progressive involvement

Pentecost 4 ::: Matthew 10: 40-42

⁴⁰“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Translation:  The one receiving you receives me and the one receiving me receives the one who sent me.  The one receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward.  And the one who receives justice in the name of a just person will receive a reward of justice.  And whoever might give a drink of cool water alone to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, that one might surely not destroy his reward.

Background:  Matthew was writing around AD 80-85, which means that Matthew is literature from the post-war period.  It follows the devastation of the Roman-Jewish War of AD 66-70 when blood ran in the streets of Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed. 

Matthew is at a few years remove from Mark, his primary source.  (Mark wrote during or just after the devastation.)  While Matthew's over-all "mood" is not as dark as Mark's, it is clear that Matthew's church saw themselves as fragile, vulnerable, and under threat.

Most of chapter 10 consists of sayings from Q which Matthew uses to argue that followers of Jesus may expect to meet the same resistance met by Jesus.  The final three verses of this section--those included in our lection--appear to be not Q.  10:40 is quite similar to John 13:20, 10:41 is found only in Matthew, and 10:42 has a near parallel in Mark 9:41.

The immediate situation:  Chapter 10 begins Book Two of Matthew's gospel, the focus of which is mission.  It begins with Jesus calling the Twelve, giving them authority, and naming them.  They are sent to do the same things Jesus had been doing--"Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons" (10:8)--everything Jesus had been doing, with the exception of teaching.  

More than any other gospel, Matthew values Jesus as Teacher.  The disciples have begun their period of instruction under Jesus, but they're just getting started.  They don't know near enough yet in order for them to be able to teach others.  Only in chapter 28, when the entire gospel is completed, do the disciples finally get the go-ahead to teach others.  Only then are they enjoined to "teach all that I have commanded."  (28:16)  As for now, eighteen chapters yet remain in Matthew's gospel and Jesus has much more to teach.

Then follows frank acknowledgement of the trials and difficulties of their mission.  They may be handed over to councils, flogged, and turned in to the secular authorities (10:17-18).  There may be family disruptions, persecution, hatred, even death.  (10:19-23).  They may expect, in short, the very same treatment meted out to Jesus.  (10:24).

Nevertheless, they are repeatedly encouraged not to be afraid--three times in the section from 10:26-31.  They are assured that nothing will happen that is not known to the Father, who is, Jesus pointedly states, also "your Father" (10:29).  He assures the disciples that God cares even about small animals and surely cares about them as well.

Then, the mood darkens once again.  The Jesus movement will inspire opposition--not peace, but a sword!  Again, families will be disrupted.  Jesus quotes from Micah 7:6--"for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  your enemies are members of your own household."

Jesus is not advocating violence, of course.  He is a bringer of peace, and his disciples are to be "peacemakers" (5:9).  It was also true, however, that, especially in the period in which Matthew was writing, there was considerable division within families due to the Christian faith.  (Some Jesus followers were kicked out of synagogues in the region of Galilee/Syria in the period after the Roman-Jewish war.)

Then, for the first time in Matthew's gospel, the cross is mentioned.  "Whoever does not take hold of his cross and follow after me is not..."--and here it gets tricky.  The word is axios, and it seems to me that the best expression for it here would be "tried and found wanting."  It means "like," "befitting," or "congruent."  The sense is "measuring up."  (I'm avoiding the use of the word "worthy" here, which NRSV has, because we tend to think of that word in terms of moral judgment.) 

"Tried and found wanting" seems to be the sense that Matthew intends.  Jesus has set an example of suffering for the cause.  Disciples are not greater than their master and such a fate may come to any follower.  Followers should continue to expound the Way of Jesus, and follow it.  If they do not, then they are not at the level of their master.  (Matthew was no Lutheran.)

Our three verses:  Three specific ministries are mentioned, followed by a surprise fourth.  First, apostles.  People who receive the disciples receive Jesus and, in so doing, also receive the Father.  John Meier likens this to the figure of the shaliah, who is a messenger with power to act for his sender.  "The shaliah of a man is as the man himself."  Apostles are like that.

Prophets are then acknowledged--"the one receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward."  Considering that many prophets ended up out of public favor, to say the very least, this "reward" may be a mixed blessing.  Prophets are respected and honored only in retrospect.

Third, the "just" are mentioned, and justice is promised to those who honor them.  

It should not be surprising that apostles, prophets, and the just would be lauded.  Matthew, however, is building to an even greater concern, that of concern for "these little ones"--tone mikrone toutone.    

And whoever might give a drink of cool water alone to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, that one might surely not destroy his reward.

This is the first reference to "little ones" in Matthew's gospel.  Here, it probably refers to the Twelve themselves.  They are just beginning in mission.  They are just beginning to be taught.  They are, at present, "little ones."  

Later, in chapter 18, the ones who are "little ones" now will be teaching other "little ones."  Jesus will tell the Twelve that "little ones" should not face "stumbling blocks" (18:6), should not be "despised" (18:10), and should not be lost (18:14).  In both cases, "little ones" appears to refer to new followers of Jesus.  By chapter 25, however, the idea of "little ones" will be expanded to include anyone seen to be "small" by worldly standards.

The smallest act of help to these "little ones" is noted.  Here, it refers to the slightest assistance for the Twelve.  In chapter 25, at the separation of the sheep and the goats, even the smallest act of help for social outcasts will be seen to have cosmic import.

⁴⁰“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Translation:  The one receiving you receives me and the one receiving me receives the one who sent me.  The one receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward.  And the one who receives justice in the name of a just person will receive a reward of justice.  And whoever might give a drink of cool water alone to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, that one might surely not destroy his reward.

Background:  Matthew was writing around AD 80-85, which means that Matthew is literature from the post-war period.  It follows the devastation of the Roman-Jewish War of AD 66-70 when blood ran in the streets of Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed. 

Matthew is at a few years remove from Mark, his primary source.  (Mark wrote during or just after the devastation.)  While Matthew's over-all "mood" is not as dark as Mark's, it is clear that Matthew's church saw themselves as fragile, vulnerable, and under threat.

Most of chapter 10 consists of sayings from Q which Matthew uses to argue that followers of Jesus may expect to meet the same resistance met by Jesus.  The final three verses of this section--those included in our lection--appear to be not Q.  10:40 is quite similar to John 13:20, 10:41 is found only in Matthew, and 10:42 has a near parallel in Mark 9:41.

The immediate situation:  Chapter 10 begins Book Two of Matthew's gospel, the focus of which is mission.  It begins with Jesus calling the Twelve, giving them authority, and naming them.  They are sent to do the same things Jesus had been doing--"Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons" (10:8)--everything Jesus had been doing, with the exception of teaching.  

More than any other gospel, Matthew values Jesus as Teacher.  The disciples have begun their period of instruction under Jesus, but they're just getting started.  They don't know near enough yet in order for them to be able to teach others.  Only in chapter 28, when the entire gospel is completed, do the disciples finally get the go-ahead to teach others.  Only then are they enjoined to "teach all that I have commanded."  (28:16)  As for now, eighteen chapters yet remain in Matthew's gospel and Jesus has much more to teach.

Then follows frank acknowledgement of the trials and difficulties of their mission.  They may be handed over to councils, flogged, and turned in to the secular authorities (10:17-18).  There may be family disruptions, persecution, hatred, even death.  (10:19-23).  They may expect, in short, the very same treatment meted out to Jesus.  (10:24).

Nevertheless, they are repeatedly encouraged not to be afraid--three times in the section from 10:26-31.  They are assured that nothing will happen that is not known to the Father, who is, Jesus pointedly states, also "your Father" (10:29).  He assures the disciples that God cares even about small animals and surely cares about them as well.

Then, the mood darkens once again.  The Jesus movement will inspire opposition--not peace, but a sword!  Again, families will be disrupted.  Jesus quotes from Micah 7:6--"for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  your enemies are members of your own household."

Jesus is not advocating violence, of course.  He is a bringer of peace, and his disciples are to be "peacemakers" (5:9).  It was also true, however, that, especially in the period in which Matthew was writing, there was considerable division within families due to the Christian faith.  (Some Jesus followers were kicked out of synagogues in the region of Galilee/Syria in the period after the Roman-Jewish war.)

Then, for the first time in Matthew's gospel, the cross is mentioned.  "Whoever does not take hold of his cross and follow after me is not..."--and here it gets tricky.  The word is axios, and it seems to me that the best expression for it here would be "tried and found wanting."  It means "like," "befitting," or "congruent."  The sense is "measuring up."  (I'm avoiding the use of the word "worthy" here, which NRSV has, because we tend to think of that word in terms of moral judgment.) 

"Tried and found wanting" seems to be the sense that Matthew intends.  Jesus has set an example of suffering for the cause.  Disciples are not greater than their master and such a fate may come to any follower.  Followers should continue to expound the Way of Jesus, and follow it.  If they do not, then they are not at the level of their master.  (Matthew was no Lutheran.)

Our three verses:  Three specific ministries are mentioned, followed by a surprise fourth.  First, apostles.  People who receive the disciples receive Jesus and, in so doing, also receive the Father.  John Meier likens this to the figure of the shaliah, who is a messenger with power to act for his sender.  "The shaliah of a man is as the man himself."  Apostles are like that.

Prophets are then acknowledged--"the one receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward."  Considering that many prophets ended up out of public favor, to say the very least, this "reward" may be a mixed blessing.  Prophets are respected and honored only in retrospect.

Third, the "just" are mentioned, and justice is promised to those who honor them.  

It should not be surprising that apostles, prophets, and the just would be lauded.  Matthew, however, is building to an even greater concern, that of concern for "these little ones"--tone mikrone toutone.    

And whoever might give a drink of cool water alone to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, that one might surely not destroy his reward.

This is the first reference to "little ones" in Matthew's gospel.  Here, it probably refers to the Twelve themselves.  They are just beginning in mission.  They are just beginning to be taught.  They are, at present, "little ones."  

Later, in chapter 18, the ones who are "little ones" now will be teaching other "little ones."  Jesus will tell the Twelve that "little ones" should not face "stumbling blocks" (18:6), should not be "despised" (18:10), and should not be lost (18:14).  In both cases, "little ones" appears to refer to new followers of Jesus.  By chapter 25, however, the idea of "little ones" will be expanded to include anyone seen to be "small" by worldly standards.

The smallest act of help to these "little ones" is noted.  Here, it refers to the slightest assistance for the Twelve.  In chapter 25, at the separation of the sheep and the goats, even the smallest act of help for social outcasts will be seen to have cosmic import.

Pentecost 3 ::: Matthew 10: 24-39

‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; ²⁵it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

Translation:  A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above his lord.  Enough for the disciple that that one may become like his teacher, and the slave like his lord.  If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more the ones of his household?

Background and situation:  The book of Matthew has five major sections, each one featuring an extended teaching by Jesus.  (These five teaching sections mirror the five books of Moses.)  The Sermon on the Mount is the first major speech;  the discourse on missionary activity in chapter 10 is the second.

At the beginning of chapter 10, Jesus gave the twelve disciples authority over unclean spirits.  The disciples are then named, and sent out.  Verses 5-23 have to do with mission strategy and facing opposition.  

Versions of some of the verses in this text appear in Mark, Luke, John, and Thomas.  The section from 10:26-33 has a parallel in Luke 12:2-10;  10:34-36 has a parallel in Thomas.  Verse 39 has a parallel in Mark, Luke, and John.

Slave not above his master:  Our lection this week begins with two proverbial sayings, the purpose of which seems to be to inform the disciples that followers of Jesus should not expect different treatment than what Jesus himself received.  Jesus faced persecution, and, therefore, it should not be surprising that his followers will face persecution as well. 

Matthew was writing around AD 80-85, which means that this is post-war literature.  It follows the devastation of the Roman-Jewish War of AD 66-70 when blood ran in the streets of Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed.

During and after the war, significant numbers of Jerusalem residents fled to the northern regions (Galilee, Syria) in order to escape the siege of Jerusalem.  In the north, pharisees tended to dominate and took the lead in organizing and settling these war-time refugees.  With the Temple now destroyed, the local synagogue and local rabbis became the focal point of Jewish life.

Matthew was trying to hold together a Jewish-Christian community in a situation that was extremely difficult.  Paul's mission to the gentiles was having a discernible impact on fledgling Christianity, and Jewish Christianity was steadily losing ground within the Christian movement.  

Moreover, the split between Jews and followers of Jesus had reached a tipping point in the late first century, and tensions between the (now) two groups had grown difficult.  It was during this time that followers of Jesus were being exiled from the synagogues in northern Israel.

The dynamics of first century religious development are complex.  The view that Christianity emerged out of Judaism is considered simplistic today.  Rather, the first century produced several religious sparks--Jesus followers, pharisees, zealots, and many others.  It wasn't that Christianity emerged from Judaism, but rather that both Christianity and pharisee-influenced rabbinical Judaism were two new strains that emerged out of the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 and the fall of the heretofore dominant wing of Judaism, the Sadducees.

Matthew is writing at a few years remove from Mark, who wrote during or just after the devastation in Jerusalem.  While Matthew's over-all mood is not as dark as Mark's, it is clear that Matthew's church saw themselves as fragile, vulnerable, under threat, and beset with difficulties.  If Jesus himself has been accused of being a demon--"they have called the master of the house Beelzebul"--then this charge is likely to be levelled also at Jesus' followers.  

Incidentally, Beelzebul is a Hebrew word that means "lord of lofty abode."  Beelzebul was an ancient Canaanite deity.  (Sometimes, Jews changed the word to Beelzebub, which was considered a slam.)

John Meier says that the phrase related "master of the household" and "Beelzebul", is a pun in Aramaic.  If so, that would add a touch of light-heartedness to a very serious condition, and that could well have been Matthew's intent. 

Matthew's message seems to be:  The situation is quite serious.  There are persecutions.  People are hauled before magistrates.  One's life may in danger.  Nevertheless, there is, ultimately, nothing to fear.  Therefore, be bold!

No fear:

26 ‘So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.^* 29Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. ³⁰And even the hairs of your head are all counted. ³¹So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Translation:  Therefore, do not fear them, for there is nothing that has been covered which will not be revealed, and a secret which will not be known.  What I say to you in the dark, speak in the light, and what you hear into the ear, proclaim upon the housetops.  And do not fear the ones killing the body, but are not able to kill a life.  But fear more the one able to destroy both life and body in gehenna.  Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?  And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.  But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not therefore.  You are of more value than many sparrows.

The disciples of Jesus are encouraged not to fear three times in five verses.  This is a message for people who feel themselves under seige. 

Yet, despite their difficulties, their movement cannot be stopped, Jesus tells them.  Even if you go to prison, even if you are oppressed, the message will be revealed and "become known"--ginosko, known in the most intimate way.

Jesus continues to speak to his beleaguered community--"what I say to you" is in the present tense--even if "in the dark."  This would indicate a community that must speak in whispers to each other, under threat of real violence from those who can "kill the body."  Nevertheless, keep spreading the message--"tell in the light."

Do not be afraid of the Romans, but do be afraid of the devil because the devil has the power to destroy both body and "life"--psyche.  Literally:  "Fear much more the one having power to destroy body and life in Gehenna."  ("Gehenna" was a burning trash heap in the valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem.)  

The one who is able to "destroy both body and life"--the devil--means that the struggle of Matthew's community should fundamentally be seen as spiritual.  Yes, they were enduring political and social oppression.  Yes, they were under the boot of Rome.  Nevertheless, these earthly powers are doing the devil's work. 

Then, the discourse turns more positive.  Sparrows were the cheapest edible birds.  Two of them could be bought for an assariou, which is one-tenth of a drachma, or one-sixteenth of a denarius.  Yet, "not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father." 

The verb is in the future tense--"will fall"--indicating that these sparrows are alive at present, but even when they die, they will not be "without"--aneu, apart from--your father."  Matthew reminds his readers of God's providential care of all creation, including them.  Again, the exhortation is not to be afraid because--Matthew wryly notes--you are of more value than many sparrows.  Therefore, be bold!

Not peace, but a sword:

32 ‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; ³³but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

Translation:  Therefore, all who will confess me before human beings, I also will confess in that one before my Father, the one in the heavens.  But whoever might deny me before human beings, I also will deny that one before my Father, the one in the heavens.

If Jesus' followers "acknowledge" him--omologesai, literally "speak the same word"--in front of others, then Jesus will do the same on behalf of them "before my Father in heaven."  Note that "your Father" has now become "my Father."  This hints at Jesus' son-ship, and indicates that it is precisely through his son-ship that his followers also become sons and daughters.

Yet, with the olive branch, there is also a threat: Those who "might deny" Jesus--a middle subjunctive--"will be denied" by Jesus to his Father.  As John Meier notes:  "Failure to witness before the earthly tribunal will mean disgrace before the heavenly tribunal, where Jesus will disown the weak disciple as not being truly his brother and therefore not truly a son of the Father."

34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 
³⁵For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 
³⁶and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. 
³⁷Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

Translation:  Do not assume that I came to throw peace upon the earth.  I came not to throw peace, but a sword, for I came to divide a person from his father, and a daughter from her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and enemies of a person of one's own household.  The one loving father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and the one loving son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

"Do not assume that I came to throw peace upon the earth.  I came not to throw peace, but a sword."  (The verb balein implies a stronger action than "bring."  "Throw" or "cast" would be better.)

Matthew ratchets up the tension a notch from the parallel in Luke.  In Luke, Jesus is said to bring "division."  Matthew adds color and force by referring not to "division" but to "a sword," and, moreover, one that is about ready to strike.  

Jesus is quoting from Micah 7:6--"for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  your enemies are members of your own household."

Jesus is not advocating violence, of course.  He is a bringer of peace, and his disciples are to be "peacemakers" (5:9).  It was also true, however, that, especially in the period in which Matthew was writing, there was considerable division within families due to the Christian faith.  Will Willimon likes to refer to letters from Roman families that talk of their concern because their son--Celsus, let's say--has run off to join some outfit called the Christians.

Called to the future:  Note also the generational pattern of the division.  In each case of comparison, it is the younger generation which is at odds with the older generation.  This is hardly unusual.  In the history of the world, generational perspectives are quite often different and in conflict.

What is surprising is that Jesus offers no palliative for this situation.  Indeed, he makes it worse.  Jesus has come to sever the ties between a man and his father, and a woman and her mother.  (The word is dixasai, which means to "divide" or "cleave in two.")

Jesus was never much on "family values," the way we understand them today.  One's earthly family is not particularly important since Jesus will go on to say, in chapter 12, that one's true family is the new community of Jesus.

The message of Jesus is about being formed by the future.  The kingdom of heaven is coming, a kingdom in which all relationships will be equal, not hierarchical, as in a family.  Traditional power relationships will be upended, including that of the family where father and mother stand "higher" than son or daughter.  ("The first shall be last, and the last first.") 

To be dominated by one's family, on the other hand, is to be dominated by the past.  Indeed, considering that a person's DNA goes back hundreds of thousands of years, we are--in a manner of speaking--in "bondage" to our family and in "bondage" to our past in quite literal ways.  The deference we show to father and mother is, partly, the homage we pay to our past.

To the one who had said he wanted to bury his father before he could follow Jesus, Jesus said, "Let the dead bury their own dead" (8: 22).  Jesus would not let people be dominated by their past.  They are to step out from their past, with its hierarchical power relationships and its "bondage" to tradition.  These are "old wineskins" and not able to hold the "new wine" (9:17).  To love one's family "more than me" is to be in love with the past, with one's progenitors.  To "love son or daughter"--your own gene pool--"more than me" is also to love the past.

³⁸and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Translation:  And whoever does not take up their cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.  The ones finding his life will destroy it, and the one losing his life because of me will find it.

Literally:  "and whoever does not take hold of his cross and follow after me is not..."--and here it gets tricky.  The word is axios.  It means "like," "befitting," or "congruent."  The sense of the word here seems to be "tried and found wanting."  The sense is one of "measuring up." 

Most translations of axios wind up with "worthy", which is appropriate, though one should avoid the sense of moral judgment that typically accompanies it.  "Worthy" here does not mean moral worth, but rather "foxhold worth," i.e. hanging in the movement despite tough times. "Tried and found wanting" seems to be the sense that Matthew intends. 

Jesus has set an example of suffering for the cause.  Disciples are not greater than their master and difficult situations may come to any follower.  In spite of the difficulty, followers should continue to expound the Way of Jesus, and follow it.  If they do not, then they are not at the level of their master. 

Verse 38 is, incidentally, the first use of the word "cross" in Matthew's gospel.  The phrase is ton stauron autou--literally, "the cross of him."  It is not entirely clear to whom the "him" refers.  It could mean to take up the cross of Jesus, and this has often been a typical interpretation. 

Or, it could mean the disciple taking up "their own cross."  We might think of "taking up his cross" as referring to taking up the burdens faced in the follower's own life.  In either case, in the context of first century Christianity, taking up the cross could, indeed, mean the cross of Jesus. 

More broadly, in whatever time we live, taking up the cross means living according to the way taught by Jesus no matter what one's condition or circumstance.  For our time today, following Jesus may not mean being executed on a cross.  It may mean trying to live as a Christian in the context of wealth and privilege.  Conversely, what does it mean to live as a Christian in the context of mental illness, or disability, or militarism? 

Image:  His eye is on the sparrow, quilt made by Judy Hand Pitts.

 

‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; ²⁵it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

Translation:  A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above his lord.  Enough for the disciple that that one may become like his teacher, and the slave like his lord.  If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more the ones of his household?

Background and situation:  The book of Matthew has five major sections, each one featuring an extended teaching by Jesus.  (These five teaching sections mirror the five books of Moses.)  The Sermon on the Mount is the first major speech;  the discourse on missionary activity in chapter 10 is the second.

At the beginning of chapter 10, Jesus gave the twelve disciples authority over unclean spirits.  The disciples are then named, and sent out.  Verses 5-23 have to do with mission strategy and facing opposition.  

Versions of some of the verses in this text appear in Mark, Luke, John, and Thomas.  The section from 10:26-33 has a parallel in Luke 12:2-10;  10:34-36 has a parallel in Thomas.  Verse 39 has a parallel in Mark, Luke, and John.

Slave not above his master:  Our lection this week begins with two proverbial sayings, the purpose of which seems to be to inform the disciples that followers of Jesus should not expect different treatment than what Jesus himself received.  Jesus faced persecution, and, therefore, it should not be surprising that his followers will face persecution as well. 

Matthew was writing around AD 80-85, which means that this is post-war literature.  It follows the devastation of the Roman-Jewish War of AD 66-70 when blood ran in the streets of Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed.

During and after the war, significant numbers of Jerusalem residents fled to the northern regions (Galilee, Syria) in order to escape the siege of Jerusalem.  In the north, pharisees tended to dominate and took the lead in organizing and settling these war-time refugees.  With the Temple now destroyed, the local synagogue and local rabbis became the focal point of Jewish life.

Matthew was trying to hold together a Jewish-Christian community in a situation that was extremely difficult.  Paul's mission to the gentiles was having a discernible impact on fledgling Christianity, and Jewish Christianity was steadily losing ground within the Christian movement.  

Moreover, the split between Jews and followers of Jesus had reached a tipping point in the late first century, and tensions between the (now) two groups had grown difficult.  It was during this time that followers of Jesus were being exiled from the synagogues in northern Israel.

The dynamics of first century religious development are complex.  The view that Christianity emerged out of Judaism is considered simplistic today.  Rather, the first century produced several religious sparks--Jesus followers, pharisees, zealots, and many others.  It wasn't that Christianity emerged from Judaism, but rather that both Christianity and pharisee-influenced rabbinical Judaism were two new strains that emerged out of the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 and the fall of the heretofore dominant wing of Judaism, the Sadducees.

Matthew is writing at a few years remove from Mark, who wrote during or just after the devastation in Jerusalem.  While Matthew's over-all mood is not as dark as Mark's, it is clear that Matthew's church saw themselves as fragile, vulnerable, under threat, and beset with difficulties.  If Jesus himself has been accused of being a demon--"they have called the master of the house Beelzebul"--then this charge is likely to be levelled also at Jesus' followers.  

Incidentally, Beelzebul is a Hebrew word that means "lord of lofty abode."  Beelzebul was an ancient Canaanite deity.  (Sometimes, Jews changed the word to Beelzebub, which was considered a slam.)

