We’ve been reading through a very dense piece of the gospel of John. Like a symphony, the same ideas are recapitulated with variations, and new themes are introduced and integrated over and over. This is supposed to be the year of Mark, who writes in a direct, breathless style. So, of course, the year gets interrupted to inflict John’s obtuse, incomprehensible language on us, in case we get too relaxed.
I think of John’s gospel as the PhD gospel. It is frightfully clever, with complicated referencing and fresh new ideas. You need to read every sentence four or five times, and no sooner have you grasped something than a new idea comes along. PhD dissertations are tremendously useful, but not for the casual reader. John is dropped into the bible in between Luke and Acts like it’s no big deal. But Luke and Acts read like populist adventure tales, whereas John’s gospel is a collection of esoteric conceptual sayings, with no clear structure. It’s like the difference between The Beatles and that weird experimental electronica stuff. They’re both brilliant, but differently so.
Basically what I’m saying is - when you hear a phrase like ‘It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.’ – and you don’t really understand it, don’t worry. Nobody does. John’s gospel is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed. Like a relationship or a sunset – you don’t have to understand it to benefit from it.
Today I’d like to pick up one just one aspect of the discourse. Jesus knows that some of the people following him do not believe.
"For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"
Now the response to Jesus’ question is one of those amazing, theatrical, poignant moments in the gospel. Simon Peter answers:
"Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
In the movie version, the violins in the soundtrack would swell and there’d be an amazing zoom out and everyone would look vaguely into the middle distance as they digested this profound statement from Peter, who would go on to be one of the great leaders in the early church movement. The sun would come out from behind a cloud and your body would start pumping out serotonin.
But can we just rewind a second. First of all, a bunch of people are following Jesus around, listening to him and sharing in his work. But they don’t actually believe in him. They’ve seen him feed five thousand people and walk on water, but they’re not buying it. So they shove off. That part, I get.
But then Jesus, who has gathered about himself a small leadership group, his key organisers, turns to them and says words to the effect of ‘What about you lot? Are you shoving off as well?’
Now, this may be the sort of thing that is taught in aggressively masculine management seminars. You know, you only want people who are 100% behind your vision and if they are not performing, it’s best to get rid of them. I’ve been listening to a slightly horrifying podcast recently about a church in the USA called Mars Hill, where the celebrity pastor sacked two long-serving pastoral staff members because they raised questions about the draft of a new constitution for the church. Pastor Mark Driscoll slagged off the two pastors in his evening sermon, then summoned them to a meeting and sacked them on the spot for disloyalty. Of course that would never happen in Anglicanism (said no one ever).
This ‘get on the bus or get run over by it’ leadership has been utilised by leaders in the institutional church in countless ways throughout our history. Sometimes people will point to incidents like this, or other particularly harsh statements in the New Testament, to show that this approach is ‘biblical’ or something.
I’m not sure that John’s Jesus in this discourse is offering a model for institutional leadership, or even a model for church leadership at all. The concept of leadership is frightfully modern, as I become older and wiser, I’m more sceptical about ‘leadership’ as a set of skills you can somehow develop anyway.
For me, today (not for everyone, forever, let the listener understand) – I hear freedom in those words of Jesus. ‘Do you also wish to go away?’ is not an ultimatum from an angry boss, or a sulky dismissal from a narcissist who is not getting their own way. To ‘go away’ in this context is a choice that is available both to the outer circle of disciples and the inner circle of the Twelve apostles. Following, Jesus has emphasised, is not because anyone gets a personal benefit out of it, but because God has called. Indeed, in the verse after the verse where we stopped today, Jesus emphasises that one of those who has been called is ‘a devil’. Clearly, Jesus did not choose people based on their talents or their ability to contribute to increased outputs. A person’s value is not based on whether one is called and goes away or whether one is called and stays. And, if Simon Peter is any example, one can go away, betray trust, let Jesus down, and still come back.
It reminds that, as much as I like people showing up here on Sunday morning, or at our other events and activities, that’s not the true marker of holiness. You or I can show up here and still be riddled with sin and despair, and we can have time away which brings us closer to God in Christ. The ideal, of course, is that we both show up for this community and come closer to God – but life is rarely that tidy.
In the life of faith, we try to come close to Jesus. Where else can we go? Who else has the words of eternal life? But the idea that this call and this willingness to follow is a nice, clean, comfortable line where we go neatly from A to B, ticking each box as we go, is fanciful. We are constantly deciding to stay or go, to bind or loose, to commit or release. And that’s OK, and that’s part of the journey.
The Lord Be With You