The Father And I Are One
Sermon
Living Vertically
Gospel Sermons For Lent/Easter Cycle C
The year my son was in the eighth grade he came home with all kinds of stories about the class bully's exploits: he beat up classmates; he destroyed things; he even had physical confrontations with teachers. He would be punished; he would be suspended; but the behavior kept up. Hearing all these tales, I had naturally conjured up an image of this guy in my mind. When the evening for fall open house arrived, my son, my wife, and I were seated in homeroom when in came this short, square-shaped stocky student with a crew cut. Tim nudged us; there he was, the class bully -- not looking anything like I had expected. And he was accompanied by a short, square-shaped stocky man with a crew cut.
As the hour for the evening program arrived, the homeroom teacher came in and immediately the adult half of this twosome went up and began belligerently asking why his son had been in some particular trouble. Almost before the teacher could respond, the father had given her a good shove -- an Elaine Benis two-handed shove to the chest -- but not in the same friendly manner of the Seinfeld character. It sent the teacher back against the blackboard. I recall there was shouting and some other parents and teachers getting involved and before long father and son were ushered out of the school. If I had had any questions about the relationship between these two, the behavior of the one so matched that of the other that there was no doubt in my mind which one was the chip off the other block(head).
I hope that no one is agitated that this experience came to my mind after reading today's Gospel Lesson, because I don't want anyone drawing wrong parallels or wrong conclusions other than this: while the physical appearance of these two was a tip-off to their relationship, the real clincher was their behavior: in this case unfortunately regrettable behavior. All the details are different, but it seems to me that this is the fundamental meaning of the line which is the dénouement of today's reading: "The father and I are one." What did Jesus mean by that? How do we understand him?
"The father and I are one." In the big picture, this phrase came to lie at the very heart of all kinds of controversies over the metaphysical relationship of Jesus the Nazarene to God the Father; controversies that came to be spelled out in detailed doctrines and which, to a large extent, were responsible for divisions, both East and West and within the Eastern churches. And my guess is that if we were to conduct a poll in the congregation of any American church, large or small, we would find considerable diversity of opinion about the relationship of Jesus to God the Father and the whole question of the Trinity. Those big picture questions are legitimate and important, but I don't think have much to do with this line from John's Gospel: "The father and I are one."
According to John, Jesus had been in Jerusalem for some time, saying things and doing things, and it was in response to this activity that questions had arisen. Think of a couple of the incidents which had immediately preceded today's reading in John. There is the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery who was to be stoned by her accusers. (This story is, of course, not in most of the ancient manuscripts, but it is in the textus receptus of John.) Jesus calls not for adherence to the letter of the law which would have called for her death, but for compassion, not unlike that found in the life and legacy of Hosea the prophet. "You judge by human standards," he said in the remarks following that confrontation. "I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me" (John 8:15-16). He was asserting that his verdict of compassion and his offering of a second chance was the judgment of God. "You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also." Clearly, he is speaking about recognizing the loving, redeeming power of God in his life and words, in his gracious judgment.
Then there was the remarkable incident with the man born blind (in John 9) which is told in such delightful detail. It is one of my favorite stories in John. You will recall how Jesus healed the man, but, as happened with other healings, this action of bringing wholeness where there had been brokeness was soon overshadowed by concern with religious practice; the healing had occurred on the Sabbath day. So there was a series of confrontations between the authorities, the man who had been born blind, and his parents. The authorities tried to bully the parents into saying that the fellow had never really been blind at all, but a faker, duping people into giving him money for all those years. In a scenario that would be laughable if it weren't tragic, he is pushed into making the profoundly simple observation, "One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."
A woman is saved from an unjust punishment and given a second chance at life; a man has his sight restored and now may begin anew; in each case it is Jesus who brings peace, healing, and new life; in each case it is the religious establishment who opposes him and seeks to maintain the status quo of a legal correctness and ritual purity that overlook the human tragedy involved. It is that brand of piety that loses sight of the forest of human suffering and need as it surveys the trees of institutional religion.