John Meier says that the phrase related "master of the household" and "Beelzebul", is a pun in Aramaic.  If so, that would add a touch of light-heartedness to a very serious condition, and that could well have been Matthew's intent. 

Matthew's message seems to be:  The situation is quite serious.  There are persecutions.  People are hauled before magistrates.  One's life may in danger.  Nevertheless, there is, ultimately, nothing to fear.  Therefore, be bold!

No fear:

26 ‘So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.^* 29Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. ³⁰And even the hairs of your head are all counted. ³¹So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Translation:  Therefore, do not fear them, for there is nothing that has been covered which will not be revealed, and a secret which will not be known.  What I say to you in the dark, speak in the light, and what you hear into the ear, proclaim upon the housetops.  And do not fear the ones killing the body, but are not able to kill a life.  But fear more the one able to destroy both life and body in gehenna.  Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?  And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.  But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not therefore.  You are of more value than many sparrows.

The disciples of Jesus are encouraged not to fear three times in five verses.  This is a message for people who feel themselves under seige. 

Yet, despite their difficulties, their movement cannot be stopped, Jesus tells them.  Even if you go to prison, even if you are oppressed, the message will be revealed and "become known"--ginosko, known in the most intimate way.

Jesus continues to speak to his beleaguered community--"what I say to you" is in the present tense--even if "in the dark."  This would indicate a community that must speak in whispers to each other, under threat of real violence from those who can "kill the body."  Nevertheless, keep spreading the message--"tell in the light."

Do not be afraid of the Romans, but do be afraid of the devil because the devil has the power to destroy both body and "life"--psyche.  Literally:  "Fear much more the one having power to destroy body and life in Gehenna."  ("Gehenna" was a burning trash heap in the valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem.)  

The one who is able to "destroy both body and life"--the devil--means that the struggle of Matthew's community should fundamentally be seen as spiritual.  Yes, they were enduring political and social oppression.  Yes, they were under the boot of Rome.  Nevertheless, these earthly powers are doing the devil's work. 

Then, the discourse turns more positive.  Sparrows were the cheapest edible birds.  Two of them could be bought for an assariou, which is one-tenth of a drachma, or one-sixteenth of a denarius.  Yet, "not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father." 

The verb is in the future tense--"will fall"--indicating that these sparrows are alive at present, but even when they die, they will not be "without"--aneu, apart from--your father."  Matthew reminds his readers of God's providential care of all creation, including them.  Again, the exhortation is not to be afraid because--Matthew wryly notes--you are of more value than many sparrows.  Therefore, be bold!

Not peace, but a sword:

32 ‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; ³³but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

Translation:  Therefore, all who will confess me before human beings, I also will confess in that one before my Father, the one in the heavens.  But whoever might deny me before human beings, I also will deny that one before my Father, the one in the heavens.

If Jesus' followers "acknowledge" him--omologesai, literally "speak the same word"--in front of others, then Jesus will do the same on behalf of them "before my Father in heaven."  Note that "your Father" has now become "my Father."  This hints at Jesus' son-ship, and indicates that it is precisely through his son-ship that his followers also become sons and daughters.

Yet, with the olive branch, there is also a threat: Those who "might deny" Jesus--a middle subjunctive--"will be denied" by Jesus to his Father.  As John Meier notes:  "Failure to witness before the earthly tribunal will mean disgrace before the heavenly tribunal, where Jesus will disown the weak disciple as not being truly his brother and therefore not truly a son of the Father."

34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 
³⁵For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 
³⁶and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. 
³⁷Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

Translation:  Do not assume that I came to throw peace upon the earth.  I came not to throw peace, but a sword, for I came to divide a person from his father, and a daughter from her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and enemies of a person of one's own household.  The one loving father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and the one loving son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

"Do not assume that I came to throw peace upon the earth.  I came not to throw peace, but a sword."  (The verb balein implies a stronger action than "bring."  "Throw" or "cast" would be better.)

Matthew ratchets up the tension a notch from the parallel in Luke.  In Luke, Jesus is said to bring "division."  Matthew adds color and force by referring not to "division" but to "a sword," and, moreover, one that is about ready to strike.  

Jesus is quoting from Micah 7:6--"for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  your enemies are members of your own household."

Jesus is not advocating violence, of course.  He is a bringer of peace, and his disciples are to be "peacemakers" (5:9).  It was also true, however, that, especially in the period in which Matthew was writing, there was considerable division within families due to the Christian faith.  Will Willimon likes to refer to letters from Roman families that talk of their concern because their son--Celsus, let's say--has run off to join some outfit called the Christians.

Called to the future:  Note also the generational pattern of the division.  In each case of comparison, it is the younger generation which is at odds with the older generation.  This is hardly unusual.  In the history of the world, generational perspectives are quite often different and in conflict.

What is surprising is that Jesus offers no palliative for this situation.  Indeed, he makes it worse.  Jesus has come to sever the ties between a man and his father, and a woman and her mother.  (The word is dixasai, which means to "divide" or "cleave in two.")

Jesus was never much on "family values," the way we understand them today.  One's earthly family is not particularly important since Jesus will go on to say, in chapter 12, that one's true family is the new community of Jesus.

The message of Jesus is about being formed by the future.  The kingdom of heaven is coming, a kingdom in which all relationships will be equal, not hierarchical, as in a family.  Traditional power relationships will be upended, including that of the family where father and mother stand "higher" than son or daughter.  ("The first shall be last, and the last first.") 

To be dominated by one's family, on the other hand, is to be dominated by the past.  Indeed, considering that a person's DNA goes back hundreds of thousands of years, we are--in a manner of speaking--in "bondage" to our family and in "bondage" to our past in quite literal ways.  The deference we show to father and mother is, partly, the homage we pay to our past.

To the one who had said he wanted to bury his father before he could follow Jesus, Jesus said, "Let the dead bury their own dead" (8: 22).  Jesus would not let people be dominated by their past.  They are to step out from their past, with its hierarchical power relationships and its "bondage" to tradition.  These are "old wineskins" and not able to hold the "new wine" (9:17).  To love one's family "more than me" is to be in love with the past, with one's progenitors.  To "love son or daughter"--your own gene pool--"more than me" is also to love the past.

³⁸and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Translation:  And whoever does not take up their cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.  The ones finding his life will destroy it, and the one losing his life because of me will find it.

Literally:  "and whoever does not take hold of his cross and follow after me is not..."--and here it gets tricky.  The word is axios.  It means "like," "befitting," or "congruent."  The sense of the word here seems to be "tried and found wanting."  The sense is one of "measuring up." 

Most translations of axios wind up with "worthy", which is appropriate, though one should avoid the sense of moral judgment that typically accompanies it.  "Worthy" here does not mean moral worth, but rather "foxhold worth," i.e. hanging in the movement despite tough times. "Tried and found wanting" seems to be the sense that Matthew intends. 

Jesus has set an example of suffering for the cause.  Disciples are not greater than their master and difficult situations may come to any follower.  In spite of the difficulty, followers should continue to expound the Way of Jesus, and follow it.  If they do not, then they are not at the level of their master. 

Verse 38 is, incidentally, the first use of the word "cross" in Matthew's gospel.  The phrase is ton stauron autou--literally, "the cross of him."  It is not entirely clear to whom the "him" refers.  It could mean to take up the cross of Jesus, and this has often been a typical interpretation. 

Or, it could mean the disciple taking up "their own cross."  We might think of "taking up his cross" as referring to taking up the burdens faced in the follower's own life.  In either case, in the context of first century Christianity, taking up the cross could, indeed, mean the cross of Jesus. 

More broadly, in whatever time we live, taking up the cross means living according to the way taught by Jesus no matter what one's condition or circumstance.  For our time today, following Jesus may not mean being executed on a cross.  It may mean trying to live as a Christian in the context of wealth and privilege.  Conversely, what does it mean to live as a Christian in the context of mental illness, or disability, or militarism? 

Image:  His eye is on the sparrow, quilt made by Judy Hand Pitts.

 

Pentecost 2 ::: Matthew 9:35 - 10:8

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. ³⁶When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’

Translation:  And Jesus was going about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease.  And seeing the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them because they were distressed and cast away, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the workmen are few.  Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest that he might send workmen into the harvest."

Background and situation:  The opening verse is pure gospel, and recalls what Jesus had done at the end of chapter 4, right before the Sermon on the Mount:  "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people." (4:23)  This is gospel, and it sets the stage for the Sermon on the Mount which follows.

In 9:35, which begins our reading this week, Jesus does exactly what he had done in 4:23:  "And Jesus was going about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease." 

Matthew has five "books" in his gospel, reflecting the five books of Moses.  Each book is introduced by a speech by Jesus.  In the first book, the speech is the famous Sermon on the Mount.  The second "book" of Matthew's gospel begins at 10:1, and introduces a new section, the theme of which is mission and its difficulties.  As in 4:23, the proclamation of the gospel in 9:35 precedes the next speech and provides the "hinge" from one section to the next.

The primary source for this passage is Mark, but Matthew takes Mark and goes in a different direction.  In Mark 6:6, Jesus goes through villages.  Matthew changes this to "cities and villages".  Why?  Because Mark's purpose is to portray Jesus as being plotted against, mainly by people in cities, which is why Jesus spends most of his time in the countryside and in villages.  In Mark, Jesus is under threat, and a victim.  This is less so in Matthew. 

"Sheep without a shepherd":  The phrase "sheep without a shepherd" is an ancient one.  See Numbers 27:17 as one example.  Mark uses the phrase to introduce his first feeding story (6:34).  Matthew, on the other hand, accents Jesus' emotional reaction to the condition of the sheep.  "He was moved with the deepest compassion."  

The word is esplagnisthe, an exceptionally strong statement.  The word is associated with the bowels, for heaven's sake.  Jesus was moved to the depths of his being by the "skinned" or "mangled" condition--eskulmenoi--of the people, who are also being "thrown down" (ripto).  ("Harrassed and helpless," as the NRSV puts it, seems a bit more tame than is indicated by these strong words of oppression.)

What the people need is a mission!  There may be a play on words here.  In verse 35, Jesus is "healing every disease."  The word translated as "healing" is therapeuon--which is, incidentally, where we get our word "therapy." 

In verse 37, "the harvest is plentiful."  The word for "harvest" is therismos.  The similarity in the sound of the two words therapeuon and therismos leads one  to the thought that the "harvest"--the "gathering in"--is associated with healing.  The harvest will indeed be therapeutic.  Even more, the mission to participate in that harvest is likewise "healing." 

The twelve apostles:

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. ²These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax-collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

Translation:  And having called to him his twelve disciples, he gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every sickness.  And of the twelve apostles, the names are these:  first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, the tax-collector,  James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

After Jesus mentions prayer that "the Lord of the harvest will send laborers," he calls his twelve disciples and gives them "authority"--exousian, also "power, ability, strength"--to do the very mission he has already been doing, casting out unclean spirits and healing disease and sickness.  (Matthew adds healing, which is absent in the Markan parallel, 6:7.) 

In this preparation for mission, Matthew, for the first time, introduces "the twelve."  In actual history, Jesus had a lot more disciples than just twelve.  In other places, 70 are mentioned.  In yet other places (Luke 8), his women disciples are mentioned.  Many people followed Jesus.  We forget:  Jesus was a tribune of the people.  He was popular.  Thousands rallied to him.

"The twelve" is a metaphorical device, meant to recall the twelve tribes of Israel.  These new "twelve" represent the renewal of Israel in the light of God's Christ.  Matthew follows Mark in calling them "apostles."  The word literally means "one sent." 

At the time of Matthew's writing, "apostle" had two meanings.  The first is Pauline.  An apostle is one who has seen Jesus and preaches the gospel.  Another use of the word "apostle" was to refer to an envoy from the churches.  Says John Meier: 

Matthew reflects the usage of the church late in the first century, when a desire to legitimate the authentic tradition of the church against false teachers led to an emphasis on the original guardians of the tradition and their official successors.

To put is slightly different than Meier, Matthew wants to assert the apostolic authority of the Jerusalem church, which is headed by Peter (and James).  This appears to be a concern of Matthew especially.  Peter is looked upon with greater favor in Matthew than in any of the other gospels.  For Matthew, Peter is the "rock" upon whom Jesus builds his church (16:18). 

In accenting the role of Peter, Matthew is lifting up the role of the "head office" of the church in Jerusalem.  It is from there, undoubtedly, that "apostles" would be sent to promote "apostolic teaching" in other early Christian communities, or so Matthew thinks.

Matthew gets his list of "the twelve" from Mark (3: 13-19).  Matthew changes Mark to say that Peter is "first"--protos--which is another reflection of Peter's special position in Matthew, as is Matthew's placement of Andrew, Peter's brother, in second place.  Matthew drops Mark's designation of James and John as "sons of thunder."  Matthew also adds "tax collector" to the name of the disciple Matthew.

Cananaean may reflect an Aramaic word for "zealot" (Meier).  The zealots were first century terrorists who believed in violent action against the Roman occupation.  They appear to have had their beginning in the revolt against the tax census which was called by Cyrenius (Quirinius) in 6 AD. 

Notice that the list of disciples contains a startling juxtaposition.  It includes both a Roman lackey--the tax collector Matthew--and a Roman enemy, Simon the zealot.  The new community of Jesus is broad.  It is able to contain both these disparate people. 

Judas is mentioned last, as per usual.  Whenever Judas' name appears anywhere in the New Testament, there is a disparaging comment appended to his name.  Here, as in Mark, it's "who betrayed him." 

The identity of Judas is still being debated today.  I find intriguing the possibility that his name, "Judas Iscariot," may refer to his hometown--"Judas, from Kerioth."  "Kerioth" was in Judea.  If this is the case, then Judas would be the only member of "the twelve" who was a Judean.  Was Judas a traitor--a Judean spy--all along?

To the lost sheep of the house of Israel, for now:

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, ⁶but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”  ⁸Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

Translation:  These twelve Jesus sent forth, having instructed them, saying, 'Do not go into the way of the nations, and do not enter into any town of the Samaritans.  Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Go and proclaim, saying that 'the kingdom of the heavens has come near.'  Heal the weak ones, raise dead ones, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.  You have taken freely.  Give freely."

"Do not go in the way of the nations (gentiles), and do not go into a city of Samaritans, but go, rather, to the destroyed (lost, ruined) sheep of the house of Israel."  We are beginning chapter 10.  At this point, Matthew understands Jesus' mission to be only in Galilee and to the "destroyed" sheep there.

Matthew presents that, at this point, Jesus saw himself as sent only to oppressed Jews living in Galilee.  That mission will expand rather dramatically following Jesus encounter with the Canaanite woman in chapter 15.  After he loses an argument with a foreign woman--and one associated with Israel's ancient enemy--Jesus appears to expand his own mission beyond Israel.  When Matthew closes his gospel, that mission is expanded to "all nations" (28:19).

Matthew also seems to reacting against the situation in Galilee at the time of his writing, c. AD 80.  During and after the Roman-Jewish war, many refugees fled from the south to the north.  It appears Matthew had some difficulty with the pharisees who took it upon themselves to organize these folks into synagogues.  (Even though Matthew refers to "their synagogues," there is a fair chance that there were no synagogues in Galilee in AD 30, but there were synagogues at the time of Matthew's writing, synagogues which had been organized by pharisees.  Matthew took a dim view of them--see chapter 23.)

"Go and proclaim, saying that 'the kingdom of the heavens has come near.'  Heal the weak ones, raise dead ones, cleanse lepers--(the word is katharizete, where we get our word "catharsis")--cast out demons.  You have taken freely.  Give freely."

Again, "the twelve" are to reflect the ministry of Jesus himself.  Matthew is especially keen on identifying the mission of the church with what Jesus himself did.  Note especially "heal the weak," which is usually translated "cure the sick."  The word is therapeuete again, which means not only "heal" but also "serve."  The word normally translated as "sick" is asthenountas, which, in my view, has a broader definition than "sick."  It means "weak" or "feeble" or "lacking strength."  (The word is used in psychiatry today to refer to weakness and torpor.)  "Serve the weak" would be a perfectly good translation, and one that is thoroughly consistent with Jesus' mission.

That is what the church is to be about--serving the weak, healing the sick, cleansing the unclean.  It is to be about bringing others into the practice of the kingdom, wherein all people are treated with respect and dignity, all tables are open, all people are lifted up, and all are called to higher purpose. 

Funny.  How did we ever get the idea that the mission of the church was to get people to "convert" to something called "protestant theology" whereby they could be "saved"?

Image:  Christ healing the blind man, El Greco

 

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. ³⁶When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’

Translation:  And Jesus was going about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease.  And seeing the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them because they were distressed and cast away, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the workmen are few.  Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest that he might send workmen into the harvest."

Background and situation:  The opening verse is pure gospel, and recalls what Jesus had done at the end of chapter 4, right before the Sermon on the Mount:  "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people." (4:23)  This is gospel, and it sets the stage for the Sermon on the Mount which follows.

In 9:35, which begins our reading this week, Jesus does exactly what he had done in 4:23:  "And Jesus was going about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease." 

Matthew has five "books" in his gospel, reflecting the five books of Moses.  Each book is introduced by a speech by Jesus.  In the first book, the speech is the famous Sermon on the Mount.  The second "book" of Matthew's gospel begins at 10:1, and introduces a new section, the theme of which is mission and its difficulties.  As in 4:23, the proclamation of the gospel in 9:35 precedes the next speech and provides the "hinge" from one section to the next.

The primary source for this passage is Mark, but Matthew takes Mark and goes in a different direction.  In Mark 6:6, Jesus goes through villages.  Matthew changes this to "cities and villages".  Why?  Because Mark's purpose is to portray Jesus as being plotted against, mainly by people in cities, which is why Jesus spends most of his time in the countryside and in villages.  In Mark, Jesus is under threat, and a victim.  This is less so in Matthew. 

"Sheep without a shepherd":  The phrase "sheep without a shepherd" is an ancient one.  See Numbers 27:17 as one example.  Mark uses the phrase to introduce his first feeding story (6:34).  Matthew, on the other hand, accents Jesus' emotional reaction to the condition of the sheep.  "He was moved with the deepest compassion."  

The word is esplagnisthe, an exceptionally strong statement.  The word is associated with the bowels, for heaven's sake.  Jesus was moved to the depths of his being by the "skinned" or "mangled" condition--eskulmenoi--of the people, who are also being "thrown down" (ripto).  ("Harrassed and helpless," as the NRSV puts it, seems a bit more tame than is indicated by these strong words of oppression.)

What the people need is a mission!  There may be a play on words here.  In verse 35, Jesus is "healing every disease."  The word translated as "healing" is therapeuon--which is, incidentally, where we get our word "therapy." 

In verse 37, "the harvest is plentiful."  The word for "harvest" is therismos.  The similarity in the sound of the two words therapeuon and therismos leads one  to the thought that the "harvest"--the "gathering in"--is associated with healing.  The harvest will indeed be therapeutic.  Even more, the mission to participate in that harvest is likewise "healing." 

The twelve apostles:

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. ²These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax-collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

Translation:  And having called to him his twelve disciples, he gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every sickness.  And of the twelve apostles, the names are these:  first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, the tax-collector,  James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

After Jesus mentions prayer that "the Lord of the harvest will send laborers," he calls his twelve disciples and gives them "authority"--exousian, also "power, ability, strength"--to do the very mission he has already been doing, casting out unclean spirits and healing disease and sickness.  (Matthew adds healing, which is absent in the Markan parallel, 6:7.) 

In this preparation for mission, Matthew, for the first time, introduces "the twelve."  In actual history, Jesus had a lot more disciples than just twelve.  In other places, 70 are mentioned.  In yet other places (Luke 8), his women disciples are mentioned.  Many people followed Jesus.  We forget:  Jesus was a tribune of the people.  He was popular.  Thousands rallied to him.

"The twelve" is a metaphorical device, meant to recall the twelve tribes of Israel.  These new "twelve" represent the renewal of Israel in the light of God's Christ.  Matthew follows Mark in calling them "apostles."  The word literally means "one sent." 

At the time of Matthew's writing, "apostle" had two meanings.  The first is Pauline.  An apostle is one who has seen Jesus and preaches the gospel.  Another use of the word "apostle" was to refer to an envoy from the churches.  Says John Meier: 

Matthew reflects the usage of the church late in the first century, when a desire to legitimate the authentic tradition of the church against false teachers led to an emphasis on the original guardians of the tradition and their official successors.

To put is slightly different than Meier, Matthew wants to assert the apostolic authority of the Jerusalem church, which is headed by Peter (and James).  This appears to be a concern of Matthew especially.  Peter is looked upon with greater favor in Matthew than in any of the other gospels.  For Matthew, Peter is the "rock" upon whom Jesus builds his church (16:18). 

In accenting the role of Peter, Matthew is lifting up the role of the "head office" of the church in Jerusalem.  It is from there, undoubtedly, that "apostles" would be sent to promote "apostolic teaching" in other early Christian communities, or so Matthew thinks.

Matthew gets his list of "the twelve" from Mark (3: 13-19).  Matthew changes Mark to say that Peter is "first"--protos--which is another reflection of Peter's special position in Matthew, as is Matthew's placement of Andrew, Peter's brother, in second place.  Matthew drops Mark's designation of James and John as "sons of thunder."  Matthew also adds "tax collector" to the name of the disciple Matthew.

Cananaean may reflect an Aramaic word for "zealot" (Meier).  The zealots were first century terrorists who believed in violent action against the Roman occupation.  They appear to have had their beginning in the revolt against the tax census which was called by Cyrenius (Quirinius) in 6 AD. 

Notice that the list of disciples contains a startling juxtaposition.  It includes both a Roman lackey--the tax collector Matthew--and a Roman enemy, Simon the zealot.  The new community of Jesus is broad.  It is able to contain both these disparate people. 

Judas is mentioned last, as per usual.  Whenever Judas' name appears anywhere in the New Testament, there is a disparaging comment appended to his name.  Here, as in Mark, it's "who betrayed him." 

The identity of Judas is still being debated today.  I find intriguing the possibility that his name, "Judas Iscariot," may refer to his hometown--"Judas, from Kerioth."  "Kerioth" was in Judea.  If this is the case, then Judas would be the only member of "the twelve" who was a Judean.  Was Judas a traitor--a Judean spy--all along?

To the lost sheep of the house of Israel, for now:

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, ⁶but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”  ⁸Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

Translation:  These twelve Jesus sent forth, having instructed them, saying, 'Do not go into the way of the nations, and do not enter into any town of the Samaritans.  Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Go and proclaim, saying that 'the kingdom of the heavens has come near.'  Heal the weak ones, raise dead ones, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.  You have taken freely.  Give freely."

"Do not go in the way of the nations (gentiles), and do not go into a city of Samaritans, but go, rather, to the destroyed (lost, ruined) sheep of the house of Israel."  We are beginning chapter 10.  At this point, Matthew understands Jesus' mission to be only in Galilee and to the "destroyed" sheep there.

Matthew presents that, at this point, Jesus saw himself as sent only to oppressed Jews living in Galilee.  That mission will expand rather dramatically following Jesus encounter with the Canaanite woman in chapter 15.  After he loses an argument with a foreign woman--and one associated with Israel's ancient enemy--Jesus appears to expand his own mission beyond Israel.  When Matthew closes his gospel, that mission is expanded to "all nations" (28:19).

Matthew also seems to reacting against the situation in Galilee at the time of his writing, c. AD 80.  During and after the Roman-Jewish war, many refugees fled from the south to the north.  It appears Matthew had some difficulty with the pharisees who took it upon themselves to organize these folks into synagogues.  (Even though Matthew refers to "their synagogues," there is a fair chance that there were no synagogues in Galilee in AD 30, but there were synagogues at the time of Matthew's writing, synagogues which had been organized by pharisees.  Matthew took a dim view of them--see chapter 23.)

"Go and proclaim, saying that 'the kingdom of the heavens has come near.'  Heal the weak ones, raise dead ones, cleanse lepers--(the word is katharizete, where we get our word "catharsis")--cast out demons.  You have taken freely.  Give freely."

