The Courageous Gospel. Robert Allan Hill
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are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” John retorts, “He came to his own people and his own people did not accept him.”
This Gospel is born in dislocation. The Gospel of John is written in the pain of dislocation. In John we overhear the bitter pain of the church being thrown out of the synagogue.
The community that formed this Gospel has been given the heave-ho, shown the door, given the bum’s rush, given the wet mitten by their former community. You are listening to a family feud, nineteen centuries old.
I return from summer vacation to find a thriving church community, and growth, and dislocation. A growing service to the hungry—and some dislocation. A new ministry to the homeless—with a little dislocation. A new baroque organ—did some of you sense dislocation? A completely re-colored Sunday School—laborious dislocation.
Dislocation visits every age and place. The past decade of dislocation in Rochester has yet to find full expression. Corporate dislocation: I thought this job was for life! Medical dislocation: Were we not the pride of the country in health care? Economic dislocation: Someone threw a recovery party and forgot our upstate invitation! Geographical dislocation: I left two generations to the west or east to come here; now what? No wonder we think of Ma Joad now and then.
The Gospel of John is not focused on ethics. There is only minimal ethical teaching here. One looks in vain for a sermon on the mount or plain. One searches without result for a parable with a point. One hungers without satisfaction for a wisdom saying, an epigram, a teaching on virtue. In John we have the teleological suspension of the ethical. Only the command to love remains.
Instead, the Fourth Gospel focuses on your need to become who you are.
The Battle for Imagination
I believe it is very difficult for us to appreciate the courage in John, the theological courage of this writing. One of the most precious beliefs of the earliest Christians resided in the confidence that very soon the world would come to an end and the Lord would return for his people. This expectation of the end governs the letters of Paul and the first three Gospels. It was, if you will, the bedrock belief of the primitive church. Had not Jesus preached, “There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven”? Yes he had. And he was wrong. Had not Peter left nets, family, homeland, and life itself on the expectation of the apocalypse? Yes he had. And he was wrong. Had not Paul predicted, “We the living, the remaining, will be caught up together with him in the clouds”? Yes he had. And he was wrong.
Only John faces this grave disappointment with utter honesty. The others hold onto the old religion, the expected return. John admits delay. John has the guts to say to his people: “What we once believed is clearly not true. Let us look about us and see what this means.” And behold! In place of parousia, we find paraclete. In place of cataclysm, we find church. In place of speculation, we find spirit. In place of Armageddon we find artistry and imagination! When finally we stop chasing what is not to be, and wake up to what is, we may be utterly amazed.
Seasoned Religion said that the end was near. John says the beginning is here.
Old Time Religion saw the end of the world. John preached the light of the world.
Inherited spirituality waited for the coming of the Lord. John celebrated the Word among us, full of grace and truth.
Old Time Religion feared death, judgment, heaven, and hell. John faced them all every day.
Traditional Religion clung fiercely to an ancient untruth. John let go, and accepted a modern new truth, and hugged grace and freedom.
Our inheritance, and Matthew and Mark and Luke and Paul all looked toward the End, soon to come. John looked up at the beginning, already here. They said with Shakespeare, “All’s well that ends well.” John replied, “Gut begonnen, halb gewonnen!” (Well begun is half done.)
John alone had the full courage to face spiritual disappointment and move ahead. So we memorize John 8:32: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free!” Copernicus knew that truth. Galileo knew that truth. Darwin knew that truth. And Robert Lee caught that truth on the lips of Clarence Darrow: “The Bible is a book. It is a good book. It is not the only book.” All faced the need to change from inherited untruth to new insight and imagination.
Perhaps our greatest present disappointment is 9/11. We face new truth: The world is smaller and starker than we wanted to believe. We have not yet found our way out of the psychic rubble of that dreadful day. We are trying, and we are moving, but the almost unspeakable disappointment of that moment remains. Here is why: We have to change our understanding, our philosophy, our theology even. We have to face the hard fact, that the future is open, freely open, both to terror and to tenderness. And here is John. He who wrote in the ancient rubble of dislocation and disappointment, telling us something wonderful and good: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It is in the spirit of the Fourth Gospel that we affirmed three years ago on this Sunday: “Terror may topple the World Trade Center, but no terror can topple the World Truth Center, Jesus the Christ.”
The World Trade Center, hub of global economies may fall, the economy of grace still stands in the World Truth Center, Jesus the Christ.
The World Trade Center, communications nexus for many may fall, but the communication of the gospel stands, the World Truth Center, Jesus Christ.
The World Trade Center, symbol of national pride may fall, but divine humility stands, through the World Truth Center, Jesus the Christ.
The World Trade Center, legal library for the country may fall, but grace and truth stand, through the World Truth Center, Jesus the Christ.
These things are spoken that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.
Faith is personal commitment to an unverifiable truth. It involves a leap.
Faith is an objective uncertainty, grasped with subjective certainty. It involves a leap.
Faith is the way to salvation, a real identity and a rich imagination. But it does involve a leap.
Tomorrow morning, which will it be? “In the beginning. . .” What? Creation or Grace? Covenant or Freedom? Law or Love? An eye for an eye or the second mile, the coat and cloak, the turned cheek? “In the beginning. . . was the Word.”
All of us are better when we are loved.
Now is the time to jump.
Notes from Raymond Brown’s Lectures on John
Union Theological Seminary
Spring 1978
April 27, 1978: John 1
The prologue was a hymn of the Johannine community. There are similar hymns to be found in Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians. All of these hymns were highly Christological, and carried a high Christology. They typically begin with something prior to the material world, and they tend to move from creation to redemption. 1 Timothy 3:16 is one other example.
The prologue came from the life of the community. Perhaps it was written by the evangelist, and perhaps it was not. It certainly came from Johannine circles.
RB thinks that the gospel originally opened with John the Baptist, and with those materials. The term Word presents a realization of a problem. If one wants to present a pre-history of the earthly Jesus, one faces difficulties, trying to speak of the human Jesus before time. How do you do it? Christ Jesus is one way. Son of God is one way. Word is used in John. In the fourth century, the councils of the church decide that the Son existed from all eternity (but Jesus did not). Early on, as here, there was no such sophistication.
The Word is of course a direct connection to Genesis, though of course in a different sense. This beginning is an earlier beginning. The verb is “to be,” not “to become.” The reference is to the great IAM, which is translated “o ov”—“the existent.” The word Word has a two-fold directionality—to God, from God. The Word thus has community with both God and