For weeks now the Gospel lectionary readings have come from the Gospel of Luke. But today we encounter an intruder. Our journey through the last chapter of Luke's story is interrupted by another Gospel writer, John, who drops us into the middle of a debate between Jesus and "the Jews."

It is well known that the Gospel of John differs in many ways from the other three Gospels. Robert Kysar's book on the Gospel of John is called John: the Maverick Gospel. This is how his introduction begins: There is a delightful little film about a small boy who learned to walk on his hands instead of on his feet. The story is done in animation and stresses the pressures toward conformity in our society. The little boy's strange behavior had the most pleasant results for him. Walking on his hands gave him …