Sun, Apr 07, 2019
Denigration and domestication
John 12:1-8 by Craig de Vos
Series: Sermons

I have to admit, I feel sorry for Judas.

I mean, let’s be honest––

he gets a pretty rough deal in the Gospels.

At almost every turn, his character is impugned––

unfairly, I think.

You see… 

historically speaking, Judas would most likely have been a political revolutionary:

a zealot…

a nationalist…

or even a terrorist––

depending on your point of view.

He was someone who passionately wanted to throw the Romans out…

to liberate his country…

to have Israel ruled by its own king once more…

so that they could live and worship God as they believed that they ought to.

But that’s not how he’s portrayed in the Gospels.

Take the story about him being paid thirty pieces of silver for “betraying” Jesus.

In the earliest of the Gospels––

that of Mark––

the chief priests offered money to Judas…

but it doesn’t say that he actually took it.

By the time that Matthew’s Gospel was written––

perhaps some fifteen or more years later––

Judas requests payment and is offered thirty pieces of silver.

A bit later again, Luke’s Gospel claims that Judas took the money… 

and acted as he did because he was possessed.

Quite a bit later still… 

John’s Gospel also claims that Judas was possessed…

but there’s no mention of any payment from the priests at all.

Effectively, the portrait gets progressively darker.

But it also shows that this is all the stuff of legend.

Indeed, the most likely scenario is that Judas turned Jesus in…

because he wanted to force his hand…

because he wanted him to be the Messiah––

the great revolutionary leader that many Israelites were expecting.

But we don’t see that reflected in the Gospels.

Instead, we see Judas’ character smeared––

whether it’s claiming that he turned Jesus in for money;

that he was possessed;

or, as here in John’s Gospel, accusing him of being a thief.

It was all about the early church trying to lay blame…

and trying to make sense of what Judas had done.

They were trying to comprehend…

how someone whom Jesus had picked and whom Jesus loved…

could have turned on him and turned him in.

But the way that the author of John’s Gospel maligns Judas, here…

in our reading this morning… 

is most unfortunate.

And, frankly, it’s quite unfair…

because Judas asks a very legitimate question…

and makes a very reasonable complaint:

“Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”

Why not indeed?

After all, it was an ridiculously expensive bottle of perfume.

Three hundred denarii was more than a year’s wages for the average person.

So, it’s the equivalent of about sixty thousand dollars today.

In other words, in this story…

Mary poured sixty thousands dollars’ worth of perfume on Jesus’ feet.

As one commentator suggested, that would be like inviting Mother Theresa to a dinner party… 

and cracking open ten cases of Penfolds Grange.

It’s an absurdly

obscenely

extravagant act.

It’s screaming out to be challenged and criticised––

is it not?

It’s utterly out of keeping with the sort of person whom Jesus was––

both the actual, historical Jesus…

and also the portrait of Jesus that we get from the other Gospels––

it’s out of keeping with what he did…

with all that he stood for…

and with what he expected of his followers.

But not according to the author of John’s Gospel!

Rather, he has Jesus seemingly nodding in approval.

How do we make sense of that?

 

On the surface, perhaps, that’s hard to explain––

certainly if we take all of the Gospels at face value…

like many do…

and simply try to harmonise their discrepancies and contradictions.

But none of the Gospels correspond to what we, today, would understand as history.

Each of the authors was writing a story.

Each was interpreting the life and significance of Jesus for their own community…

drawing upon and elaborating upon various traditions and sayings … 

and modifying them in varying ways and to varying degrees.

John’s Gospel is of a very different order to the other three.

The sayings that it attributes to Jesus are quite different––

in language, style, and content––

to those found on the lips of Jesus in the other three Gospels.

So, if we look more closely at the portrait of Jesus that we find in John’s Gospel––

and the sorts of things that he says––

what do we see?

 

John’s Jesus speaks in highly symbolic and stylised language…

and much of what he says is thoroughly spiritualised.

Nowhere do we find the sort of grounded sayings that we encounter in the other Gospels.

John’s Jesus is far more concerned with other-worldly matters––

particularly concerns about ‘eternal life’––

than with this-worldly matters like poverty or illness.

Indeed, the only healings that occur in John’s Gospel are interpreted purely symbolically––

as signs pointing to whom the author believed Jesus to be––

rather than being ends in themselves…

or a response to human suffering motivated by compassion.

There are no warnings to the rich––

either by way of parable or direct exhortation––

unlike in the other three Gospels, and especially Luke’s.

Nor do we find the encounter between Jesus and the rich young man––

which is found in the other three.

The author of John’s Gospel…

it seems…

deliberately eschews any reference to riches…

indeed, anything that might loosely be described as “social justice”.

The portrait that we get of Jesus in John’s Gospel is a thoroughly spiritualised one…

and, dare I say, a thoroughly safe and domesticated one.

This is a Gospel––

this is a Jesus––

that calls for belief rather than repentance and changed life.

If I had to take a guess at the sort of community to which the author wrote his Gospel…

I imagine that it would have been a fairly comfortable, 

affluent, and educated one…

for whom the Jesus of the other Gospels would have seemed a bit too ‘common’… 

and confronting;

the sort of community that… 

we might imagine… 

would welcome and celebrate a generous benefaction for the upkeep of their building…

but who wouldn’t want to be reminded about the harsh realities of the world in which they lived;

a community content to focus on a more privatised form of spirituality…

rather than a religion that asked them to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty;

or a religion that demands concrete action on behalf of the poor and suffering of the world.

 

Is that not a temptation that we continually face, too?

 

According to Martin Luther King jr

“The church…has often served to crystallize, conserve, and even bless the patterns of majority opinion…Called to combat social evils, it has remained silent behind stained-glass windows”…

while its ministers… 

“avoid saying anything from our pulpits which might disturb the respectable views of the comfortable members of our congregations”.

When we do––

like the author of John’s Gospel––

are we not also guilty of domesticating Jesus?