The Gospel and Tragedy

Struggling for an Easter Day sermon at this late stage? Or would like a point of reflection  on the death and resurrection of Jesus? Check out this post from David McDougall.

He Loved His Own to the End

As Jesus prepares to wash his disciples' feet, we are told that he loved his disciples to the end. But who is included? Who was there that night, those whom Jesus loved to the end? The Twelve? Or should we say Eleven? We are told (Jn 11:3, 5) that Jesus loved  Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus. If they weren't physically in that room that night,  they were present as those whom Jesus loved to the end. They are included in those whom the Father gave to Jesus (Jn 17:6, 9), they are Jesus' and therefore the Father's (17:9-10), given a share in his glory so that they may be one with Jesus and the Father and all Jesus' disciples. (17:22-23) And what of Mary Magdalene, who knows the voice of her shepherd when he calls? (Jn 20:16 cf. 10:3-5) Surely she too should be included. The circle could keep expanding, as it should, to include all those who have come to believe through the testimony of those first disciples. (17:201-21)¹ The baptismal overtones of the foot washing (Jn 13:8-10) point to an inclusiveness beyond the circle of those who were physically present, as does the explicit link to the death of Jesus. (Jn 13:1)

Despite what might seem like evidence to the contrary (Jn 13:2, 10-11, 18-19, 26-30), does the text suggest that Judas remains in the circle of those for whom Jesus died, loved to the end by Jesus?  Is he still one with the other disciples, joined to the Father through the Son? We might hesitate to make such a bald affirmation, but the text is making us work toward it. An easy dismissal of Judas as traitor and a devil (Jn 6:70 and especially 13:27b, 30b) while suggested by the text, is also undermined by a sub-current within the Last Supper narrative of John. We should remember that, presumably, Jesus washed the feet of Judas, pointing to Jesus' death for all sinners and asking us to bear in mind the implied baptismal meaning of the foot washing. But more interesting is John's use of the Scripture quote from Psalm 41. (Jn 13:18) The usual word for eating (found in the LXX in the verse quoted) is replaced by John for the overtly eucharistic word to munch or crunch, used with eucharistic overtones in John 6:54, 56, 57, 58).² The Eucharistic overtones are hard to ignore. Judas, into whom Satan entered, receives bread from the Bread of Life. Moloney says that Jesus giving the morsel to 'the most despised character in the Gospel's narrative" indicates Jesus' love for all his disciples, including those who fall and fail, and in this "reveals a unique God." ³.

1.  Francis Watson,  "Trinity and Community: A Reading of John 17", in International Journal of Systematic Theology, 1/2, July 1999, pp. 172-173. Watson is also helpful in dispelling notions of male normativity if the Twelve were the only disciples present at the Last Supper, as well as John's use of two male intra-divine figures as paradigmatic of the nature of discipleship. see pp. 174-175.

2. Francis J Moloney, Glory Not Dishonor, pp. 20-21.
3. Ibid., pp. 22-23.

Trinity and Prayer

Here is my latest post on Trinity and Prayer.

Stones Into Bread

Check out my latest post, to be found on the St Barnabas College Blog, here. It's a way of understanding why it is said that the temptations of Jesus are an affirmation of his calling to the cross, and a denial of an alternative path to success and practicality .... and a warning about finding our justification in justice and social change.

Rowan Williams on Military Service

For those who cannot see any way to justify war at all, but who also revere Rowan Williams, check this out.

Do Not Weary Doing What is Right

Humans have a fascination – moth to flame like – with the end of the world. Think of the end of the world movies of the last twenty years or so. The end comes (or almost comes) by meteor, zombies, aliens, ecological breakdown, nuclear war, or biological pestilence. And this fascination is not a modern fascination alone. It has has been like this for thousands of years. And we have real, live apocalyptists doing their 'thing' even now through all manner of cults, messianic movements, political groups, etc. The Bolsheviks and Nazis were apocalyptic, secular cults. ISIS is their contemporary religious clone.

End-time fascination isn't restricted to the right of politics either. On the day of the US election I was watching FB and as the news came in that Donnie Trump was going to win the election FB was overwhelmed with 'the end of western civilisation if not the world' type foreboding and hand wringing from the progressive green/left. 

In the ancient world it was God who would bring the end through violence. That is one of the hallmarks of religious apocalyptic. But in today’s Gospel reading, which sounds apocalyptic because of the violence, the discourse of Jesus is shorn of its divine violence. It is human violence that Jesus is narrating. Terrifying as it is, he does not counsel joining a survivalist group. Instead, it sounds more like his disciples should keep on doing what he has already told them to do. Witness to Christ himself.

This is confirmed in our NT reading from 2Thessalonians. Those mentioned in the text as not working are likely to have given up the ordinary routines of life because they thought that Jesus was about to return and the End was coming. Paul admonishes them to return to their usual practices. And to the whole community he says that they should not weary in doing what is right. Everyday, even if in our imaginations it seems catastrophe beckons.