Again, "the twelve" are to reflect the ministry of Jesus himself.  Matthew is especially keen on identifying the mission of the church with what Jesus himself did.  Note especially "heal the weak," which is usually translated "cure the sick."  The word is therapeuete again, which means not only "heal" but also "serve."  The word normally translated as "sick" is asthenountas, which, in my view, has a broader definition than "sick."  It means "weak" or "feeble" or "lacking strength."  (The word is used in psychiatry today to refer to weakness and torpor.)  "Serve the weak" would be a perfectly good translation, and one that is thoroughly consistent with Jesus' mission.

That is what the church is to be about--serving the weak, healing the sick, cleansing the unclean.  It is to be about bringing others into the practice of the kingdom, wherein all people are treated with respect and dignity, all tables are open, all people are lifted up, and all are called to higher purpose. 

Funny.  How did we ever get the idea that the mission of the church was to get people to "convert" to something called "protestant theology" whereby they could be "saved"?

Image:  Christ healing the blind man, El Greco

The Holy Trinity ::: Matthew 28: 16-20

¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Translation:   And the eleven disciples journeyed into the Galilee, into the mountain where Jesus had directed them.  And seeing him, they worshiped, but they doubted.  And Jesus came (and) spoke to them, saying, "All power has been given to me in heaven and upon the earth.  As you have gone, therefore, teach all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to keep all as I commanded you.  And behold! I am with you all the days until the consummation of the eternal." 

Background and situation:  These are the closing words of Matthew's gospel.  As is characteristic for Matthew's gospel, Jesus is again presented as Moses-like, yet greater-than Moses.  Like Moses, he speaks on a mountain and gives commandments.  As greater-than Moses, he now commands "all authority."

The Holy Trinity:  This is the gospel reading for Holy Trinity Sunday, the only day of the church year said to be dedicated specifically to a doctrinal position. 

In reality, of course, all church holidays are about some aspect of doctrine.  Christmas, for example, is not at all the "birthday of Jesus," but a holy day of the church dedicated to the incarnation, a doctrinal teaching which counters the heresies of gnosticism and docetism.

The lection is likely chosen because of its reference to "the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."  The saying is anachronistic for the time of Jesus, who, bereft of expensive seminary education, would likely have been thoroughly mystified by something called "trinitarian theology."

The trinity has been perhaps the most controversial and most mysterious of Christian teachings.  As is well known, the word "trinity" does not appear in the Bible, although you can see hints of trinitarianism beginning to develop, like Matthew's mention of the trinitarian name in today's lection, for example, and certain passages of Paul, such as "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you (2 Cor 13: 14)." 

You can easily see the difficulty for first century Jews such as Matthew.  Jews are monotheists.  In fact, at the time of Jesus, Jews were the first and only monotheists in the world.  "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One," said the shema. 

Yet, the earliest Christians, all of them Jews, believed that, somehow, they had encountered God in Jesus of Nazareth.  How could one express that, and still be a monotheist? 

The most challenging theological treatises--over the years, and to this day--have been on the trinity.  It took St. Augustine 15 volumes to describe the trinity.  Here are his seven summary statements:  The Father is God.  The Son is God.  The Holy Spirit is God.  The Son is not the Father.  The Father is not the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is not the Son.  There is only one God.  (Impenetrable, yes, and convoluted, but what can one expect?  The subject is God, after all.)

While I'm no better at understanding the trinity than anyone else, and much less so than many, I find the teaching attractive for these reasons: 

(1)  The trinity's central teaching about God is that God, in God's interior life, is essentially relational.  This is a far cry from the radical monad of Greek philosophy who exists up high in the stratosphere somewhere, disconnected from any one or any thing. 

The trinity understands that relationships within God are dynamic.  They move.  The early theologians used the word perichoresis, which literally means "dancing around."  (We get our word "choreography" from choresis.)   This ever-vital, ever-moving, ever-interweaving of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is essential.  It is an aspect of God's very being.  

No member of the trinity is superior to any other, which means that the interior life of God is not hierarchical.  Here's a helpful exercise:  Try re-arranging the "persons" of the trinity.  Since all "persons" of the trinity are equal, it doesn't make any difference which one is mentioned first.  In fact, in order to at least allude to the anti-heirarchical nature of perichoresis, we should mix them up.  How about opening worship in the name of the Spirit, Son, and Father?

Our actual practice is always to say "Father, Son, and Spirit" in that order.  The Father is always mentioned first, in the pre-eminent position, one "higher" than the Son or Spirit.  Our actual practice supports a hierarchical view of God when the actual trinitarian theology of perichoresis subverts hierarchy! 

(2)  The trinity is radically egalitarian, and embraces all of human experience.  It is precisely the human man Jesus who is the Second Person of the Trinity.  Through Jesus--not the souped-up, supernatural Jesus, but the human Jesus--the entirety of human experience is embraced and taken into the life of God.  Just as God is relationship within God's own self, God relentlessly reaches out and into all human life to reconcile and restore human being's broken relationship with God.  This is good.

(3)  The trinity makes good sense of the cross.  When Jesus died on the cross, he then descended into hell--into the realm of nothingness, absence, and annihilation.  He descended into the "opposite of God."  Where God is presence and relationship, hell is absence and loneliness--"where nothing connects with nothing," as someone has put it. 

According to trinitarian theology of the cross, the Holy Spirit breaches the gap between the "Father in Heaven" and the "Son in Hell."  The Holy Spirit is the bond of love that unites them even across this greatest of all chasms.

(4)  Putting Jesus in the trinity subverts the Emperor as a "son of God."  Throughout history, many rulers claimed to be sired by something supernatural.  Shortly before the time of Jesus, Julius Caesar was said to be "the divine Julius" after his assassination.  A new comet was a sign of his joining the panoply of gods.  After him, his adopted son, Caesar Augustus, claimed to be divi filius (son of a god), proudly stamping his status on coins and distributing them throughout the empire.

Christianity might have been legalized by Constantine in AD 313, but the early Christians were nevertheless suspicious of the government.  It hadn't been that long since they had been victims of persecution (c. AD 280-300).  If Jesus is merely a son of God, how would he be any different from Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus?  He needed to be in the trinity, equal to God, or risk being lost in the shuffle of the various other (far lesser and often self-appointed) gods.

That's on the one hand.  Here are some reasons not to like the trinity:  

(1)  It was a doctrine imposed.  It was declared the only acceptable Christian doctrine of God by the Emperor Theodosius in AD 380, rubber-stamped by the Council of Constantinople in AD 381, and all opposing views were banned and suppressed.  This hardly seems very Christian.  

What's worse, it had to keep being imposed.  Christianity's biggest problem, ever since Constantine, is that it was implemented from the top down.  The nobility converted in order to get God on their side, and they then converted the peasants.  (One encouraging sign today is the "emergent church," which is bottom-up.)

(2)  The Emperor's trinitarianism had the effect of kicking Jesus upstairs into an object to be worshipped rather than followed.  The historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, had a disturbing tendency to side with people the Emperor liked to push around, and the Emperor certainly didn't want people following that example.

Kicking Jesus upstairs has the unfortunate effect of subverting the doctrine of the incarnation.  It removes Jesus from the realities of human life and tries to re-locate him in the airy and ethereal.  

In effect, most modern day Christian worship assumes a view of Jesus with exalted divinity and a severely truncated humanity.  That is docetism, pure and simple, the idea that Jesus only seemed to be a human being, but wasn't really.  Thus, the "orthodox" position on the trinity tends to subvert the "orthodox" position on the two natures of Jesus.   

The New Community:  Matthew describes two communities in the closing chapter of his gospel.  In the five verses preceding our lection, he mentions the community of guard, priests, elders, and soldiers--a community headed by the governor. 

When Jesus is not in his tomb on Easter Sunday morning, the priests, after conferring with representatives of the ruling families of Jerusalem, bribe the soldiers to say that Jesus' body had been stolen by his supporters.  In return, they offer to cover the soldiers' butt when the governor finds out that Jesus' body is missing.  The community described in verses 11-15 is a community based in greed and lies.

Immediately following we are told of another community, the new community of Jesus.  As he had told them to do, they are going to Galilee.  They are, however, only eleven in number, and not twelve.  One of the twelve, Judas, has committed suicide.  Even the new community has suffered loss and betrayal.  Yet, in spite of their "brokenness," the new community is obedient to Jesus' instruction to go to Galilee. 

In Galilee, they meet Jesus on "the mountain where Jesus had directed them."  It is not at all surprising that Matthew would have Jesus meet the disciples on a mountain.  Mountains as a place of special revelation are quite common in Matthew.  

We don't know which mountain.  Matthew says nothing further about it, and no prior reference says anything about this mountain, or its specific locale.  In any case, that is not the point.  The point is that the disciples followed Jesus' direction.  He "directed" them.  They went.

Doubt:  Verse 17:  "And seeing him, they worshipped but they doubted."  All four gospels deal with the subject of doubt, though they each do it in a different way. 

This is Matthew's way:  The disciples have followed Jesus' direction without yet seeing him.  As a result of following his direction, they have come to a place of special revelation where they do "see" him.  They respond with worship, even in the face of their own doubt.  Doubt is frankly acknowledged.  Says Matthew:  Let the church be instructed.  Jesus is followed and worshipped in spite of doubt.

Jesus then "came" to them.  He does not remain distant from his community, but approaches and comes to them.  This is reminiscent of the Transfiguration--another mountaintop experience--when Jesus "touched" Peter, James and John (17: 7).

Final teaching:  Unlike the other three gospels, Matthew makes no mention of Jesus' physicality, or his wounds, or any special post-resurrection abilities.  Matthew is the gospel that places emphasis on the teaching of Jesus, and so, here, Jesus only speaks. 

He announces his universal and cosmic authority--"all power in heaven and upon the earth."  "Therefore"--precisely because of his universal authority--he can compell a universal mission, a mission to "all nations."  Indeed, the word "all" appears four times in these five verses--"all authority," "all nations," "all I have commanded," "all the days"--a striking expression of universality.

The text is often called "the great commission," an expression which appears nowhere in scripture.  (We do have, however, a "greatest commandment" in Matthew, and also a second greatest commandment, love for God and love for neighbor (22:35-40).) 

The disciples are told to "go"--poreuomai, which is passive, and carries the sense of "being led forward on a journey," a journey to make disciples of "all the nations"--ethne, "peoples."

The new community is to baptize "them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."  Matthew did not invent this formula.  He likely took it from the liturgy of the early church.  Some baptisms in the early church were "in the name of Jesus"--Acts 2:38, 10:48.

The saying continues with one final instruction:  "teaching them to observe as much as I have commanded you."  More than any other gospel, Matthew emphasizes Jesus' role as teacher.  Jesus inaugural speech, in Matthew, is nothing less than the Sermon on the Mount, and that was only the beginning!  Everything Jesus has taught to the disciples is to be taught throughout the new community.

The final "emanuel":  Kai idou--And behold!  "I am with you"--ego meta humon eimi.  Note how "with you" is sandwiched between ego and eimi.  (Ego eimi is the "divine name," the Greek version of YHWH, the name of God.)

At Jesus' birth, Matthew had proclaimed that Jesus is "emanuel"--God with us.  Now, in Jesus' final proclamation to his disciples in Matthew, he asserts the divine name--"I am!"--but, this time, "with you" is placed within the divine name itself!  

In the way Matthew has grammatically constructed the sentence, the new community of those who follow Jesus are within the very life of God.  God with us indeed!  (It's a plural "you" incidentally, i.e. the whole catholic flock is held within God, and not just your own splendid self.)

"I am with you all the days until the sunteleias tou aionos."  Suntelaias combines the words sun with telos.  Sun means "together," telos means "the goal."  The sense of the word is a "gathering up into the goal," rather reminiscent of St. Iraneus who spoke of the anakephalaiososthai ta panta--the "summing up of all things into the head."  Thus ends Matthew's gospel.

Matthew tells of two communities.  One is based in the Temple, influenced by the ruling families of Jerusalem, headed by the governor.  This community is about power, greed, payoffs, deception, and lies. 

The new community is headed by Jesus, not the governor.  It follows his teaching as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, not the corrupt practices of the Temple, or the oppressive practices of the Roman occupation.  This new community is for "all peoples," not merely the political and economic elite.

Image:  "The Holy Trinity," El Greco

 

¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Translation:   And the eleven disciples journeyed into the Galilee, into the mountain where Jesus had directed them.  And seeing him, they worshiped, but they doubted.  And Jesus came (and) spoke to them, saying, "All power has been given to me in heaven and upon the earth.  As you have gone, therefore, teach all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to keep all as I commanded you.  And behold! I am with you all the days until the consummation of the eternal." 

Background and situation:  These are the closing words of Matthew's gospel.  As is characteristic for Matthew's gospel, Jesus is again presented as Moses-like, yet greater-than Moses.  Like Moses, he speaks on a mountain and gives commandments.  As greater-than Moses, he now commands "all authority."

The Holy Trinity:  This is the gospel reading for Holy Trinity Sunday, the only day of the church year said to be dedicated specifically to a doctrinal position. 

In reality, of course, all church holidays are about some aspect of doctrine.  Christmas, for example, is not at all the "birthday of Jesus," but a holy day of the church dedicated to the incarnation, a doctrinal teaching which counters the heresies of gnosticism and docetism.

The lection is likely chosen because of its reference to "the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."  The saying is anachronistic for the time of Jesus, who, bereft of expensive seminary education, would likely have been thoroughly mystified by something called "trinitarian theology."

The trinity has been perhaps the most controversial and most mysterious of Christian teachings.  As is well known, the word "trinity" does not appear in the Bible, although you can see hints of trinitarianism beginning to develop, like Matthew's mention of the trinitarian name in today's lection, for example, and certain passages of Paul, such as "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you (2 Cor 13: 14)." 

You can easily see the difficulty for first century Jews such as Matthew.  Jews are monotheists.  In fact, at the time of Jesus, Jews were the first and only monotheists in the world.  "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One," said the shema. 

Yet, the earliest Christians, all of them Jews, believed that, somehow, they had encountered God in Jesus of Nazareth.  How could one express that, and still be a monotheist? 

The most challenging theological treatises--over the years, and to this day--have been on the trinity.  It took St. Augustine 15 volumes to describe the trinity.  Here are his seven summary statements:  The Father is God.  The Son is God.  The Holy Spirit is God.  The Son is not the Father.  The Father is not the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is not the Son.  There is only one God.  (Impenetrable, yes, and convoluted, but what can one expect?  The subject is God, after all.)

While I'm no better at understanding the trinity than anyone else, and much less so than many, I find the teaching attractive for these reasons: 

(1)  The trinity's central teaching about God is that God, in God's interior life, is essentially relational.  This is a far cry from the radical monad of Greek philosophy who exists up high in the stratosphere somewhere, disconnected from any one or any thing. 

The trinity understands that relationships within God are dynamic.  They move.  The early theologians used the word perichoresis, which literally means "dancing around."  (We get our word "choreography" from choresis.)   This ever-vital, ever-moving, ever-interweaving of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is essential.  It is an aspect of God's very being.  

No member of the trinity is superior to any other, which means that the interior life of God is not hierarchical.  Here's a helpful exercise:  Try re-arranging the "persons" of the trinity.  Since all "persons" of the trinity are equal, it doesn't make any difference which one is mentioned first.  In fact, in order to at least allude to the anti-heirarchical nature of perichoresis, we should mix them up.  How about opening worship in the name of the Spirit, Son, and Father?

Our actual practice is always to say "Father, Son, and Spirit" in that order.  The Father is always mentioned first, in the pre-eminent position, one "higher" than the Son or Spirit.  Our actual practice supports a hierarchical view of God when the actual trinitarian theology of perichoresis subverts hierarchy! 

(2)  The trinity is radically egalitarian, and embraces all of human experience.  It is precisely the human man Jesus who is the Second Person of the Trinity.  Through Jesus--not the souped-up, supernatural Jesus, but the human Jesus--the entirety of human experience is embraced and taken into the life of God.  Just as God is relationship within God's own self, God relentlessly reaches out and into all human life to reconcile and restore human being's broken relationship with God.  This is good.

(3)  The trinity makes good sense of the cross.  When Jesus died on the cross, he then descended into hell--into the realm of nothingness, absence, and annihilation.  He descended into the "opposite of God."  Where God is presence and relationship, hell is absence and loneliness--"where nothing connects with nothing," as someone has put it. 

According to trinitarian theology of the cross, the Holy Spirit breaches the gap between the "Father in Heaven" and the "Son in Hell."  The Holy Spirit is the bond of love that unites them even across this greatest of all chasms.

(4)  Putting Jesus in the trinity subverts the Emperor as a "son of God."  Throughout history, many rulers claimed to be sired by something supernatural.  Shortly before the time of Jesus, Julius Caesar was said to be "the divine Julius" after his assassination.  A new comet was a sign of his joining the panoply of gods.  After him, his adopted son, Caesar Augustus, claimed to be divi filius (son of a god), proudly stamping his status on coins and distributing them throughout the empire.

Christianity might have been legalized by Constantine in AD 313, but the early Christians were nevertheless suspicious of the government.  It hadn't been that long since they had been victims of persecution (c. AD 280-300).  If Jesus is merely a son of God, how would he be any different from Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus?  He needed to be in the trinity, equal to God, or risk being lost in the shuffle of the various other (far lesser and often self-appointed) gods.

That's on the one hand.  Here are some reasons not to like the trinity:  

(1)  It was a doctrine imposed.  It was declared the only acceptable Christian doctrine of God by the Emperor Theodosius in AD 380, rubber-stamped by the Council of Constantinople in AD 381, and all opposing views were banned and suppressed.  This hardly seems very Christian.  

What's worse, it had to keep being imposed.  Christianity's biggest problem, ever since Constantine, is that it was implemented from the top down.  The nobility converted in order to get God on their side, and they then converted the peasants.  (One encouraging sign today is the "emergent church," which is bottom-up.)

(2)  The Emperor's trinitarianism had the effect of kicking Jesus upstairs into an object to be worshipped rather than followed.  The historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, had a disturbing tendency to side with people the Emperor liked to push around, and the Emperor certainly didn't want people following that example.

Kicking Jesus upstairs has the unfortunate effect of subverting the doctrine of the incarnation.  It removes Jesus from the realities of human life and tries to re-locate him in the airy and ethereal.  

In effect, most modern day Christian worship assumes a view of Jesus with exalted divinity and a severely truncated humanity.  That is docetism, pure and simple, the idea that Jesus only seemed to be a human being, but wasn't really.  Thus, the "orthodox" position on the trinity tends to subvert the "orthodox" position on the two natures of Jesus.   

The New Community:  Matthew describes two communities in the closing chapter of his gospel.  In the five verses preceding our lection, he mentions the community of guard, priests, elders, and soldiers--a community headed by the governor. 

When Jesus is not in his tomb on Easter Sunday morning, the priests, after conferring with representatives of the ruling families of Jerusalem, bribe the soldiers to say that Jesus' body had been stolen by his supporters.  In return, they offer to cover the soldiers' butt when the governor finds out that Jesus' body is missing.  The community described in verses 11-15 is a community based in greed and lies.

Immediately following we are told of another community, the new community of Jesus.  As he had told them to do, they are going to Galilee.  They are, however, only eleven in number, and not twelve.  One of the twelve, Judas, has committed suicide.  Even the new community has suffered loss and betrayal.  Yet, in spite of their "brokenness," the new community is obedient to Jesus' instruction to go to Galilee. 

In Galilee, they meet Jesus on "the mountain where Jesus had directed them."  It is not at all surprising that Matthew would have Jesus meet the disciples on a mountain.  Mountains as a place of special revelation are quite common in Matthew.  

We don't know which mountain.  Matthew says nothing further about it, and no prior reference says anything about this mountain, or its specific locale.  In any case, that is not the point.  The point is that the disciples followed Jesus' direction.  He "directed" them.  They went.

Doubt:  Verse 17:  "And seeing him, they worshipped but they doubted."  All four gospels deal with the subject of doubt, though they each do it in a different way. 

This is Matthew's way:  The disciples have followed Jesus' direction without yet seeing him.  As a result of following his direction, they have come to a place of special revelation where they do "see" him.  They respond with worship, even in the face of their own doubt.  Doubt is frankly acknowledged.  Says Matthew:  Let the church be instructed.  Jesus is followed and worshipped in spite of doubt.

Jesus then "came" to them.  He does not remain distant from his community, but approaches and comes to them.  This is reminiscent of the Transfiguration--another mountaintop experience--when Jesus "touched" Peter, James and John (17: 7).

Final teaching:  Unlike the other three gospels, Matthew makes no mention of Jesus' physicality, or his wounds, or any special post-resurrection abilities.  Matthew is the gospel that places emphasis on the teaching of Jesus, and so, here, Jesus only speaks. 

He announces his universal and cosmic authority--"all power in heaven and upon the earth."  "Therefore"--precisely because of his universal authority--he can compell a universal mission, a mission to "all nations."  Indeed, the word "all" appears four times in these five verses--"all authority," "all nations," "all I have commanded," "all the days"--a striking expression of universality.

The text is often called "the great commission," an expression which appears nowhere in scripture.  (We do have, however, a "greatest commandment" in Matthew, and also a second greatest commandment, love for God and love for neighbor (22:35-40).) 

The disciples are told to "go"--poreuomai, which is passive, and carries the sense of "being led forward on a journey," a journey to make disciples of "all the nations"--ethne, "peoples."

The new community is to baptize "them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."  Matthew did not invent this formula.  He likely took it from the liturgy of the early church.  Some baptisms in the early church were "in the name of Jesus"--Acts 2:38, 10:48.

The saying continues with one final instruction:  "teaching them to observe as much as I have commanded you."  More than any other gospel, Matthew emphasizes Jesus' role as teacher.  Jesus inaugural speech, in Matthew, is nothing less than the Sermon on the Mount, and that was only the beginning!  Everything Jesus has taught to the disciples is to be taught throughout the new community.

The final "emanuel":  Kai idou--And behold!  "I am with you"--ego meta humon eimi.  Note how "with you" is sandwiched between ego and eimi.  (Ego eimi is the "divine name," the Greek version of YHWH, the name of God.)

At Jesus' birth, Matthew had proclaimed that Jesus is "emanuel"--God with us.  Now, in Jesus' final proclamation to his disciples in Matthew, he asserts the divine name--"I am!"--but, this time, "with you" is placed within the divine name itself!  

In the way Matthew has grammatically constructed the sentence, the new community of those who follow Jesus are within the very life of God.  God with us indeed!  (It's a plural "you" incidentally, i.e. the whole catholic flock is held within God, and not just your own splendid self.)

"I am with you all the days until the sunteleias tou aionos."  Suntelaias combines the words sun with telos.  Sun means "together," telos means "the goal."  The sense of the word is a "gathering up into the goal," rather reminiscent of St. Iraneus who spoke of the anakephalaiososthai ta panta--the "summing up of all things into the head."  Thus ends Matthew's gospel.

Matthew tells of two communities.  One is based in the Temple, influenced by the ruling families of Jerusalem, headed by the governor.  This community is about power, greed, payoffs, deception, and lies. 

The new community is headed by Jesus, not the governor.  It follows his teaching as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, not the corrupt practices of the Temple, or the oppressive practices of the Roman occupation.  This new community is for "all peoples," not merely the political and economic elite.

Image:  "The Holy Trinity," El Greco

¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Translation:   And the eleven disciples journeyed into the Galilee, into the mountain where Jesus had directed them.  And seeing him, they worshiped, but they doubted.  And Jesus came (and) spoke to them, saying, "All power has been given to me in heaven and upon the earth.  As you have gone, therefore, teach all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to keep all as I commanded you.  And behold! I am with you all the days until the consummation of the eternal." 

Background and situation:  These are the closing words of Matthew's gospel.  As is characteristic for Matthew's gospel, Jesus is again presented as Moses-like, yet greater-than Moses.  Like Moses, he speaks on a mountain and gives commandments.  As greater-than Moses, he now commands "all authority."

The Holy Trinity:  This is the gospel reading for Holy Trinity Sunday, the only day of the church year said to be dedicated specifically to a doctrinal position. 

In reality, of course, all church holidays are about some aspect of doctrine.  Christmas, for example, is not at all the "birthday of Jesus," but a holy day of the church dedicated to the incarnation, a doctrinal teaching which counters the heresies of gnosticism and docetism.

