I just love the story of Jordan Gollub. It came out of Religious News Service in June of 1989. It seems that Jordan Gollub was leader of the Mississippi Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. (Now there’s a contradiction in terms for you!) At least he was until they discovered that he was born of Jewish parents. Then they kicked him out. Thus, this bigot found himself ousted by his own bigoted group! The article says that he now plans to start his own organization, so he can kick everybody else out, I suppose. It’s going to be a pretty small group in the end! Jordan Gollub was a bigot who was “hoist on his own petard.” Did you know that the term “bigot” comes from “by God,” and began as a term applied to those of one religious group who wished to denounce the other? Unfortunately, the Church has had too many people like that. People who wanted to throw other people out because they did not express their faith in exactly the same words, or follow exactly the same rules. These people are “bigots.”
I. IN THE BEGINNING, JOHN, THE SON OF ZEBEDEE, WAS ONE OF THEM. Last week we talked about James, one of the sons of Zebedee who, with their father, owned a fishing business on the Sea of Galilee. Well, James had a younger brother John, who eventually became the more famous of the two. Luke says that they were “partners with Simon” Peter. (Luke 5:10) Mark also refers to “hired servants” which implies that the family was well-to-do, and they all hailed from the little fishing village of Bethsaida, near Capernaum. They were mending their nets when Jesus came along and called them to be His followers. Over the years, John maintained close connection with Simon Peter and, together with his older brother John, was even one of the “Inner Circle” of the Twelve who were always with Jesus whenever something of significance occurred. Together with Peter, John was even sent to prepare the last Passover Feast for Jesus and the other disciples. (Luke 22:8)
William Barclay says that “In the first three Gospels John seldom appears apart from James; for the most part James and John are inseparable, and act and speak as one. From these Gospels there emerges a vivid picture of John—the strange thing is that it is not an attractive one.” (THE MASTER’S MEN, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1959, p.29) You see, the only time that John appears by himself, he seems to be acting in a mood of such embarrassing intolerance that Jesus had to rebuke him! He said, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.” (Mark 9:38) The strange thing is that this event follows close upon the heels of an unsuccessful exorcism on the part of the disciples themselves. They seem to have been embarrassed at their own conspicuous lack of success, and the only thing they could think to do is to point their finger of criticism at someone else who was not only doing their job, but who seemed to be having more success with it than they were!
Luke’s order of things follows Mark’s pretty closely. Jesus teaches about the real meaning of greatness, but the dumb disciples do not get the message. There seems to be a connection between concern for one’s own status and willingness to put down others. We seem to have the feeling that life is a teeter-totter, and that in order for us to rise, somebody else must fall. The assumption in both Mark and Luke is that we are the “chosen people.” John felt that they had a copyright on Jesus, and nobody else had any right to use His name. His kind are not all dead yet! As the Interpreter’s Bible comments, “This was not the last time that a group, whether large or small, has set itself up as the sole medium of God’s action in Christ.” (New York and Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1951, Vol. 8, p. 180) There is even a poem which some Christians are supposed to have sung during the middle ages: “We are God’s chosen people, let all the rest be damned; God’s love is just for us alone, we can’t have heaven crammed!” (I actually saw an ad in the Saturday Church pages of a newspaper years ago for the “Original Church of God, Number Two.”) Evidently, at least some of the disciples believed that nobody could act in Christ’s name except them. They got rattled when, in fact, someone was acting in Christ’s name and doing it rather more effectively than they were!
One reason that religious bigotry is so prevalent is that once a person has become convinced that something is right, there is a natural tendency to try to make everyone else over in his or her own image. Anyone who tries to impose his or her own will on others and insist that they must all think alike, or have exactly the same religious experience, simply misses the boat. Paul Tournier, the Christian Swiss psychiatrist comments: “Love always means going to others, not demanding that they come to us. Nothing is more tragic and cruel than the spiritual tyranny we meet so often. He who has had a rich experience wants to impose it upon others, no holds barred, in order to save them. However, he does not realize the infinite variety of ways by which each person needs to find what he is seeking...” Let’s face it: the world will not be saved by having several hundred million people exactly like us. We are all different, and I think God approves of those differences. Just because we have found something good does not mean that everyone else must have the same thing, even if it is a good thing. Abraham Maslow tells of a kitchen employee who was so good at opening cans that one day he opened every can in the hotel. We don’t need everyone to do the same thing. We don’t need clones; we need Christians!
We do know that both John and his brother James were men of violent temper. When Mark gives his list of the Twelve in Chapter 3, he says that Jesus even gave them a nickname: “Boanerges,” i.e., “Sons of Thunder.” Luke 9:54 tells us that when Jesus and his disciples left Galilee for Jerusalem and a Samaritan village refused to welcome them, James and John wished to “bid fire come down from heaven and consume them,” but they were rebuked by Jesus. Very early on, Jesus had to remind them that He and his followers were called to save, not destroy—a lesson which some of Jesus’ followers haven’t quite learned even yet! (Have you ever seen one of those “Kill a Commie for Christ” bumper stickers? It is enough to make an atheist out of you!) I remember that during the debate over school prayer back in the sixties, one congressman who did not want to get the government mixed up in religion, noting all the hate mail he had received, asked, “What is there about the thought of God which brings out the worst in people?”
