John 10:22-30. Homily.
At that time the Festival of the
Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and
Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So
the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in
suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus
answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my
Father’s name testify to me, but you do not believe
because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my
voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them
eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my
hand. My Father, in regard to what he has given me, is greater than all, and
no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand. The
Father and I are one.”
They say, in John, when we are told
when something happens, and where it happens, we are also being told the mood.
What was “in the air”. So not just the When and the Where, but also the How and
even the What. Let us see how that might play out here.
Jesus is in the Temple, and it’s the
winter Dedication festival, which marks the Dedication of said Temple, Except
it doesn’t, not quite. It doesn’t mark the time the First or the Second Temple
were first dedicated for use. It actually marks the re-dedication
of the (Second) Temple.[1]
That was necessary after it was defiled by Syrian invaders, not that long ago, in
the 2nd century BCE. And the invaders had set out to humiliate. It
is said they sacrificed pigs in the Temple and poured their fat on the Sacred
Scrolls. This, as you can imagine, led to a fight. There was a battle - there were
battles - and the Temple was reclaimed. So we can say it: this festival marks a
military victory. Memory of military victory is what is in the air.
So the question some Jews put to
Jesus here is probably not abstract. It is pressing; it’s intense. Is Jesus Messiah?
Is he a hero, at least like the heroes of old? Is he the one through whom Gd
will overthrow today’s invaders, the Romans, so that the Jewish people can live
in freedom?
“How long will you keep us in
suspense? Are you our hero? Will you rescue us?”
We know – from our passage and from
the gospels as a whole – that Jesus gently, or not so gently, says he is just not
starting from there. He is staring somewhere else. We get it. We’ve caught on.
We may well think that the people then and there who didn’t get it or catch on
were not just confused, but wilfully, perversely wrong-headed.
But not so fast!
“How long will you keep us in
suspense? Are you our hero? Will you rescue us?”
I suggest these urgent questions resonate
throughout time, and throughout space. Not just for us, but for the people we
care about. For everyone, the world is big, and we are small. For all of us, in
times of crisis, we may want to cry out to someone:
“How long will you keep us in
suspense? Are you our hero? Will you rescue us?”
So, for us, too, here, now, it can be
hard, hard to hear Jesus saying that he just does not start from there. He is
starting from a different place. He promises to look after us, and that’s good
of course. But he does not promise heroic victory, does not promise that kind
of rescue.
Instead? Instead, Jesus says: “My
sheep hear my voice”.
My sheep hear my voice. And my voice is
the voice of my Father. To hear my voice is to hear the voice of Gd the Father,
for the Father and I are one. To hear my voice is to hear all the wisdom, the
vision, the grace, the strength, the forgiveness, the love, the generosity, and
the compassion of Gd. And the question Jesus puts back to us is:
Are you willing to place
all your hope in this and this alone?
To live by hearing my voice,
whatever you have to face?
How to begin to hear this voice, the
voice of Jesus, which is the voice of Gd? The beginning is not hard. We only
have to shut up. To stop our bleating, if you like. We must rededicate
ourselves to silence.
[SILENCE]
Amen.
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