Sacred Space #8

Here is the next Bible Study. Hoping to get the last three in this series posted soon - Linda.

Sacred Space #8 11/26/10
Relationships in the Gospel of John.

Jn1:35-39 gives the account of the calling of the first disciples. These were followers of John the Baptist who hear him announce, “Here is the Lamb of God.” They follow Jesus who asks them, “What are you looking for?” They ask, “Rabbi where are you staying?” Jesus replies “Come and see” - and they stayed with him.

Jn 20:15-17 describes the morning of the resurrection. Mary Magdalene sees Jesus, but doesn’t recognize him. Jesus speaks to her, asking, “Whom are you looking for?” Mary recognizes him and calls out, “Rabbouni”. Jesus tells her not to hold on to him, but instead to “go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, my God and your God’”.

These two passages are bookends or literary inclusions. There is a progression between the first to the second. Both have questions, but these transition from what to whom, from the impersonal to the personal. The disciples call him Rabbi (translated as teacher); Mary calls him Rabbouni. In both accounts the evangelist uses parenthesis to give the same translation - teacher. The difference is that the word’s ending changes to give the meaning “beloved teacher” in the resurrection narrative. They are structurally parallel accounts with a common drama. Mirror stories placed at the beginning and the end of the Gospel. The first story announces the thematic –Jesus is a teacher. As the Gospel unfolds the reader enters into a deeper, more meaningful, relationship with Jesus. The Gospel is an invitation to learn from Jesus and enter into this relationship.

There is a lot of turning in this story. In v. 14, “When she had said this she turned around and saw Jesus standing there…” In v. 16, “Jesus said to her ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, Rabbouni”. The Hebrew word for repent is “to turn around”. Turning here has a spiritual and relational sense. The first time she turns she sees who she is expecting to see, what she is looking for – the gardener. The second time she hears his voice and is open to a different understanding. You can’t see this new risen Lord unless you turn, change your perspective. When you move from your fixed way of being you can begin to see him. It signifies a shift in relationship – from Rabbi to Rabbouni. In the first story the disciples follow Jesus to his home in Capernaum; here Mary is called to a new relationship.

Mary tries to hold on to Jesus, to keep things the way they were in the past. Jesus replies that “I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father…” He then tells her to go to the brethren and tell them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”– the present tense. He is in process of ascending. Ascension in John is not a physical thing, a movement to another place, but rather a progressive growth in relationship. Otherwise why link himself and his disciples in this way? He “ascends” in the measure that his disciples enter into the same relationship as he has with the Father.

At the same time being “raised up”, going upward, in John is all about the cross. Jesus will not complete his ascension, he will continue to ascend, until people understand that Jesus’ God, his Father, is also their God and Father, and that he is the one who willed the nonviolence of the cross. When you see Jesus you see the Father - a nonviolent God. Because of this all the barriers between us and the divine are no more. The intermediary mechanisms of sacrifice and temple are redundant once you have been brought into this relationship. Priests and Pastors may serve a useful pastoral role but cannot substitute for the new relationship with God. We see that Mary needs to let go of Jesus and this is so in order that she may enter into this privileged relationship with the Father and help lead others into it. Although we understand the Father through Jesus, Jesus in a way has to become less so that the Father becomes more.

In Jn 14:1 Jesus says to his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” Here he is talking of the same thing. That the Father is nonviolent and loving, so there is no need to worry. Jesus shows us who God is - the Father. Jesus mirrors the Father – and so creates an endless reflective relationship with us in the middle!

The accounts of the Samaritan woman at the well and the anointing of Jesus by the woman at Bethany are also parallel stories. Jn 4:6-15 describes the meeting at Jacob’s well –a holy site. Jesus gently deconstructs that sacred space. He asks the woman to give him water, breaking the cultural barriers associated with Samaritans and Women. Jesus as the source of living water will become the source welling up within you. There is no more need to return to the well. True worship is in spirit and in truth. Neither Jacob’s well nor Jerusalem will be necessary as sacred space. They are replaced by this new relationship between the believer and Jesus. The woman who anoints Jesus in Jn 12:1-8 is a mirror of the Samaritan woman in terms of relationship. She pours costly nard on Jesus’ feet in an extravagant gesture of limitless love. She has moved beyond argument to an act that shows the depth of this relationship.