There is something in every one of us that cherishes the idea of revenge. If we are rejected, put upon, or put down, our natural inclination is to put down the one who has put us down. There is a story about a middle-aged woman who was in a bookstore. She was in a foul mood and was taking it out on one of the clerks. She accused him of never stocking the books she wanted to read and always being out of the current best sellers. The poor clerk, trying to maintain his composure, asked her, “Well, what is the title of the book you want to purchase?” She answered, “‘How to Remain Young and Beautiful.’” The clerk, with a sarcastic smile on his face answered, “Very well, I will place your order for ‘How to Remain Young and Beautiful’—and I will mark it URGENT.” He had his revenge. Most of us can appreciate that very basic human emotion. But Jesus does not. And that should be the deciding factor for us.
II. THE OTHER EVENT FOR WHICH JOHN IS BEST KNOWN ISN’T A VERY NICE ONE, EITHER. I spoke about it last week. It reeks of selfish ambition and personal aggrandizement. Mark tells how James and John came to Jesus with the request for front-row seats in the Kingdom of God. Mark tells us that the rest of the twelve resented them for pushing themselves forward. Probably because they had their eyes on those seats for themselves! At any rate, I don’t blame them! Don’t you hate it when somebody pushes himself to the head of the line? Now, when Matthew tells the story of James and John he softens it a bit. He attributes this ambitious request to their mother (Matthew 20:20-29). The reason for the change in the story is this: Matthew was writing perhaps thirty years later than Mark. By that time the early Church had begun to look upon the apostles as princes and foundation stones of the Church, and it is only natural that he would want to soften the story a bit. I like the way Mark tells it, though. It makes those twelve so human. John was a “son of thunder” who wanted to put a stop to others not of his own group who were using Jesus’ name. Jesus had to rebuke him for it, and that rebuke must have stung. But it seems to have stuck.
III. IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL, THERE APPEARS A CHARACTER WHO IS CALLED “THE BELOVED DISCIPLE.” The Upper Room story has an unnamed individual reclining “on Jesus’ breast” (John 13:23). Remember that in those days, Passover meals were eaten reclining, in Roman fashion, and the Fourth Gospel places this “beloved disciple” in close proximity to Jesus. “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus.” (John 13:23) The oldest tradition says that this disciple was John. In ancient times there was absolutely no doubt of this. However, in recent years some other theories have been advanced. Most of them are quite fanciful, but the one that must be taken with the most seriousness is that “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and who reclined next to Him at the Last Supper was Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, whom Jesus raised from the dead. He is the only disciple in the New Testament who is specifically called “one whom Jesus loved.” (John 11:5.) There is also the man we call the “Rich Young Ruler,” of whom Mark says that Jesus “beholding him, loved him,” but he never became a disciple. He couldn’t let go of his possessions long enough to become possessed by Jesus’ love. Tradition also ascribes to the Apostle John the First Letter of John. But, for some reason, more recent scholars have been reluctant to affirm that the “Beloved Disciple” and the author of I John was St. John the Apostle.
The great argument which is used against identifying the apostle John with the Beloved Disciple and the author of I John, is the difference in their characters. The Gospels portray John as an angry, intolerant character, while the Beloved Disciple is a figure of love. Now, I am not a great Biblical scholar, and I realize that the linguistic experts can tell us all kinds of things about the differences in writing style and syntax between the several books in the New Testament which happen to have the name “John” appended to them. But I cannot reject the notion that the First Letter of John was written by John the Apostle simply because it sounds so out of character. THAT IS PRECISELY THE POINT! The point in the New Testament message is that Jesus Christ came into the world to change our characters! The very point of the Gospel is that Christ can take a “Son of thunder” and make him a “Son of God”...or “daughter of God.” Christ can take us and recycle us! He can take all of these natural impulses and reactions which cause so much trouble in human life—the desire to be out front, to get ahead of others, to put others down—change them, and turn us around. Again and again in the history of the Church, Christ has taken men and women who seem to be the last people on earth who would be candidates for discipleship, called them, and made them into something new. Bigots have become lovers, cowards have become heroes, foolish people have become wise, all because of the influence of Christ upon them. And what the old Gospel song says is true: “It is no secret what God can do; what He’s done for others, he will do for you.”
Early in my ministry I remember hearing a story of a preacher who said in a sermon: “You cannot change human nature.” To which someone in the back row shouted out, “Thank God that’s a lie!” The fact of the matter is that of all things on this earth, human nature is the one thing which can most easily be changed...provided that it is overwhelmed by the love of God in Jesus Christ. So a “Son of thunder,” I believe, became a “Son of God.”
St. Jerome, who lived and wrote in a cave in Bethlehem under the Church of the Nativity at the end of the Fourth Century, hands down to us a fragment of tradition which says that John lived in Ephesus to an extreme old age, “...and could only with difficulty be carried to the church in the arms of his disciples, and was unable to give utterance to many words. He used to say no more at their several meetings than this: ‘Little children, love one another.’ At length the disciples and fathers who were there, wearied with always hearing the same words, said, ‘Master, why dost thou always say this?’ ‘It is the Lord’s command,’ was his reply, ‘and, if this alone be done, it is enough.’” (Commentary on Galatians 6, 10.) So, at the end, John had forgotten all about calling down fire from heaven, all about reprimanding those who did things differently. All he could remember was his Lord’s command of love. Go, and do thou likewise. ˜