A Fourth Church Sermon by Joyce Shin

January 20, 2008 | 6:30 p.m. Vespers

From Above and from Below

Joyce Shin
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 40:1–11
John 1:29–34

Who was Jesus? This was the question that all those with whom Jesus came into contact during his lifetime must have raised. Every time Jesus told a story, interpreted the law, touched a sick person, ate with an outcast, performed a miracle, he astounded those around him. He made them look twice. He made them question what they knew about reality, the laws of nature, their sense of right and wrong, their religious customs and social conventions.

Of course, the event that astounded people most was the resurrection. What could be more extraordinary than to be resurrected from the dead? Any doubts that onlookers may have had about who Jesus was, based on what they saw him do and heard him say, would have been overturned. In the light of the resurrection, everything that people remembered about Jesus was reinterpreted and took on new, more significant meaning.

And that is where the Gospels begin. The Gospel writers tell their accounts of who Jesus was from the perspective of hindsight, from a post-resurrection perspective. People say that hindsight is 20/20. But even from hindsight, our understandings of how something happened, what an event meant, who someone was, can differ.

Consider why we have numerous histories of world-changing events and numerous biographies of men and women who left their mark on this world. On a shelf in my home there are twelve biographies of the Russian physician and writer Anton Chekhov: Anton Chekhov and His Times; Medicine in the Works and Life of Anton Chekhov; Anton Chekhov: A Life, just to name a few. They all belong to my husband, who can tell you precisely what each biography uniquely contributes to the full portrait of who Chekhov was.

If this many biographies have been written about Chekhov, imagine how many have been written about Jesus. When it came to Jesus’ life, the church chose to include in its canon not one, but rather four, accounts. Probably the oldest of the four accounts, the Gospel according to Mark, starts the story with Jesus already grown, coming from Nazareth and making his public debut at his baptism. The Gospel according to Matthew begins with a story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, and Luke begins even earlier, with an angel announcing to Mary that Jesus will be conceived in her womb. In the last of the four accounts to be written, the Gospel according to John, we have a description of Jesus not as one coming from Nazareth or born in Bethlehem, but rather as one coming from above and from before the world was created. Remember how the Gospel of John begins? Echoing Genesis, the Gospel of John begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; through him were all things made.” Do you see a pattern here? From a post-resurrection perspective, each of the Gospel writers made an effort to tell the story of who Jesus was from an earlier and earlier starting point. Starting with Jesus’ baptism, then beginning with his birth, then beginning with the angel’s announcement that Jesus would be conceived, and then finally beginning as far back as possible—at a time before the world was created—the gospel writers portrayed an increasingly fuller picture of who they thought Jesus was.

Jesus isn’t the only one in the Bible whose identity was questioned. There are other figures about whom questions of identity were raised. Like prophets who came before him, Jesus’ contemporary John the Baptist was questioned. In the verses immediately preceding the passage I read this evening, emissaries sent by the Pharisees to find out who exactly John is approach John the Baptist and ask him, “Who are you? . . . What do you say about yourself?” Once John the Baptist tells them that he is not the Messiah, Elijah, or the prophet, they ask him, “Why then are you baptizing people?” In other words, they want to know what authority John has to be baptizing people.

Most likely John the Baptist was perceived by the religious authorities of his day as a potential threat because there were some people who, having been baptized by John, considered themselves to be his followers. That John the Baptist had followers of his own was problematic to the Pharisees. A similar problem of groups forming around different leaders arose after Jesus died. The Apostle Paul had to include in his letter to the Corinthian church a serious reminder to be careful not to say things like, “I belong to Paul” or “I belong to Apollos” or “I belong to Cephas.” Paul explains, “Let us not boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” Religious leaders like the Pharisees, John the Baptist, and Paul all recognized the serious danger that could result from the natural tendency people have to create allegiances, to affiliate themselves too closely with a particular person, a party of people, a social group.