So by the time Jesus begins to speak of himself as the Good Shepherd in John 10 it should be clear to us what is going on, even if it was legitimately difficult for his original audience. He is the good shepherd who is willing to take care of his flock regardless of the cost to himself. This, of course, is in contrast to the religious leaders who Jesus characterizes as "hired hands," understandably more concerned about their own welfare than of the sheep they were supposed to be tending, but who belonged to someone else.
Had the religious leaders wanted to stone that woman just out of meanness or misogyny? Were they so jaundiced that they could not believe the man had really been blind all those years, but that the only possible explanation was that the cover for his scam had been blown? Perhaps, but I would prefer to think that most of these leaders had simply gotten off the right path somehow. Some, like the Sadducees, were quite concerned with playing ball with the Roman authorities who granted them power and privileges. Many Pharisees had become so concerned with upholding the law as they interpreted it that the underlying principles of justice, righteousness, mercy, and redemption had somehow been obscured if not forgotten. Their concern for others had simply been overridden by self-concern. It happens.
Now it is winter and Jesus is in Jerusalem for Chanukah. And a crowd gathers around with a bad question they think sounds good: "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly" (John 10:24). It reminds me of another bad question that sounded good, one that came from quite a different source and with very different motivation. The question brought to Jesus by the disciples of John the Baptist in Matthew's Gospel: "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" (Matthew 11:13). Remember Jesus' answer then? "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." Now Jesus says the same thing in more theological terms: "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me ... The Father and I are one." What could be more simple? What could be more complex?
The dissonance between expectation and reality, between what the religious leaders looked for in a messianic figure and what they saw in Jesus did not have anything to do with Jesus taking a wrong fork in the road: it had everything to do with their misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what a messiah would be like and what God was like. By envisioning a God captive to a set of laws, a God more concerned with vengeance than redemption, with punishment than salvation, Jesus' actions appeared incongruous. For those who caught a glimmer of "grace upon grace" it was not so mysterious. It was their misunderstanding of the nature of God that made Jesus incomprehensible, not the other way around.
The idea that some persons, particularly those with a vested interest in maintaining the institutional status quo, should have a distorted view of God in which vengeance and power are more important than grace and mercy is not surprising. It has always been that way: prophets were stoned before Jesus and ever since. It is why Christian institutions have so often had to reinvent the Jesus of the Gospels. Sometimes he is transformed into precisely the kind of king or CEO with secular power that Jesus explicitly rejected when he said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). This allows the church and Christian people to grasp after the very kind of power that Jesus explicitly warns against. Sometimes Jesus is imaged as nothing more than a substitutionary sacrifice whose only purpose was to die. This allows us to adhere to a legalistic, vengeful conception of God that ignores the life, ministry, and teachings of Jesus, that completely overlooks the fact that "the father and I are one."
Recognizing this at the beginning of our new millennium is of extreme importance, it seems to me, because it is these distorted images of Jesus, based on and encouraging a distorted view of God, which bombard us. It often seems that the everyday faith and practice of the large majority of graceful and spirit-filled Christians who engage in small acts of kindness, forgiveness, and healing is marginalized and often invisible due to the media's acceptance of the extreme Religious Right as the "real Christians." The legalistic Pharisees and power hungry Sadducees are still with us. This phenomenon, well portrayed in Bruce Bawer's 1997 book Stealing Jesus (Crown Publishing) is a major problem for the under thirty population which has little loyalty to and understanding of the historic mainstream of Christianity. The portrayal of the church as predominated by bigoted and mean-spirited, single-issue individuals is an enormous impediment to the spread of scriptural Christianity and a holistic gospel. This idea of "church" suggests that the universe is controlled by a vindictive God who plays favorites, rather than the God of Jesus who delights in the forgiveness of sin and the healing of maladies.
