10 Pentecost
cycle b proper 12 July 29, 2018
Ephesians 3:14-21
John 6:1-21
Lectionary Link
When we read the Gospel of John, it is easy to just access the story aspect of the Gospel presentation of a narrative of the life of Jesus. We treat the Gospel text as an eye-witness direct report even though we know that such a text involves massive time-lapsing; three years of ministry collapsed into 21 chapters of writing. Time-lapsing involves editing, re-editing and further redactions as words of and about Jesus get handed on from person to person in eight decades after Jesus and then some "final" editor finally puts together what survives to be found in the various earliest codices that we have.
What we forget is that the writer or writing editors of the Gospel of John's are theologians who are presenting the significance of the life of Jesus to various groups of people who gathered in the Jesus Movement communities. The people who gathered came from increasingly heterogenous demographic groups. Such persons would have included those who came from the synagogue traditions with influences from the various rabbinical "schools." They would have come from those who had been devoted to the liturgical tradition found in the Temple of Jerusalem which had the priestly caste as presiding authorities until the destruction in the year 70. Christian congregants would have been former followers of John the Baptist; they would have come from the class of what today we call the "unchurched," or to coin new words, "the un-synagogued" or "un-templed." By this I would mean a group of Jews in Palestine who were not observant of the purity codes and thus because of their "sinner" classification or their "designated sickness" could not but be outsiders to the gatherings which frequented the synagogue and the Temple. Jews who interacted in compromising ways the Roman authorities were called publicans and sinners and for their livelihood they were regarded to be in sinful state of assimilation to the foreigners who were a part of the great class of sinners: Defiled and Impure. The Christian congregants in the communities of the Gospel of John would have been Gentiles, soldiers and those who did not find adequate spiritual or social identity in the cult of the Temples for the various gods and goddesses in the Greco-Roman Mystery Religion traditions. Christian congregants would have been part of the urbanization movement in Roman society; the house churches would have been a welcoming community for nomads to the city neighborhoods as they explored a new identity in a new place. From the letters of Paul, it would seem that the Christians by dispensing with the purity codes of Judaism, made the Christian message more conducive to participation by Roman citizenry and Christians could pretend that Caesar was a "fake god" who was good for peaceful social order even while Christians believed in a higher kingdom of God which could co-exist in a parallel manner with the Roman Empire.
It would be naïve to believe that the writer of the Gospel of John was not aware of the demographic diversity of the Johannine communities. The writer of the Gospel of John also was aware of the liturgical practices of the community; the regularity of baptism and Eucharist. The writer would not have been blatantly anachronistic; the writer would not have assumed that the liturgical practices of the Johannine communities were fully developed in the time of Jesus, who would have regarded himself to be an observant Jew who visited both Temple and synagogue, not withstanding the reforming words of his "rabbinical" school.
The writer of John's Gospel would present Jesus as the seed origin of the spiritual and liturgical practices which came to prevail in the Johannine communities.
Baptism and Eucharist were the conscious practice of the Johannine communities. The Gospel of John presents Jesus as the who originates the shape of the practice of both baptism and Eucharist. The discourses of Jesus in John's Gospel were first instantiated in teaching story events.
Jesus was a water man and a bread man. The Johannine writers showed how Jesus was in continuity with famous water men and bread men found recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Moses and Elisha were bread men. Through their intercession people were fed in marvelous ways. Moses interceded before the appearance of the famous "manna" or heavenly bread to fed the people of Israel. Jesus, too, was one who fed the multitude. The Eucharist was the practice of feeding the church with the heavenly bread that was identified with the Real Presence of Jesus being within the life of each Christian communicant. The Eucharist was the social reality of a continuous feeding of the multitude. The feeding of the multitude in John's Gospel is the story recounted to present the extended discourse of Jesus on how he was the manna which had come down from heaven. Hint. Hint. He was Eucharistic bread which perpetually fed the church as people ritually realized the presence of Christ to be renewed into the most prominent identity of their spiritual and social lives. That the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread, was continuing to gather the Johannine communities more than 8 decades after Jesus was proof that multiplication of loaves was a continuing miracles that originated with Jesus.
Moses was a water man; his intercession resulted in the parting of the Red Sea. He brought water out of Rocks. Elijah and Elisha were water men, floating ax heads on the water and parting waters of the Jordan by striking it with their mantle. Noah was the water man of the flood. New Testament writer presented baptismal waters as waters of death and waters of cleansing. Coming out of the water of baptism was regarded to be a symbolic rising from the death of being buried with Christ. When the story of Jesus walking on the stormy waters was told, it was a reaffirmation of rising above the death of water and triumphing because of the miracle of knowing an identity with resurrection of Christ.
The writer of John's Gospel goes to great pain to translate Hebrew words and Judaic concepts because the writer was aware of those who did not share any of the Hebraic tradition from which Jesus derived.
Let us appreciate the functions of the narrative of Jesus in John's Gospel. The writer was so encouraged and surprised by the success of the Christo-mysticism in the Johannine community, the writer preached about the special origin of the living identity with the Risen Christ, in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
We today are still a part of this living tradition of baptism and Holy Eucharist which derived from Jesus and which has been enriched and transmitted through the Gospel of John and through many other Christian communities in the past 2000 years.
Today again in our Eucharist, we celebrate that the Eucharist was regarded to be the miraculous identity rite of the community that wrote the Gospel of John. And it is our identity today as well. Like the young boy who gave his packed lunch to prime the pump of generosity which comes from the blessing of Christ, we offer our gifts at hand in our lives in the Eucharistic offering on the altar. We seek the miraculous blessing of Jesus to return to us in our service the gifts of being renewed in the presence of Christ. The writer of the Gospel of John believed that the Risen Christ was relevant to the world in the eight decades after Jesus. You and I are many more decades away from Jesus of Nazareth, but we still can be renewed in our identity with Christ, the eternal Word in profound ways. Let us seek our renewed identity with Christ today. Amen.
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