Abstract
How many readers of John’s Gospel are sooner or later disturbed by the discourses, by their seemingly polemical and polarizing tone of voice! Talk of sheep and shepherds in the tenth chapter could well provide the clarifying clue. Did you ever consider that what we are witnessing is the give and take of a political campaign?
Perhaps because the patriarchs were shepherds, perhaps because God took King David from the sheepfold, the Hebrew bible’s favorite image for a ruler is shepherd of the sheep. Of course, God is the shepherd of God’s people. The Lord leads us to green pastures beside still waters. But God appoints human viceroys. First Moses, then Joshua and the judges, then Israel’s kings are God’s adoptive sons, deputized to guide and govern on God’s behalf. Golden-age David united northern and southern tribes into one kingdom, which split in two after Solomon and fell to the big powers.
Even–perhaps especially–under foreign domination, the people of God still needed a human shepherd. Fast-forwarding to John’s Gospel, we witness Jesus and his enemies debating who is the real shepherd, which of them is authorized to speak and act for God. Decades before Jesus entered the contest, competing parties were vying for power.
Sadducees bid fair to be shepherds of Israel, because they controlled the temple cult. Jerusalem based, they were also in a position to network with Roman governors and military police, to negotiate terms under which the holy place would be preserved, its rites allowed to continue. The Sadducees had a refined sensitivity for what their conquerors would tolerate. They had learned how to explain Jewish customs in ways that made them seem benign. They had a track-record, could take credit for preserving a precious fragment of Israel’s national life. Doesn’t Torah tell us, this is what God wanted? Hadn’t God designed the temple building, chosen the furniture, selected the costumes, set the schedule, laid down the rules for sacrifices? Didn’t prophets warn: neglect of cult could provoke God to bring on the Gentiles to destroy the temple and raze the Holy City to the ground?
Pharisees controlled the synagogues, which were scattered through all of the towns and villages. Their geographical base was far more widespread. Pharisees were convinced that meticulous observance of the law would win Divine favor. If a ‘saving remnant’ of Jewish males would obey all 613 commandments, God would be persuaded to send the promised Messiah to establish home rule. Pharisees studied God’s law day and night. They were teachers in Israel. They sat on Moses’ seat. If commandment-keeping was key, they, too, had a credible claim to lead the people of God.
We learn from history and from Luke-Acts, how these warring factions disagreed about many things. What John’s Gospel shows us is how united they were in their opposition to Jesus, a marginal “third party” candidate. John scarcely mentions the Zealots who might have been a fourth.
John’s Gospel is not long on party platforms. There is no table of beatitudes and woes. John’s Jesus delivers no Sermon on the Mount or Sermon on the Plain. No! The campaign is unabashedly focussed on personalities. John’s Jesus engages in what looks like shameless self-promotion: “I AM the bread of life.” “If anyone is thirsty, let them come to me and drink.” “I AM the light of the world.” “I AM the good shepherd, the gate, the door.” “Before Abraham was, I AM.” “I and the Father are one!” Signs and wonders corroborate Jesus’ claim to supernatural backing: water into wine, multiplied loaves and fishes, the lame walk, the blind see, the dead are raised. John’s Gospel presses the question: are you going to believe in Jesus? Are you going to trust Jesus to be the Way, the Truth, the Life? Or are you going to wander aimlessly, follow first one shepherd and then another, or simply vote for someone else?
Like so many political matches, John’s discourses quickly degenerate into mud-slinging. Jesus’ opponents are spiritually obtuse, do not keep the laws they interpret, love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil, are only interested in self-glorification, in short, are not sons of Abraham but sons of the devil, the father of lies! The religious establishment join forces to declare Jesus a sabbath-breaker and a blasphemer, whose execution would be in the national interest. Back-and-forth demonizing is the underbelly of each party’s claim to be the true representative of God!