The lection is likely chosen because of its reference to "the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."  The saying is anachronistic for the time of Jesus, who, bereft of expensive seminary education, would likely have been thoroughly mystified by something called "trinitarian theology."

The trinity has been perhaps the most controversial and most mysterious of Christian teachings.  As is well known, the word "trinity" does not appear in the Bible, although you can see hints of trinitarianism beginning to develop, like Matthew's mention of the trinitarian name in today's lection, for example, and certain passages of Paul, such as "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you (2 Cor 13: 14)." 

You can easily see the difficulty for first century Jews such as Matthew.  Jews are monotheists.  In fact, at the time of Jesus, Jews were the first and only monotheists in the world.  "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One," said the shema. 

Yet, the earliest Christians, all of them Jews, believed that, somehow, they had encountered God in Jesus of Nazareth.  How could one express that, and still be a monotheist? 

The most challenging theological treatises--over the years, and to this day--have been on the trinity.  It took St. Augustine 15 volumes to describe the trinity.  Here are his seven summary statements:  The Father is God.  The Son is God.  The Holy Spirit is God.  The Son is not the Father.  The Father is not the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is not the Son.  There is only one God.  (Impenetrable, yes, and convoluted, but what can one expect?  The subject is God, after all.)

While I'm no better at understanding the trinity than anyone else, and much less so than many, I find the teaching attractive for these reasons: 

(1)  The trinity's central teaching about God is that God, in God's interior life, is essentially relational.  This is a far cry from the radical monad of Greek philosophy who exists up high in the stratosphere somewhere, disconnected from any one or any thing. 

The trinity understands that relationships within God are dynamic.  They move.  The early theologians used the word perichoresis, which literally means "dancing around."  (We get our word "choreography" from choresis.)   This ever-vital, ever-moving, ever-interweaving of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is essential.  It is an aspect of God's very being.  

No member of the trinity is superior to any other, which means that the interior life of God is not hierarchical.  Here's a helpful exercise:  Try re-arranging the "persons" of the trinity.  Since all "persons" of the trinity are equal, it doesn't make any difference which one is mentioned first.  In fact, in order to at least allude to the anti-heirarchical nature of perichoresis, we should mix them up.  How about opening worship in the name of the Spirit, Son, and Father?

Our actual practice is always to say "Father, Son, and Spirit" in that order.  The Father is always mentioned first, in the pre-eminent position, one "higher" than the Son or Spirit.  Our actual practice supports a hierarchical view of God when the actual trinitarian theology of perichoresis subverts hierarchy! 

(2)  The trinity is radically egalitarian, and embraces all of human experience.  It is precisely the human man Jesus who is the Second Person of the Trinity.  Through Jesus--not the souped-up, supernatural Jesus, but the human Jesus--the entirety of human experience is embraced and taken into the life of God.  Just as God is relationship within God's own self, God relentlessly reaches out and into all human life to reconcile and restore human being's broken relationship with God.  This is good.

(3)  The trinity makes good sense of the cross.  When Jesus died on the cross, he then descended into hell--into the realm of nothingness, absence, and annihilation.  He descended into the "opposite of God."  Where God is presence and relationship, hell is absence and loneliness--"where nothing connects with nothing," as someone has put it. 

According to trinitarian theology of the cross, the Holy Spirit breaches the gap between the "Father in Heaven" and the "Son in Hell."  The Holy Spirit is the bond of love that unites them even across this greatest of all chasms.

(4)  Putting Jesus in the trinity subverts the Emperor as a "son of God."  Throughout history, many rulers claimed to be sired by something supernatural.  Shortly before the time of Jesus, Julius Caesar was said to be "the divine Julius" after his assassination.  A new comet was a sign of his joining the panoply of gods.  After him, his adopted son, Caesar Augustus, claimed to be divi filius (son of a god), proudly stamping his status on coins and distributing them throughout the empire.

Christianity might have been legalized by Constantine in AD 313, but the early Christians were nevertheless suspicious of the government.  It hadn't been that long since they had been victims of persecution (c. AD 280-300).  If Jesus is merely a son of God, how would he be any different from Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus?  He needed to be in the trinity, equal to God, or risk being lost in the shuffle of the various other (far lesser and often self-appointed) gods.

That's on the one hand.  Here are some reasons not to like the trinity:  

(1)  It was a doctrine imposed.  It was declared the only acceptable Christian doctrine of God by the Emperor Theodosius in AD 380, rubber-stamped by the Council of Constantinople in AD 381, and all opposing views were banned and suppressed.  This hardly seems very Christian.  

What's worse, it had to keep being imposed.  Christianity's biggest problem, ever since Constantine, is that it was implemented from the top down.  The nobility converted in order to get God on their side, and they then converted the peasants.  (One encouraging sign today is the "emergent church," which is bottom-up.)

(2)  The Emperor's trinitarianism had the effect of kicking Jesus upstairs into an object to be worshipped rather than followed.  The historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, had a disturbing tendency to side with people the Emperor liked to push around, and the Emperor certainly didn't want people following that example.

Kicking Jesus upstairs has the unfortunate effect of subverting the doctrine of the incarnation.  It removes Jesus from the realities of human life and tries to re-locate him in the airy and ethereal.  

In effect, most modern day Christian worship assumes a view of Jesus with exalted divinity and a severely truncated humanity.  That is docetism, pure and simple, the idea that Jesus only seemed to be a human being, but wasn't really.  Thus, the "orthodox" position on the trinity tends to subvert the "orthodox" position on the two natures of Jesus.   

The New Community:  Matthew describes two communities in the closing chapter of his gospel.  In the five verses preceding our lection, he mentions the community of guard, priests, elders, and soldiers--a community headed by the governor. 

When Jesus is not in his tomb on Easter Sunday morning, the priests, after conferring with representatives of the ruling families of Jerusalem, bribe the soldiers to say that Jesus' body had been stolen by his supporters.  In return, they offer to cover the soldiers' butt when the governor finds out that Jesus' body is missing.  The community described in verses 11-15 is a community based in greed and lies.

Immediately following we are told of another community, the new community of Jesus.  As he had told them to do, they are going to Galilee.  They are, however, only eleven in number, and not twelve.  One of the twelve, Judas, has committed suicide.  Even the new community has suffered loss and betrayal.  Yet, in spite of their "brokenness," the new community is obedient to Jesus' instruction to go to Galilee. 

In Galilee, they meet Jesus on "the mountain where Jesus had directed them."  It is not at all surprising that Matthew would have Jesus meet the disciples on a mountain.  Mountains as a place of special revelation are quite common in Matthew.  

We don't know which mountain.  Matthew says nothing further about it, and no prior reference says anything about this mountain, or its specific locale.  In any case, that is not the point.  The point is that the disciples followed Jesus' direction.  He "directed" them.  They went.

Doubt:  Verse 17:  "And seeing him, they worshipped but they doubted."  All four gospels deal with the subject of doubt, though they each do it in a different way. 

This is Matthew's way:  The disciples have followed Jesus' direction without yet seeing him.  As a result of following his direction, they have come to a place of special revelation where they do "see" him.  They respond with worship, even in the face of their own doubt.  Doubt is frankly acknowledged.  Says Matthew:  Let the church be instructed.  Jesus is followed and worshipped in spite of doubt.

Jesus then "came" to them.  He does not remain distant from his community, but approaches and comes to them.  This is reminiscent of the Transfiguration--another mountaintop experience--when Jesus "touched" Peter, James and John (17: 7).

Final teaching:  Unlike the other three gospels, Matthew makes no mention of Jesus' physicality, or his wounds, or any special post-resurrection abilities.  Matthew is the gospel that places emphasis on the teaching of Jesus, and so, here, Jesus only speaks. 

He announces his universal and cosmic authority--"all power in heaven and upon the earth."  "Therefore"--precisely because of his universal authority--he can compell a universal mission, a mission to "all nations."  Indeed, the word "all" appears four times in these five verses--"all authority," "all nations," "all I have commanded," "all the days"--a striking expression of universality.

The text is often called "the great commission," an expression which appears nowhere in scripture.  (We do have, however, a "greatest commandment" in Matthew, and also a second greatest commandment, love for God and love for neighbor (22:35-40).) 

The disciples are told to "go"--poreuomai, which is passive, and carries the sense of "being led forward on a journey," a journey to make disciples of "all the nations"--ethne, "peoples."

The new community is to baptize "them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."  Matthew did not invent this formula.  He likely took it from the liturgy of the early church.  Some baptisms in the early church were "in the name of Jesus"--Acts 2:38, 10:48.

The saying continues with one final instruction:  "teaching them to observe as much as I have commanded you."  More than any other gospel, Matthew emphasizes Jesus' role as teacher.  Jesus inaugural speech, in Matthew, is nothing less than the Sermon on the Mount, and that was only the beginning!  Everything Jesus has taught to the disciples is to be taught throughout the new community.

The final "emanuel":  Kai idou--And behold!  "I am with you"--ego meta humon eimi.  Note how "with you" is sandwiched between ego and eimi.  (Ego eimi is the "divine name," the Greek version of YHWH, the name of God.)

At Jesus' birth, Matthew had proclaimed that Jesus is "emanuel"--God with us.  Now, in Jesus' final proclamation to his disciples in Matthew, he asserts the divine name--"I am!"--but, this time, "with you" is placed within the divine name itself!  

In the way Matthew has grammatically constructed the sentence, the new community of those who follow Jesus are within the very life of God.  God with us indeed!  (It's a plural "you" incidentally, i.e. the whole catholic flock is held within God, and not just your own splendid self.)

"I am with you all the days until the sunteleias tou aionos."  Suntelaias combines the words sun with telos.  Sun means "together," telos means "the goal."  The sense of the word is a "gathering up into the goal," rather reminiscent of St. Iraneus who spoke of the anakephalaiososthai ta panta--the "summing up of all things into the head."  Thus ends Matthew's gospel.

Matthew tells of two communities.  One is based in the Temple, influenced by the ruling families of Jerusalem, headed by the governor.  This community is about power, greed, payoffs, deception, and lies. 

The new community is headed by Jesus, not the governor.  It follows his teaching as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, not the corrupt practices of the Temple, or the oppressive practices of the Roman occupation.  This new community is for "all peoples," not merely the political and economic elite.

Image:  "The Holy Trinity," El Greco

Day of Pentecost ::: John 20: 19-23

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Judeans, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’

Translation:  Therefore, being evening of that day, the first of sabbath, the doors having been shut where the disciples were because of the fear of the Judeans, Jesus came and stood in the midst and he said to them, "Peace to you."  And when he said this, he showed to them the hands and the side.  Then, the disciples rejoiced, seeing the Lord.   Then, Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you.  Just as the Father has sent me, so I send you."  And when he had said this, he breathed and said to them, "Receive the holy spirit.  If you release the sins of any, they have been released to them, and if you might hold (the sins) of any, they have been held."

Background and situation:  It is the evening of Easter.  The doors "had been shut" by the disciples because of their fear of the Judeans (ioudaioi).  Fear of the Judeans would not be unreasonable, considering that Jesus had just been crushed by Judean forces. 

To recap from other posts on the fourth gospel, the fourth gospel is an argument between a Galilean and a Judean worldview.  The Judean worldview, in a nutshell, is the view from the top, i.e. the Temple leadership and their allies, the ruling families of Jerusalem, and, in turn, their allies, the Romans.  The Judean position is marked by division and barriers--rich vs. poor, Jew vs. Samaritan, insider vs. outsider.

The New Creation:  Our lection is Pentecost according to the Fourth Gospel.  The Lukan account in Acts has become so associated as the Pentecost story that the fourth gospel's view is often given short shrift.  The fourth gospel also speaks of the coming of the Spirit, though in a much different way than in Luke.  In the fourth gospel, there is no amorphous wind or forty day waiting period, and the Spirit comes directly from the breath of Jesus on the day of the New Creation.

The fourth gospel speaks of "signs" which are presented in order to encourage faith in Jesus (20: 30-31).  The various "signs," and their numbering, are open to interpretation, but N.T. Wright arranges them thus:

• 1.  Wedding at Cana (2: 1-11)
• 2.  The official's son (4: 46-54)
• 3.  The paralyzed man at the pool (5: 2-9)
• 4.  Multiplication of loaves (6: 1-14)
• 5.  The man born blind (9: 1-7)
• 6.  Raising of Lazarus (11: 1-44)
• 7.  Crucifixion (19: 1-37)
• 8.  Resurrection (20: 1-29)

In first century number symbolism, seven (7) was commonly thought to be the number of completion and wholeness--the "number of God," says Eugene Peterson.  The first seven "signs" therefore, taken together, give us a "complete" picture of Jesus.  He is the one who brings life in abundance, healing for outsiders, true sight, then raises the dead, and dies for the love of the world.  The resurrection is the 8th sign--the sign of the "new creation."

The fourth sign, incidentally, since it is equidistant from both the first and the last sign, is sometimes considered the "central point."  The fourth gospel's "central point" is the abundant life and power of Jesus, which is represented by the feeding of the 5000.

The Peace of Christ:  In spite of the locked doors, Jesus "came and stood in the midst" and said "peace to you."  Previously, Jesus had spoken of "peace" in 14: 27 and 16: 33--both times as an antidote to fear.  "My peace I leave with you," Jesus says in 14: 27.  Therefore, do not let your hearts be afraid.  In 16:33, Jesus says that he has said "these things" to the disciples so that they may have peace.  Therefore, "take courage;  I have conquered the world." 

Jesus displays his wounds, now healed and glorified.  This establishes continuity between the historical person Jesus, and the resurrected Jesus.  Though he is different in some ways, such as the ability to appear at will, he is also in continuity with the Jesus the disciples had known historically.  In fact, he is recognized not on the basis of his over-all appearance, but precisely on the basis of his wounds.

If Paul is correct that we will have a body like his glorified body (Ph 3: 21), then, even in our glorified body, we will also be our historical selves.  We will be the same people whose personality was formed in this world--we will be us--but now all of us, including our psychology, will be healed and transformed just as Jesus' wounds were healed and transformed.

The reference to Jesus' hands also reminds readers that God "had given all things into his hands" (3: 35).  The disciples are safe.  They are in good hands, you might say. 

The reference to his side refers to the spear of the Roman soldier after the death of Jesus, from which had flowed both blood and water.  The water reminds us of the "living water" spoken of in the dialog with the Samaritan woman at the well in chapter four.  Moreover, "blood and water" are reminiscent of birth.  The "blood and water" flowing from the side of Jesus gives birth to the New Community.

The disciples rejoice at "seeing the Lord."  This is reminiscent of the witness of Mary Magdalene who had said, "I have seen the Lord."  Jesus says again, "Peace to you."  The two statements of peace frame the action of Jesus in showing his hands and side.  It is on this basis, his wounds, that peace is won.

The Breath of Life:  Jesus shifts immediately to mission--"As the Father has sent me, so I send you."  Then, "he breathed on them."  The disciples are given power from the divine breath.  The Greek word translated as "breathed" is emphusao.  It is the same word the Septuagint uses in Genesis 2: 7:  "And the Lord God...breathed into (Adam's) nostrils the breath of life." 

The fourth gospel's use of emphusao is the only use of this word in the entire New Testament.  Clearly, the author of the fourth gospel is equating the breath of Jesus with the breath of God.  Where the Lord God breathed life into a human being, the Lord Jesus breathes life into his church.  This underlines the fourth gospel's view that Jesus is the "new creation," and is yet another of the fourth gospel's many references to the book of Genesis.

For the fourth gospel, the method of atonement is precisely through re-creation.  Jesus dies on the cross, which is, paradoxically, the hour of glory.  He is placed in a tomb, the place of death, and also the place of new creation coming forth from the earth.  His appearance as a gardener (20:15) reminds readers of the original garden of Genesis, now re-created through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

"If you release the sins of any, they are released," says Jesus, and "if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."  This is not a parallel for a similar saying in Matthew.  There is nothing here about eternal "binding and loosing." 

Rather, the New Community is to be characterized by the forgiveness, the "release," of sins.  Conversely, if sins are not forgiven, they are "retained" within the community, thereby threatening the community's life.

 

Image:  Resurrection, Ivan Filichev

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Judeans, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’

Translation:  Therefore, being evening of that day, the first of sabbath, the doors having been shut where the disciples were because of the fear of the Judeans, Jesus came and stood in the midst and he said to them, "Peace to you."  And when he said this, he showed to them the hands and the side.  Then, the disciples rejoiced, seeing the Lord.   Then, Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you.  Just as the Father has sent me, so I send you."  And when he had said this, he breathed and said to them, "Receive the holy spirit.  If you release the sins of any, they have been released to them, and if you might hold (the sins) of any, they have been held."

Background and situation:  It is the evening of Easter.  The doors "had been shut" by the disciples because of their fear of the Judeans (ioudaioi).  Fear of the Judeans would not be unreasonable, considering that Jesus had just been crushed by Judean forces. 

To recap from other posts on the fourth gospel, the fourth gospel is an argument between a Galilean and a Judean worldview.  The Judean worldview, in a nutshell, is the view from the top, i.e. the Temple leadership and their allies, the ruling families of Jerusalem, and, in turn, their allies, the Romans.  The Judean position is marked by division and barriers--rich vs. poor, Jew vs. Samaritan, insider vs. outsider.

The New Creation:  Our lection is Pentecost according to the Fourth Gospel.  The Lukan account in Acts has become so associated as the Pentecost story that the fourth gospel's view is often given short shrift.  The fourth gospel also speaks of the coming of the Spirit, though in a much different way than in Luke.  In the fourth gospel, there is no amorphous wind or forty day waiting period, and the Spirit comes directly from the breath of Jesus on the day of the New Creation.

The fourth gospel speaks of "signs" which are presented in order to encourage faith in Jesus (20: 30-31).  The various "signs," and their numbering, are open to interpretation, but N.T. Wright arranges them thus:

• 1.  Wedding at Cana (2: 1-11)
• 2.  The official's son (4: 46-54)
• 3.  The paralyzed man at the pool (5: 2-9)
• 4.  Multiplication of loaves (6: 1-14)
• 5.  The man born blind (9: 1-7)
• 6.  Raising of Lazarus (11: 1-44)
• 7.  Crucifixion (19: 1-37)
• 8.  Resurrection (20: 1-29)

In first century number symbolism, seven (7) was commonly thought to be the number of completion and wholeness--the "number of God," says Eugene Peterson.  The first seven "signs" therefore, taken together, give us a "complete" picture of Jesus.  He is the one who brings life in abundance, healing for outsiders, true sight, then raises the dead, and dies for the love of the world.  The resurrection is the 8th sign--the sign of the "new creation."

The fourth sign, incidentally, since it is equidistant from both the first and the last sign, is sometimes considered the "central point."  The fourth gospel's "central point" is the abundant life and power of Jesus, which is represented by the feeding of the 5000.

The Peace of Christ:  In spite of the locked doors, Jesus "came and stood in the midst" and said "peace to you."  Previously, Jesus had spoken of "peace" in 14: 27 and 16: 33--both times as an antidote to fear.  "My peace I leave with you," Jesus says in 14: 27.  Therefore, do not let your hearts be afraid.  In 16:33, Jesus says that he has said "these things" to the disciples so that they may have peace.  Therefore, "take courage;  I have conquered the world." 

Jesus displays his wounds, now healed and glorified.  This establishes continuity between the historical person Jesus, and the resurrected Jesus.  Though he is different in some ways, such as the ability to appear at will, he is also in continuity with the Jesus the disciples had known historically.  In fact, he is recognized not on the basis of his over-all appearance, but precisely on the basis of his wounds.

If Paul is correct that we will have a body like his glorified body (Ph 3: 21), then, even in our glorified body, we will also be our historical selves.  We will be the same people whose personality was formed in this world--we will be us--but now all of us, including our psychology, will be healed and transformed just as Jesus' wounds were healed and transformed.

The reference to Jesus' hands also reminds readers that God "had given all things into his hands" (3: 35).  The disciples are safe.  They are in good hands, you might say. 

The reference to his side refers to the spear of the Roman soldier after the death of Jesus, from which had flowed both blood and water.  The water reminds us of the "living water" spoken of in the dialog with the Samaritan woman at the well in chapter four.  Moreover, "blood and water" are reminiscent of birth.  The "blood and water" flowing from the side of Jesus gives birth to the New Community.

The disciples rejoice at "seeing the Lord."  This is reminiscent of the witness of Mary Magdalene who had said, "I have seen the Lord."  Jesus says again, "Peace to you."  The two statements of peace frame the action of Jesus in showing his hands and side.  It is on this basis, his wounds, that peace is won.

The Breath of Life:  Jesus shifts immediately to mission--"As the Father has sent me, so I send you."  Then, "he breathed on them."  The disciples are given power from the divine breath.  The Greek word translated as "breathed" is emphusao.  It is the same word the Septuagint uses in Genesis 2: 7:  "And the Lord God...breathed into (Adam's) nostrils the breath of life." 

The fourth gospel's use of emphusao is the only use of this word in the entire New Testament.  Clearly, the author of the fourth gospel is equating the breath of Jesus with the breath of God.  Where the Lord God breathed life into a human being, the Lord Jesus breathes life into his church.  This underlines the fourth gospel's view that Jesus is the "new creation," and is yet another of the fourth gospel's many references to the book of Genesis.

For the fourth gospel, the method of atonement is precisely through re-creation.  Jesus dies on the cross, which is, paradoxically, the hour of glory.  He is placed in a tomb, the place of death, and also the place of new creation coming forth from the earth.  His appearance as a gardener (20:15) reminds readers of the original garden of Genesis, now re-created through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

"If you release the sins of any, they are released," says Jesus, and "if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."  This is not a parallel for a similar saying in Matthew.  There is nothing here about eternal "binding and loosing." 

Rather, the New Community is to be characterized by the forgiveness, the "release," of sins.  Conversely, if sins are not forgiven, they are "retained" within the community, thereby threatening the community's life.

 

Image:  Resurrection, Ivan Filichev

Easter 7 ::: John 17: 1-11

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, ²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. ⁵So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

6 ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

Translation:  Jesus spoke these things, and lifted up his eyes into heaven (and) he said, "Father, the hour has come.  Glorify your son so that the son may glorify you.  As you have given to him power over all flesh, so anyone who has been given to him, he will give to them eternal life.  And this is eternal life:  that they might know you, the only true God, and whom you sent, Jesus Christ.  I glorified you upon the earth.  I brought to completion the work which you have given me to do.  And now, Father, glorify you me, alongside yourself the glory which I am having alongside you before the universe came to be.

I made known your name to the ones whom you gave me out of the world.  They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  Now they have known that all things, however many, you have given me are alongside of you, for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them, and they know truly that I came out alongside of you, and they have 'faithed' that you sent me.  I am asking concerning them--not concerning the universe am I asking--but concerning the ones you gave me because they are yours.  And all mine are yours and yours mine, and I am glorified in them.  And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I also am coming to you.  Holy Father, take care of them in your name that you have given me so that they may be one, just as we."

Background and situation:  The text begins the "high priestly prayer" section of the "farewell discourses" of Jesus in the fourth gospel.  He lifts up his eyes and speaks directly to God the Father.  He speaks of the fateful "hour," which, in the fourth gospel, refers to his crucifixion.  The fourth gospel has been pointing to Jesus' "hour" ever since chapter two when he said to his mother, "Woman...my hour has not yet come."

But now the "hour" is come--present tense.  The "hour" is not the resurrection--not yet--but the cross.  In the cross, the Son will be "glorified" and will "glorify" the Father.  The word is doxa, which means to make radiant and clothe with splendor.  The way of the cross, the downward descent into nothingness and annihilation, is proclaimed the path of true glory.

Eternal life:  It is through the cross that all will be drawn to Jesus--^"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (12:32)--which is why Jesus can now say that he has "power over all flesh." (17:2)  

Power for what?  To give anyone who has been given to Jesus "eternal life."  "Eternal life" is here defined in an interesting and unusual way:  Eternal life is knowing God and knowing Jesus.

Greek has two words for "life", bios and zoe.  Bios refers to living organisms.  The word here is zoe, which means true life, life at its core.  The word for "know" is ginosko, which means intimate, even mystical, knowledge.  

This intimate knowledge which brings "life eternal" comes by revelation, not reason--it is gift, not acquisition.  It is being "born from above" (3:7) and is, you might say, a tap into the Life Source itself. 