It was sad but true that the bully in my son's classroom, like many troubled people, revealed a great deal about his father. It is our joy and delight that Jesus reveals a great deal about his. What he reveals is a God of love, wholeness, holiness, and forgiveness. Many religious leaders of Jesus' day had trouble recognizing this God; many still do. But the wonderful resurrection news of this Easter season is that "the Father and I are one."
As the hour for the evening program arrived, the homeroom teacher came in and immediately the adult half of this twosome went up and began belligerently asking why his son had been in some particular trouble. Almost before the teacher could respond, the father had given her a good shove -- an Elaine Benis two-handed shove to the chest -- but not in the same friendly manner of the Seinfeld character. It sent the teacher back against the blackboard. I recall there was shouting and some other parents and teachers getting involved and before long father and son were ushered out of the school. If I had had any questions about the relationship between these two, the behavior of the one so matched that of the other that there was no doubt in my mind which one was the chip off the other block(head).
I hope that no one is agitated that this experience came to my mind after reading today's Gospel Lesson, because I don't want anyone drawing wrong parallels or wrong conclusions other than this: while the physical appearance of these two was a tip-off to their relationship, the real clincher was their behavior: in this case unfortunately regrettable behavior. All the details are different, but it seems to me that this is the fundamental meaning of the line which is the dénouement of today's reading: "The father and I are one." What did Jesus mean by that? How do we understand him?
"The father and I are one." In the big picture, this phrase came to lie at the very heart of all kinds of controversies over the metaphysical relationship of Jesus the Nazarene to God the Father; controversies that came to be spelled out in detailed doctrines and which, to a large extent, were responsible for divisions, both East and West and within the Eastern churches. And my guess is that if we were to conduct a poll in the congregation of any American church, large or small, we would find considerable diversity of opinion about the relationship of Jesus to God the Father and the whole question of the Trinity. Those big picture questions are legitimate and important, but I don't think have much to do with this line from John's Gospel: "The father and I are one."
According to John, Jesus had been in Jerusalem for some time, saying things and doing things, and it was in response to this activity that questions had arisen. Think of a couple of the incidents which had immediately preceded today's reading in John. There is the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery who was to be stoned by her accusers. (This story is, of course, not in most of the ancient manuscripts, but it is in the textus receptus of John.) Jesus calls not for adherence to the letter of the law which would have called for her death, but for compassion, not unlike that found in the life and legacy of Hosea the prophet. "You judge by human standards," he said in the remarks following that confrontation. "I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me" (John 8:15-16). He was asserting that his verdict of compassion and his offering of a second chance was the judgment of God. "You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also." Clearly, he is speaking about recognizing the loving, redeeming power of God in his life and words, in his gracious judgment.
Then there was the remarkable incident with the man born blind (in John 9) which is told in such delightful detail. It is one of my favorite stories in John. You will recall how Jesus healed the man, but, as happened with other healings, this action of bringing wholeness where there had been brokeness was soon overshadowed by concern with religious practice; the healing had occurred on the Sabbath day. So there was a series of confrontations between the authorities, the man who had been born blind, and his parents. The authorities tried to bully the parents into saying that the fellow had never really been blind at all, but a faker, duping people into giving him money for all those years. In a scenario that would be laughable if it weren't tragic, he is pushed into making the profoundly simple observation, "One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."
A woman is saved from an unjust punishment and given a second chance at life; a man has his sight restored and now may begin anew; in each case it is Jesus who brings peace, healing, and new life; in each case it is the religious establishment who opposes him and seeks to maintain the status quo of a legal correctness and ritual purity that overlook the human tragedy involved. It is that brand of piety that loses sight of the forest of human suffering and need as it surveys the trees of institutional religion.
So by the time Jesus begins to speak of himself as the Good Shepherd in John 10 it should be clear to us what is going on, even if it was legitimately difficult for his original audience. He is the good shepherd who is willing to take care of his flock regardless of the cost to himself. This, of course, is in contrast to the religious leaders who Jesus characterizes as "hired hands," understandably more concerned about their own welfare than of the sheep they were supposed to be tending, but who belonged to someone else.
