John 7:1-13. (May 31, 2015)
I.
After chapter six, where Jesus manages to alienate almost everybody, he stays in Galilee for about six months. He does not go back to Judea and Jerusalem because the authorities there are seeking an excuse to arrest and kill him. Galilee is under different jurisdiction. Jesus knows that being arrested and killed is his plan, but he also knows that the time for this has not yet come. He has a lot more to say and do before his death.
It appears that Jesus goes back to stay with his family for a while, because he gets into it with his brothers. Now, scholars have different opinions about exactly how these people were related to him: brothers, half-brothers, or cousins. Suffice it to say that they were his relatives.
And if it is true that prophets are not accepted in their own countries, they are even less accepted in their own families. And these relations of Jesus seem to have nothing but disdain for him and his work. Knowing that Jesus has managed to get himself into trouble with the Judean authorities, they taunt him by suggesting that he go to Judea.
I imagine the kind of things might cruel brothers say, about “Mr. Special Messiah, Mr. Bread of Life, Mr. I-used-to-have-disciples-but-they-all-left-when-I-told-them-to-eat-me, who now has to live in the basement because his sponsors cut him off and the cops are on his trail. How is the Messiah-gig working out for you now? Why don’t you go to Judea so all your ‘disciples,’ if there are any left, can see your supposedly amazing works! You sure don’t have any more disciples around here. Don’t you want the whole world to see what you are doing? Or maybe you don’t want the whole world to see where you have ended up, living here with your mother.”
In any case, Jesus responds that his time has not yet come but their time is always here. He uses the Greek word kairos for time. It means time as an opportunity, as distinct from regular clock-time, for which they had a different word.
He means that, while it’s not the right moment for him to act; yet, on the one hand, his brothers always have the opportunity to wake up and get with his program. On the other hand, he could be using irony here to say that their time or “opportunity” is always here and they keep squandering it by going along with the agenda and standards of the world, which means it isn’t really an opportunity at all. All they have are fake and counterfeit “opportunities” to keep doing what they are doing in blindness, bondage, and unconsciousness. It is as if he is saying, “My opportunity may not have come yet, but what passes for opportunity with you guys is the same dead end jobs, endless debt, with Caesar’s troops on your back and the Pharisees always on your case to make sure you don't carry the wrong thing on the wrong day. Good luck with that.”
II.
He goes on, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil.” Jesus’ siblings are still in synch with the values and practices and habits and traditions of the world. They are still in sleepwalking, ego-centric, blind existence. They are still going along with everyone else in the normal unconscious, clueless routine, working hard to make somebody else rich. Whatever taunts and insults they offer him would have been little more than inconsequential noise to Jesus.
As for him, his life in synch with God has placed him in dissonance with the world and its rulers. His life of love and justice only serves to highlight the corruption and hatred that dominates in the world. He is an annoyance; a living judgment against them. The last time he was in Jerusalem he healed the lame man on the Sabbath, an act which revealed the silliness and arbitrary legalism of the system. They come down on this guy for carrying his mat on the Sabbath, while ignoring the new life he has received. It shows everyone that they are paranoid control freaks for whom real redemption doesn’t matter so as much as inane and meticulous details of their law.
Then he says to his brothers, “You all go up to the festival. I am not going this time because it is not time for me.” The festival was called in Hebrew, Sukkoth, or, in English, “Booths” or “Tabernacles.” It happens in the autumn, after the Day of Atonement and Yom Kippur. Tabernacles commemorates the wilderness wanderings of the people when they lived in tents. Synagogues still celebrate it today by building booths or trellises outdoors.
But there is also evidence that Sukkoth had another meaning. It was also historically a holiday about the Messiah, the King, coming into the Temple.
So when Jesus says he’s not going to the festival and that it is not his time, what he means is that it is not the right time for him to go to Jerusalem and take on his role as the anointed King. The people who witnessed when he fed the 5000 on the mountain wanted to make him King 6 months before. That of course was not his time, and neither is this Sukkoth. He is choosing not to make his big entrance now, even though Sukkoth would have been a good time for it.