Telos:  Jesus has "brought to completion the work."  The word translated as ""brought to completion" is a form of telos, a very rich word in the New Testament.  It has the sense not only of finishing, but also "bringing to the goal." 

Jesus' last word in the fourth gospel, proclaimed from the cross, is a form of telos, tetelestai, which means, "it has been accomplished," or "it has been completed," or "it has been brought to the goal."  In the second century, Iraneus would speak of the anakephalaiososthai ta panta--the "summing up of all things into the head."  In the mid-20th century, Teilhard de Chardin spoke of the "omega point" toward which the cosmos was heading.

Making known the name of God:  Jesus has "made known" the name of God throughout the fourth gospel.  God's name, revealed to Moses, is YHWH.  It was probably pronounced "YAH-weh," though pronunciation is uncertain since the early Hebrews didn't actually speak the word out loud.   

I'm told that YHWH contains within it every conjugation of the verb "to be."  "I am who I am," or "I will be who I will be"--and every other variation as well.  When the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek--the version known as the Septuagint--the YHWH of the Old Testament was rendered into Greek as ego eimi, an emphatic form of "I am."

Jesus says "ego eimi" all over the fourth gospel--45 times, in fact.  "I am the door," Jesus says.  "I am the good shepherd."  "I am the bread of life."  "I am the resurrection and the life."  "I am the light of the world."  "I am the true vine."  "I am the way, the truth, and the life." 

In the ancient world, accessibility to a "name" meant accessibility to the power behind that name.  In so openly expressing himself as "I am," the fourth gospel is saying that the power of God is made accessible to the people through Jesus himself.  (Moreover, in calling God "Father," Jesus is saying that our relationship with God is like the intimacy of a parent.  God is rarely spoken of as "Father" in the Old Testament.)

Rare and high praise for the disciples:  Somewhat surprisingly, the disciples are said to have "kept" God's Word" (logos).  They "know"--ginosko again--and, what's more, they "have received," "truly knew," and "faithed." 

This is high praise indeed since "knowing" in an intimate and mystical way, receiving Christ, and "faithing" in Christ are three of the major themes and exhortations in the fourth gospel.  Jesus is even "glorifed in them." 

The fourth gospel understands "them" as both the Johannine community, and, more broadly, the children of God.  The community of the children of God "knows" Jesus in an interior and mystical way.  They live out the teachings of Jesus through "faithing"--following in radical trust--which is made manifest in an open community that reaches across all worldly barriers.  Through them, Jesus himself is glorified--indeed, "made radiant."

"That they may be one":  Today's lection contains the phrase off-cited in the ecumenical movement--"that they may be one."  In recent years, some say the ecumenical movement has flagged, and its energy has dissipated.  If so, it's because the ecumenical movement has been so wildly successful. 

Fifty years ago, it was not difficult to find a Lutheran or a Catholic or a Baptist who thought that everyone but them was going to hell.  Today, that sort of thing is still around, but has been abandoned by the vast majority.  People today regularly visit, participate in, and join up with various traditions in the course of their lifetime.

The recent Pew Forum study on religion in America found that, more and more, people were willing to change from one tradition to another.  The study described the American religious landscape as "fluid and diverse."  “People will be surprised by the amount of movement by Americans from one religious group to another – or to no religion at all,” said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum.

The people are speaking.  They obviously no longer see various doctrinal issues as "church dividing."  In fact, as the various Christians traditions engage in dialog, they are, in effect, trying to catch up with where the people already are.

Image:  Sanctuary ceiling, Assumption of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Denver.

 

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, ²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. ⁵So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

6 ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

Translation:  Jesus spoke these things, and lifted up his eyes into heaven (and) he said, "Father, the hour has come.  Glorify your son so that the son may glorify you.  As you have given to him power over all flesh, so anyone who has been given to him, he will give to them eternal life.  And this is eternal life:  that they might know you, the only true God, and whom you sent, Jesus Christ.  I glorified you upon the earth.  I brought to completion the work which you have given me to do.  And now, Father, glorify you me, alongside yourself the glory which I am having alongside you before the universe came to be.

I made known your name to the ones whom you gave me out of the world.  They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  Now they have known that all things, however many, you have given me are alongside of you, for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them, and they know truly that I came out alongside of you, and they have 'faithed' that you sent me.  I am asking concerning them--not concerning the universe am I asking--but concerning the ones you gave me because they are yours.  And all mine are yours and yours mine, and I am glorified in them.  And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I also am coming to you.  Holy Father, take care of them in your name that you have given me so that they may be one, just as we."

Background and situation:  The text begins the "high priestly prayer" section of the "farewell discourses" of Jesus in the fourth gospel.  He lifts up his eyes and speaks directly to God the Father.  He speaks of the fateful "hour," which, in the fourth gospel, refers to his crucifixion.  The fourth gospel has been pointing to Jesus' "hour" ever since chapter two when he said to his mother, "Woman...my hour has not yet come."

But now the "hour" is come--present tense.  The "hour" is not the resurrection--not yet--but the cross.  In the cross, the Son will be "glorified" and will "glorify" the Father.  The word is doxa, which means to make radiant and clothe with splendor.  The way of the cross, the downward descent into nothingness and annihilation, is proclaimed the path of true glory.

Eternal life:  It is through the cross that all will be drawn to Jesus--^"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (12:32)--which is why Jesus can now say that he has "power over all flesh." (17:2)  

Power for what?  To give anyone who has been given to Jesus "eternal life."  "Eternal life" is here defined in an interesting and unusual way:  Eternal life is knowing God and knowing Jesus.

Greek has two words for "life", bios and zoe.  Bios refers to living organisms.  The word here is zoe, which means true life, life at its core.  The word for "know" is ginosko, which means intimate, even mystical, knowledge.  

This intimate knowledge which brings "life eternal" comes by revelation, not reason--it is gift, not acquisition.  It is being "born from above" (3:7) and is, you might say, a tap into the Life Source itself. 

Telos:  Jesus has "brought to completion the work."  The word translated as ""brought to completion" is a form of telos, a very rich word in the New Testament.  It has the sense not only of finishing, but also "bringing to the goal." 

Jesus' last word in the fourth gospel, proclaimed from the cross, is a form of telos, tetelestai, which means, "it has been accomplished," or "it has been completed," or "it has been brought to the goal."  In the second century, Iraneus would speak of the anakephalaiososthai ta panta--the "summing up of all things into the head."  In the mid-20th century, Teilhard de Chardin spoke of the "omega point" toward which the cosmos was heading.

Making known the name of God:  Jesus has "made known" the name of God throughout the fourth gospel.  God's name, revealed to Moses, is YHWH.  It was probably pronounced "YAH-weh," though pronunciation is uncertain since the early Hebrews didn't actually speak the word out loud.   

I'm told that YHWH contains within it every conjugation of the verb "to be."  "I am who I am," or "I will be who I will be"--and every other variation as well.  When the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek--the version known as the Septuagint--the YHWH of the Old Testament was rendered into Greek as ego eimi, an emphatic form of "I am."

Jesus says "ego eimi" all over the fourth gospel--45 times, in fact.  "I am the door," Jesus says.  "I am the good shepherd."  "I am the bread of life."  "I am the resurrection and the life."  "I am the light of the world."  "I am the true vine."  "I am the way, the truth, and the life." 

In the ancient world, accessibility to a "name" meant accessibility to the power behind that name.  In so openly expressing himself as "I am," the fourth gospel is saying that the power of God is made accessible to the people through Jesus himself.  (Moreover, in calling God "Father," Jesus is saying that our relationship with God is like the intimacy of a parent.  God is rarely spoken of as "Father" in the Old Testament.)

Rare and high praise for the disciples:  Somewhat surprisingly, the disciples are said to have "kept" God's Word" (logos).  They "know"--ginosko again--and, what's more, they "have received," "truly knew," and "faithed." 

This is high praise indeed since "knowing" in an intimate and mystical way, receiving Christ, and "faithing" in Christ are three of the major themes and exhortations in the fourth gospel.  Jesus is even "glorifed in them." 

The fourth gospel understands "them" as both the Johannine community, and, more broadly, the children of God.  The community of the children of God "knows" Jesus in an interior and mystical way.  They live out the teachings of Jesus through "faithing"--following in radical trust--which is made manifest in an open community that reaches across all worldly barriers.  Through them, Jesus himself is glorified--indeed, "made radiant."

"That they may be one":  Today's lection contains the phrase off-cited in the ecumenical movement--"that they may be one."  In recent years, some say the ecumenical movement has flagged, and its energy has dissipated.  If so, it's because the ecumenical movement has been so wildly successful. 

Fifty years ago, it was not difficult to find a Lutheran or a Catholic or a Baptist who thought that everyone but them was going to hell.  Today, that sort of thing is still around, but has been abandoned by the vast majority.  People today regularly visit, participate in, and join up with various traditions in the course of their lifetime.

The recent Pew Forum study on religion in America found that, more and more, people were willing to change from one tradition to another.  The study described the American religious landscape as "fluid and diverse."  “People will be surprised by the amount of movement by Americans from one religious group to another – or to no religion at all,” said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum.

The people are speaking.  They obviously no longer see various doctrinal issues as "church dividing."  In fact, as the various Christians traditions engage in dialog, they are, in effect, trying to catch up with where the people already are.

Image:  Sanctuary ceiling, Assumption of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Denver.

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, ²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. ⁵So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

6 ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

Translation:  Jesus spoke these things, and lifted up his eyes into heaven (and) he said, "Father, the hour has come.  Glorify your son so that the son may glorify you.  As you have given to him power over all flesh, so anyone who has been given to him, he will give to them eternal life.  And this is eternal life:  that they might know you, the only true God, and whom you sent, Jesus Christ.  I glorified you upon the earth.  I brought to completion the work which you have given me to do.  And now, Father, glorify you me, alongside yourself the glory which I am having alongside you before the universe came to be.

I made known your name to the ones whom you gave me out of the world.  They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  Now they have known that all things, however many, you have given me are alongside of you, for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them, and they know truly that I came out alongside of you, and they have 'faithed' that you sent me.  I am asking concerning them--not concerning the universe am I asking--but concerning the ones you gave me because they are yours.  And all mine are yours and yours mine, and I am glorified in them.  And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I also am coming to you.  Holy Father, take care of them in your name that you have given me so that they may be one, just as we."

Background and situation:  The text begins the "high priestly prayer" section of the "farewell discourses" of Jesus in the fourth gospel.  He lifts up his eyes and speaks directly to God the Father.  He speaks of the fateful "hour," which, in the fourth gospel, refers to his crucifixion.  The fourth gospel has been pointing to Jesus' "hour" ever since chapter two when he said to his mother, "Woman...my hour has not yet come."

But now the "hour" is come--present tense.  The "hour" is not the resurrection--not yet--but the cross.  In the cross, the Son will be "glorified" and will "glorify" the Father.  The word is doxa, which means to make radiant and clothe with splendor.  The way of the cross, the downward descent into nothingness and annihilation, is proclaimed the path of true glory.

Eternal life:  It is through the cross that all will be drawn to Jesus--^"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (12:32)--which is why Jesus can now say that he has "power over all flesh." (17:2)  

Power for what?  To give anyone who has been given to Jesus "eternal life."  "Eternal life" is here defined in an interesting and unusual way:  Eternal life is knowing God and knowing Jesus.

Greek has two words for "life", bios and zoe.  Bios refers to living organisms.  The word here is zoe, which means true life, life at its core.  The word for "know" is ginosko, which means intimate, even mystical, knowledge.  

This intimate knowledge which brings "life eternal" comes by revelation, not reason--it is gift, not acquisition.  It is being "born from above" (3:7) and is, you might say, a tap into the Life Source itself. 

Telos:  Jesus has "brought to completion the work."  The word translated as ""brought to completion" is a form of telos, a very rich word in the New Testament.  It has the sense not only of finishing, but also "bringing to the goal." 

Jesus' last word in the fourth gospel, proclaimed from the cross, is a form of telos, tetelestai, which means, "it has been accomplished," or "it has been completed," or "it has been brought to the goal."  In the second century, Iraneus would speak of the anakephalaiososthai ta panta--the "summing up of all things into the head."  In the mid-20th century, Teilhard de Chardin spoke of the "omega point" toward which the cosmos was heading.

Making known the name of God:  Jesus has "made known" the name of God throughout the fourth gospel.  God's name, revealed to Moses, is YHWH.  It was probably pronounced "YAH-weh," though pronunciation is uncertain since the early Hebrews didn't actually speak the word out loud.   

I'm told that YHWH contains within it every conjugation of the verb "to be."  "I am who I am," or "I will be who I will be"--and every other variation as well.  When the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek--the version known as the Septuagint--the YHWH of the Old Testament was rendered into Greek as ego eimi, an emphatic form of "I am."

Jesus says "ego eimi" all over the fourth gospel--45 times, in fact.  "I am the door," Jesus says.  "I am the good shepherd."  "I am the bread of life."  "I am the resurrection and the life."  "I am the light of the world."  "I am the true vine."  "I am the way, the truth, and the life." 

In the ancient world, accessibility to a "name" meant accessibility to the power behind that name.  In so openly expressing himself as "I am," the fourth gospel is saying that the power of God is made accessible to the people through Jesus himself.  (Moreover, in calling God "Father," Jesus is saying that our relationship with God is like the intimacy of a parent.  God is rarely spoken of as "Father" in the Old Testament.)

Rare and high praise for the disciples:  Somewhat surprisingly, the disciples are said to have "kept" God's Word" (logos).  They "know"--ginosko again--and, what's more, they "have received," "truly knew," and "faithed." 

This is high praise indeed since "knowing" in an intimate and mystical way, receiving Christ, and "faithing" in Christ are three of the major themes and exhortations in the fourth gospel.  Jesus is even "glorifed in them." 

The fourth gospel understands "them" as both the Johannine community, and, more broadly, the children of God.  The community of the children of God "knows" Jesus in an interior and mystical way.  They live out the teachings of Jesus through "faithing"--following in radical trust--which is made manifest in an open community that reaches across all worldly barriers.  Through them, Jesus himself is glorified--indeed, "made radiant."

"That they may be one":  Today's lection contains the phrase off-cited in the ecumenical movement--"that they may be one."  In recent years, some say the ecumenical movement has flagged, and its energy has dissipated.  If so, it's because the ecumenical movement has been so wildly successful. 

Fifty years ago, it was not difficult to find a Lutheran or a Catholic or a Baptist who thought that everyone but them was going to hell.  Today, that sort of thing is still around, but has been abandoned by the vast majority.  People today regularly visit, participate in, and join up with various traditions in the course of their lifetime.

The recent Pew Forum study on religion in America found that, more and more, people were willing to change from one tradition to another.  The study described the American religious landscape as "fluid and diverse."  “People will be surprised by the amount of movement by Americans from one religious group to another – or to no religion at all,” said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum.

The people are speaking.  They obviously no longer see various doctrinal issues as "church dividing."  In fact, as the various Christians traditions engage in dialog, they are, in effect, trying to catch up with where the people already are.

Image:  Sanctuary ceiling, Assumption of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Denver.

Easter 6 ::: John 14: 15-21

¹⁵”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

¹⁸”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Translation:  "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another, a One-called-alongside, so that he might be with you into the eternal, the spirit of the truth, whom the world has not been able to receive because it can neither see nor know him.  You know him, because he abides alongside you and is in you.  I will not leave you orphans.  I come to you.  A little while and the world will see me no longer, but you see me.  Because I live, you will live also.  On that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, I in you.  The one having my commandments, and keeping them, that one is loving me, and the one loving me will be loved by my Father.  And I will love them, and I will show forth myself to them."

Background and situation:  Last week's reading, John 14: 1-14, is the beginning of the farewell discourses in the fourth gospel.  This week's reading is the following six verses.  Last week, the emphasis was on trust in Jesus.  This week, the emphasis is on love for Jesus.  

Not surprisingly, the farewell discourses open with appeals to trust and love, both major themes of the fourth gospel.  In fact, what is rather surprising, when you think about it, is that love for Jesus is a minor theme in the New Testament, almost non-existent outside of the fourth gospel.  In the fourth gospel, however, love for Jesus is a major theme, strongly emphasized.

Love counters fear.  The text seems designed to provide comfort for the community in the absence of Jesus, as if to say, "Don't worry.  Everything will be all right.  You will have help."  What's more, Jesus says, "I come to you."  The verb is present tense, meaning that Jesus is always a present reality.

The problem of love in the very early church:  I read the fourth gospel as a bit of a polemic against Peter.  Whenever Peter and the Beloved Disciple appear in the same scene, it seems that Peter always comes off as secondary. 

Peter needs to get the Beloved Disciple to ask Jesus a question, for example.  The Beloved Disciple can walk right into the palace, but Peter has to stay outside.  They both run to the tomb, but the Beloved Disciple gets there first.  Then, in chapter 21, Jesus almost seems to chew Peter out for not having enough love.  (Jesus speaks of agape love to Peter, unconditional love, but Peter keeps responding with philia love, affectionate friendship.)

Is that the fourth gospel's criticism of Peter?  Not enough love?  One of the major themes of the fourth gospel is love.  The word appears 57 times in fourth gospel.  In it, the two great commandments are to love God and "love one another." 

This is the sacred text of the Johannine community, a community distinct from, yet in fellowship with, the Jerusalem church.  Do they find a lack of love in the Jerusalem church?

The community is to demonstrate their love for Jesus by keeping his commandments, although he has only really given one actual commandment, which is to "love one another" (13: 34-35).  The use of the word "commandments"--plural--invites a comparison with other "commandments," such as those given to Moses.  For the fourth gospel, Jesus one commandment--"love one another"--is placed on the level of the Torah itself.

The "paraklete":  The word parakletos means "one called alongside."  It is generally translated as "advocate" or "comforter."  The word is closely related to the Hebrew hacham, which appears in Psalm 23, for example:  "Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort--hacham--me."  The word parakletos itself, however, comes originally from the Greek law courts where it meant "advocate" or "lawyer."

Jesus promises "another advocate," himself apparently being the first.  The "advocate" will be "the spirit of the truth."  This is reminiscent of the worship of those who do so "in spirit and in truth" (4: 23-24).  The way the fourth gospel uses it, parakletos combines the concepts of comforter, encourager, advocate, defender. 

The "advocate" will be "remaining" with them--menei, a key, even ubiquitous, word in the fourth gospel.  Everyone--Jesus, the community, the advocate, the Father--seems to abide, dwell, and remain in, with, and under each other.  (Think sacramental theology.)

To see and know:  Jesus will not leave them bereft, like orphans.  They "will see" him, even though no one else will.  ("...the world can neither see nor know him...") 

The formula "on that day" is used throughout the Old Testament, and the fourth gospel uses it here to underline Jesus' relationship and identification with the Father.  What's more, the community's relationship with Jesus is the same as Jesus' relationship with the Father, the first such statement in the fourth gospel.

The community "knows" the advocate, and, "on that day," the community "will know" that Jesus is in the Father.  The word is ginosko. Ginosko, as previously mentioned, is knowledge through intimate experience--"mystical knowledge," you might say.  It is not so much a reasoned-based "knowing," but more revelation-based "knowing."

The fourth gospel anticipates some of the trinitarian debate that would come two or three hundred years later.  The Son is in intimate relationship with the Father, yet is distinct from the Father.  Jesus has a direct relationship with the Father, and a direct relationship with the community, though the community itself is in relationship with the Father indirectly, through Jesus.

The Father is utterly transcendent, known only through the Son.  John Sanford notes that "in Christian mystical thought...the Father is God as the uncreated One, pure Being or Existence itself who cannot be known or described in any human categories." 

The Father is beyond space and time, and, therefore, beyond description.  The eastern tradition calls this "apophatic" theology, which means that God can only be described in negatives, i.e. without name, without origin, without end.  Gregory of Nyssa: 

"There is no way of comprehending the indefinable as by a scheme of words.  For the Divine is too noble and lofty to be indicated by a name, and we have learned to honor by silence that which transcends reason and thought." (Against Eunomius, 10)

The question is:  If the Father is unknown, how can be the Father be known?  The fourth gospel asserts:  The Father can be known through the Son.  The Father cannot be known, but the Son can be known, and to know the Son is to know the Father.

There is a shift in verse 21.  Until then, Jesus had been speaking to the community--the "you's" were all plural.  In verse 21, Jesus speaks to the individual.  The NRSV continues to use "they" here, but the verse should actually be translated:  "The one having my commandments and keeping them is the one loving me.  The one loving me will be loved by my Father, and I will love that one and will manifest myself to that one."

The primary sense of the sentence is to enjoin both community and individual in loving one another and Jesus.  Secondly however, it would be a mistake to view this in an exclusive way.  Jesus is not saying that God will not love others who don't love.  The fourth gospel is underscoring, however, the reciprocity of relationship.  Those in mutual relationship with each other--those who menei together and with Jesus--will want to live out the very basis of that relationship, which is love. 

Image:  Passion, Chidi Okoye

 

¹⁵”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

¹⁸”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Translation:  "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another, a One-called-alongside, so that he might be with you into the eternal, the spirit of the truth, whom the world has not been able to receive because it can neither see nor know him.  You know him, because he abides alongside you and is in you.  I will not leave you orphans.  I come to you.  A little while and the world will see me no longer, but you see me.  Because I live, you will live also.  On that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, I in you.  The one having my commandments, and keeping them, that one is loving me, and the one loving me will be loved by my Father.  And I will love them, and I will show forth myself to them."

Background and situation:  Last week's reading, John 14: 1-14, is the beginning of the farewell discourses in the fourth gospel.  This week's reading is the following six verses.  Last week, the emphasis was on trust in Jesus.  This week, the emphasis is on love for Jesus.  

Not surprisingly, the farewell discourses open with appeals to trust and love, both major themes of the fourth gospel.  In fact, what is rather surprising, when you think about it, is that love for Jesus is a minor theme in the New Testament, almost non-existent outside of the fourth gospel.  In the fourth gospel, however, love for Jesus is a major theme, strongly emphasized.

Love counters fear.  The text seems designed to provide comfort for the community in the absence of Jesus, as if to say, "Don't worry.  Everything will be all right.  You will have help."  What's more, Jesus says, "I come to you."  The verb is present tense, meaning that Jesus is always a present reality.

The problem of love in the very early church:  I read the fourth gospel as a bit of a polemic against Peter.  Whenever Peter and the Beloved Disciple appear in the same scene, it seems that Peter always comes off as secondary. 

Peter needs to get the Beloved Disciple to ask Jesus a question, for example.  The Beloved Disciple can walk right into the palace, but Peter has to stay outside.  They both run to the tomb, but the Beloved Disciple gets there first.  Then, in chapter 21, Jesus almost seems to chew Peter out for not having enough love.  (Jesus speaks of agape love to Peter, unconditional love, but Peter keeps responding with philia love, affectionate friendship.)

Is that the fourth gospel's criticism of Peter?  Not enough love?  One of the major themes of the fourth gospel is love.  The word appears 57 times in fourth gospel.  In it, the two great commandments are to love God and "love one another." 

This is the sacred text of the Johannine community, a community distinct from, yet in fellowship with, the Jerusalem church.  Do they find a lack of love in the Jerusalem church?

The community is to demonstrate their love for Jesus by keeping his commandments, although he has only really given one actual commandment, which is to "love one another" (13: 34-35).  The use of the word "commandments"--plural--invites a comparison with other "commandments," such as those given to Moses.  For the fourth gospel, Jesus one commandment--"love one another"--is placed on the level of the Torah itself.

The "paraklete":  The word parakletos means "one called alongside."  It is generally translated as "advocate" or "comforter."  The word is closely related to the Hebrew hacham, which appears in Psalm 23, for example:  "Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort--hacham--me."  The word parakletos itself, however, comes originally from the Greek law courts where it meant "advocate" or "lawyer."

Jesus promises "another advocate," himself apparently being the first.  The "advocate" will be "the spirit of the truth."  This is reminiscent of the worship of those who do so "in spirit and in truth" (4: 23-24).  The way the fourth gospel uses it, parakletos combines the concepts of comforter, encourager, advocate, defender. 

The "advocate" will be "remaining" with them--menei, a key, even ubiquitous, word in the fourth gospel.  Everyone--Jesus, the community, the advocate, the Father--seems to abide, dwell, and remain in, with, and under each other.  (Think sacramental theology.)