Had the religious leaders wanted to stone that woman just out of meanness or misogyny? Were they so jaundiced that they could not believe the man had really been blind all those years, but that the only possible explanation was that the cover for his scam had been blown? Perhaps, but I would prefer to think that most of these leaders had simply gotten off the right path somehow. Some, like the Sadducees, were quite concerned with playing ball with the Roman authorities who granted them power and privileges. Many Pharisees had become so concerned with upholding the law as they interpreted it that the underlying principles of justice, righteousness, mercy, and redemption had somehow been obscured if not forgotten. Their concern for others had simply been overridden by self-concern. It happens.
Now it is winter and Jesus is in Jerusalem for Chanukah. And a crowd gathers around with a bad question they think sounds good: "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly" (John 10:24). It reminds me of another bad question that sounded good, one that came from quite a different source and with very different motivation. The question brought to Jesus by the disciples of John the Baptist in Matthew's Gospel: "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" (Matthew 11:13). Remember Jesus' answer then? "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." Now Jesus says the same thing in more theological terms: "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me ... The Father and I are one." What could be more simple? What could be more complex?
The dissonance between expectation and reality, between what the religious leaders looked for in a messianic figure and what they saw in Jesus did not have anything to do with Jesus taking a wrong fork in the road: it had everything to do with their misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what a messiah would be like and what God was like. By envisioning a God captive to a set of laws, a God more concerned with vengeance than redemption, with punishment than salvation, Jesus' actions appeared incongruous. For those who caught a glimmer of "grace upon grace" it was not so mysterious. It was their misunderstanding of the nature of God that made Jesus incomprehensible, not the other way around.
The idea that some persons, particularly those with a vested interest in maintaining the institutional status quo, should have a distorted view of God in which vengeance and power are more important than grace and mercy is not surprising. It has always been that way: prophets were stoned before Jesus and ever since. It is why Christian institutions have so often had to reinvent the Jesus of the Gospels. Sometimes he is transformed into precisely the kind of king or CEO with secular power that Jesus explicitly rejected when he said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). This allows the church and Christian people to grasp after the very kind of power that Jesus explicitly warns against. Sometimes Jesus is imaged as nothing more than a substitutionary sacrifice whose only purpose was to die. This allows us to adhere to a legalistic, vengeful conception of God that ignores the life, ministry, and teachings of Jesus, that completely overlooks the fact that "the father and I are one."
Recognizing this at the beginning of our new millennium is of extreme importance, it seems to me, because it is these distorted images of Jesus, based on and encouraging a distorted view of God, which bombard us. It often seems that the everyday faith and practice of the large majority of graceful and spirit-filled Christians who engage in small acts of kindness, forgiveness, and healing is marginalized and often invisible due to the media's acceptance of the extreme Religious Right as the "real Christians." The legalistic Pharisees and power hungry Sadducees are still with us. This phenomenon, well portrayed in Bruce Bawer's 1997 book Stealing Jesus (Crown Publishing) is a major problem for the under thirty population which has little loyalty to and understanding of the historic mainstream of Christianity. The portrayal of the church as predominated by bigoted and mean-spirited, single-issue individuals is an enormous impediment to the spread of scriptural Christianity and a holistic gospel. This idea of "church" suggests that the universe is controlled by a vindictive God who plays favorites, rather than the God of Jesus who delights in the forgiveness of sin and the healing of maladies.
It was sad but true that the bully in my son's classroom, like many troubled people, revealed a great deal about his father. It is our joy and delight that Jesus reveals a great deal about his. What he reveals is a God of love, wholeness, holiness, and forgiveness. Many religious leaders of Jesus' day had trouble recognizing this God; many still do. But the wonderful resurrection news of this Easter season is that "the Father and I are one."
