Not a Gospel?

Rylands Papyrus P52, the oldest fragment of NT
with the text of John 18:31–33
dated roughly to 125 CE.

Is the Gospel of John really a true gospel? I mean in a manner like Mark, Matthew and Luke?
      If you ever opened the Bible and read these gospels you know what I am talking about. The differences are glaring and they stare right into your face.
      For instance, synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke) contain a plethora of short healing stories. They are presented in just a few sentences and sometimes closed with brief controversies. John on the other hand has just a handful of miracles which are presented in a highly loquacious style. John calls them signs. And they are followed with lengthy exposition speeches explaining their spiritual meaning.
      Another difference, perhaps even more important - Mark and especially Matthew and Luke contain quite a number of Jesus’ parables, aphorisms and pointed pronouncements called logia. Jesus is frugal with words and often compares the rule of God, (kingdom of god) to everyday mostly farming experiences. In John’s account, on the other hand, Jesus is unrecognizable, delivering lengthy, convoluted, repetitive and often pompous spiritual speeches. The Kingdom of God, Jesus’ hallmark message in Mark, Matthew and Luke is all but gone, and so is his concern with social, political and religious justice. In John it is replaced with philosophizing about light, life, word, truth and the like. Jesus would almost certainly not recognize himself in this “gospel” of John.
      And so there is a large consensus among the scholars that what is called Gospel of John is in fact a theological and philosophical reflection of one of the early Christian groups on the importance of Jesus from the distance of at least three generations (60 and possibly 90 years later). Thus - strictly speaking, the Gospel of John is not really a gospel, certainly not in the sense of the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke or even the non-canonical gospel of Thomas. John is a theological reflection, or if you wish, an early Christian spiritual essay on the importance of Jesus. And that is something many might not know about the Bible.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it is a good thing to have this insight into early Christian reflections. They offer us insight into the spiritual development of our faith and the early interpretation trends. And one of those powerful theological dicta about the world changing importance of Jesus will be our theme this Sunday. We will hear how much God loved the world.

Biblical Phoenix

Our subject today is a creature whose mythic origins are obscure in the thick mist of religious history.  It is a mythical and mystical creature proverbial for its extreme longevity but irrespective of its extreme great age not at all frail and decrepit because it is endowed with an uncanny ability of periodical rejuvenation.
            Every five hundred years or so the story goes this creature builds a nest of fragrant spices in which it closes itself and dies only to be reborn. Sometimes it is described as being reborn in flames, sometimes even as rising from still glowing embers. You probably guessed by now that I am talking about the Phoenix – that ancient mythical bird associated with Sun and elemental fire.
            The Bible mentions quite a number of mythical beasts, fiery serpents like Nehushtan, dangerous mega-beasts like Behemoth, dragon-like monsters like Leviathan. And in this mythical biblical bestiary there is also one unique but quite clear allusion to the phoenix in the Book of Job. 

And that is something you might not know about the bible.

 

            And this biblical-mythical Phoenix is a marvelous and hopeful image for us this Pentecost Sunday just as we are slowly emerging from the trials and tribulations of the past year and half. Join us in worship if you can.

Liberating the Ascension

Evangelist Luke was a highly gifted and creative theologian and also pedagogue. You might not know it, but it was evangelist Luke who was responsible for coining the temporal sequence of Easter, Ascension and Pentecost. Before Luke - it was all part of one transformative eschatological mega-impulse.
    Luke took different theological aspects of the Easter Message, he analyzed them, distilled them, divided them, and distributed them along the time axis. Thus the resurrection was followed by the ascension, which was followed by the gift of the Spirit.  This Luke’s solution is simple, instructive, easy to remember, and it became the foundation of the Christian calendar ever since it was created.
    But as simple, instructive, easy, and ubiquitous as it might been, it also trivialized, domesticated, and de-radicalised Easter faith and theology. It led to what I would describe as spacial-temporal fundamentalism and a simplistic historisation of the original radical early Christian message.
    This Sunday we will try to undo this Luke’s approach and liberate the Ascension from its temporal and special caricature into a radical event which continues to shatter boundaries of time, space, and authority.

 

A caricature of the de-eschalogised Ascension

God our mother

“In the name of God, most gracious the most merciful.” Almost every Koranic Sura opens this way and also it is opening of many Muslim scholarly discourses. God most gracious and most merciful are divine epithets of God in Islam.