To see and know:  Jesus will not leave them bereft, like orphans.  They "will see" him, even though no one else will.  ("...the world can neither see nor know him...") 

The formula "on that day" is used throughout the Old Testament, and the fourth gospel uses it here to underline Jesus' relationship and identification with the Father.  What's more, the community's relationship with Jesus is the same as Jesus' relationship with the Father, the first such statement in the fourth gospel.

The community "knows" the advocate, and, "on that day," the community "will know" that Jesus is in the Father.  The word is ginosko. Ginosko, as previously mentioned, is knowledge through intimate experience--"mystical knowledge," you might say.  It is not so much a reasoned-based "knowing," but more revelation-based "knowing."

The fourth gospel anticipates some of the trinitarian debate that would come two or three hundred years later.  The Son is in intimate relationship with the Father, yet is distinct from the Father.  Jesus has a direct relationship with the Father, and a direct relationship with the community, though the community itself is in relationship with the Father indirectly, through Jesus.

The Father is utterly transcendent, known only through the Son.  John Sanford notes that "in Christian mystical thought...the Father is God as the uncreated One, pure Being or Existence itself who cannot be known or described in any human categories." 

The Father is beyond space and time, and, therefore, beyond description.  The eastern tradition calls this "apophatic" theology, which means that God can only be described in negatives, i.e. without name, without origin, without end.  Gregory of Nyssa: 

"There is no way of comprehending the indefinable as by a scheme of words.  For the Divine is too noble and lofty to be indicated by a name, and we have learned to honor by silence that which transcends reason and thought." (Against Eunomius, 10)

The question is:  If the Father is unknown, how can be the Father be known?  The fourth gospel asserts:  The Father can be known through the Son.  The Father cannot be known, but the Son can be known, and to know the Son is to know the Father.

There is a shift in verse 21.  Until then, Jesus had been speaking to the community--the "you's" were all plural.  In verse 21, Jesus speaks to the individual.  The NRSV continues to use "they" here, but the verse should actually be translated:  "The one having my commandments and keeping them is the one loving me.  The one loving me will be loved by my Father, and I will love that one and will manifest myself to that one."

The primary sense of the sentence is to enjoin both community and individual in loving one another and Jesus.  Secondly however, it would be a mistake to view this in an exclusive way.  Jesus is not saying that God will not love others who don't love.  The fourth gospel is underscoring, however, the reciprocity of relationship.  Those in mutual relationship with each other--those who menei together and with Jesus--will want to live out the very basis of that relationship, which is love. 

Image:  Passion, Chidi Okoye

¹⁵”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

¹⁸”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Translation:  "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another, a One-called-alongside, so that he might be with you into the eternal, the spirit of the truth, whom the world has not been able to receive because it can neither see nor know him.  You know him, because he abides alongside you and is in you.  I will not leave you orphans.  I come to you.  A little while and the world will see me no longer, but you see me.  Because I live, you will live also.  On that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, I in you.  The one having my commandments, and keeping them, that one is loving me, and the one loving me will be loved by my Father.  And I will love them, and I will show forth myself to them."

Background and situation:  Last week's reading, John 14: 1-14, is the beginning of the farewell discourses in the fourth gospel.  This week's reading is the following six verses.  Last week, the emphasis was on trust in Jesus.  This week, the emphasis is on love for Jesus.  

Not surprisingly, the farewell discourses open with appeals to trust and love, both major themes of the fourth gospel.  In fact, what is rather surprising, when you think about it, is that love for Jesus is a minor theme in the New Testament, almost non-existent outside of the fourth gospel.  In the fourth gospel, however, love for Jesus is a major theme, strongly emphasized.

Love counters fear.  The text seems designed to provide comfort for the community in the absence of Jesus, as if to say, "Don't worry.  Everything will be all right.  You will have help."  What's more, Jesus says, "I come to you."  The verb is present tense, meaning that Jesus is always a present reality.

The problem of love in the very early church:  I read the fourth gospel as a bit of a polemic against Peter.  Whenever Peter and the Beloved Disciple appear in the same scene, it seems that Peter always comes off as secondary. 

Peter needs to get the Beloved Disciple to ask Jesus a question, for example.  The Beloved Disciple can walk right into the palace, but Peter has to stay outside.  They both run to the tomb, but the Beloved Disciple gets there first.  Then, in chapter 21, Jesus almost seems to chew Peter out for not having enough love.  (Jesus speaks of agape love to Peter, unconditional love, but Peter keeps responding with philia love, affectionate friendship.)

Is that the fourth gospel's criticism of Peter?  Not enough love?  One of the major themes of the fourth gospel is love.  The word appears 57 times in fourth gospel.  In it, the two great commandments are to love God and "love one another." 

This is the sacred text of the Johannine community, a community distinct from, yet in fellowship with, the Jerusalem church.  Do they find a lack of love in the Jerusalem church?

The community is to demonstrate their love for Jesus by keeping his commandments, although he has only really given one actual commandment, which is to "love one another" (13: 34-35).  The use of the word "commandments"--plural--invites a comparison with other "commandments," such as those given to Moses.  For the fourth gospel, Jesus one commandment--"love one another"--is placed on the level of the Torah itself.

The "paraklete":  The word parakletos means "one called alongside."  It is generally translated as "advocate" or "comforter."  The word is closely related to the Hebrew hacham, which appears in Psalm 23, for example:  "Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort--hacham--me."  The word parakletos itself, however, comes originally from the Greek law courts where it meant "advocate" or "lawyer."

Jesus promises "another advocate," himself apparently being the first.  The "advocate" will be "the spirit of the truth."  This is reminiscent of the worship of those who do so "in spirit and in truth" (4: 23-24).  The way the fourth gospel uses it, parakletos combines the concepts of comforter, encourager, advocate, defender. 

The "advocate" will be "remaining" with them--menei, a key, even ubiquitous, word in the fourth gospel.  Everyone--Jesus, the community, the advocate, the Father--seems to abide, dwell, and remain in, with, and under each other.  (Think sacramental theology.)

To see and know:  Jesus will not leave them bereft, like orphans.  They "will see" him, even though no one else will.  ("...the world can neither see nor know him...") 

The formula "on that day" is used throughout the Old Testament, and the fourth gospel uses it here to underline Jesus' relationship and identification with the Father.  What's more, the community's relationship with Jesus is the same as Jesus' relationship with the Father, the first such statement in the fourth gospel.

The community "knows" the advocate, and, "on that day," the community "will know" that Jesus is in the Father.  The word is ginosko. Ginosko, as previously mentioned, is knowledge through intimate experience--"mystical knowledge," you might say.  It is not so much a reasoned-based "knowing," but more revelation-based "knowing."

The fourth gospel anticipates some of the trinitarian debate that would come two or three hundred years later.  The Son is in intimate relationship with the Father, yet is distinct from the Father.  Jesus has a direct relationship with the Father, and a direct relationship with the community, though the community itself is in relationship with the Father indirectly, through Jesus.

The Father is utterly transcendent, known only through the Son.  John Sanford notes that "in Christian mystical thought...the Father is God as the uncreated One, pure Being or Existence itself who cannot be known or described in any human categories." 

The Father is beyond space and time, and, therefore, beyond description.  The eastern tradition calls this "apophatic" theology, which means that God can only be described in negatives, i.e. without name, without origin, without end.  Gregory of Nyssa: 

"There is no way of comprehending the indefinable as by a scheme of words.  For the Divine is too noble and lofty to be indicated by a name, and we have learned to honor by silence that which transcends reason and thought." (Against Eunomius, 10)

The question is:  If the Father is unknown, how can be the Father be known?  The fourth gospel asserts:  The Father can be known through the Son.  The Father cannot be known, but the Son can be known, and to know the Son is to know the Father.

There is a shift in verse 21.  Until then, Jesus had been speaking to the community--the "you's" were all plural.  In verse 21, Jesus speaks to the individual.  The NRSV continues to use "they" here, but the verse should actually be translated:  "The one having my commandments and keeping them is the one loving me.  The one loving me will be loved by my Father, and I will love that one and will manifest myself to that one."

The primary sense of the sentence is to enjoin both community and individual in loving one another and Jesus.  Secondly however, it would be a mistake to view this in an exclusive way.  Jesus is not saying that God will not love others who don't love.  The fourth gospel is underscoring, however, the reciprocity of relationship.  Those in mutual relationship with each other--those who menei together and with Jesus--will want to live out the very basis of that relationship, which is love. 

Image:  Passion, Chidi Okoye

Easter 5 ::: John 14: 1-14

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. ²In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.⁴And you know the way to the place where I am going.’^*5Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ ⁶Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

Translation:  "Let not your heart be troubled.  Trust into God, and trust into me.  In the house of my Father, there are many habitations, and, if not, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go, and prepare a place for you, I come again and I will take you to myself so that, where I am, I and you might be, and you have known the way where I go."  Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you go.  How have we known the way?"  Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.  From now, you know him, and you have seen."

Background and situation:  The lection is part of the Last Supper discourse in the fourth gospel.  These "farewell discourses" take up chapters 13-17, or about 20% of the book.  In this section, Jesus is addressing his disciples on the night before his crucifixion.  The section culminates in what is called the High Priestly Prayer (17:1-26).

Bad advice from Jesus:  Sports Illustrated reports that, back in 2008, the Rev. Jesse Jackson visited the locker room of the defeated Memphis Tigers basketball team after their loss to Kansas in the NCAA basketball finals.  Memphis' star player, Derrick Rose, was said to be "inconsolable."  Jackson told him, "Don't look like a freshman crying.  It looks pitiful.  Smile through your tears and speak above your pain."

In our therapy-infused culture, this is considered horrible advice.  Feelings should not be "held in," but expressed openly.  Jesus must have missed that lecture.  He gives his disciples a message not unlike the one that Jesse Jackson gave to Derrick Rose.

"Do not let your heart be troubled."  Jesus urges his disciples to move beyond their anxiety and to "trust into God and trust into me."  (The word is pisteuein, more properly translated as "trust" or "faith" than as "believe."  Also, the preposition is eis, which means "into," not "in.") 

He asks his disciples to put their "troubles" in the proper perspective and to see them in light of God's power.  This is not a lot different from "smile through your tears and speak above your pain."  See your pain, or your troubles, through the light of Christ.

Troubled heart:  In the English language, as is well-known, the word "you" serves as both the second person singular and the second person plural.  Most other languages, however, have a distinct word for the second person plural. 

Most people don't realize that the vast majority of all uses of the word "you" in the Greek New Testament are plural.  To put it another way, if we read these texts as being individually addressed to us, we are mistaken.  They were not addressed to individuals, but rather to a community.

Jesus says, "Do not let your (pl.) heart be troubled."  The disciples, collectively, have a "troubled heart."  In fourth gospel, Jesus himself had also been "troubled" on three occasions.  He was "troubled" at the reaction to his raising of Lazarus (11:33), the approach of the cross (12:26), and Judas' betrayal (13:21).  Now, this emotion is ascribed also to the community itself.

"In the house of my Father, they are many habitations."  The word translated as "habitations" is monai.  In the popular imagination, this is often taken to mean that the Methodists will have a room--indeed, a mansion--and so will the Catholics and the Baptists. 

Monai actually means a temporary resting place for a traveler.  It was associated with caravans.  In those days, there would be a contingent of folks who would go ahead of the caravan to "prepare a place" so that when the caravan arrived there, the camp ground had been prepared, the water supply located, and food prepared.  The travelers in the caravan would have a place of comfort to spend the night.

Monai is less about getting some fancy digs in the hereafter, in a house separate from the people you can't stand, and more about welcome, hospitality, and community for people traveling on a journey.  

"For I go to prepare a place for you."  This sentence is reminiscent of Moses' speech in Deuteronomy 1:33 where he says that the Lord "goes before you in the way to choose a place." 

Just as Moses led the people into the Promised Land, so Jesus will lead his people to the place where he himself is going.  ("I come again and I will take you to myself so that, where I am, I and you might be.")

The way:  "And you know the way--hodon--to the place where I am going."  The concept of "the way" had been around awhile.  Moses had used the phrase "in the way" in the Deuteronomy passage.  Likewise, the Psalms refer to the Torah as "the way" (Ps 119: 29-34). 

Moreover, according to the book of Acts, the Christian faith was first known as "the way."  The word hodos, or "way," is used over 100 times in the New Testament.  Its use here, however, is the only time it appears in the fourth gospel. 

Thomas is taken aback.  "We do not know the way," he says.  When Jesus had announced, in chapter 11, that he was returning to the Jerusalem area, a place of danger, Thomas fatalistically declares that they might as well go with Jesus and "die with him" (11:16).  Thomas knew "the way" that led to death well enough, but not "the way" that leads to life.

Jesus spells it out.  "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."  Earlier in the fourth gospel, we were told that Jesus is truth (1:14), and "the resurrection and the life" (11:25).  Now, he is also "the way" itself. 

This is another ego eimi saying, which means that the most important words in this important sentence are the first two--"I am."  Ego eimi is an emphatic way of saying YHWH, God's own name, in Greek.  Lest anyone miss the point, the fourth gospel has Jesus also say, "If you know me, you will know my Father also."

Thomas had asked, "How can we know the way?"  Here, the fourth gospel uses the word oida for "know."  Oida is the kind of knowledge that you get from first-hand, physical experience.  It is the kind of knowledge that is objective and demonstrable. 

Jesus responds, "If you know me, you will know my Father also."  In this sentence, Jesus uses ginosko, which is the kind of knowledge one gets through intimate experience.  This is a kind of "mystical knowing." 

Thomas's "knowing" is of the everyday variety.  Jesus' "knowing" is the kind that comes "from above" (3:3).  This is consistent with an over-all theme of the fourth gospel, which is intimate relationship and mutual indwelling between Jesus and his followers.  

8 Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ ⁹Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? ¹⁰Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. ¹²Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

Translation:  Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us."  Jesus said to him, "I am with you a lengthy time and you do not know me, Philip?"  The one who has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?  Do you not trust that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?  The words that I say to you I do not speak from myself, but the Father abiding in me does his works.  Trust me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.  But if not, trust the works themselves.

"Truly, Truly, I say to you, the one trusting into me, the works which I am doing, that one will do also, and that one will do greater than these, for I am going to the Father.  And whatever you might ask in my name, that I will do so that the Father might be glorified in the Son.  Whatever you might ask in my name, I will do. 

Community building:  Philip says, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough--arkei--for us."  Philip had earlier worried that they would not have "enough" (arkousin) food to feed the large crowd (6:7).  In his only two utterances in the fourth gospel, Philip is portrayed as fussing that what they have is not enough.  The food had not been enough, and now Jesus is not quite enough either.

Jesus responds, "I am with you through a lengthy time--chronos--and you do not know--ginosko--me, Philip?"  The word chronos refers to earthly, chronological time.  It is distinct from kairos, which is "special time"--the in-breaking of God.  In ordinary experience, in ordinary "time," one cannot "know" Jesus in an intimate, mystical way.

Jesus tells them that his words are the same as the "Father's works."  Then, he tells them that if they cannot believe his words, they should turn to his works.  What's more, they will do even greater works than Jesus! 

What could they possibly do that would be "greater" than what Jesus has already done in the fourth gospel?  Jesus has healed the sick and raised the dead.  What can they do to top that? 

One thing remains:  They have not yet established an on-going community centered in Jesus, which follows him, and does his works.

Jesus assures the disciples that, even though "the way" may be difficult, they can call on him and he will do "whatever you ask in my name."  This is not, of course, a flinging about of Jesus' name as some kind of magic talisman in order to get what a person wants.  That is mere egocentrity.  It asks in our name, but not that of Jesus. 

To ask in Jesus' name, as Ray Brown has said, means to be in union with Jesus.  To ask in Jesus name is, as Paul put it, having the same mind that was in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2).  What would Jesus ask?  What would Jesus think?  Indeed, WWJD?

 Image:  Mary Padgelek

 

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. ²In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.⁴And you know the way to the place where I am going.’^*5Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ ⁶Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

Translation:  "Let not your heart be troubled.  Trust into God, and trust into me.  In the house of my Father, there are many habitations, and, if not, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go, and prepare a place for you, I come again and I will take you to myself so that, where I am, I and you might be, and you have known the way where I go."  Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you go.  How have we known the way?"  Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.  From now, you know him, and you have seen."

Background and situation:  The lection is part of the Last Supper discourse in the fourth gospel.  These "farewell discourses" take up chapters 13-17, or about 20% of the book.  In this section, Jesus is addressing his disciples on the night before his crucifixion.  The section culminates in what is called the High Priestly Prayer (17:1-26).

Bad advice from Jesus:  Sports Illustrated reports that, back in 2008, the Rev. Jesse Jackson visited the locker room of the defeated Memphis Tigers basketball team after their loss to Kansas in the NCAA basketball finals.  Memphis' star player, Derrick Rose, was said to be "inconsolable."  Jackson told him, "Don't look like a freshman crying.  It looks pitiful.  Smile through your tears and speak above your pain."

In our therapy-infused culture, this is considered horrible advice.  Feelings should not be "held in," but expressed openly.  Jesus must have missed that lecture.  He gives his disciples a message not unlike the one that Jesse Jackson gave to Derrick Rose.

"Do not let your heart be troubled."  Jesus urges his disciples to move beyond their anxiety and to "trust into God and trust into me."  (The word is pisteuein, more properly translated as "trust" or "faith" than as "believe."  Also, the preposition is eis, which means "into," not "in.") 

He asks his disciples to put their "troubles" in the proper perspective and to see them in light of God's power.  This is not a lot different from "smile through your tears and speak above your pain."  See your pain, or your troubles, through the light of Christ.

Troubled heart:  In the English language, as is well-known, the word "you" serves as both the second person singular and the second person plural.  Most other languages, however, have a distinct word for the second person plural. 

Most people don't realize that the vast majority of all uses of the word "you" in the Greek New Testament are plural.  To put it another way, if we read these texts as being individually addressed to us, we are mistaken.  They were not addressed to individuals, but rather to a community.

Jesus says, "Do not let your (pl.) heart be troubled."  The disciples, collectively, have a "troubled heart."  In fourth gospel, Jesus himself had also been "troubled" on three occasions.  He was "troubled" at the reaction to his raising of Lazarus (11:33), the approach of the cross (12:26), and Judas' betrayal (13:21).  Now, this emotion is ascribed also to the community itself.

"In the house of my Father, they are many habitations."  The word translated as "habitations" is monai.  In the popular imagination, this is often taken to mean that the Methodists will have a room--indeed, a mansion--and so will the Catholics and the Baptists. 

Monai actually means a temporary resting place for a traveler.  It was associated with caravans.  In those days, there would be a contingent of folks who would go ahead of the caravan to "prepare a place" so that when the caravan arrived there, the camp ground had been prepared, the water supply located, and food prepared.  The travelers in the caravan would have a place of comfort to spend the night.

Monai is less about getting some fancy digs in the hereafter, in a house separate from the people you can't stand, and more about welcome, hospitality, and community for people traveling on a journey.  

"For I go to prepare a place for you."  This sentence is reminiscent of Moses' speech in Deuteronomy 1:33 where he says that the Lord "goes before you in the way to choose a place." 

Just as Moses led the people into the Promised Land, so Jesus will lead his people to the place where he himself is going.  ("I come again and I will take you to myself so that, where I am, I and you might be.")

The way:  "And you know the way--hodon--to the place where I am going."  The concept of "the way" had been around awhile.  Moses had used the phrase "in the way" in the Deuteronomy passage.  Likewise, the Psalms refer to the Torah as "the way" (Ps 119: 29-34). 

Moreover, according to the book of Acts, the Christian faith was first known as "the way."  The word hodos, or "way," is used over 100 times in the New Testament.  Its use here, however, is the only time it appears in the fourth gospel. 

Thomas is taken aback.  "We do not know the way," he says.  When Jesus had announced, in chapter 11, that he was returning to the Jerusalem area, a place of danger, Thomas fatalistically declares that they might as well go with Jesus and "die with him" (11:16).  Thomas knew "the way" that led to death well enough, but not "the way" that leads to life.

Jesus spells it out.  "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."  Earlier in the fourth gospel, we were told that Jesus is truth (1:14), and "the resurrection and the life" (11:25).  Now, he is also "the way" itself. 

This is another ego eimi saying, which means that the most important words in this important sentence are the first two--"I am."  Ego eimi is an emphatic way of saying YHWH, God's own name, in Greek.  Lest anyone miss the point, the fourth gospel has Jesus also say, "If you know me, you will know my Father also."

Thomas had asked, "How can we know the way?"  Here, the fourth gospel uses the word oida for "know."  Oida is the kind of knowledge that you get from first-hand, physical experience.  It is the kind of knowledge that is objective and demonstrable. 

Jesus responds, "If you know me, you will know my Father also."  In this sentence, Jesus uses ginosko, which is the kind of knowledge one gets through intimate experience.  This is a kind of "mystical knowing." 

Thomas's "knowing" is of the everyday variety.  Jesus' "knowing" is the kind that comes "from above" (3:3).  This is consistent with an over-all theme of the fourth gospel, which is intimate relationship and mutual indwelling between Jesus and his followers.  

8 Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ ⁹Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? ¹⁰Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. ¹²Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

Translation:  Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us."  Jesus said to him, "I am with you a lengthy time and you do not know me, Philip?"  The one who has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?  Do you not trust that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?  The words that I say to you I do not speak from myself, but the Father abiding in me does his works.  Trust me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.  But if not, trust the works themselves.

"Truly, Truly, I say to you, the one trusting into me, the works which I am doing, that one will do also, and that one will do greater than these, for I am going to the Father.  And whatever you might ask in my name, that I will do so that the Father might be glorified in the Son.  Whatever you might ask in my name, I will do. 

Community building:  Philip says, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough--arkei--for us."  Philip had earlier worried that they would not have "enough" (arkousin) food to feed the large crowd (6:7).  In his only two utterances in the fourth gospel, Philip is portrayed as fussing that what they have is not enough.  The food had not been enough, and now Jesus is not quite enough either.

Jesus responds, "I am with you through a lengthy time--chronos--and you do not know--ginosko--me, Philip?"  The word chronos refers to earthly, chronological time.  It is distinct from kairos, which is "special time"--the in-breaking of God.  In ordinary experience, in ordinary "time," one cannot "know" Jesus in an intimate, mystical way.

Jesus tells them that his words are the same as the "Father's works."  Then, he tells them that if they cannot believe his words, they should turn to his works.  What's more, they will do even greater works than Jesus! 

What could they possibly do that would be "greater" than what Jesus has already done in the fourth gospel?  Jesus has healed the sick and raised the dead.  What can they do to top that? 

One thing remains:  They have not yet established an on-going community centered in Jesus, which follows him, and does his works.

Jesus assures the disciples that, even though "the way" may be difficult, they can call on him and he will do "whatever you ask in my name."  This is not, of course, a flinging about of Jesus' name as some kind of magic talisman in order to get what a person wants.  That is mere egocentrity.  It asks in our name, but not that of Jesus. 

To ask in Jesus' name, as Ray Brown has said, means to be in union with Jesus.  To ask in Jesus name is, as Paul put it, having the same mind that was in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2).  What would Jesus ask?  What would Jesus think?  Indeed, WWJD?

 Image:  Mary Padgelek

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. ²In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.⁴And you know the way to the place where I am going.’^*5Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ ⁶Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

Translation:  "Let not your heart be troubled.  Trust into God, and trust into me.  In the house of my Father, there are many habitations, and, if not, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go, and prepare a place for you, I come again and I will take you to myself so that, where I am, I and you might be, and you have known the way where I go."  Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you go.  How have we known the way?"  Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.  From now, you know him, and you have seen."

Background and situation:  The lection is part of the Last Supper discourse in the fourth gospel.  These "farewell discourses" take up chapters 13-17, or about 20% of the book.  In this section, Jesus is addressing his disciples on the night before his crucifixion.  The section culminates in what is called the High Priestly Prayer (17:1-26).

Bad advice from Jesus:  Sports Illustrated reports that, back in 2008, the Rev. Jesse Jackson visited the locker room of the defeated Memphis Tigers basketball team after their loss to Kansas in the NCAA basketball finals.  Memphis' star player, Derrick Rose, was said to be "inconsolable."  Jackson told him, "Don't look like a freshman crying.  It looks pitiful.  Smile through your tears and speak above your pain."

