Preacher: Canon Gordon Jeff
Readings:
Isaiah 49, 1-7
1 Corinthians 1, 1-9
John 1, 29-42
To say that the scientific way of looking at life has brought the
world hitherto unimaginable advances in health, in material well-being and in
knowledge of the world we inhabit, is to state the pathetically obvious, and
anything which follows is not in the remotest way to devalue all the good
things that science has brought to every one of us.
But unfortunately, instead of an attitude of both/and, it has all
too often become a question of either/or. By which I mean that since perhaps
the middle of the 19th century until recently there has been a tendency to
study the bible primarily in terms of whether it is historically, factually
accurate, literally true, while largely losing sight of its poetry, its
imagination and its sense of story-telling. All this has led many people to
dismiss much of the bible because it is frequently not literally true,
nor historically accurate.
But, as I know I have said before from here, truth is far more
complicated than what is literally true. The plays of Shakespeare are
profoundly true - they speak of the human condition, which is what any
meaningful story does, whether or not it is literally true. A story has
its own kind of truth.
So that in more recent years there has been a welcome return by
some biblical scholars to interpret the bible more in terms of story-telling
than in literal truth, and this has, I believe, the possibility of reaching out
to a very real hunger among people generally.
Why else, in a grimly factual world, such staggering popularity of
the Harry Potter books, or Philip Pullman or earlier, the Lord of the Rings or
(whatever you may think of the entertaining nonsense) the Da Vinci Code. It was
the Glastonbury-based writer Geoffrey Ashe who ascribed the lasting fascination
of the Grail legend to the need for what he called 'something more' - certainly
something more than hard fact and mathematical certainty.. ... 'something
more'.
I got to thinking around all this again when I read today's gospel
about the influence of Jesus on John the Baptist and the calling of Peter and
Andrew. Here is profound story rather than exact history. We know almost
certainly (and this is where the coldly factual approach is of value) we know
almost certainly that whoever it was who wrote John's gospel it was not the
apostle John, and this gospel is generally considered not to have been written
until about 90 - 95 A.D., which for us would be like trying to record the
details of a conversation which took place around the year 1957.
So it is hard to believe that the detailed reported speech here
and elsewhere could be exactly what Jesus and others actually spoke. What is
happening here and elsewhere is that the writer is expressing as honestly as he
can the effect he believed that Jesus had on John the Baptist and on two
of his first followers, and by implication on the writer himself.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other early documents
has revealed to us what was always known, though less clearly, that early
Christianity was far more varied than the later official church wanted people
to believe. Many documents which were considered to be heretical were
deliberately destroyed in the early years of Christianity so that we know of them
only in a biased way through the writings of those who condemned them.
Often, I think these apocryphal writings were rejected because the
stories were just too colourful, but nevertheless they, too, recorded what
Jesus meant to those who wrote or told the stories.
If you and I think about the people who have been important
influences on our lives, we may hold in our minds a few sayings of theirs which
have been significant for us, but the great mass of things we've heard them
saying will have been totally forgotten. If we enjoy writing, we might well try
- as many authors do - we might well try to recreate the sense of an
important person, like a parent, by writing the kind of dialogue which we feel
conveys something of what that person was like, but it will be imaginative - a
kind of story, not a literal truth. And this is what I believe the writer of
John's gospel was attempting to do. Years before John's gospel was written, St
Paul wrote to tell of how the person of Jesus had changed his life, but
Paul records virtually nothing of the words and actual teaching of Jesus
- it was the person.
So what does count, if not the exact words a person says? -
and this is where I'm at last getting to the heart of what I'm trying to say
this morning - what does count is not all the things that people have said
to us, but the general impression each person makes on us. It is the whole
person which we remember, not their exact words.
As most of you know, the main part of my work over the last 30
years has been in talking one-to-one with people about their relationship with
God, and trying to run and to oversee various courses which help others to do
the same. And I hope that I'm neither stupid nor arrogant enough to think that
after an hour's talking, anyone is going to go away filled with wonderful
pearls of wisdom from me. At best, they might take away one or two suggestions
to ponder over, or more importantly, they might have clarified their own
thinking a bit.
But what does frighten me, and will continue to frighten me
in all my relationships, is that all of us carry away from any encounter
an impression of that person as a whole we are moved less by words than by the
actuality of a person. And where - in the widest sense of the word -
where people feel they have been loved, then they will grow. And if we
can detect something of the Spirit of God in a person, then perhaps some of
their potentialities will be helped to emerge.
This, as I see it, is what happened to John the Baptist, and to
Peter and Andrew, and to all the countless millions of people who have in
whatever way encountered something of the person of Jesus. . They will have
realised that they have grown and matured through that encounter.
Originally it may have been through a direct personal contact with
the historical Jesus 2,000 years ago. In later years and in our own time it may
have been through some kind of profound religious experience. Or it may have
been more indirectly by being impressed by the effect the person of Jesus had
on the writers of the gospels and epistles and on later writers ever since.
What I'd like to invite you to do, while we are still near the
beginning of another year, is to take a little time in the week ahead to ponder
just what is the impression the person of Jesus makes on you.
Don't be too bothered about trying to be politically correct, as
it were - trying to be absolutely orthodox. It's much more important to be
honest to your own experience. Recall, as I said just now, that the early
church was very diverse indeed. What does the person of Jesus mean to you? And
in any case, the impression that figure makes on us will change and modify over
the years. So, what does that person of Jesus mean to you at this point in
time, personally and honestly?
And then - again near this start of another new year - what might
follow nom your own understanding of Jesus? What are the implications for how
you live the next twelve months? Might that person help you to come closer to
some kind of understanding of the mystery which for want of another word we
call God?
One last point: according to John's account, the very first
response of Jesus to Simon was to rename him. To rename him Peter, 'Cephas' -
the Rock. The Rock.
I wonder what name he might be giving to you? You might
like to think about the new name Jesus might give to you. For Simon Peter, 'The
Rock' was a loving and an encouraging new name. What might it be for you?
I am sure that any new name which might be given to you
would also be a loving and an encouraging one.