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Monday, 22 May 2006
Easter 7 Year B
Acts 1: 15-17; 21-26 NRSV text
Psalm 1 NRSV text
Jeremiah 10: 1-10a NRSV text
1 John 5: 9-13 NRSV text
John 17: 6-19 NRSV text
Judas has been headline news recently. The latest issue of National Geographic devotes its cover and main article to the Gospel of Judas. Among the popular hate figures of public consciousness, few have done more to get to the top of the list of “People I hope my sister never brings home” than the man whose name has become a cipher for betrayal and treachery. So when Bob Dylan went electric in the so-called “Royal Albert Hall” concert in 1966 (the venue was actually the Manchester Arena), one member of the enraged audience calls out “Judas!” It’s one of the music's legendary moments. Dylan, who has shrugged off the barracking and animosity of the audience till then, reacts to that particular call with fury. He can live with being misunderstood, and can play on unappreciated. But to be called a Judas is something else. “I don’t believe you!!!” he responds. Then turning to his band, he orders them, “Play f***ing loud!” The drummer hits the snare, and Dylan breaks into his stunning “Like a Rolling Stone”, howling his contempt at his audience. It’s wonderful! You can hate him, ignore him, barrack him and slate him – but don’t call him “Judas”! Okay, I’m being very self-indulgent here! It’s a treat when the texts give me an excuse to talk about His Bobness (Dylan!), but it’s relevant.
What is so despicable about Judas’ actions, as Peter reminds the fledgling New Israel in Acts 1: 16ff, is that he was the one “who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus”. The agony is that “he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry”. Judas sold out Jesus – and the whole band of disciples – for money. There was no high ideal at work, despite the sophisticated and more sympathetic portrayals of him in films as diverse as Jesus Christ Superstar and Franco Zeffirelli’s epic Jesus of Nazareth. Certainly, Peter would have no truck with the notion in the Gospel of Judas that Judas was in any sense being courageous and faithful! Judas is the man who will sell his closest friends for money if it suits him. Judas was simultaneously one of them, but not of them.
This dynamic of “being part of them, but not of them” is present in this week’s section of Jesus’ High Priestly prayer in John’s gospel. They are part of the final transaction between Jesus, the Father and the disciples. This is Jesus tying up any last loose ends – a checklist, if you like, of his mission. And so he comes to the crunch: he is leaving, returning to the Father. The disciples (the Church) will remain in the world, however (v11). They will need protection, and Jesus asks that they may enjoy the same care from God that he has enjoyed. The world is a dangerous place for heaven-dwellers. It is not a place that is friendly to messengers from God (cf 1: 11). Jesus is “in the world” because this is where he has been sent by the Father. He is here, fully, yet does not belong in the world. And astonishingly, neither do the disciples (v16).
“In the world but not of the world”
What does Jesus mean when he says that neither he nor the disciples “belong to this world”? And if he came from heaven, is returning to heaven, and says that this is where the disciples belong, isn’t this precisely the escapist, world-denying sort of theology I have constantly being saying John isn’t engaged in?
We need to engage with the double-edged nature of “the world” in John’s gospel. On one level, the world is created reality (John uses the Greek word kosmos) and, as such, the object of God’s saving love in Jesus (3:16-17). Jesus’ mission is to the world and in the world. At his crucifixion, he is proclaimed king of the world. His purpose in returning to the Father is in order to return as the world’s ruler in all his glory.
But the world is simultaneously disordered because of sin and human rebellion against God. It is the realm of “the evil one” (hence Jesus’ prayer for protection). It is inimical to heaven-dwellers because it is set against heaven. Created to be part of heaven, it is a self-declared republic and “no-go” area for God (at least, as far as the intention of its inhabitants is concerned!).
One possible response to this by God is judgement, condemnation and annihilation. God’s actual response is love, grace and eternal life, manifested concretely in Jesus. This is the truth about God that Jesus has come to reveal. It is not information, but relationship. It is to this that Jesus refers in vv 6-8 – not some sort of Gnostic mystery, or some doctrinal “facts” about God, but the nature of God and God’s saving work in the world. God’s mission, in other words, enacted in Jesus and now to be continued through the disciples.