In our therapy-infused culture, this is considered horrible advice.  Feelings should not be "held in," but expressed openly.  Jesus must have missed that lecture.  He gives his disciples a message not unlike the one that Jesse Jackson gave to Derrick Rose.

"Do not let your heart be troubled."  Jesus urges his disciples to move beyond their anxiety and to "trust into God and trust into me."  (The word is pisteuein, more properly translated as "trust" or "faith" than as "believe."  Also, the preposition is eis, which means "into," not "in.") 

He asks his disciples to put their "troubles" in the proper perspective and to see them in light of God's power.  This is not a lot different from "smile through your tears and speak above your pain."  See your pain, or your troubles, through the light of Christ.

Troubled heart:  In the English language, as is well-known, the word "you" serves as both the second person singular and the second person plural.  Most other languages, however, have a distinct word for the second person plural. 

Most people don't realize that the vast majority of all uses of the word "you" in the Greek New Testament are plural.  To put it another way, if we read these texts as being individually addressed to us, we are mistaken.  They were not addressed to individuals, but rather to a community.

Jesus says, "Do not let your (pl.) heart be troubled."  The disciples, collectively, have a "troubled heart."  In fourth gospel, Jesus himself had also been "troubled" on three occasions.  He was "troubled" at the reaction to his raising of Lazarus (11:33), the approach of the cross (12:26), and Judas' betrayal (13:21).  Now, this emotion is ascribed also to the community itself.

"In the house of my Father, they are many habitations."  The word translated as "habitations" is monai.  In the popular imagination, this is often taken to mean that the Methodists will have a room--indeed, a mansion--and so will the Catholics and the Baptists. 

Monai actually means a temporary resting place for a traveler.  It was associated with caravans.  In those days, there would be a contingent of folks who would go ahead of the caravan to "prepare a place" so that when the caravan arrived there, the camp ground had been prepared, the water supply located, and food prepared.  The travelers in the caravan would have a place of comfort to spend the night.

Monai is less about getting some fancy digs in the hereafter, in a house separate from the people you can't stand, and more about welcome, hospitality, and community for people traveling on a journey.  

"For I go to prepare a place for you."  This sentence is reminiscent of Moses' speech in Deuteronomy 1:33 where he says that the Lord "goes before you in the way to choose a place." 

Just as Moses led the people into the Promised Land, so Jesus will lead his people to the place where he himself is going.  ("I come again and I will take you to myself so that, where I am, I and you might be.")

The way:  "And you know the way--hodon--to the place where I am going."  The concept of "the way" had been around awhile.  Moses had used the phrase "in the way" in the Deuteronomy passage.  Likewise, the Psalms refer to the Torah as "the way" (Ps 119: 29-34). 

Moreover, according to the book of Acts, the Christian faith was first known as "the way."  The word hodos, or "way," is used over 100 times in the New Testament.  Its use here, however, is the only time it appears in the fourth gospel. 

Thomas is taken aback.  "We do not know the way," he says.  When Jesus had announced, in chapter 11, that he was returning to the Jerusalem area, a place of danger, Thomas fatalistically declares that they might as well go with Jesus and "die with him" (11:16).  Thomas knew "the way" that led to death well enough, but not "the way" that leads to life.

Jesus spells it out.  "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."  Earlier in the fourth gospel, we were told that Jesus is truth (1:14), and "the resurrection and the life" (11:25).  Now, he is also "the way" itself. 

This is another ego eimi saying, which means that the most important words in this important sentence are the first two--"I am."  Ego eimi is an emphatic way of saying YHWH, God's own name, in Greek.  Lest anyone miss the point, the fourth gospel has Jesus also say, "If you know me, you will know my Father also."

Thomas had asked, "How can we know the way?"  Here, the fourth gospel uses the word oida for "know."  Oida is the kind of knowledge that you get from first-hand, physical experience.  It is the kind of knowledge that is objective and demonstrable. 

Jesus responds, "If you know me, you will know my Father also."  In this sentence, Jesus uses ginosko, which is the kind of knowledge one gets through intimate experience.  This is a kind of "mystical knowing." 

Thomas's "knowing" is of the everyday variety.  Jesus' "knowing" is the kind that comes "from above" (3:3).  This is consistent with an over-all theme of the fourth gospel, which is intimate relationship and mutual indwelling between Jesus and his followers.  

8 Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ ⁹Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? ¹⁰Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. ¹²Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

Translation:  Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us."  Jesus said to him, "I am with you a lengthy time and you do not know me, Philip?"  The one who has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?  Do you not trust that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?  The words that I say to you I do not speak from myself, but the Father abiding in me does his works.  Trust me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.  But if not, trust the works themselves.

"Truly, Truly, I say to you, the one trusting into me, the works which I am doing, that one will do also, and that one will do greater than these, for I am going to the Father.  And whatever you might ask in my name, that I will do so that the Father might be glorified in the Son.  Whatever you might ask in my name, I will do. 

Community building:  Philip says, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough--arkei--for us."  Philip had earlier worried that they would not have "enough" (arkousin) food to feed the large crowd (6:7).  In his only two utterances in the fourth gospel, Philip is portrayed as fussing that what they have is not enough.  The food had not been enough, and now Jesus is not quite enough either.

Jesus responds, "I am with you through a lengthy time--chronos--and you do not know--ginosko--me, Philip?"  The word chronos refers to earthly, chronological time.  It is distinct from kairos, which is "special time"--the in-breaking of God.  In ordinary experience, in ordinary "time," one cannot "know" Jesus in an intimate, mystical way.

Jesus tells them that his words are the same as the "Father's works."  Then, he tells them that if they cannot believe his words, they should turn to his works.  What's more, they will do even greater works than Jesus! 

What could they possibly do that would be "greater" than what Jesus has already done in the fourth gospel?  Jesus has healed the sick and raised the dead.  What can they do to top that? 

One thing remains:  They have not yet established an on-going community centered in Jesus, which follows him, and does his works.

Jesus assures the disciples that, even though "the way" may be difficult, they can call on him and he will do "whatever you ask in my name."  This is not, of course, a flinging about of Jesus' name as some kind of magic talisman in order to get what a person wants.  That is mere egocentrity.  It asks in our name, but not that of Jesus. 

To ask in Jesus' name, as Ray Brown has said, means to be in union with Jesus.  To ask in Jesus name is, as Paul put it, having the same mind that was in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2).  What would Jesus ask?  What would Jesus think?  Indeed, WWJD?

 Image:  Mary Padgelek

Easter 4 ::: John 10: 1-10

Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. ²The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’ ⁶Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

7 So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Translation:  "Truly, truly I say to you, the one not entering through the door into the yard of the sheep, but ascends up some other way, is a thief and a robber.  But the one entering in through the door is shepherd of the sheep.  To him, the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he might throw out all his own, he goes before them, and his sheep follow because they have known his voice.  But they will surely not follow a stranger but will flee from him because they have not known the voice of strangers."  Jesus spoke this proverb to them, but they did not know what he was saying to them.

Then again Jesus said, "Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.  All that came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.  I am the door.  If someone might enter through me, that one will be saved.  And that one will go in and out and find pasture.  The thief does not come except that they might steal and kill and destroy.  I came so that they might have life, and they might have abundance."

Background and situation:  Rob Bell writes in Velvet Elvis that young Hebrew boys of the first century would memorize the entire Torah.  They would learn by heart the complete books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  And we thought memorizing the catechism was tough! 

All Hebrew males, then, would have been able to connect Jesus' words in chapter 10 of the fourth gospel with those of the Book of Numbers, that the Lord God would appoint someone "who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in" (Num 27: 16-18).

Hebrew males who, after their initial instruction, went on to become rabbis would have memorized the entire Old Testament by the time they were 18 years old.  They would have known of the prophet Jeremiah who wrote about bad shepherds who "destroy and scatter the sheep" (Jer 23: 1).  The prophets Ezekiel, Micah, and Zechariah as well talked of the various would-be shepherds who scattered the sheep and did not feed them.

Thieves and robbers:  Jesus uses strong words--"thieves and robbers"--right off the bat.  (Kleptes--thieves--is where we get our word "kleptomanic.")  Jesus has been a critic of the economic practices of Judean Temple officials throughout the fourth gospel.  The use of the word "thieves" is consistent with this critique. 

The word for "robber" is lestes, and refers to what, today, we would call "terrorists."  ("Revolutionary guerrillas," says Wes Howard-Brook; "guerrilla warriors," says Ray Brown.)  The combination of "thieves and robbers" suggests economic exploitation coupled with violence.

Shepherd and gate:  After this abrupt beginning, Jesus shifts to the "shepherd of the sheep" who enters through the gate.  The gatekeeper--God--opens the gate for this shepherd.  The sheep will hear the true shepherd's voice--he calls them by name, he leads them out, he goes before them, his sheep follow.

Notice the shift in direction.  The passage begins with entering the sheepfold, but now the good shepherd is leading his sheep out.  In chapter 5, Jesus had said that "all those who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out" (5: 28-9).  The sheepfold, supposedly a place of protection, is here equated with death.  At the call of his voice, Jesus leads his sheep out from death and into eternal life.

In the next chapter, Jesus will call Lazarus out of his grave--Lazare, deuro exo!  "Lazarus, come out."  In chapter 20, he will utter the name of "Mary" and she will recognize the Lord.  His sheep hear his voice!

Jesus says twice (v. 7, 9) that he himself is the gate.  That would make Jesus both the good shepherd and the gate itself.  This only makes sense if the gate is seen as his death and resurrection.  The good shepherd enters the sheepfold through the gate of death.  ("The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." 10: 11.)  On the basis of his death and resurrection, he leads his sheep out of death.  This is the way--the only way--that the gatekeeper, God the Father, approves.

The word for "stranger"--allotrion--makes its only appearance in the fourth gospel.  Along with "thieves and robbers," it is yet another negative image.  The sheep do not follow this stranger.  In fact, they run away.  The stranger is a thief and a bandit.  The stranger steals and oppresses, and is prone to violence.  Sound like any Temple officials you might know? 

Jesus appears to be speaking to the pharisees (9: 40).  Naturally, the pharisees don't understand any of this.  In the actual history of the period, the pharisees shared some of Jesus' criticisms of the Temple.  They looked for the renewal of Judaism.  They were the "liberal reformers" of their day, you might say. 

The problem is that they continue to have an investment in the system itself.  They are trying to reform a system that, in the view of the fourth gospel, cannot be reformed.  They are trying to come in "by another way" than through the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

"I am the gate," Jesus says.  This is another ego eimi saying, underlining its importance.  God the Father is the gate-keeper, the one who makes the decision about the method by which he will save his people.  He chooses death and resurrection.  Any other way--any Temple-based sacrificial system, any morality-based self-improvement system, any power-based oppressive system--has been rejected.

"I am the gate," Jesus says again (v. 9).  That gate, the crucified and risen body of Jesus, frees all his sheep from the power of death.  They will be able to "come in and go out," and will have "pasture."  The word translated as "pasture" is nome, which means all that they will need for a full and abundant life. 

Compare Micah 2:  "I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture.  It will resound with people.  With a leader to break open the path and go before them, they will break out and pass through the door, going out by it.  Their kind will pass on before them, the Lord at their head (2: 12-13)."

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy."  Of course, the thief steals.  But "kill and destroy"?  Ray Brown sees a sly reference to the sacrificial system in the word for "kill."  The word is thyo and is the same word that is used to describe the priestly sacrifice of passover lambs.  

The pharisees have already been identified with the Temple police earlier in the fourth gospel (7: 32, 45).  Stay away from the thief who kills, says Jesus to these pharisees.  What thief kills?  The Temple priests.  Thus, Brown sees the reference to "kill" as an appeal to the pharisees to break their alliance with the Temple authorities. 

The thief also wants to "destroy," which is directly contrary to God's desire to not to see anyone "perish" (3: 16).  Jesus wants not destruction, but abundant life.  "I came so that they might have life, and they might have abundance."  

The word for "abundance"--perisson--is used only twice in the fourth gospel, here and in 6: 12 where Jesus tells the disciples to gather up "the abundant fragments" left over in the fourth gospel's version of the story of the feeding of the multitude. 

Sheep as a psychological metaphor:  In the story as a whole, "sheep" are a metaphor for the people of God, and not a particularly flattering one either, as anyone familiar with sheep knows. 

Psychologically, "sheep" also refers to a primitive aspect of one's own personality, the instinctual ability to try to discern and recognize the "true voice" and distinguish it from false ones.

"Thieves and robbers" are false voices and false guides.  These false guides are many.  They are attractive to us because they offer the possibility of by-passing the hard work of discernment of the "true voice."  If we will only give our power over to them, they promise us relief from the task of mature ego development. 

"Thieves and robbers" are not only figures from outside of ourselves, they are also aspects of our own inner psychology.  This is the part of us that wants to deny difficult truth and take the easy path of satisfying our own self-centered desires.  The early church father, Origen, understood "thieves and robbers" to be everything in us that is defective because of our lack of consciousness.

Psychologically, the "gatekeeper" is the one who makes the decision about whether or not your ticket is paid.  You must go through the "gatekeeper" to get to move forward on the path to spiritual growth.  Think of various myths, legendary stories, and dreams where someone is on some kind of quest and must get past a "gatekeeper." 

In this story, the "ticket" required by the gatekeeper--the only requirement--is the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Image:  I AM the good shepherd, Lee Hodges.        

Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. ²The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’ ⁶Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

7 So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Translation:  "Truly, truly I say to you, the one not entering through the door into the yard of the sheep, but ascends up some other way, is a thief and a robber.  But the one entering in through the door is shepherd of the sheep.  To him, the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he might throw out all his own, he goes before them, and his sheep follow because they have known his voice.  But they will surely not follow a stranger but will flee from him because they have not known the voice of strangers."  Jesus spoke this proverb to them, but they did not know what he was saying to them.

Then again Jesus said, "Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.  All that came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.  I am the door.  If someone might enter through me, that one will be saved.  And that one will go in and out and find pasture.  The thief does not come except that they might steal and kill and destroy.  I came so that they might have life, and they might have abundance."

Background and situation:  Rob Bell writes in Velvet Elvis that young Hebrew boys of the first century would memorize the entire Torah.  They would learn by heart the complete books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  And we thought memorizing the catechism was tough! 

All Hebrew males, then, would have been able to connect Jesus' words in chapter 10 of the fourth gospel with those of the Book of Numbers, that the Lord God would appoint someone "who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in" (Num 27: 16-18).

Hebrew males who, after their initial instruction, went on to become rabbis would have memorized the entire Old Testament by the time they were 18 years old.  They would have known of the prophet Jeremiah who wrote about bad shepherds who "destroy and scatter the sheep" (Jer 23: 1).  The prophets Ezekiel, Micah, and Zechariah as well talked of the various would-be shepherds who scattered the sheep and did not feed them.

Thieves and robbers:  Jesus uses strong words--"thieves and robbers"--right off the bat.  (Kleptes--thieves--is where we get our word "kleptomanic.")  Jesus has been a critic of the economic practices of Judean Temple officials throughout the fourth gospel.  The use of the word "thieves" is consistent with this critique. 

The word for "robber" is lestes, and refers to what, today, we would call "terrorists."  ("Revolutionary guerrillas," says Wes Howard-Brook; "guerrilla warriors," says Ray Brown.)  The combination of "thieves and robbers" suggests economic exploitation coupled with violence.

Shepherd and gate:  After this abrupt beginning, Jesus shifts to the "shepherd of the sheep" who enters through the gate.  The gatekeeper--God--opens the gate for this shepherd.  The sheep will hear the true shepherd's voice--he calls them by name, he leads them out, he goes before them, his sheep follow.

Notice the shift in direction.  The passage begins with entering the sheepfold, but now the good shepherd is leading his sheep out.  In chapter 5, Jesus had said that "all those who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out" (5: 28-9).  The sheepfold, supposedly a place of protection, is here equated with death.  At the call of his voice, Jesus leads his sheep out from death and into eternal life.

In the next chapter, Jesus will call Lazarus out of his grave--Lazare, deuro exo!  "Lazarus, come out."  In chapter 20, he will utter the name of "Mary" and she will recognize the Lord.  His sheep hear his voice!

Jesus says twice (v. 7, 9) that he himself is the gate.  That would make Jesus both the good shepherd and the gate itself.  This only makes sense if the gate is seen as his death and resurrection.  The good shepherd enters the sheepfold through the gate of death.  ("The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." 10: 11.)  On the basis of his death and resurrection, he leads his sheep out of death.  This is the way--the only way--that the gatekeeper, God the Father, approves.

The word for "stranger"--allotrion--makes its only appearance in the fourth gospel.  Along with "thieves and robbers," it is yet another negative image.  The sheep do not follow this stranger.  In fact, they run away.  The stranger is a thief and a bandit.  The stranger steals and oppresses, and is prone to violence.  Sound like any Temple officials you might know? 

Jesus appears to be speaking to the pharisees (9: 40).  Naturally, the pharisees don't understand any of this.  In the actual history of the period, the pharisees shared some of Jesus' criticisms of the Temple.  They looked for the renewal of Judaism.  They were the "liberal reformers" of their day, you might say. 

The problem is that they continue to have an investment in the system itself.  They are trying to reform a system that, in the view of the fourth gospel, cannot be reformed.  They are trying to come in "by another way" than through the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

"I am the gate," Jesus says.  This is another ego eimi saying, underlining its importance.  God the Father is the gate-keeper, the one who makes the decision about the method by which he will save his people.  He chooses death and resurrection.  Any other way--any Temple-based sacrificial system, any morality-based self-improvement system, any power-based oppressive system--has been rejected.

"I am the gate," Jesus says again (v. 9).  That gate, the crucified and risen body of Jesus, frees all his sheep from the power of death.  They will be able to "come in and go out," and will have "pasture."  The word translated as "pasture" is nome, which means all that they will need for a full and abundant life. 

Compare Micah 2:  "I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture.  It will resound with people.  With a leader to break open the path and go before them, they will break out and pass through the door, going out by it.  Their kind will pass on before them, the Lord at their head (2: 12-13)."

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy."  Of course, the thief steals.  But "kill and destroy"?  Ray Brown sees a sly reference to the sacrificial system in the word for "kill."  The word is thyo and is the same word that is used to describe the priestly sacrifice of passover lambs.  

The pharisees have already been identified with the Temple police earlier in the fourth gospel (7: 32, 45).  Stay away from the thief who kills, says Jesus to these pharisees.  What thief kills?  The Temple priests.  Thus, Brown sees the reference to "kill" as an appeal to the pharisees to break their alliance with the Temple authorities. 

The thief also wants to "destroy," which is directly contrary to God's desire to not to see anyone "perish" (3: 16).  Jesus wants not destruction, but abundant life.  "I came so that they might have life, and they might have abundance."  

The word for "abundance"--perisson--is used only twice in the fourth gospel, here and in 6: 12 where Jesus tells the disciples to gather up "the abundant fragments" left over in the fourth gospel's version of the story of the feeding of the multitude. 

Sheep as a psychological metaphor:  In the story as a whole, "sheep" are a metaphor for the people of God, and not a particularly flattering one either, as anyone familiar with sheep knows. 

Psychologically, "sheep" also refers to a primitive aspect of one's own personality, the instinctual ability to try to discern and recognize the "true voice" and distinguish it from false ones.

"Thieves and robbers" are false voices and false guides.  These false guides are many.  They are attractive to us because they offer the possibility of by-passing the hard work of discernment of the "true voice."  If we will only give our power over to them, they promise us relief from the task of mature ego development. 

"Thieves and robbers" are not only figures from outside of ourselves, they are also aspects of our own inner psychology.  This is the part of us that wants to deny difficult truth and take the easy path of satisfying our own self-centered desires.  The early church father, Origen, understood "thieves and robbers" to be everything in us that is defective because of our lack of consciousness.

Psychologically, the "gatekeeper" is the one who makes the decision about whether or not your ticket is paid.  You must go through the "gatekeeper" to get to move forward on the path to spiritual growth.  Think of various myths, legendary stories, and dreams where someone is on some kind of quest and must get past a "gatekeeper." 

In this story, the "ticket" required by the gatekeeper--the only requirement--is the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Image:  I AM the good shepherd, Lee Hodges.        

Easter 3 ::: Luke 24: 13-35

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁴and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. ¹⁵While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ¹⁶but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

Translation:  And behold, in that same day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, having threescore furlongs from Jerusalem, and they were talking to each other about all that had befallen them.  And it happened, in their talking and questioning together, Jesus himself drew near (and) was going with them, but their eyes were being held (and) they did not recognize him. 

Background and situation:  In Luke, people are often on a journey.  Luke takes seriously the great spiritual truth that we are all on a pilgrimage through life.  The Emmaus story, chapter 24, is also a journey story, and one that has certain resonances with another journey story in chapter 2. 

In chapter 2, Mary and Joseph journey away from Jerusalem and find that Jesus is not with them.  They go back to Jerusalem and search for three days.  They are tired and anxious.  When they find Jesus, he speaks of a divine imperative.  He "must be"--dei--about his father's business. 

At Emmaus, another couple journeys away from Jerusalem.  Cleopas and his companion, probably a woman, are sad and disappointed.  In this case, Jesus is with them, but unrecognized.  Jesus speaks again of divine necessity--"Was it not necessary--dei--for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?"  In the meal, Cleopas and his friend discover that Jesus had been with them all along.

Cleopas:

¹⁷And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad.  ¹⁸Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’¹⁹He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.  Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.

Translation:  And he said to them, "What are these words which you are having with each other walking?"  And they stood, sad ones.  But one named Cleopas, answered (and) said to them, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem and you do not know the things which happened in it in these days?"  And he said to them, "What?"  But they said to him, "The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who became a prophet, strong in deed and word before God and all the people, and that the chief priests and our rulers delivered him over into a judgment of death and crucified him.  But we were hoping that he is the one about to redeem Israel.  But indeed, and with all these things, it is leading into this third day from which these things happened..."  

Who is Cleopas?  Some early traditions identify him with the Clopas referred to in fourth gospel (19: 25)--"Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary (the wife) of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene."  The names are not identical, but similar enough that some have suggested Clopas (whoever he was) and Cleopas (whoever he was) are the same person.

It is uncertain whether or not "his mother's sister" and "Mary of Clopas" are one person, or two different people.  (If the same person, then two sisters in the same family were named "Mary," rather like the brothers on the old "Bob Newhart Show":  "This is my brother Darrell, and this is my other brother Darrell.") 

This would be possible among first century Jews, however, where Mary--really, Miriam, the name of Moses' sister--was, by far, the most popular name for a baby girl.  Some estimate that as many as one-half of all Jewish women were named Mary in the first-century land of Israel.

The early church historian, Eusebius, identifies Clopas as the brother of Joseph and the father of Simeon.  Simeon succeeded James, the Lord's brother, as leader of the Jerusalem church.  If Eusebius is right, and if Mary of Clopas was Jesus' mother's sister, this would mean Joseph's brother was married to Mary's sister.  This is somewhat unusual, though certainly possible.  (If either one were related to either Joseph or Mary, it would also mean that these two people who did not recognize Jesus were his aunt and uncle.)

One wonders too:  If Cleopas was the father of Simeon, as Eusebius says, that would mean that Cleopas was very much an "insider" in the church at the time.  Luke was written c. AD 85, precisely during the time that Simeon would have been bishop of Jerusalem.  (Simeon served from AD 63 to his death by crucifixion in c. AD 106.)

Sojourner:  Cleopas speaks of Jesus as paroikeis, which means one who dwells in an area as a sojourner.  The first identification of Jesus in this story, then, is as a stranger, or even, exile.  (The words "parish" and "parochial" both have their root in paroikeis.)  

This is a not uncommon designation for the church as a whole.  We are all sojourners, traveling through life on a spiritual journey.  The concept of "the way" is central in all four gospels.  Indeed, the earliest Christians were not called "Christians" but "followers of the way."  

Prophet:  Cleopas also identifies Jesus as being "of Nazareth," and a "prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people."  In all four of the gospels, but especially in Luke, Jesus is firmly in the prophetic tradition.  Jesus' first words in Luke are to read from the prophet Isaiah.  When Jesus raised the widow of Nain's son from the dead (7:16), the people exclaimed, "A great prophet has risen among us!"   

