Can a twenty first-century person be a Christian? Our language of Scripture, liturgy, and prayer mostly reflect a premodern understanding of the cosmos. Even if we understand that the language of Scripture and liturgy is poetic and metaphorical – in this church we are not, for example, asked to believe that the account of creation in Genesis is literal – how are we to follow Jesus in our own time and place? What does it mean for me as a twenty first-century person to commit myself to the revelation of Scripture, especially when the scientific discoveries of the last few centuries have given us a vastly different understanding of the world than the one that the writers of Scripture held?
Of course, these are not completely new questions. Scientists and religious thinkers through the centuries have been using their God-given reason to understand both creation and the revelation of God in Christ. When Galileo proposed that the earth was round, not flat, for example, and that the earth both rotated on its axis and revolved around the sun, his ideas were considered heretical and contrary to Scripture. He was even briefly imprisoned and forced to publicly recant his discoveries. Now, thanks to the work of astronomers we know that our corner of the universe is just a single small galaxy, that the universe is vaster than we can imagine and slowly expanding, and that the entire cosmos probably began about 13.6 billion years ago with a Big Bang.
Astronomers and biologists have also taught us that all existing matter was created in the Big Bang, that all the atoms in our bodies and everything around us are simply being recycled, and that all life, all things, are interconnected. We thus have a responsibility to respect and work with people, animals, the earth, all of creation, rather than to rape, pillage, and destroy. Mendel and Darwin, and host of other biologists and geneticists have taught us more about the mechanisms of life than ancient physicians, skilled as they were, could even begin to imagine. And more: for the writers of Scripture the known world consisted more or less of the Mediterranean world. Little, if anything, was known of sub-Saharan Africa or Asia. Nothing at all was known of the civilizations in central and South America that began to flourish well before the time of Christ, and whose ruins we are still discovering!
So how do we reconcile what we now know – what God has enabled us to know through the gift of reason – with Scripture? Must we take the Bible literally, as some “creationists” do, or do we have to throw it out altogether, as many atheists do? Worse yet, do we profess one thing when we come inside this building and something else altogether on the other side of the red doors? Perhaps today’s gospel reading helps answer these questions. Clearly, the disciples were confused and afraid – and asking lots of questions. It was their last night with Jesus in the account in John’s gospel. Talking a long time, Jesus had been explaining his reasons for leaving them and how they were to carry on once he was gone. He warned them that they wouldn’t understand right away what was happening. Then he made them a promise: the Spirit of truth would be with them and would guide them into all truth.
John’s gospel tells us a different story of Jesus’ last night with his friends than the story the other three gospels tell. Writing in the ‘90s or later, the evangelist was addressing a community that was separating from the wider Jewish community. These new followers of Jesus needed a deeper understanding of who Jesus was. They also needed reassurance that they had made the right choice in following him. For that reason, the gospel of John is less a historical account of Jesus’ life and more a theological study of Jesus. Seeking to explain for new followers who Jesus truly was, the gospel emphasizes throughout that Jesus is the Word made flesh, i.e., “God with skin on.” However, especially through Jesus’ words in today’s reading, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth,” the gospel writer also reassures these new followers that they don’t have to understand everything about Jesus all at once. The gospel writer assures the hearers of this gospel that, by following Jesus, they would be led by God’s Spirit to understand more deeply who God is, who Jesus is, and how God’s Spirit works in their lives. Most important, the gospel writer promises them that the Spirit of truth would continually help them to be transformed into faithful followers of Jesus, and that they – and by extension all faithful followers of Jesus – would continue to reinterpret, as individuals and as a community, the mission of Jesus and its meaning for their lives.
So can a twenty first-century person still follow this Jesus? Just as scientific understanding has changed over the centuries, so too has our understanding of Jesus. Thinkers in the earliest centuries after Christ wrestled with the question of how Jesus could be both human and divine. While orthodox Christianity asserts that Jesus was both, often the emphasis was on Jesus’ divinity. Indeed, the Nicene Creed, which we faithful recite as part of our Sunday worship, represents an attempt by the early leaders of the church to reach some consensus as to who Jesus was, and what his relationship was to God the creator and God the Spirit. Since the Renaissance, and especially since the eighteenth century, scholars and theologians have tended to emphasize the humanity of Jesus. Today, many interpreters of Scripture emphasize Jesus’ social teachings, emphasizing Jesus’ call to seek peace, end capital punishment, care for the poor, welcome the outcast in society, and end exclusion based on gender, sexuality, race, or socio-economic status.
Every era has been called on to reinterpret Jesus’ mission and relationship to God. Indeed, one writer suggests that continued reinterpretation of Jesus’ role is the very thrust of this part of John’s gospel. “What the text wants most to do,” this writer suggests, “is to encourage within the community an openness to fresh encounters with the revelation of Jesus. John intends to shape a community that is receptive to Spirit-guided growth. It is not that there will be new ‘truth’ beyond that of the ‘Word made flesh’…. John imagines a Christian community that is not locked into the past but understands what Jesus means for its own time. He anticipates that changing circumstances and the emergence of new questions – stem cell research, for example, or the ability to prolong life by artificial means, or growing religious pluralism – will require the community to think afresh.”
My friends, this is our call too. God has given us reason, and God has enabled us to understand Scripture, creation and each other more deeply than earlier centuries perhaps did. In our century we too are called to “think afresh.” Or maybe we need to ask ourselves is, do we really want to “think afresh?” Or would we rather let Jesus be a figure in some interesting stories, rather than someone to whom we have committed our lives? If we really want, as twenty first-century Christians, to continue to grow in our understanding of Jesus, how might we do that?
If we believe Jesus’ promise in John’s gospel that the Spirit will guide us into all truth, then we have to be open to the work of the Spirit. We have to let the Spirit teach us, in our own private prayer. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll ask again: can you find a time in your day – busy as you are – to regularly place yourself in God’s presence and let the Spirit begin to work within you? The Spirit also nourishes us in Word and Sacrament. Have you ever felt, sitting here or in any worship service, that sudden shard of understanding, that sudden glimpse of the reality of Jesus in your life? The Spirit especially leads and guides us in our study – of Scripture, theology, science, history, and social justice, to name just a few. Again, I’ll risk sounding like a broken record: God was not done with you when the priest poured water on your head, or the bishop laid hands on you. No less than the first hearers of John’s gospel, we too are called to “think afresh” about Jesus and how our commitment to following him impacts our life. The Spirit also leads us in our practice of mission. Sometimes when we are acting as God’s hands, when we look deeply into the eyes of people striving for justice and hear their stories, we learn more about the reality of Jesus than any book can teach us. And one more thing: growth in our understanding of Jesus is not in the end a do-it-yourself project, important as private prayer and study are. Ultimately, we are called to grow as a community of Jesus’ followers, to be Jesus in the world as a fellowship, and to do his works to the best of our ability.
God has blessed us with reason and skill. Jesus has promised us that we will continue to grow in our understanding of him and of the cosmos. And so, this week I invite you to meditate on these questions. Who is Jesus for you? How has your understanding of Jesus changed over the years? How does your life reflect your commitment to Jesus? Are you open to “thinking afresh” about the work of the Spirit in your life? Rest assured that Jesus’ promise still stands: even with all the discoveries that we have made over the centuries, the Spirit is still at work within us, helping us to see anew, to understand more deeply, and to follow more faithfully.
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