Fourth Sunday in Easter
“For the Long Haul” — Rev. Brent Gundlah
First Reading (Acts 9:36-43/NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (John 10:22-30/NRSVUE)
Music: HUCC Choir
I’ve been doing this preaching thing long enough to have learned a few things, and one of those things is this: You should cherish those weeks when you get to deal with a text that resonates with you and makes sense to you, allowing the ideas and the words to flow without much stress or effort, because they don’t happen all the time. I’ll just warn you right now: this was not one of those weeks.
Today’s passage from John’s Gospel is way shorter than the one we heard last Sunday, but that doesn’t make it easier to deal with — in fact, in some ways, it’s brevity makes it especially challenging. I say this because many of the images and ideas that presented here — Jesus as shepherd and his disciples as sheep, the blessing of eternal life, Jesus being the Messiah — are dealt with far more elaborately elsewhere, giving us way more to chew on. But sometimes you just have to play the hand you’re dealt, and sometimes you can end up being really surprised by how these ancient texts intersect with life today.
As our story begins, it’s winter and the festival of the Dedication is taking place in Jerusalem (a holiday we’ve come to know as Hanukkah). This celebration commemorates the reclaiming of the Second Temple at the start of the Maccabean Revolt (which took place a couple of hundred years before Jesus’s lifetime).
In a nutshell, the Maccabees (a group of Jewish rebels from Judah) rose up against the Seleucid Empire, which had attempted to eradicate Jewish faith practices and defiled the temple by turning it into a place of pagan worship (going so far as to put up a statue of Zeus there).
The Maccabees more or less managed to pull off this rebellion, and remained in power until the Romans showed up in 63 BCE. If you’re interested in learning more about this period, the first and second books of Maccabees, which are two of the texts that appear in Roman Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, but not in Protestant Bibles, tell the whole story. They are a rip roaring riot to read (no they’re not).
Why does all of this matter? Let’s just say it’s no accident that Jesus shows up where he does when he does in today’s story. By this point, Jesus has appeared at a bunch of Jewish festivals and done some stuff there that’s really ticked off the authorities (you know, like teaching about the true meaning of the law, healing people on the sabbath, and calling God his Father). In fact, they’re so angry at him that they’re looking for an opportunity to kill him.
When Jesus appears at the Temple for the festival of Dedication, he’s intentionally turning up the heat a few degrees. You see, by being present there and then, Jesus is essentially saying that the Jewish leaders who are in charge of — and benefiting from —the current temple setup are on a par with those pagan Seleucids who previously defiled the temple. And Jesus says all of this without actually saying it; the things we do really can speak volumes. Jesus has thrown down the proverbial gauntlet.
What happens next bears some resemblance to Jesus’s trial late in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The authorities issue a challenge to him here that’s basically a version of the million dollar question about his identity that they ask him there: “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
Well, this is kind of amusing because this is Jesus they’re talking to, and Jesus rarely says anything plainly. So it’s kind of surprising when he responds to their inquiry directly and succinctly; he says to them, “I have told you, and you do not believe.” But there’s a catch here: by all accounts, Jesus has never actually told them this.
As I said earlier, this is not the first time in John’s Gospel that people have wondered whether Jesus is the Messiah. But the only time up to this point that he says that he is the Messiah is way back in Chapter Four. There, Jesus and his disciples are traveling through Samaria on their way from Judea to Galilee. The disciples run into town to get some food and leave Jesus sitting beside a well. There he meets a Samaritan woman and asks her to give him a drink (though it’s not clear whether she actually does). After some back and forth in which Jesus drops hints about who he is, the woman says to, him “I know that the Messiah is coming (who is called Christ). When he comes, he will proclaim all things.” And then Jesus says to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” One admission to a single person — that’s it.
Now, did this Samaritan woman go and tell other people about the conversation she had with Jesus? I mean, I probably would have. Did Jesus catch the disciples up on what happened there at the well when they returned from their grocery run? I have no idea; all we can say for sure is that the person who wrote the Fourth Gospel clearly heard about it somehow.
