The dangers of a seemingly anti-semitic passage and the challenge of dealing with what it is actually trying to do.
For Sunday
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Collect
O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
From John 10:22-30
“My sheep hear my voice.”
Reflection
This is an extremely dangerous passage. I hope you know me well enough to know that I don’t share these words lightly. Nor do I do so with any joy. This is a dangerous passage because of what some people want it to say.
Throughout the gospel of John, Jesus threads a really tight idea about the children of God. Who it is that God’s grace and love goes to. And ultimately, the case he makes is that 1) all of us are inherently God’s children, but 2) some of us don’t really want to be, so 3) God won’t give grace to them, but 4) they can always choose to receive it.
It is a complex and convoluted way of saying yes there are boundaries and here is why they matter.
The problem, of course, is that John’s version of Jesus is always talking about the line between in and out and the threat of being outside the line. And we, naturally, gravitate to expanding on the threat of not being inside the line rather than the myriad times Jesus puts us all inside the line.
Of course, this is one of the times Jesus argues that some people aren’t in. And worse, we encounter John’s use of “The Jews”. It is hard not to read this as if Jesus (a Jew) is saying Jews are being condemned by God for not believing Jesus is the Messiah. And I honestly don’t have a good response to that accusation. At least, not one that is terribly satisfying.
What I can say is that this is a leap in logic.
And not one that makes a lot of sense in the first century when John was writing, some sixty years after the events depicted. Jesus isn’t condemning Jews as a Jew followed by Jews.
The leap we make is built on the statement that they don’t hear his voice, but his sheep all hear him. Some jump straight to the heresy of supersessionism: that Christians came to replace the Jews. What comes to my mind is a story I was once told by a church musician. He was talking about how to deal with a person who complains about a single music choice during a service. He asks if they liked the rest. They do, just not that one. So the musician said, obviously that piece isn’t for them; it was for someone else.
The way John depicts Jesus is of a generous shepherd, calling out to all of the sheep. Anyone can come in—he keeps the gate wide open. Just…do it. It is open now. it was open then. It will be open tomorrow. But don’t wait, because Jesus wants to offer the vibrant life of faith now. His desire is for all to be together now.
Christians have a long history of wanting certainty of that tomorrow, of the metaphysics of God and the order of creation, and an extreme desire to be right (with the adjoining privilege of condemning the wrong). Even this passage, in all of its challenge, refuses that satisfaction.