John 10:22-30
Easter 4 - Year C
Who are you?
“I yam what I yam,” says Popeye the Savior.
No. Who are you? What category do you fit in. What kind of Savior are you?
“Just a humble saviorman who swabs decks and looks out for all the anointed, like Olive Oyl— silly misfit though she be— and orphaned Swee’peas.”
There is no category for a swabbing savior. A suffering one, yes; a swabbing one, no.
“Avast ye blutos, I yam what I yam and it’s all that I am.”
As long as you keep doing stuff we will continue to judge it. Oops, make that categorize it.
“You can toss me in the booby hatch, but I only have my actions to speak for me—you have heard my less than dulcet tone, haven’t you?”
No one wants to make you walk the plank, just tell us plainly how you keep doing the things you do.
“Well, there’s this spinach . . .”
Spinach, minach, talk sense or we’ll swab the deck with you.
“Ahoy there, a warning shot across my bow! We’ve been chewing the fat long enough. The wind is up and I’m running my course. Gangway! Fair Winds to you bilge rats! Remember what I’ve done! Oh, and try the spinach.”
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/04/john-1022-30.html
Today is leaving day for the United Methodist General Conference. In some ways this feels like the Feast of Dedication - in the cold of early December. This cold is not physical but spiritual.
We are about to debate ourselves into winners and losers. We will vie with one another pitting theory and theology against real people's lives and experiences.
The questions before us are revelational and epistemological. How do we know which way to go from here (as differentiated from how do we know which way to go from back then or from some when in the future)? Of course most folks will have their "win at any cost" glasses on and have their heels dug in as they posit the result of conferencing must be this way or that way or we have lost our way.
I am pleased with some of the petitions that begin with the humility to recognize that on some of our hot-button issues we need to begin with a confession that we don't have a common vision. We will see if that approach will be able to stand up to the steam-roller of political reality of one group or another having enough votes to impose their will as though their will were all that was needed to bring us epistemological assurance.
Perhaps the best that the prophetic line can ever expect in these sorts of situations is to hear Jesus' voice, the voice of expansive love in the face of constrictive legislation. We continue to affirm that love cannot be legislated away. Sinners before G*O*D and sinners in the eyes of the church are always in loving hands, whether we recognize it in the moment or not.
The option is to be sinners in the hands of an angry god or cogs somewhere around an indifferent god. Choose you this day which god/G*O*D you live in relationship with.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/may2004.html
And the question comes to the church as it came to Jesus - "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly."
Well, our words and works do testify to this question.
Neither are clear to the world, much less to ourselves.
Some sheep follow our words and works. Some do this blindly, some open-eyed to all the openness and narrowness they contain.
Some do not follow our words and works. Some don't ever hear them. Some dismiss them out of hand. Some focus on their flaws.
All in all, we are the Messiah. All in all, we aren't.
So we proceed to do what we can with those who hear - the steadfast and the betrayers, those with eyes on a crack into the future and those gazing lovingly upon continuity with the past, the doctrinals and the relationals.
So, how do you go about identifying Christ - questions, experience, revelation, witness of someone else, peer group decision, ....?
We struggle with this question at General Conference in terms of "making disciples" but a more pertinent question may be whether we are "living messiahs."
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/may2004.html
Just before this passage we have Jesus' co-religionists divided because of his words. [Note: in broad terms Greeks focus more on words about God and Hebrews more on God's actions - thus this setting is greatly influenced by the cultural perspective in which the Jews found themselves.]
And so the question of suspense - whose side will Jesus choose?
A zealot return to rebellion?
Proper priestly worship (rededication of the Temple)?
Popular miracle doing?
We want precision in his choice. No weasel words that can make him sound like he's on our side and then we find he parsed his way out. Extreme clarity is our desire. Pin him down. There is only one way. Which fundamental doctrine will he espouse? None of that, "those who have ears" stuff!
Doh! It's not the words we were arguing about that count here. The works done are the testimony - Tabitha/Dorcas/Gazelle got it right several days ago - good works and acts of charity. [Dope slap] Just do it.
Just after this passage folks pick up stone because he didn't choose their side and we have a reprise of the "works" work and Jesus heading off for baptismal territory.
- - -
tell us plainly
tell us precisely
tell us concisely
just tell us
are you what you say
are you what we see
are you what we hope
just who are you
a who from whoville
a horton hatcher
a sneech of any sort
a zax of any direction
a cat in or out of a hat
a loraxian prophet
a bleeding-heart thidwick
a fascist yertle
just tell us and tell us now
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
Those who keep asking Jesus for a reason for his activities will have to keep asking because the only response they get does not have a connecting spot in their habits. A web of habit keeps us from receiving new data. It takes a good deal of intentionality to leave an opening for new information that will begin to systematically dismantle and expand one's current web.
This is a belief issue. Belief and habit are kissing cousins - they both reject that which is not already present. There is no room for revelation here.
While there are many core issues, the one at stake here is a relationship one has with a past that is in continual contact with long-ago and far-away creation as well as a cusp of present with future. This flux between a creation-long ebb and flow and a sharp in-breaking of tomorrow is quite troublesome to many. They might could handle one or the other, but certainly not both without loosing their grounding, their perceived sanity.
This talk of the Father and Jesus being one is the same as G*D and I being the same. The dynamic of John's "in the beginning..." and "...light coming into the world" are behind these simple equations. Want to scare your parishioners? Simply use Jesus' formula "G*D and (your name here) are one" without any clarification. Stick to it. No explanation, just the statement. Unease will surface. The works you do will reveal the reality or falsity of the statement.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/04/john-1022-30.html