To be “in the world” is thus to be in a hostile place. To be a child of God through Jesus is to orphaned in “the world”, or better, to be in exile, because “home” is heaven. The spatial metaphor of heaven (“up there”) and earth (“down here”) expresses the reality of human rebellion against God and human determination to make our world apart from God. Sin, in effect, makes of creation a divided kingdom. It makes it a place different from heaven – ie different from the place where love rules and God is known and worshipped. It is not the realm of “life in all its abundance”.
This is why Jeremiah and the psalmist both talk about different ways of living in the world. Psalm 1 is a psalm about the two ways: delight in the ways of rebellion, or delight in the ways of Yahweh. Jeremiah similarly encourages his hearers not to “learn the ways of the nations”. The very existence of the separate nations is a sign of disorder and fragmentation, its origin traced back through the mythical story of Babel (to which Pentecost will be the divine saving corrective). Yahweh has created one “kind” of people – human beings. Sin leads to conflict and fragmentation, seen in the existence of separate nations and the constant attempts to become “empires”. The political processes of the world are thus the drama of sin and rebellion against God. Religiously, this is mirrored in the worship of idols – themselves creations of the worshippers. There is a subtle play here on the notion of the divine image: human beings are made in Yahweh’s image; these same human beings reject Yahweh and instead create gods in their own image. The “words” these gods speak are (scarcely surprisingly) “no better than wood” (Jeremiah 10:8). They have no word of salvation to speak; no challenge; they open up no alternative to the cycles of death and despair in which the people live.
Note the movement in John’s writing, though. The story does not stop here. Jesus has come from the Father, been rejected, has returned to the Father and will return again. The picture in Revelation 21 is of the new heaven and earth (Revelation 21:1), which are reunited when (and this is important!) heaven comes down to earth (21:2). That reuniting is not about rescuing us from the world, but the transformation –conquest – of the world into a place of life and joy (cf 21:3-4 – some of the most beautiful words in the bible, I reckon!).
So to be “in the world, but not of the world” is, in John’s sense, to have switched allegiance. In his terms, this is about our relationship to God in Jesus Christ. His controlling metaphor is “abiding”, which leads him into the curious and poetic refrain of “being in”: “I in them and you in me” (17:23). That is where ultimate loyalty lies. This is the new community whose life is characterised by love. That is a different way from the way of the world. It is the commerce of heaven. Yet the task – the mission – of the new community is to live this out “in the world”, as Jesus did. This is where love is made concrete – where the rubber of faith hits the road. The eternal life we enjoy in Jesus Christ is meant to be lived out here. It is the “abundant life” of God that has been made possible in Jesus. So being “not of this world” is not about condemnation of the world, but about proclaiming that this place is where love can and ought to rule. It points forward to the destiny of the world: the present rebellion has a limited life! The earth’s destiny is to be reunited with heaven – with God. This is the place where God wishes to dwell with us.
The reality of resistance
The hyper-Calvinists taught the doctrine of Irresistible Grace. If God had elected only a few to salvation and predestined them for fellowship with “Him” (that sort of God can only be male!!!), then grace and salvation are inevitable. Yet Judas reminds us of the depth of human resistance to God. Of course, the crucifixion does as well. We must never forget that the story of the cross is the story of the utter failure of Jesus’ mission. Not only is he crucified, but he is abandoned by those closest to him. That is why the Spirit makes such a difference, and why the Spirit is so central to the post-resurrection accounts of Jesus. The Spirit is transformative. She is the power of resurrection. Incarnation alone is not enough (“water and blood”, in terms of 1 John 5:6). The presence of Jesus alone – even as the incarnate Word – is not enough to ensure that grace is able to do its work of liberation, forgiveness and transformation. The Spirit is also necessary. Where the Spirit is, there is the possibility that a Peter who denies even knowing Jesus can become the Peter of Acts. The Spirit makes us children of God. The Spirit empowers and protects us in the world as we try to make the eternal life of God a visible reality in “the world”. And the Spirit “makes our joy complete”. Jesus prays for his disciples – and God’s answer to his prayer is the Holy Spirit. It’s time to be waiting actively on God for the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. Let’s do so with a deep sense of excitement and anticipation!
Amen.
14:04 Posted by Posted in 1 John , Acts , Jeremiah , John , Psalms , Year B | Permalink | Email this