Easter 5 May 14, 2006

During Lent and the Easter season, we’ve been drawing heavily on the fourth gospel, the Gospel of John.  This gospel emerged from a community of Jewish Christ followers late in the first century CE, and like the other gospels, went through a number of revisions before it took on the form that we have today. The nature of the Johannine community itself changed over time, as did its understanding of Jesus as the Son of God and Messiah, and this no doubt affected the composition of the Gospel.  The Fourth Gospel differs markedly from the synoptic gospels, and it might be helpful to understand something about this community to help us understand John’s gospel better.
 
The community that produced the Fourth Gospel most likely began as a small group of Jews, at least some of whom began as disciples of John the Baptist, and who accepted Jesus as the Davidic Messiah.  Like other early followers of Jesus, they continued to worship in the temple (prior to its destruction) and to attend synagogues and to consider themselves essentially to be Jewish.  In many ways, their understanding of Jesus was not different from the reports given in the synoptic gospels:  Jesus fulfilled the OT messianic prophecies and confirmed his status with miracles. He was crucified and rose on the third day. The Fourth Gospel mentions many of the same figures that are found in the other three gospels, (e.g., Peter and Andrew), and tells some of the same stories (e.g., the feeding of the 5000, the cleansing of the temple).  But there are also some marked differences—noticeable in the very first chapter where titles like Lamb of God (1.36), Messiah (1.41) and Son of God, King of Israel (1.48) are attributed to Jesus within a few days of the beginning of his ministry. This early understanding of Jesus as the Messiah, of his special relationship with God, stands in vivid contrast to the other gospels where the disciples don’t “get it” until quite late in the story.  Of course, the disciples in John’s gospel have doubts, too; their understanding is imperfect and sometimes shaky, but there is nonetheless a distinct difference.

The Johannine community that produced this gospel was changed when Jews of a different background entered the community.  These Jews included those whom some scholars characterize as “anti-Temple Jews,” as well as those who converted Samaritans, if not Samaritans themselves.  Their presence is reflected in the inclusion of the stories of Samaritan conversions (John 4) and in Jewish accusations that Jesus was a Samaritan (8.48). Their entrance into the community also sparked the development of a more refined understanding of Jesus as Christ.  We see this understanding reflected in the notion that Jesus (as Logos or Word) existed even prior to creation (1.14), that to know him is to know God (14.7), and to see him is to see God (14.9). 

This understanding of Jesus caused controversy between the Johannine community and other Christian groups.  In particular was the concern that Johannine Christians were abandoning monotheism by making Jesus another God.  Ultimately this increased the strain between the Johannine community of Jews who accepted Jesus as the Christ and the wider community of Jews who did not view Jesus this way. Eventually these Jewish Christians who had coexisted as another sort of Jewish sect were expelled from the synagogues. This expulsion and the underlying conflict may be the cause of the very negative portrayal of “Jews” in this gospel, where as one scholar puts it,  “the vocabulary of the Evangelist’s time (is) read back into the ministry of Jesus”.    

It’s tempting, I think, from our 21st century perspective, to look back at the earliest Christ followers and assume that they were a unified group, sharing a cohesive set of beliefs.  But in fact, as this snapshot of the Johannine community reveals, the early believers in Jesus were clustered in disparate groups and this disparity increased as Christianity spread.  What’s more, there were tensions and disagreements between the groups as they all struggled to understand what being a Christ follower meant, what Jesus’ divinity meant, what the resurrection meant. We lament a lack of unity in the church today, but in reality this lack of unity in some ways mirrors the reality of the earliest years of Christianity. Not only were there tensions between those who believed in Jesus and those who didn’t, there were also tensions among different groups of believers, and even within groups of believers. It’s in this context that John’s gospel developed, and more pointedly, it’s this context that today’s epistle addresses.

This epistle comes from the first of three letters written to the Johannine community during a period when it was divided, when some members of the community had left, and there was dissention among those who remained. It was a period that has some parallels with the state of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion today. The three letters were written to exhort the community members to remain faithful, and to remember what that faith meant. 

The portion of the first letter that we read today refers implicitly to our gospel reading. This gospel reading begins and ends by connecting loving Jesus with keeping his commandments.  “If you love me, you will keep my commandments….Those who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father.”  And it is this thread that is picked up  and expanded on in the epistle:
 “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.”
So, we see a connection:  if we believe in Jesus we will obey his commandments—not because doing so “buys” us anything, but rather because doing so is a reflection of our love for him, and his for us.  We love Jesus and we are called to love others in a way that echoes this love. This idea is not exclusive to John’s gospel; we hear it in the other gospels as well.  But I think that the epistle today puts a fine point on it when it says,  “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

My mother always used to say that actions speak louder than words. It's one of those things I heard so often that I swore I would never say it to my kids, but of course I have. Actions speak louder than words. Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.  There’s the rub. It’s awfully easy to proclaim our love for all, to declare that we love those with whom we disagree, with whom we are in conflict, but how much more difficult is it for us to truly act out that love.  All too often our behavior gives lie to our words and our intentions.  This seems to have been true in the Johannine community, and it is true today, both in the church and out of it.

We live in a polarized world. The media is full of reports these days about dissention between liberals and conservatives, between Christians and Muslims, between Muslims and Jews, between the Christian right and Christian progressives.  In our own Episcopal Church there is dissention between the so-called “orthodox” and the so-called liberals or “revisionists”.  I can get caught up in these arguments, and I know where I would place myself on the spectrum of beliefs.  But the truth is, all this dissention is distracting us, pulling us away from what Jesus has called us to do and be.  Jesus calls us to love him, and as a reflection of that love, an outgrowth of that love, a result of that love, to obey his commandments.  And what is the greatest of those commandments?  To love God and to love one another, to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Of course, we claim to do this.  But do we really?  Do we love in truth and action?  Does our behavior belie our words, or does it live out our words?

In June the General Convention of the Episcopal Church will meet as it does every three years. This year there will be much debate on how to address the differences that threaten to divide the Anglican Communion.  Much of the preliminary discussion leading up to General Convention has been acrimonious and hurtful, and there has been wounding behavior. Bishops have refused to receive communion in the presence of those with whom they disagree.  People have been shunned.  Churches have seceded from dioceses. There are, of course, real differences of opinion and belief, and these must be addressed. My hope is that these differences can be bridged so that we can get on with the real work of the church.  But even more, I hope that those attending General Convention, along with all of us who make up the church can remember the injunction from today’s epistle, “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

AMEN