Jesus in Disguise (John 7)

Preachers often talk about “Jesus in disguise” as a figure of speech, because he identifies with people in desperate situations: poverty, sickness, prison, and so on. But in John 7, he’s actually in disguise. His brothers tell him to go back to Jerusalem for the Tent Festival and do some magic tricks to boost his Klout score reputation, “…for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” Because it’s one thing to feed 5000 people in rural Galilee, but it’s quite another to do miracles in Jerusalem itself.

Of course, Jesus had already done a miracle: healing on the sabbath, back in chapter 5. This brought him exactly the wrong kind of attention.

So in chapter 7, he tells his brothers, “No, you go on. I’ll stay here.” After they’ve gone, he puts on a fake mustache and glasses, and goes to Jerusalem in disguise. While he’s mingling among the crowds, he overhears people talking.

“So, do you think this Jesus character will turn up for the festival?”
“I sure hope so. He’s a good guy and I’d love to meet him.”
“Are you kidding? He’s a charlatan.”

Jesus sidles up to the conversation and listens in. Maybe that’s why he decides half way through the festival to put the disguise away and start preaching. When he does so, the religious leaders start murmuring.

“Wow, he preaches pretty good for someone without a degree.”
“I got my degree from God. So why are you trying to kill me?” he asks.
“Are you nuts? Who is trying to kill you?” they reply.
“I heal one guy on the sabbath and you all get your underwear in a twist,” he says. “Why can’t you understand that I’m doing exactly what God wants?”

Then the bystanders start whispering to each other
“Did you hear? The priests want to kill this guy.”
“Then why are they standing around talking with him? Do they think he’s the messiah?”
“Can’t be. He’s just some guy from Capernaum. I think he was born in Nazareth.”

I’ve been trying to read through John with new eyes the last few weeks. John supposedly has a very high view of Jesus, a lofty Christology that emphasizes Jesus as the eternal Word of God. While I believe that’s true, I find it interesting that Jesus often seems like he’s doing all of this without much of a plan. In spite of the fact that he keeps saying “my hour has not yet come,” it feels like he’s improvising. His humanity shows up in unexpected places: his fear that his friends will leave him; his abortive attempt to secretly infiltrate the festival. Over the next few chapters, he plays cat-and-mouse with the Temple authorities. In many ways, he seems to be reacting more than acting. In spite of his lofty rhetoric, I can hear Jesus’ frustration and anxiety coming out in unexpected places. I’ve been taught a scholarly skepticism about how the gospel writers present Jesus’ teaching, but John does not paint a picture of a Jesus who is in control of things, who has divine foreknowledge of every event and placidly fulfills his destiny. There’s some of that, sure, but there’s also a lot of what I feel on a day-to-day basis while I’m planting a church: “Okay, I know what my mission and message is, but what the heck am I doing in this situation? God, do you have my back?” I think it’s a good example of how, even with a clear sense of mission, ministry is hard.

John used to be my least favorite gospel, because the dialogue seemed so stilted, warped by John’s high Christology. The more I read through this time, the more I’m having to reevaluate my perspective.

My Favorite Biblical Errors: Ezekiel

Ezekiel 37

Usually, people who claim that they read the Bible literally also claim that the Bible contains no errors. Yet one of the reasons I so admire the Bible and consider it authoritative is that it dutifully records its own errors.

One of my favorites is the prophecy of Ezekiel against Tyre in chapters 26 through 29. For three whole chapters, Ezekiel rails against the city of Tyre. Since he believes that the army of Babylon is God’s chosen instrument of wrath against Jerusalem, he is excited to see it lay siege to Tyre.

(When you read this, you have to imagine Samuel L. Jackson’s voice.)

They shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down its towers. I will scrape its soil from it and make it a bare rock.  It shall become, in the midst of the sea, a place for spreading nets. I have spoken, says the Lord God. It shall become plunder for the nations, and its daughter-towns in the country shall be killed by the sword. Then they shall know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 26:4-6)

As I said, for three whole chapters this goes on, with Ezekiel relishing his poetic destruction of the city.

Only one problem: It didn’t happen. Babylon laid siege to the city for three years, but you can’t successfully lay siege to a seaport. I imagine the guards on the walls of Tyre yelling down to the Babylonian tents, “Hey, guys! We’re having a fish fry today! Can you smell it? Oh, hey, what are you having for dinner? Aww, thin gruel again? So sad!”

At the end of three years, the army gave up. So, naturally, Ezekiel went back and tore up his manuscript, right? Or maybe he wrote, “Oops, my bad.”

Nope. He just turned his attention to Egypt!

Mortal, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon made his army labour hard against Tyre; every head was made bald and every shoulder was rubbed bare; yet neither he nor his army got anything from Tyre to pay for the labour that he had expended against it. Therefore, thus says the Lord God: I will give the land of Egypt to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon; and he shall carry off its wealth and despoil it and plunder it; and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt as his payment for which he laboured, because they worked for me, says the Lord God. (Ezekiel 29:18-20)

Nice save, Ezekiel! So, naturally, Babylon conquered Egypt, right?

Nope again.

My favorite theory is that Ezekiel became the model for the story of Jonah, which was written to be read not literally, but as a satire of the hellfire and brimstone prophets. Jonah is a frustrated prophet who fumes when God fails to destroy Israel’s enemies. In contrast to Ezekiel’s logorrhea, Jonah just stomps part way into the city, utters one line, turns around and stomps out. He wants so much to see the bad guys punished that he wraps himself in his own private hell of resentment and bitterness. God, in contrast, can’t bear the thought of hurting the children or even the cattle (Jonah 4).

There is a dialogue going on in the pages of the Bible, where competing theologies are trying to describe God’s history with God’s people. I don’t deny that there are authors who believed that God would punish cities by starving their populace, so that families would be torn apart, people raped and sold into slavery (Deuteronomy 28:30-34), and parents would be forced to cannibalize their own children (verses 54-57). Job, Jonah, and Ruth (among others) critique that theological view. And for Christians, Jesus is the final repudiation of that theology (Matthew 5:43, John 9:3, Luke 13:4, Mark 15:34). Good and bad things happen to people not as God’s rewards or punishments, but because stuff happens. What God makes out of it, and us, is where grace happens.

Anti-religious detractors like to point out these errors and blood and guts passages in order to portray believers as foolish or barbaric, but for me, these errors are awesome. The editors and compilers could have edited out Ezekiel’s mistakes, but they didn’t. They could have harmonized the gospels, the creation stories, and the histories of the monarchy, but they didn’t. The Bible is not a monologue—it is a dialogue. To me, that’s what makes it believable. What’s even more cool is that we are invited to participate in the dialogue, which doesn’t end even when you close the book and the people say Amen.

This Sunday, the sermon topic at Saint Junia’s preview service will be on the Two Creation Stories (Genesis 1-3). I’ll be sharing why it’s perfectly reasonable for Christians to believe in evolution, considering that we already have more than one creation story in the Bible. Come join the dialogue!