On Line Bible Stud - For the Week January 30 - Frebruary 5, 2012

Lesson 521

John 3: ¹⁹ This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ All those who do evil hate the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But those who live by the truth come into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

We have backtracked just for a moment to recall these three verses from Chapter 3. They have relevance for the following verses from Chapter 4:

¹⁶ He [Jesus] told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” ¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.

How comfortable are you to have the bright light of moral purity shine in every corner of your life? I have no husband ... Really? "Light" doesn't only shine one way. If we are determined to confine it or direct it only in the direction most comfortable to us, we limit its power and decrease its potential.

The Samaritan woman was reticent to allow the light of Jesus to shine too brightly. Her response to his question regarding her husband is an example of ethical (and spiritual) 'bobbing and weaving' - an attempt to evade the truth. The thing is - if you want the 'water', you have to take the 'light'. They go hand in hand.

The Psalmist writes that God is "familiar with all our ways" (Psalm 139:3). The woman has not yet understood who Jesus is. She is coming around with regard to what he means by 'water'; but she doesn't yet realize she cannot pull the wool over his eyes. As he calls her on her attempted deception she begins to experience him in a new way - now she realizes he is a prophet. This is a step in the right direction ... but the journey is not over yet.

The "Take-Home" on this passage - You can fool some people all the time; you can fool all people some of the time. But if you think you are fooling Christ, you are only fooling yourself.

Jesus is basically saying: Let's be honest.

On Line Bible Study - For the Week January 23-29, 2012

Lesson 520

John 4: ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

The woman from Samaria has just wondered how it is Jesus - a Jew - could violate the social mores of his day and speak with her, asking for a drink of water. The woman is making two assumptions.

First, she assumes she knows more about Jesus than she actually does. That he is a 'Jew' is hardly all there is to be known about him.

Second, she fails to consider the power of metaphor. Let's take these one at a time...

What can be known about a person from outward appearance and home address? In Sherlock Holmes-fashion we might be able to surmise many things about each other. Dirt or dust on the shoes suggests we've been walking for a while, and not on the pavement. While it is true that this sort of thing can tell us something about where a person is from and where they are going to, it is just as true to say these pieces of evidence might reveal nothing as to a person's true identity.
The woman had to learn something about Jesus that had not entered her wildest imaginings.

Then, there is the fact of metaphor. We live in an age of literalism, and in many situations that works in our favor. I would not want to be a passenger in a plane that could fly 'metaphorically'. However, there are some areas of our lives that must give way to the symbolic in order to be properly understood and appropriated. Nowhere is this more true than in the area of spirituality. All "God-talk" is metaphor.

Early in his Confessions, St. Augustine offers a very long list of divine attributes and characteristics. First, he poses the questions: What are you, God? Who are you, Lord? God is both every attribute conceivable, and none of them.

In her conversation with Jesus, this woman would come to understand how little she understood. He would inspire her to become a witness on his behalf. For, "he told me everything I ever did!" Indeed ... and if we had a hundred lifetimes we could not bear testimony to all that God has done; for every divine "attribute" is metaphor - wisdom beyond the literal and truth beyond the facts.

The woman would have to come to learn what Jesus meant when he said he was "thirsty". From the 'fact' of his thirst we learn the truth of thirst-quenching water. It's not what we go to fetch, but the life-giving stream that is constantly offered to us if we will but partake of it.

On Line Bible Study - For the Week January 16-22, 2012

Lesson 519

The Conversation between Jesus and a Samaritan Woman.

After the first three verses of John 4 which serve as transitional material (not without its own interest or exegetical challenges), we find this lengthy conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. It is one of the most intricately set conversations in the Gospel tradition and merits more than one lesson.

For this study let's consider John 4:4-10:

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Two textual points of interest. First, your translation probably reads "Sychar" as does the translation above. Raymond Brown situates the conversation at Shechem, as there is no Sychar in the vicinity of the well. The other point of interest is the well itself. There is no specific reference to Jacob's Well in the Hebrew Bible. Jacob does meet Rachel for the first time at a well in Paddan Aram - we presume this is the well referred to here.

Now to the issue of 'water' and Jesus' thirst. It's unusual that the woman would be at the well at the noon hour. Is John telescoping a later event on Calvary when Jesus is once again 'thirsty'?

Raymond Brown suggests the woman's response to Jesus is derisive - that he would have let himself become so in need as to violate the social mores of his day. Again, the idea of Jesus being mocked has a sense of the prophetic to it. Has the mocking ceased? I read a passage earlier today from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in which he speaks of both the power and the need for us to love our enemies. Dr. King anticipates the reaction of some of his listeners, for the claim of the 'need to be practical' is often used to discredit what is described as an idealistic and naive approach to life. Dr. King will have none of it. "Practicality hasn't worked so well," he points out.