But as I was wrestling with this passage the past week, I found myself getting stuck on Jesus’s initial words to the authorities: “I have told you” — because he hadn’t. So did John or someone else along the way just get it wrong? Maybe. Did Jesus misspeak? I kinda doubt it. Did Jesus… lie? Come on, would that really make sense in light of everything else we know about Jesus? So, I was left wondering what’s actually going on here — and an answer came to me in a most unexpected way.
These days I, like many of you, am constantly bombarded by information flowing into my email inbox — whether I want it to or not. One of the items that ends up there every morning is a summary of articles posted on a platform called Medium. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, it’s place where amateur and professional authors can go to post — and where people can to go read — all sorts of writing about all sorts of things.
So in the midst grappling with my conundrum about Jesus’s first words in today’s gospel passage, my daily missive from Medium arrived and I was met a headline for a piece by someone identified only by the single name “Shaant” and the he/him pronouns he chooses to use; that headline read: “This Is How You Know Someone’s a Good Person — Before You Even Hear Them Speak.” I didn’t realize it at that moment, but I soon came to understand that it had landed upon my iPad like manna from heaven.
The essential question underpinning this article is an interesting one: In a world that is fixated upon the creation and preservation of public image, how can we really understand who someone is and what they’re all about when they say what they think we want to hear and appear the way they think we want them to appear? And the answer to this question is pretty straightforward: Watch what they do.
From his observations, the author came to some conclusions about what makes good people good. Here’s a few of them:
“The best of humans do the right thing… especially when no one is watching.”
“The best people didn’t use their kindness to construct a public image. They used it to construct a world.”
“Good people do not do goodness. Good people carry it. Like skin.”
Hmmm. Does this sound like anyone you might know of, like anyone you may have read about?
After thinking about this for a bit, Jesus’s words in today’s passage started to make sense to me. When I quoted them to you earlier, I only read the first sentence, but I later realized that what immediately follows it is actually part of the same thought; so here’s what Jesus says in response to the authorities’ demand: “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
“I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me.” Said slightly differently, “I have told you, and the things that I do in God’s name are how I tell you.”
Look, we might not be trying to show folks that we’re the Messiah (I mean, it’s good to have goals but let’s be real), and we can only hope to reach the level of consistency between word and deed that Jesus did, but that doesn’t mean that God isn’t calling to do better. So, be like Tabitha (or Dorcas, if you prefer) who made clothes for poor widows, who devoted herself to “good works and acts of charity.” Tabitha doesn’t say a word in today’s story from Acts (in fairness, she was dead for a lot of it), but her actions say a whole lot about who she is and what she stands for.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that words don’t matter, it’s that our words should be consistent with our actions; and our actions speak louder than our words. Jesus talks a whole lot in the Gospels, but he backs it up with the way he lives and with the way he treats people. So, when someone’s deeds seem inconsistent with what they say, I’ll give you one guess as to which you should be paying more attention to…
Like when people claim to be the keepers of God’s law, but constantly violate the spirit of that law with impunity.
Like when people profess to be doing God’s will, but look out only for their own interests — seeking power or prestige or money or votes.
Like when people claim to be followers of Christ, but consistently fail to love their neighbors, to show kindness to strangers, to care for the least of these.
Listen to what they say and watch what they do (especially when they don’t think anyone is looking). Listen to what you say and watch what you do (especially when you don’t think anyone is looking).
There’s a quotation commonly misattributed to St. Francis of Assisi, but the fact that no one actually knows who said it doesn’t make it any less true: “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”
That seems like pretty good advice to me.
And since that writer known on Medium helped me break through my theological logjam this week, it seems only right to allow him to chime in here too; he writes, “The next time you are meeting someone for the first time, don’t trust the charm. Instead, look at the small things. Feel the space between their words. Pay attention to how they treat people they don’t need. This is where the truth is. And when you see goodness, reach out to it. Mirror it. Grow it.”
That seems like pretty good advice to me too.