Certainly, the battle is for the hearts and minds of the people. Jesus confidently insists, sheep know their shepherd’s voice. They will not follow a stranger. True enough, hoi polloi rally to rhetoric that resonates with the heart’s deepest longings. The trouble is that our deepest longings are inarticulate. We look to leaders to help us identify what we really want. We begin with the obvious. “It’s the economy, stupid!” Likewise, people with whom Jesus engages start food supply (bread that perishes, water from Jacob’s well), health care, and length of earthly life. Even Jesus’ remarkable pedagogy brings only a few to the recognition: what we really long for, what will really make us “happy ever after,” is eternal life together with God.
Jesus’ campaign promises are the most extravagant. Sadducees claim to guarantee the status quo, warning that theirs is the best deal with the Romans that Jews can get. Pharisees urge delayed gratification: strict observance in the present to hasten Messiah’s future coming. John’s Jesus offers eternal life. The dead will be raised at the future judgment. Spirit-possession will not be limited to leaders, to kings and prophets. Godhead will come and indwell the hearts of all believers, rear us up into God’s projects and purposes. Nor is this some “pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by” inducement. Eternal life together with God begins here and now! Ironically, there is one point about which all of the candidates agree: that Jesus’ death is key to Israel’s well-being!
In John’s Gospel, the contest is decided, not by voters at the ballot box, but by the Father from eternity, by Pontius Pilate at the Pavement, and by the Word-made-flesh on Golgotha’s hill. Pilate is a savvy if venal politician. He knows how to twist Jewish rivalries to Rome’s advantage. Pilate pronounces Jesus the winner: in three languages, declares that Jesus is the King of the Jews. Pilate plays hard-to-get, refuses to hand Jesus over for execution, before extracting the oath that disqualifies Sadducees and Pharisees from future races. Pilate demands: “do you really want me to crucify your king?” They cry: “we have no king but Caesar!” Words out of their own mouths settle it! Neither Jewish religious establishment party is eligible to be God’s viceroy, when it refuses to acknowledge YHWH as rightful king! Words out of Pilate’s mouth echo the Word spoken from the beginning: Jesus supercedes both of their claims!
Jesus stands alone as commandment-keeper. Didn’t He tell us all along that He says only what the Father gives Him to say, and does only what the Father commands Him to do? Jesus and the Father are in complete harmony about His career agenda. Just as the Father and the Divine Word agreed on His descent into human flesh to dwell among us, so the Father and the Word-made-flesh concur about His ascent, His being lifted up on the hard wood of the cross as His enthronement and the first step of His return.
Likewise, Jesus is high priest and sacrifice in the cult that God really wants. Doesn’t Torah tell us, God is Life, of all else the source of life? All life belongs to God. Life voluntarily returned to God wins a blessing. Jesus is the passover lamb, whose blood wards off the angel of death. Jesus is the yom kippur sacrifice whose blood soaks up every impurity and restores kinship between God and the people of God. Laying down His life for His sheep, Jesus releases the gift of Holy Spirit, breathes eternal life into all of God’s people.
Theologically, the campaign-image has the vices of its virtues. Political battles have winners and losers. Pharisees can win only at the expense of the Sadducees, and vice versa. Since Jesus is the victor, both establishment parties are down and out. In John’s Gospel as in ancient political intrigue, not only do they fail in their bid to be shepherds. Their opposition to Jesus lands them in outer darkness, cut off from God and the people of God. They no longer number among the sheep!
The shepherd-image in itself would not have to be exclusive. Perhaps a fold can hold only so many sheep. Perhaps it doesn’t work to mix sheep of different species in the same flock. But John’s Jesus does say that He has sheep in other folds. Won’t the blood of His sacrifice overflow the stone jars of purification? Like the yom kippur sacrifices, shouldn’t the power of His blood cleanse the sins of the whole nation: not only of hoi polloi, but also of leaders; not only sins that are not fully intentional, but also the high-handed sins of idolatrous political factions that make themselves equal to God?