Can it be that Jesus' need on the physical level is the metaphor for the great gift he has to offer us? For the mocking to cease and the relationship to begin we have to start with a willingness to recognize who Jesus is. If you knew ... One can't help but wonder if there doesn't need to be some emotion behind this line of Christ's. If only we knew ... how different things would be for us! How much better the world would be!

This gets us into the conversation. There is more to come ...

On Line Bible Study - For the Week January 9-15, 2012

Lesson 518

John 3: ³¹ The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. ³² He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. ³³ The person who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. ³⁴ For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God^[i] gives the Spirit without limit. ³⁵ The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. ³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects [disobeys?] the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

Challenges abound with this text. Who is talking? Jesus? John the Baptist? John the Evangelist? And there are a few textual challenges as well, one of which is noted in verse 36 above.

You can consult the commentaries for further discussion of the exegetical intricacies of the passage. For our purposes let’s pull out a parallel theme - that of the distinction between “what belongs to earth” as opposed to that which “comes from heaven”, and the distinction between the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ.

Father Raymond Brown points out that the phrase belongs to the earth here is not to be taken in a derogatory way as much as it indicates certain limitations. The prophets were sent by God; but they were not sent from above as was Jesus. This is true for John the Baptist as well.

Jesus is not only sent by God; he is sent from above. There is nothing on earth that can give the life that only comes by way of the Spirit. Jesus is the one who is both sent by the Spirit and imparts the life-giving Spirit.

For the evangelist (and the redactor, that is, editor, of the gospel), it is essential to make the point that John is the forerunner, not the Christ. John is a powerful instrument of God, but his message is earthly. Jesus is sent from above; his message is heavenly. It is life-giving.

The passage concludes with the notion that “wrath” is already on those who are not receiving what Jesus has to offer. It is not something they begin to experience later; they are living with the burdens of ‘wrath’ in the here and now.

“Life” is in the believing, and it’s what Jesus has to offer.

On Line Bible Study - For the Week January 2-8, 2012

Lesson 517

John 3: ²² After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. ²³ Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. ²⁴ (This was before John was put in prison.) ²⁵ An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. ²⁶ They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

²⁷ To this John replied,

“A person can receive only what is given from heaven.

²⁸ You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’

²⁹ The bride belongs to the bridegroom.

The friend who attends the bridegroom waits

and listens for him,

and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice.

That joy is mine, and it is now complete.

³⁰ He must become greater; I must become less.”

I will probably say this repeatedly as we consider John's gospel - This passage is complicated! Some questions:

• Is this where the passage belongs in the text, or was it moved by an editor?
• Is the relationship between this passage and the story we will consider in Chapter 4 (The Woman at the Well) theologically related, or are the similarities coincidental?
• Is verse 28 an addition?
• The above translation (Today's New International Version) makes verse 27 sound less ambiguous than the Greek suggests. Raymond Brown (whose commentary on John is providing the scholarly basis for us) translates that verse as follows:

No one can take anything
unless heaven gives it to him.

This translation better highlights some of the questions left unanswered - Who (or what ) is the 'it'? Is the 'him' a reference to Jesus, or to believers in Jesus? It is also similar to what Jesus will say to Pilate later in the Gospel - You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. (19:11)

Let's consider the bride / bridegroom imagery - a theme that is played out in the relationship between God and Israel. The prophet Jeremiah speaks of that relationship as like to two young lovers, with Israel the 'bride' who would follow her husband anywhere (Jeremiah 2:2). The prophet Hosea laments that the relationship between God and Israel has become like that between a husband and a wife who has become a harlot (Hosea 1 & 2).

John is the "best man" to Jesus, and the people are the bride. It would be unthinkable and the worst kind of deceit were there to be any impropriety between the best man and the bride. John understands his role and accepts it joyfully.

Two Points of Interest ... Father Brown notes that the Feast of the Birthday of John the Baptist occurs on June 24 - the time of the year in the northern hemisphere in which the light of the sun begins to fade. Jesus' birth is celebrated on December 25 - the time of the year in the northern hemisphere when the light of the sun begins to increase.

Augustine captures the distinction between John and Jesus:
I listen; he is the one who speaks;
I am enlightened; he is the light;
I am the ear; he is the Word.

May you hear the Word and walk in the clarity of God's Light in the new year.