Wednesday 23 April 2008

Background

In today's passage and the verses that follow (up to verse 59),John exposes the fundamental conflicts between his own earlycommunity of Jewish Christians and the Jewish communities fromwhich they had come. He does this by having Jesus examine the Jewswho seem to be at the boundary between the two groups - those who"had believed in him". Jesus' words and reasoning are harshlycondemning.

These passages make hard reading for contemporary Christians whoare used to Jesus as the one who welcomes outsiders and befriendsthe outcast.

We cannot read these passages without remembering that they, alongwith other texts, have been used in our history to justify the mosthorrible abuses of Jewish people and communities. The phrase "thetruth will make you free", which I want to hear with contemporaryears as promising relief and liberation, was the precursor to asystematic condemnation of many Jewish people.

So what to make of this Gospel, which I also believe contains theliving Word of God? Can I hear the exchange in such a way as toreclaim a sense of the great freedom Jesus promises for those whowill abide in his truth?

It should be remembered that the text shows the fear of persecutionin the setting in which it was written - the time of the writer,John, around 80AD. It also shows the grief and anger of beingabandoned and abused by the powerful Jewish communities from whichthe early Church had come. What purpose then, does the text servein its own community, and how might this purpose instruct its usein our own?

Jesus' words are about establishing that those who first heard, andthose of us who hear today, are part of something good. Jesus'sharp distinctions draw community boundaries to describe the realpower of the liberation he offers. This is a real break with whathas come before.

Though I cannot hear this text apart from the sinful history of itsuse, I can still hear the first promise, "Continue in my word… youwill know the truth, and the truth shall make you free". Free fromthe sins of my nation and its forebears, free from the sins of myhistorical Church, free from the sins of my own heart.

And this is freedom indeed.

To Ponder

In building healthy communities, how does namingways in which history has 'enslaved' us help, and how does itnot?