John and "the Jews"

I used to not like the Gospel of John in the same way that I used to think that the apostle Paul was a jackass. My opinions had nothing to do with actually reading and studying their words, and everything to do with what other people used to quote at me (yes, "at" not "to"). But since I began this journey, I have read, learned, marked and inwardly digested the words and the context in which those words were reportedly spoken. Having a more informed view of these parts of Scripture goes a long way toward taking the sting out of what's on the printed page.


The other night in our EfM group, one of our members wondered aloud about the split between Jews and Christians. When did it happen and how did it come about? As we discussed the body politic of the First Century Middle East, I noted that it was at this time when there was a growing chasm of belief between Jews and the would-be Christians over whether Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham. And that's what the evangelist John documents in his Gospel. His repeated references to "the Jews" and people being afraid because of "the Jews" was an answer to the real situation that was occurring at that time. The Jews were living under the Roman authority which was under its own stress from being so huge. Depending on who was in charge and when, the Jews could either live in peace and be tolerated, or they were under persecution. For them, it was a tenuous balance and a fight for the survival of their tribe.

When people started showing up in their synagogues espousing a new belief, one that the Romans at times saw as atheism (a no-no in those days of Roman power), this caused friction. You had the fights and the arguments and the banning of "those people" from the synagogues, not only because what they were saying challenged the old religion, but that they were drawing unwanted attention from the secular authorities. Fear, again, rears its ugly head.


John's gospel is written for "those people" who were finding themselves on the outs with the Temple crowd as a way of clearly stating that Jesus is the God of Israel made incarnate. The language of John intentionally hearkens back to the beginnings of the Hebrew Bible to show that this Jesus is The Word. John's gospel was designed to give the early Christians the bona fides and draw in any others who were attracted to "the Way." Hence, all references to "the Jews" were not about all Jews; just those who were kicking "those people" out of the Temple.


It seems when you put a text such as the Bible into the hands of people many centuries removed from the realities of the world in those days, you get gross misinterpretations of what is meant. This is how so many can seize upon what's in John's gospel and think that "Jews=bad, evil, Jesus-killer." And because most churches do such a notoriously bad job at teaching Sunday school, lots of people grow up with a really piss poor understanding of the central text of their faith, or that our roots are in Judaism. Or that Judaism was influenced by the pagan cultures around them. If kids go through a confirmation class, they get schooled in the basics of what the sacraments are, read the gospel of Mark, a little bit about faith and the Nicene Creed... but not much on where we came from, or that our confirmation is akin to what our kinfolk, "the Jews", do with their own children with a bar or bat mitzvah. There's little attempt to move these young teenagers from an infantile understanding of Jesus as the good shepherd holding a little lamb to looking at the other views of Jesus. My goodness, even reading Mark's Jesus when I was in confirmation class, we never dove into the fact that this take on the life and mission of our incarnated God was much more like Marlon Brando than Cary Grant!


Perhaps, with the Jewish New Year fast-approaching, now would be a good time to remember how far back "our story" goes. And to remember that "the Word" was with "the Jews" before we took the words of "the Word" as our new testament to the world.