      The Bible has a similar, almost identical way of speaking about the LORD. “Gracious and Merciful LORD, slow to anger and big in love.” (חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם יְהוָה אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם וּגְדָל־חָסֶד)

     At the center of both Hebrew and Arabic expressions is the word translated to English as “Merciful” and both in Arabic and Hebrew this word is closely associated with the root rḥm expressing gentleness and softness and word reḥem - רֶחֶם (Raḥim in Arabic) which means the womb.

     Thus when Al Quran or the Bible speak about the Merciful God, when Jews, Christians and Muslims appeal to divine mercy we all appeal to the motherly, tender, love of God. 

     And that is something you might not know about God in Abrahamic religions and about Semitic languages.

 

But this expression of divine tender love can be traced even further beyond this mere metonymy of tender love an womb.  There are archaic biblical passages clearly hinting a possibility that Hebrew God actually was perceived as having a womb and giving birth to his people. I talked about it in a videoblog a few months ago.

 

It is absolutely appropriate for the people of faith to worship "God our mother". And on this Mother’s day Sunday we will do just that - rejoice in Motherly love of our God. 

God the Vinegrower

In the gospel of John Jesus says, “I am the grapevine (or even vineyard), and my father is Ό ΓΕΩΡΓΟΣ - the farmer, the gardener, orchard keeper, simply anyone cultivating the soil.

It was and remains a powerful and highly charged metaphor.

            In the biblical tradition Creator God was the planter of the garden of Eden, and thus the Gardener of the world. The grapevine was the national tree of the Jewish people. It even overlapped with the idea of the tree of life. And the vineyard, vineyard of the LORD, was a poetic way to speak about the biblical homeland, the Promised Land and its people.

            Whenever you hear in the Bible about a grapevine, vineyard, gardener or vineyard-planter or keeper think first about the divine prerogative over the land, what we would call these days politics and even social justice. And secondly but with the selfsame though, think about the creation, the divine garden, nowadays we call it ecology, environmentalism.

            If you were a Roman soldier or administrator listening in to Jesus and his contemporaries - it might sound like farmers discussing agriculture - but anyone who grew up in biblical tradition knew they were discussing so much more! Fairness, justice, divine hope and divine plan for them and for the rest of the world. And that will be our theme this Sunday.

The empty tomb

The empty tomb - that is the quintessential Easter story. Female and later male disciples going or running to the tomb and finding the stone rolled away with the tomb empty and hearing from angels about the resurrection.

            Within the gospels, in their narratives, in their storylines that is the first time we hear about Jesus’ resurrection. And it absolutely makes sense. If resurrection – then we start with an empty tomb. First things should come first. - But they hardly ever do!

            Theologians have known for centuries that the empty tomb story was quite a late arrival to the Easter narratives.

            After Jesus’ horrific death, disciples started meeting with him again, and they were empowered by him, they were transformed by him, their view of the world completely changed.

            That is how it started, but at the earliest moments they did not have language to speak about it. Even the use of the word resurrection was not automatic and instant. It took some time to settle.

            By the time apostle Paul wrote to Corinthians around the year 50, the word resurrection was established. But Paul still did not know about the empty tomb. 

            The story of the empty tomb appeared for the first time about a generation later in the Gospel of Mark and quickly became the emblematic story of the resurrection as a highly evocative and powerful image.

            And so, the empty tomb is the opening part of the Easter storyline, but the latest and youngest part of the Easter Message. And that is something you might not know about the Bible and Easter Faith.

 

On this Easter Sunday in our worship we will listen to this powerful and radical message of the Empty Tomb. Join us if you can.

Harrowing the Hell

The Anastasis Fresco - Harrowing the Hell
in the parekklesion of Chora Church in Istambul

Harrowing the Hell - that is a part of the Easter message about which you would hardly ever hear from the Protestants. Yet it is present in the oldest Christian creed and also in the Bible.
            After Jesus died on the cross and was buried, he descended into hell. That is an undisputable part of the Apostolic Confession, the oldest baptismal affirmation of faith.  And it is also well founded in the biblical testimony. The Gospel of Matthew speaks about Jesus being three days in the heart of the earth. And in 1^st Peter we read about Jesus preaching, after his death, to the souls in the prison. Other biblical and early Christian stories point in the same direction. And there is also an impressive ancient iconographic tradition.
            Harrowing the Hell might have been disregarded among the Protestants but this Holy Friday we want to correct it and listen to and contemplate this enigmatic Easter message and rediscover its radical, transformative and even hopeful message.

Join us on the Holy Friday at 7pm