Tuesday

John 12:20-36; Is. 49:1-7

The Servant says, he was chosen in the womb, and given the words and the power, but was hidden away ... says he sees no result (“I have spent my strength for nothing”) but still has faith that his cause is just and that God will support him.  So God says, it is not enough that you are my hidden servant.  I will “give you as a light to the nations” – and kings and emperors will stand up and take notice.  John’s Jesus delivers his last public dialogue, in which he claims the metaphor of seed and grain, life and light, and God Himself speaks from heaven in response to Jesus’ pious invocation: “Father, glorify your name.”  God thunders that “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”  And we understand that to mean the glorification of the once and future Christ Jesus.  Jesus proclaims that the ruler of this world (Satan) will be driven out, and that he will be lifted up and “will draw all people to myself. . . While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.”  Then Jesus (the Servant) goes into hiding.

Christian orthodoxy has so intertwined and literalized these metaphors that it is nearly impossible for post-modern exiles to glean any other meaning.  Knowing that John’s Gospel was written 70 to 90 years after the death of Jesus, and 30 to 50 years after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple hardly helps.  John’s Gospel is mystical, metaphorical, theological myth, with little if any connection to participation in God’s justice-compassion on earth, here and now.  Instead, it dazzles and distracts us with promises of becoming “children of light” if we will only believe.

The “servant’s songs” in Isaiah are attributed to an unknown prophet who lived in Babylon during the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people during the 6th Century, BCE.  The servant is often interpreted to be the nation of Israel, not an individual, and in this second song (Is. 49:1-7) it is through the reconciliation of Israel with God’s justice-compassion that Israel will be restored to power.  God declares to the entire earth (bounded by the “coastlands”) that the nation of Israel has been called to serve God’s justice-compassion.  The servant Israel has been hidden away, and even though it looks as though that great work of justice-compassion has gone unnoticed, it has not.  God will give the Servant people “as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”  “Salvation” does not mean “going to heaven at death.”  “Salvation” means living in God’s kingdom of distributive justice and peace for all of the days allotted to life, whether of the community, or the individual members.

Surely the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels would have pointed to this prophecy as an encouragement to his oppressed followers, struggling to love justice and live in non-violent resistance to Rome.  He may very well have paraphrased the reading:  Even though you seem to spend your strength for nothing and vanity, your labor is not in vain, because your cause is with the Lord, and your reward is with your God.  That is the meaning of faith.

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