open gate

Nice out - - what? 65° clear, 92% humidity. Dew point of 62° right now, is that close enough to the temperature to cause sudden fog? IDK. Hint of light changing overnight into Wednesday morning, a promising day.

Sometimes this midweek, even though no sermon to contemplate, I may look at our lectionary readings for the upcoming Sunday. It'll be the Fourth Sunday of Easter, traditionally Good Shepherd Sunday. So ->

John 10:1-10

Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

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Whenever a verse begins "Very truly, I tell you," I'm triggered to my The Old Ways Were Best frame of mind, knowing that the evangelist's NT Greek will say Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν," Amen amen I say to you, or as the KJV correctly has it, "Verily, verily, I say unto you." When were the old ways best? Only the ways that I remember as the good ones. With so many competent new translations of the Bible into English, we no longer read in liturgy from the King James Bible at church on Sundays, but I remember when we did. The language was archaic in my Time, and more so now; but in the nineteen-seventies, when we shifted from traditional language to contemporary language, the quality drop was devastating to some of us. Like rendering beloved poetry into plain language.

Well, we did that too, didn't we. Look at this, which, because it's Good Shepherd Sunday, is our psalm for the day:

The LORD is my shepherd; *
    I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; *
    he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul; *
    he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his
                                Name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil; *
    for thou art with me;
    thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of
                                mine enemies; *
    thou anointest my head with oil;
    my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
                                of my life, *
    and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

But we improve a beloved traditional poem that every English speaker in America learns by heart as a child, by political correcting it to modern vernacular, and in the congregation, every heart drops in disappointment.

Verily, verily, I say unto you.

++++++++

But the gospel reading from John.

I love reading John and spotting his markings, some of which are as sure as a male lion marking his territory. the Bible story we call the Gospel according to John has characteristics that are familiar to everyone who was ever in one of my Sunday school classes or midweek Bible study gatherings.

One is that, unlike the synoptics (where Jesus does miracles and healings as he happens to arrive compassionately upon human need), in John, Jesus deliberately does "signs" to reveal who and what he is (which Gospel John makes clear from the outset, is God the Son), and then Gospel John the narrator comments that it was a sign so that we his audience do not miss it. A subtle literary technique meant to be persuasive to Gospel John's audience. Gospel John seems to have assembled his stories relatively late, maybe 90 to 125 A.D. Some Bible scholars believe that Gospel John's source for the signs stories was a much earlier "Signs Gospel."

Another is Jesus speaking in long, rambling discourses, that Gospel John offers as Jesus' words verbatim.

Another is I AM sayings, in which Gospel John has Jesus tie himself personally to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who from the burning bush told Moses that his name is I AM. There is an I AM saying above, in our gospel reading for Sunday: "I AM the gate"

But, so, what about the gospel reading itself? One writer notes that here, Gospel John has Jesus claim to be the sole broker of salvation. Gospel John also has Jesus make that claim at John 14:6, which is also another I AM saying, "I AM the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me."

Why is Gospel John doing this?

One might cast it as Gospel John's literary technique to counter then current events in which others, people and religious entities, were claiming to offer salvation. Gospel John has Jesus make the theological assertion that he, Jesus alone, is the one and only way - - a claim that many Christians agree with as an important facet of their faith.

Where am I in this? Not to waffle, but I have to back up for a discussion of what one means by salvation in the first place. And also to Gospel John's alleged antisemitism. All of which makes for a good Sunday school hour.

RSF&PTL