nevertheless begun to dim or be obscured, and so Jesus came into the world as “the true light,” which is to say, the original undimmed light, an individual expression of the Word that was there in the beginning giving life and light to all.)

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.

The real problem with the world is not that people are evil, but that people have forgotten that they were once a gleam in God’s eye. They have forgotten that they are unconditionally loved and accepted by God. The gospel of John says that when Jesus came into the world, proclaiming God’s love for all people (which, remember, is how creation began, with God’s loving overture to all creation), the people scratched their heads. They were confused. The timeless tragedy of our world, as true thousands of years ago as it is today, is that we are inclined to forget and even deny that we all bear the gleam of God’s eye within us, that we are all indelibly marked with God’s eternal and unconditional love. So when Jesus comes preaching something like that, we wince and shake our heads. (We need only look at how Jesus was received by the religious folks of his day. They predominantly taught that God’s love is reserved only for the righteous and socially respectably, and so they were scandalized when Jesus starts eating with tax collectors and sinners.)

Scripture: Born of God

12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God

Greg Boyle, the Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation program in the world (based out in Los Angeles), tells the story of a “homie” or former gang member, Danny, who was riding a bus home one night. Another guy on the bus was studying his sweatshirt, which read “Homeboy Industries: Jobs Not Jails.” The guy nodded to Danny and asked, “You work there? Is it any good?”

Danny responded simply, “They helped me. I’m not going back to prison.” Then he scribbled the address of Homeboy on a scrap of paper and passed it to the man, saying, “Come see us. We’ll help you.”

The man took the scrap of paper, said thank you, and got off at the next bus stop. “What happened next,” Danny later told Greg Boyle, “never happened before [in all my life]. People were staring at me, nodding and smiling at me. For the first time in my life, I felt admired.”

Greg Boyle tells this story to insist on a counterintuitive truth. People do not change because of shame or judgment or the expectations of others. Rather, people change, he says, when they are cherished.

Or as John puts it in today’s scripture, all who received Jesus and his good news of God’s love, became children of God, born of God (cf. John 1:12-13). John speaks so poetically, so metaphorically, I don’t take his words as part of some equation that outlines the mechanics of salvation, suggesting that first God deems us as some alien matter and only later waves a wand over us and deems us “children of God.” I take these words instead as a broad brush stroke, painting the cosmic arc of humankind. We came into being through God’s love, already children of God. But through fear and shame we can become so estranged, so alienated from our true nature, that we need an example, a reminder, someone to make it clear beyond a shadow of  a doubt that God loves us. We need to hear again the loving overture that God made at creation.

And so…

14 [T]he Word—this is the Word through whom all things came into being— became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.... 18 No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

The Birth of You and Me (and Everyone)

John’s cosmic Christmas story reaches not only reaches back to the beginning of time, it also reaches forward into every future. For Matthew and Luke, the Christmas story is about the birth of Jesus. But for John, the Christmas story is not only about the birth of Jesus but also about the birth of you and me (and Danny and everyone else) as children of God.

Jesus, John says, “is close to the Father’s heart” (1:18). The Greek literally says “bosom.” Jesus is close to God’s bosom. Which is to say, Jesus knows that God is hugging him. Jesus lives in God’s embrace. And that is the good news that he ultimately seeks to share with others. That God loves us too, that we are God’s children too, that God’s embrace is for us too. It is the good news that we do not need to strive after success or status or wealth or whatever else we think will secure our lives because we are already secure in God’s unconditional love and delight.

To conclude, however, I must confess. Talking about God’s love can be an awfully abstract enterprise, a sort of mind game that doesn’t always map onto our bodies and how we feel. I think about Danny on that bus. He may have heard before that God loved him, but it wasn’t until that epiphany where he actually felt (for the first time) other people’s admiration  that he caught a glimpse of what God has felt for him since the beginning of time and will feel beyond the end of time. The whole point of Jesus coming into the world, I think, is that God’s love needs to be incarnated, given flesh, again and again, here, there, everywhere, or else it will just be an idea that falls on deaf ears.

And so everywhere Jesus went, he shared with others God’s loving gaze, God’s warm embrace, the knowledge that they were children of God, and he started with the people who had received this news the least (the tax collectors and the sinners). With that in mind, I’d like to close with a poem by an ancient Persian poet, Hafiz, who invites us to acknowledge God’s love as our identity and who invites us to share God’s loving gaze with others we meet.

Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise
someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a
full moon in each eye that is
always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in
this world is
dying to
hear?

Prayer

Creator God,
Whose Word is love
…
As we prepare to receive
The baby Jesus in our embrace
In just a few days’ time,
Prepare our hearts also
To learn from him
Who lives in your embrace,
That we might know ourselves
Children of God
And that we might share this good news
With all the world. In Christ, the eternal Word: Amen.