So his family starts off on the three-day journey to Jerusalem without him. But then he also departs, later, by himself, with no fanfare. The text says he goes “in secret,” and it doesn’t mean in disguise or surreptitiously so much as privately, quietly, more or less incognito. He is inconspicuous and unobtrusive. He doesn’t want to draw attention to himself until he gets there.
III.
This is just as well. The authorities are looking for him. They are still angry about his last two appearances in Jerusalem. In the first one he caused a disturbance by throwing the merchants out of the Temple. In his second visit he healed that man by the pool and told him to carry his mat… which got both of them into trouble with the Sabbath police. So there is still a warrant out for him.
The people are divided in their opinion of Jesus. Some say he is a good man and others say he is deceiving the crowds. But this is all happening under the radar because the authorities are listening, and expressing a positive opinion about Jesus is to invite unwanted attention.
In a sense, Jesus has been forced underground. Not only does he have to hide, but people are not allowed to talk about him. It is a situation that has similarities with ours in several ways.
In an age like ours, when Christianity is plummeting in popularity and power, claiming to be a follower of Jesus is becoming more costly. It used to be that “Christian” was just what everyone was who wasn't Jewish. It was like the default religion of America. It therefore included a lot of people who had no interest in actually following Jesus, but who were only hanging around church for other reasons not related to faith or discipleship. Going to church was considered a vaguely patriotic duty. Church was a place to make good business and political connections. At one time, before TV and cable and the internet, the local church was the center of people’s social and entertainment life. Before the emergence of psychology, priests and ministers were the closest things to therapists anyone would know.
This meant that a lot of the people who were involved in church were not disciples of Jesus at all. They were here for these other reasons. This explains how the church managed to support and endorse and justify all kinds of behavior that would make Jesus puke or cry or both: wars, torture, slavery, genocide, lynching, economic injustice, and so forth. A large percentage of the people going to church did not have the slightest concern for what Jesus actually teaches. They didn’t know and they didn’t care. Preachers who didn’t want to be unpopular wouldn’t bring it up. People didn’t come to church to follow Jesus, they came to be good citizens.
All that has been gradually disintegrating for at least 60 years, and now we are getting to the point where it is becoming more socially acceptable not to be a “Christian.” And so those who were all about social acceptability are not coming to church any more.
I am not at all sure this is a bad thing. Just as Jesus himself feels he has to be inconspicuous, these days I too sometimes feel I have to not mention Jesus right off because the behavior of people calling themselves Christians was so atrocious. I’d rather try and show people the real Jesus in my behavior, than have to explain that what many Christians have done in the past had nothing to do with Jesus.
IV.
So in some ways we’re getting somewhat closer to sharing the context of the New Testament. The people who originally hear this story in the gospel about Jesus going to Jerusalem almost undercover understand immediately. That’s what their life is like in the Roman Empire. And that’s what our life is getting to be like here, at least a little.
I wonder if people aren’t making the same kinds of evaluations today. Some say Jesus is a good man. Maybe they are reading the gospels, or are learning about Jesus in a Comparative Religion course in college. Maybe they encounter good followers of Jesus who are kind, compassionate, forgiving, and generous to them. Maybe they have a Christian grandparent who loves them unconditionally. Maybe they are attracted to Jesus and might want to follow him if someone introduces them to him.
But others say he is deceiving the crowd. Maybe they think that Jesus says and does some things that look and sound good, but his real agenda is just to cause trouble. Maybe they see that he is undermining loyalty to the nation and the religious institutions and authorities. Maybe they see that Jesus’ teachings are dangerous to the economic elite. Maybe they want to go back to the days when what passed for “Christianity” was popular precisely because it ignored Jesus and supported the State.
I think we have to quietly find people who are open to Jesus, and bring them to him. That is, bring them to the place where his life and teachings are shared, studied, proclaimed, and followed. That is, here: in the gathering of disciples. This will have to be done carefully and sensitively. Maybe it will have to happen quietly.
But it is always a matter of joy! It is always a matter of joy when we find people who are waking up to the truth of God’s love and want to be a part of it. It is always a matter of joy when we find neighbors who are ready to follow the Lord Jesus.
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