Luke uses the word "redeem"--lytroomai--in only three places.  One is in the Song of Zechariah (1:68), another is the prophet Anna in the Temple (2: 38).  The third instance is 24: 21--"We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel."  For Cleopas and his fellow traveler, this past hope has been disappointed.  They had not reckoned with suffering and death.

The necessity of divine suffering:

²²Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, ²³and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. ²⁴Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’   ²⁵Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! ²⁶Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ ²⁷Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

Translation:  "...and also, certain women among us, who were at the tomb early, astonished us.  And when they did not find his body, they came to say that they had seen a vision of angels who were saying he lives.  And some of the ones with us went to the tomb and they found (it) so, like the women said, but they did not see him."  And he said to them, "Fools and slow of heart to trust upon all which the prophets spoke.  Was it not necessary (for) the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?"  And beginning from Moses and from all of the prophets, he explained to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. 

The tradition of the women at the tomb is recounted.  The tomb is inspected, but no one actually sees Jesus himself.  The testimony of the women generates astonishment, but not faith. 

Jesus asserts the divine necessity of his suffering.  He says, "Was it not necessary (dei) for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?"  

The death and resurrection of Jesus was so contrary to peoples' expectations for the messianic figure that the gospel writers assert that Jesus' death was actually an integral part of God's purpose.  It was God's intention all along.  Later, in Acts, Luke will write that Jesus' death was the "definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (2:23).  This is a standard belief today, but one that might have been a difficult sell in the first century.    

By recounting "Moses and all the prophets," Jesus places himself firmly in line with the prophetic tradition.  First and second century readers would have understood:  Violence toward prophets is not a new thing in the history of Israel. 

One wonders also:  In emphasizing Jesus as a prophet, is Luke subtlely affirming the Hebrew credentials of Jesus as a way of lending additional political credibility to Simeon who had been elected bishop over Thebutis, a noted "judaizer"? 

Even though defeated, Thebutis apparently continued to have influence in the church.  Just prior to the Roman-Jewish War, AD 66-70, Thebutis led people away from Jerusalem to a hide-out near Pella (in modern day Jordan). 

In Luke, on the other hand, Jesus tells his followers to "remain in the city (Jerusalem)" and they did (24: 49, 52).

"Stay with us": 

28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. ²⁹But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. ³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.³¹Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. ³²They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ ³³That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. ³⁴They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’³⁵Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Translation:  And they came near into the village where they were going and he made as though to go further, and they constrained him, saying, "Remain with us, for it is toward evening and now the day is nearly over, and he entered to remain together with them.  And it happened at table with them:  he took bread, and blessed, and broke, (and) he was giving to them.  And their eyes were opened, and they knew him fully, and he vanished from them.  And they said to one another, "Were not our hearts burning as he was something to us on the way, as he was opening to us the scriptures?"  And they rose up at that hour (and) they returned into Jerusalem.  They found the eleven gathered together, and those together with them, saying, "The Lord has been raised indeed, and he has been seen by Simon."  And they were making known the things on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread. 

They came to the village to which they were "journeying"--eporeuonto--but Jesus intends to "journey" beyond the village.  Cleopas and his companion prevail upon Jesus to stay.  Jesus is said to be "with them" three times.  In other words, he is emphatically present.  

At table "with them," Jesus "took, blessed, broke, gave" the bread.  This is the eucharistic formula.  Nearly identical words are used in the stories of the feeding of the 5000 and the last supper. 

"Their eyes were opened, and they recognized him."  This recalls the first meal in the book of Genesis--the one where Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit.  In that case, "their eyes were opened" and they knew that they were naked.  In this instance, "their eyes were opened" and they recognized Jesus. 

To put it another way:  This meal--the eucharist--redresses an ancient problem.  The long exile of the human race--the long journey out of Eden--is over.  The new creation has begun.  This is the 8th meal in Luke's gospel--thus, the meal of "the new creation."

Even as their "eyes were opened," however, their awareness had been increasing, al beit at a pre-conscious level, during the earlier part of the story.  As they thought back on it now, their hearts had been "burning" even as Jesus "was opening" the scriptures to them on the journey. 

When they recognize Jesus, their first act is one of witness.  They return to Jerusalem and tell Jesus' disciples of what had happened "on the road"--the journey, the way--and how Jesus had been made known to them in the "breaking of bread."  Later, in Acts 2, Luke will describe the church as being a community devoted to "the apostles' teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers" (2:42).

John Dominic Crossan calls the Emmaus road story "the metaphoric condensation of the first years of Christian thought and practice into one parabolic afternoon," to which he famously added, "Emmaus never happened.  Emmaus always happens." 

The story is not, in other words, primarily a description of an historical event, but rather a story that reflects the pattern of the Christian life as it is lived out by people on their journey through life.  

It is, one notes, a communal journey.  Jesus joined them "in their talking and questioning together."  The word allelone--each other--is used three times in this text, as is the phrase "with them."  This "journey together" is accompanied by the Lord.  Unbeknownst even to those who would follow him, Jesus travels by their side.  Like them, he, too, is a "stranger" and an "exile." 

Notice as well that Cleopas and his companion are allowed full expression of doubt and disappointment.  They express this frankly and openly.  Jesus redefines their understanding, calling them to see the mission of God working even through suffering and death. 

Jesus is emphatically "with them," but not bound to them.  "He walked ahead as if he were going on."  Nor is he bound to any culture or any time.  He is "with them" all along however, and seen and recognized in the "breaking of the bread."

Image:  Breaking bread at Emmaus, John Kohan.

 

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁴and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. ¹⁵While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ¹⁶but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

Translation:  And behold, in that same day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, having threescore furlongs from Jerusalem, and they were talking to each other about all that had befallen them.  And it happened, in their talking and questioning together, Jesus himself drew near (and) was going with them, but their eyes were being held (and) they did not recognize him. 

Background and situation:  In Luke, people are often on a journey.  Luke takes seriously the great spiritual truth that we are all on a pilgrimage through life.  The Emmaus story, chapter 24, is also a journey story, and one that has certain resonances with another journey story in chapter 2. 

In chapter 2, Mary and Joseph journey away from Jerusalem and find that Jesus is not with them.  They go back to Jerusalem and search for three days.  They are tired and anxious.  When they find Jesus, he speaks of a divine imperative.  He "must be"--dei--about his father's business. 

At Emmaus, another couple journeys away from Jerusalem.  Cleopas and his companion, probably a woman, are sad and disappointed.  In this case, Jesus is with them, but unrecognized.  Jesus speaks again of divine necessity--"Was it not necessary--dei--for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?"  In the meal, Cleopas and his friend discover that Jesus had been with them all along.

Cleopas:

¹⁷And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad.  ¹⁸Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’¹⁹He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.  Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.

Translation:  And he said to them, "What are these words which you are having with each other walking?"  And they stood, sad ones.  But one named Cleopas, answered (and) said to them, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem and you do not know the things which happened in it in these days?"  And he said to them, "What?"  But they said to him, "The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who became a prophet, strong in deed and word before God and all the people, and that the chief priests and our rulers delivered him over into a judgment of death and crucified him.  But we were hoping that he is the one about to redeem Israel.  But indeed, and with all these things, it is leading into this third day from which these things happened..."  

Who is Cleopas?  Some early traditions identify him with the Clopas referred to in fourth gospel (19: 25)--"Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary (the wife) of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene."  The names are not identical, but similar enough that some have suggested Clopas (whoever he was) and Cleopas (whoever he was) are the same person.

It is uncertain whether or not "his mother's sister" and "Mary of Clopas" are one person, or two different people.  (If the same person, then two sisters in the same family were named "Mary," rather like the brothers on the old "Bob Newhart Show":  "This is my brother Darrell, and this is my other brother Darrell.") 

This would be possible among first century Jews, however, where Mary--really, Miriam, the name of Moses' sister--was, by far, the most popular name for a baby girl.  Some estimate that as many as one-half of all Jewish women were named Mary in the first-century land of Israel.

The early church historian, Eusebius, identifies Clopas as the brother of Joseph and the father of Simeon.  Simeon succeeded James, the Lord's brother, as leader of the Jerusalem church.  If Eusebius is right, and if Mary of Clopas was Jesus' mother's sister, this would mean Joseph's brother was married to Mary's sister.  This is somewhat unusual, though certainly possible.  (If either one were related to either Joseph or Mary, it would also mean that these two people who did not recognize Jesus were his aunt and uncle.)

One wonders too:  If Cleopas was the father of Simeon, as Eusebius says, that would mean that Cleopas was very much an "insider" in the church at the time.  Luke was written c. AD 85, precisely during the time that Simeon would have been bishop of Jerusalem.  (Simeon served from AD 63 to his death by crucifixion in c. AD 106.)

Sojourner:  Cleopas speaks of Jesus as paroikeis, which means one who dwells in an area as a sojourner.  The first identification of Jesus in this story, then, is as a stranger, or even, exile.  (The words "parish" and "parochial" both have their root in paroikeis.)  

This is a not uncommon designation for the church as a whole.  We are all sojourners, traveling through life on a spiritual journey.  The concept of "the way" is central in all four gospels.  Indeed, the earliest Christians were not called "Christians" but "followers of the way."  

Prophet:  Cleopas also identifies Jesus as being "of Nazareth," and a "prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people."  In all four of the gospels, but especially in Luke, Jesus is firmly in the prophetic tradition.  Jesus' first words in Luke are to read from the prophet Isaiah.  When Jesus raised the widow of Nain's son from the dead (7:16), the people exclaimed, "A great prophet has risen among us!"   

Luke uses the word "redeem"--lytroomai--in only three places.  One is in the Song of Zechariah (1:68), another is the prophet Anna in the Temple (2: 38).  The third instance is 24: 21--"We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel."  For Cleopas and his fellow traveler, this past hope has been disappointed.  They had not reckoned with suffering and death.

The necessity of divine suffering:

²²Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, ²³and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. ²⁴Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’   ²⁵Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! ²⁶Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ ²⁷Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

Translation:  "...and also, certain women among us, who were at the tomb early, astonished us.  And when they did not find his body, they came to say that they had seen a vision of angels who were saying he lives.  And some of the ones with us went to the tomb and they found (it) so, like the women said, but they did not see him."  And he said to them, "Fools and slow of heart to trust upon all which the prophets spoke.  Was it not necessary (for) the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?"  And beginning from Moses and from all of the prophets, he explained to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. 

The tradition of the women at the tomb is recounted.  The tomb is inspected, but no one actually sees Jesus himself.  The testimony of the women generates astonishment, but not faith. 

Jesus asserts the divine necessity of his suffering.  He says, "Was it not necessary (dei) for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?"  

The death and resurrection of Jesus was so contrary to peoples' expectations for the messianic figure that the gospel writers assert that Jesus' death was actually an integral part of God's purpose.  It was God's intention all along.  Later, in Acts, Luke will write that Jesus' death was the "definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (2:23).  This is a standard belief today, but one that might have been a difficult sell in the first century.    

By recounting "Moses and all the prophets," Jesus places himself firmly in line with the prophetic tradition.  First and second century readers would have understood:  Violence toward prophets is not a new thing in the history of Israel. 

One wonders also:  In emphasizing Jesus as a prophet, is Luke subtlely affirming the Hebrew credentials of Jesus as a way of lending additional political credibility to Simeon who had been elected bishop over Thebutis, a noted "judaizer"? 

Even though defeated, Thebutis apparently continued to have influence in the church.  Just prior to the Roman-Jewish War, AD 66-70, Thebutis led people away from Jerusalem to a hide-out near Pella (in modern day Jordan). 

In Luke, on the other hand, Jesus tells his followers to "remain in the city (Jerusalem)" and they did (24: 49, 52).

"Stay with us": 

28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. ²⁹But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. ³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.³¹Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. ³²They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ ³³That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. ³⁴They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’³⁵Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Translation:  And they came near into the village where they were going and he made as though to go further, and they constrained him, saying, "Remain with us, for it is toward evening and now the day is nearly over, and he entered to remain together with them.  And it happened at table with them:  he took bread, and blessed, and broke, (and) he was giving to them.  And their eyes were opened, and they knew him fully, and he vanished from them.  And they said to one another, "Were not our hearts burning as he was something to us on the way, as he was opening to us the scriptures?"  And they rose up at that hour (and) they returned into Jerusalem.  They found the eleven gathered together, and those together with them, saying, "The Lord has been raised indeed, and he has been seen by Simon."  And they were making known the things on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread. 

They came to the village to which they were "journeying"--eporeuonto--but Jesus intends to "journey" beyond the village.  Cleopas and his companion prevail upon Jesus to stay.  Jesus is said to be "with them" three times.  In other words, he is emphatically present.  

At table "with them," Jesus "took, blessed, broke, gave" the bread.  This is the eucharistic formula.  Nearly identical words are used in the stories of the feeding of the 5000 and the last supper. 

"Their eyes were opened, and they recognized him."  This recalls the first meal in the book of Genesis--the one where Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit.  In that case, "their eyes were opened" and they knew that they were naked.  In this instance, "their eyes were opened" and they recognized Jesus. 

To put it another way:  This meal--the eucharist--redresses an ancient problem.  The long exile of the human race--the long journey out of Eden--is over.  The new creation has begun.  This is the 8th meal in Luke's gospel--thus, the meal of "the new creation."

Even as their "eyes were opened," however, their awareness had been increasing, al beit at a pre-conscious level, during the earlier part of the story.  As they thought back on it now, their hearts had been "burning" even as Jesus "was opening" the scriptures to them on the journey. 

When they recognize Jesus, their first act is one of witness.  They return to Jerusalem and tell Jesus' disciples of what had happened "on the road"--the journey, the way--and how Jesus had been made known to them in the "breaking of bread."  Later, in Acts 2, Luke will describe the church as being a community devoted to "the apostles' teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers" (2:42).

John Dominic Crossan calls the Emmaus road story "the metaphoric condensation of the first years of Christian thought and practice into one parabolic afternoon," to which he famously added, "Emmaus never happened.  Emmaus always happens." 

The story is not, in other words, primarily a description of an historical event, but rather a story that reflects the pattern of the Christian life as it is lived out by people on their journey through life.  

It is, one notes, a communal journey.  Jesus joined them "in their talking and questioning together."  The word allelone--each other--is used three times in this text, as is the phrase "with them."  This "journey together" is accompanied by the Lord.  Unbeknownst even to those who would follow him, Jesus travels by their side.  Like them, he, too, is a "stranger" and an "exile." 

Notice as well that Cleopas and his companion are allowed full expression of doubt and disappointment.  They express this frankly and openly.  Jesus redefines their understanding, calling them to see the mission of God working even through suffering and death. 

Jesus is emphatically "with them," but not bound to them.  "He walked ahead as if he were going on."  Nor is he bound to any culture or any time.  He is "with them" all along however, and seen and recognized in the "breaking of the bread."

Image:  Breaking bread at Emmaus, John Kohan.

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁴and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. ¹⁵While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ¹⁶but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

Translation:  And behold, in that same day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, having threescore furlongs from Jerusalem, and they were talking to each other about all that had befallen them.  And it happened, in their talking and questioning together, Jesus himself drew near (and) was going with them, but their eyes were being held (and) they did not recognize him. 

Background and situation:  In Luke, people are often on a journey.  Luke takes seriously the great spiritual truth that we are all on a pilgrimage through life.  The Emmaus story, chapter 24, is also a journey story, and one that has certain resonances with another journey story in chapter 2. 

In chapter 2, Mary and Joseph journey away from Jerusalem and find that Jesus is not with them.  They go back to Jerusalem and search for three days.  They are tired and anxious.  When they find Jesus, he speaks of a divine imperative.  He "must be"--dei--about his father's business. 

At Emmaus, another couple journeys away from Jerusalem.  Cleopas and his companion, probably a woman, are sad and disappointed.  In this case, Jesus is with them, but unrecognized.  Jesus speaks again of divine necessity--"Was it not necessary--dei--for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?"  In the meal, Cleopas and his friend discover that Jesus had been with them all along.

Cleopas:

¹⁷And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad.  ¹⁸Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’¹⁹He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.  Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.

Translation:  And he said to them, "What are these words which you are having with each other walking?"  And they stood, sad ones.  But one named Cleopas, answered (and) said to them, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem and you do not know the things which happened in it in these days?"  And he said to them, "What?"  But they said to him, "The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who became a prophet, strong in deed and word before God and all the people, and that the chief priests and our rulers delivered him over into a judgment of death and crucified him.  But we were hoping that he is the one about to redeem Israel.  But indeed, and with all these things, it is leading into this third day from which these things happened..."  

Who is Cleopas?  Some early traditions identify him with the Clopas referred to in fourth gospel (19: 25)--"Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary (the wife) of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene."  The names are not identical, but similar enough that some have suggested Clopas (whoever he was) and Cleopas (whoever he was) are the same person.

It is uncertain whether or not "his mother's sister" and "Mary of Clopas" are one person, or two different people.  (If the same person, then two sisters in the same family were named "Mary," rather like the brothers on the old "Bob Newhart Show":  "This is my brother Darrell, and this is my other brother Darrell.") 

This would be possible among first century Jews, however, where Mary--really, Miriam, the name of Moses' sister--was, by far, the most popular name for a baby girl.  Some estimate that as many as one-half of all Jewish women were named Mary in the first-century land of Israel.

The early church historian, Eusebius, identifies Clopas as the brother of Joseph and the father of Simeon.  Simeon succeeded James, the Lord's brother, as leader of the Jerusalem church.  If Eusebius is right, and if Mary of Clopas was Jesus' mother's sister, this would mean Joseph's brother was married to Mary's sister.  This is somewhat unusual, though certainly possible.  (If either one were related to either Joseph or Mary, it would also mean that these two people who did not recognize Jesus were his aunt and uncle.)

One wonders too:  If Cleopas was the father of Simeon, as Eusebius says, that would mean that Cleopas was very much an "insider" in the church at the time.  Luke was written c. AD 85, precisely during the time that Simeon would have been bishop of Jerusalem.  (Simeon served from AD 63 to his death by crucifixion in c. AD 106.)

Sojourner:  Cleopas speaks of Jesus as paroikeis, which means one who dwells in an area as a sojourner.  The first identification of Jesus in this story, then, is as a stranger, or even, exile.  (The words "parish" and "parochial" both have their root in paroikeis.)  

This is a not uncommon designation for the church as a whole.  We are all sojourners, traveling through life on a spiritual journey.  The concept of "the way" is central in all four gospels.  Indeed, the earliest Christians were not called "Christians" but "followers of the way."  

Prophet:  Cleopas also identifies Jesus as being "of Nazareth," and a "prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people."  In all four of the gospels, but especially in Luke, Jesus is firmly in the prophetic tradition.  Jesus' first words in Luke are to read from the prophet Isaiah.  When Jesus raised the widow of Nain's son from the dead (7:16), the people exclaimed, "A great prophet has risen among us!"   

Luke uses the word "redeem"--lytroomai--in only three places.  One is in the Song of Zechariah (1:68), another is the prophet Anna in the Temple (2: 38).  The third instance is 24: 21--"We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel."  For Cleopas and his fellow traveler, this past hope has been disappointed.  They had not reckoned with suffering and death.

The necessity of divine suffering:

²²Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, ²³and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. ²⁴Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’   ²⁵Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! ²⁶Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ ²⁷Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

Translation:  "...and also, certain women among us, who were at the tomb early, astonished us.  And when they did not find his body, they came to say that they had seen a vision of angels who were saying he lives.  And some of the ones with us went to the tomb and they found (it) so, like the women said, but they did not see him."  And he said to them, "Fools and slow of heart to trust upon all which the prophets spoke.  Was it not necessary (for) the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?"  And beginning from Moses and from all of the prophets, he explained to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. 

The tradition of the women at the tomb is recounted.  The tomb is inspected, but no one actually sees Jesus himself.  The testimony of the women generates astonishment, but not faith. 

Jesus asserts the divine necessity of his suffering.  He says, "Was it not necessary (dei) for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?"  

The death and resurrection of Jesus was so contrary to peoples' expectations for the messianic figure that the gospel writers assert that Jesus' death was actually an integral part of God's purpose.  It was God's intention all along.  Later, in Acts, Luke will write that Jesus' death was the "definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (2:23).  This is a standard belief today, but one that might have been a difficult sell in the first century.    

By recounting "Moses and all the prophets," Jesus places himself firmly in line with the prophetic tradition.  First and second century readers would have understood:  Violence toward prophets is not a new thing in the history of Israel. 

One wonders also:  In emphasizing Jesus as a prophet, is Luke subtlely affirming the Hebrew credentials of Jesus as a way of lending additional political credibility to Simeon who had been elected bishop over Thebutis, a noted "judaizer"? 

Even though defeated, Thebutis apparently continued to have influence in the church.  Just prior to the Roman-Jewish War, AD 66-70, Thebutis led people away from Jerusalem to a hide-out near Pella (in modern day Jordan). 

In Luke, on the other hand, Jesus tells his followers to "remain in the city (Jerusalem)" and they did (24: 49, 52).

"Stay with us": 

28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. ²⁹But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. ³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.³¹Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. ³²They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ ³³That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. ³⁴They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’³⁵Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Translation:  And they came near into the village where they were going and he made as though to go further, and they constrained him, saying, "Remain with us, for it is toward evening and now the day is nearly over, and he entered to remain together with them.  And it happened at table with them:  he took bread, and blessed, and broke, (and) he was giving to them.  And their eyes were opened, and they knew him fully, and he vanished from them.  And they said to one another, "Were not our hearts burning as he was something to us on the way, as he was opening to us the scriptures?"  And they rose up at that hour (and) they returned into Jerusalem.  They found the eleven gathered together, and those together with them, saying, "The Lord has been raised indeed, and he has been seen by Simon."  And they were making known the things on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread. 

They came to the village to which they were "journeying"--eporeuonto--but Jesus intends to "journey" beyond the village.  Cleopas and his companion prevail upon Jesus to stay.  Jesus is said to be "with them" three times.  In other words, he is emphatically present.  

At table "with them," Jesus "took, blessed, broke, gave" the bread.  This is the eucharistic formula.  Nearly identical words are used in the stories of the feeding of the 5000 and the last supper. 

"Their eyes were opened, and they recognized him."  This recalls the first meal in the book of Genesis--the one where Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit.  In that case, "their eyes were opened" and they knew that they were naked.  In this instance, "their eyes were opened" and they recognized Jesus. 

To put it another way:  This meal--the eucharist--redresses an ancient problem.  The long exile of the human race--the long journey out of Eden--is over.  The new creation has begun.  This is the 8th meal in Luke's gospel--thus, the meal of "the new creation."

Even as their "eyes were opened," however, their awareness had been increasing, al beit at a pre-conscious level, during the earlier part of the story.  As they thought back on it now, their hearts had been "burning" even as Jesus "was opening" the scriptures to them on the journey. 

When they recognize Jesus, their first act is one of witness.  They return to Jerusalem and tell Jesus' disciples of what had happened "on the road"--the journey, the way--and how Jesus had been made known to them in the "breaking of bread."  Later, in Acts 2, Luke will describe the church as being a community devoted to "the apostles' teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers" (2:42).

John Dominic Crossan calls the Emmaus road story "the metaphoric condensation of the first years of Christian thought and practice into one parabolic afternoon," to which he famously added, "Emmaus never happened.  Emmaus always happens." 

The story is not, in other words, primarily a description of an historical event, but rather a story that reflects the pattern of the Christian life as it is lived out by people on their journey through life.  

It is, one notes, a communal journey.  Jesus joined them "in their talking and questioning together."  The word allelone--each other--is used three times in this text, as is the phrase "with them."  This "journey together" is accompanied by the Lord.  Unbeknownst even to those who would follow him, Jesus travels by their side.  Like them, he, too, is a "stranger" and an "exile." 

Notice as well that Cleopas and his companion are allowed full expression of doubt and disappointment.  They express this frankly and openly.  Jesus redefines their understanding, calling them to see the mission of God working even through suffering and death. 

Jesus is emphatically "with them," but not bound to them.  "He walked ahead as if he were going on."  Nor is he bound to any culture or any time.  He is "with them" all along however, and seen and recognized in the "breaking of the bread."

Image:  Breaking bread at Emmaus, John Kohan.