It is clear in the account of John the Baptist presented in the Gospel of John that he never intended to claim the allegiance of those whom he baptized. While he understood himself to be sent from God, he seems to have known all along that he was meant to prepare people for the coming of Jesus, and though Jesus comes after him, he nevertheless is first. Listen to John the Baptist’s testimony: “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.”

There must have been a debate going on in John’s day about what constituted priority. Was priority to be understood in terms of chronology? Perhaps some followers of John the Baptist were claiming superiority of the Baptist over Jesus because John came before Jesus. In the testimony John the Baptist gives, he makes his position on the issue known. Chronology does determine priority. Despite appearances, however, Jesus was prior to John, because Jesus existed before him.

From the very beginning, Judaism and likewise Christianity have understood themselves to be monotheistic religions. Prophetic leaders like John the Baptist and Moses considered themselves to be messengers, reminding people to direct their complete allegiance only to God, who in the beginning created all things. Given our religious history, replete with warnings against giving our loyalties to leaders, groups, and causes that are other than God, as if they were God, it’s not surprising that we get nervous when we think God is being conflated with other things that also make claims on our loyalty.

Last month I attended a conference at which I heard a Christian ethicist deliver a paper on the inappropriateness of military chaplains praying to God at official military functions, whatever they may be. She took this stand not only because of her understanding of the responsibility a military chaplain has to respect the integrity of very diverse religions all practiced in the military, but also because civic religion can easily slide into a form of idolatry. During the question-and-answer period, it became clear that all the other Christian ethicists in the room had varying views on the matter, but one thing they all held in common was what I would call a vigilance against equating the good of one group, society, or nation with the goodwill God has for all.

It’s not that the goodwill God has for all can’t include the good we hope for when we consider the groups to which we are closely tied. It is just that we need to avoid perverting that more monotheistic view into the view that good news for one must necessarily be bad news for another.

You may have heard Peter Gomes preach not too long ago in this sanctuary. Whether you missed his sermon or were intrigued by it, you may want to read his books. In his most recent book, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, Mr. Gomes mentions a different book, one written by J. B. Phillips. It is entitled Your God Is Too Small. In discussing this book, Gomes associates small conceptions of God with what “the therapeutic professions call an identity crisis.” “What is that?” he asks. “Well,” Gomes sums up, “if God isn’t ‘ours,’ then who are we?” (p. 40).

I think that the writer of the Gospel of John was trying to address precisely that question. He wrote to and for a community of Jesus’ followers who were mourning not only the death of someone they loved but also the loss of the person whom they thought God had sent to them to be their savior. The author of John must have keenly recognized that intimately tied to that feeling of loss was a feeling of being lost. Those grieving must have been asking themselves, “Without our leader, who are we?”

Having a strong sense of identity—knowing who you are, where you come from, your roots—can be comforting. I can imagine that the author of the Gospel of John wanted to offer his community comfort, especially at a time of great persecution.

Possessing a strong sense of identity can also be empowering. Self-knowledge empowers people to speak with a sense of authenticity, and this authenticity goes hand-in-hand with a sense of authority. These days we hear a lot about the politics of identity, but identity has always been a politically charged issue. People have always made claims to authority on the basis of their identity.

The Gospel of John had a message for the original community it addressed: a community of Christians under persecution. Today, in the United States, the church is no longer being persecuted. What difference would it make today if Christians really took seriously John’s depiction of who Jesus was? Knowing who Jesus is—that he came from above, that he existed alongside God, with God, was the same as God, and created all things with God—is just as important today as it was for the early Christians. That we derive our identity from the one who, with God, created the universe is our sole source of any prophetic message and mission.

At the heart of every prophetic message is the idea that God is great, and so the scope of our loyalties should also be great. Tomorrow this nation honors the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. Like prophets who came before him, King called for “a worldwide fellowship . . . beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation” (I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World, p. 150). In his essay “A Time to Break Silence,” Martin Luther King wrote, “In the final analysis . . . our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole.” May these prophetic words reverberate across our city, our nation, and in your hearts.