Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Monday, March 24, 2014 Read John 15:18-16:4 We have noticed earlier in John’s gospel that the idea of being “put out of the synagogue” has emerged. We heard it clearly in the story of the man born blind who was healed by Jesus. As we think through the early experience of the church we are challenged to understand this idea in light of a slightly different picture that emerges, especially in the book of Acts. There we meet Christians who live at least somewhat in the context of the Jewish community – they enter the Temple and participate regularly there. In fact, Luke will tell us in Act that many of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem were zealous for the Law (Acts 21:17-26). One would have had a hard time, as an outsider, to distinguish between believing Jewish Christians and non-believing Jews. How are we to think about this discrepancy? Likely, a part of the message that a writer like John is proclaiming would be aimed at the people to whom he is writing and about their context. There is plenty of evidence within the gospel of John and the letters of John of a painful split that has happened between Jewish believers in Jesus and non-believing Jews. The believing Jewish Christians in that context likely had been “put out of the synagogue” and the pain involved in that parting would have been intense. We have witnessed the bitter pain in places like the discourse in chapter 8 of John gospel. So as we begin to listen to today’s reading we need to hear it in light of this kind of reality – it addresses itself as much to the context of the readers of John’s gospel, likely some 60 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, as it does to the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. Likely these words address themselves to that later context more than at the time of Jesus. To be sure there was a degree of hostility involved at the time of Jesus – after all Jesus was killed – but the bitter hostility likely belongs to a later time. So the words here are a warning for people who first read this gospel – life in this world will bring great friction. Being a follower of Jesus will be costly. Of course Jesus likely anticipated this great hostility and likely did speak words like these to his followers in anticipation of that time. The character of these words has that forward looking nature to it. And once again words like these are precious to people who are living under pressure from a world that has come to hate Jesus and to hate those who follow him. It is not only in John’s gospel that Jesus spoke words of warning to his followers of the coming persecution that likely would befall them. In Mark’s gospel, during the time when Jesus was talking with his disciples about the coming destruction of the Temple Jesus also warns them of the coming persecution (Mark 13:9-13). That warning came before the meal that Mark will soon tell his reader about. Also in Matthew’s gospel we read about Jesus sending his followers out on a mission during his ministry in Galilee where they are told that they can anticipate that they will be sent as sheep among wolves (Matthew 10:16-25). That warning also comes long before the meal scene. The point is that words of warning like we hear in John’s gospel at this point are not only relevant during the meal – Jesus likely spoke similar words in other contexts. The words we hear in John 15:18-16:4 may be from one of those contexts as easily as they are from the meal scene. We have noticed that Jesus was concerned for his followers and addressed that concern during the meal described in John 13-14. Again, whether or not these exact words were spoken in that context or some other is not important. But if these words really are “extra” words of the eye-witness that John wanted to include, then this provides a very good context to attach these words in John’s gospel. Even if they were not a part of the original meal scene they fit here to augment that scene. In our own time, we do not experience hostility to the degree spoken of in this passage. Yet, we know that following Jesus will be costly for us too and that the possibility of the hostility that undergirds this passage can become real for us. There are places in the world today where people are experiencing this hostility and persecution. These words would be even more precious to them. We can be thankful that our experience is not as hostile. And we can and ought to pray for those for whom experience matches that in this passage.