I'm very happy to be here, my first visit to Genesee Abbey. Is this working all right? I'm the senior member of the seminary faculty now, partially retired, and being the dean of the faculty brings certain privileges. And one of them is, not many, but one of them is that I can pretty well specify what time my lectures are. I teach only one semester now, second semester, and I'm finding it more and more difficult as the days go by to get myself revved up in the morning. And so I have a rule, I told the academic dean I will teach next semester, but not before 10.30.

[01:00]

There was a time when I could, you know, whip my weight in mountain lions at 8.30 in the morning, but that's been a while ago. My twin brother celebrated his 76th birthday last Friday. I'm not sure what implications that has. So my body, this morning, doesn't know what is going on. What are you doing to me? The schedule, I do not recognize the schedule. So keeping that in mind, I will attempt to be alert enough to deliver these ideas that I want to share with you. The Gospel of John. written in the early 90s, a good 40 years or 35 years after the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

[02:03]

Very, very different gospel from then. Most people think of the gospel as the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, baptism, public ministry, going up to Jerusalem, put to death, raised from the dead, the ascension. Well, that's Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but that is not John. John never mentions Bethlehem. He knows nothing about the human birth of Jesus. Well, at least he doesn't write about it. His story begins in eternity. Bethlehem is insignificant compared to the origins of Jesus from all eternity. He does not even record the baptism of Jesus. He refers to it indirectly, but there is no story of the baptism.

[03:09]

There is no transfiguration in John's Gospel. There is a long, long discourse prior to the Passion after the Last Supper, which the synoptics know nothing about. And in the Passion itself, there is no Garden of Gethsemane, no agony. And Jesus is in charge of everything. He sets the pace of the Passion story. One scholar has said, when you move from Matthew, Mark, and Luke into the territory of John, you had better have a passport with a valid visa because you are entering a foreign land where they speak a different language. We may think that after 2,000 years we have pretty well figured out what John's Gospel is all about, but it is not so.

[04:24]

Many, many books written about John's Gospel, nowhere near a consensus about just what is the major point, the guiding principle of this mysterious Gospel. So this morning I would like to say something by way of introduction. John's Gospel needs an introduction like no other book in the Bible. This is one book you cannot simply pick up and understand without any orientation. First of all, in terms of modern biblical scholarship, John's gospel is obviously intent on expressing the spiritual implications of the words and deeds of Jesus and is therefore the clearest example of the basic inadequacy of the revered historical critical method.

[05:31]

All modern biblical scholarship begins with the historical critical methodology. Historical critical methodology evolved out of the Enlightenment. It is profoundly rational. It cannot allow any place for faith. And yet it is the ruling methodology for modern biblical studies. Now this creates a problem. There's a problem with the historical critical method for any book of the Bible but it's magnified in the case of John's Gospel because in John's Gospel there's so much profound symbolism which as I will point out in a moment is a way of trying to reach out to the divine and the transcendent world. But this is a world that the historical critical method doesn't know about

[06:34]

and cannot admit because it cannot be controlled rationally. The Pontifical Biblical Commission published an instruction in 1993 and if you want to know what's going on in modern biblical studies, you should read that instruction. about 40 or 50 pages. And among other things it says, the historical critical method is the indispensable method for the study of the meaning of ancient texts. So there's no doubt it has a place. Indispensable to proper biblical interpretation. However, it hastens to add

[07:37]

For all its overall validity, the historical critical method cannot claim to be totally sufficient for comprehending the biblical texts in all their richness. It is important to study the Bible scientifically. Fundamentalism is not the answer to biblical interpretation. or the idea that I can pick up the text and the Holy Spirit is going to tell me what it means. Trouble is, people who do that find that it means a lot of different things, even contradictory things. But the Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself. No, this is the beginning, this is the groundwork to establish this. And we are so much better off than the fathers of the church because we have the advantages of the historical critical method, which helps us to understand better the background of Scripture, have much better biblical texts to draw upon.

[08:41]

The problem, of course, is that the Gospel of John, while written in human language, claims to convey divine truth. In this Gospel, the Word became flushed and lived among us. so that the message heard in heaven might be brought to us here on earth. However, since human words cannot bear the weight of divine meaning, the classic solution has been to employ symbolism. Symbolism gives wings to human words so that they may express divine and transcendent meaning The poets already recognize the importance of symbolism because they are sensing something beyond but nothing like the beyond that is revealed in Revelation in the Bible.

[09:44]

In this world, not only human words but also human persons and events while remaining in many cases literal and historical can be wonderfully enhanced by an added symbolic meaning. They become larger than life and they take on perennial and universal meaning over and above their particular time-bound significance. And so, for example, when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, this is not just an interesting episode in ancient history. The living water which he offers her is an invitation to all subsequent hearers of this word to abandon the stale, well water of purely natural existence and to accept Jesus' offer of living water in the vibrant, exciting life of faith. An awareness of symbolic meaning also gives perennial significance to the lives of historical persons in the Bible.

[10:58]

One of my favorite examples of this is King David and King Saul. King David was an historical king of Israel, lived about a thousand BC, and he was preceded by King Saul. These are not just two kings of Israel with varying fortunes. David is painted in brighter colors and Saul is painted in somber tones because they are symbolic figures as well as historical figures. What is David? David is the one who believed in God. Well, Saul believed in God too. To believe in God or to believe in the goodness of God is the easy part. The hard part is to believe in the goodness of God's world and above all the goodness of David or the goodness of Saul. David couldn't, Saul couldn't believe in his own goodness and he was therefore a worried, fretful man, constantly second-guessing, hesitating, wondering what to do.

[12:14]

asking constantly, what will the soldiers say? What will the smiths say? By that time it was too late. His timing was off. A tragic figure. Two lines of traffic, one moves, you know where Saul is. Always in the slow one. David, by contrast, was so, so positive. He committed terrible sins. He took his medicine. He paid for his sins. And he came out of them better than ever. And he leaped and danced before the Ark of the Covenant in spontaneous joy. Faith was victorious in his life. Faith could not claim victory in the life of Saul. Saul is our negative self, our questioning, doubting one.

[13:18]

Saul gripes and complains and becomes bitter. Saul is an example of what can happen to a human life that ends up in suicide. Saul is the Judas of the Old Testament. David is our better self. a positive self, living in hope, living in promise. And David becomes a model of the Messiah. Jesus delighted in being known as son of David. Unfortunately, there is a tendency in our technologically dominated world to limit truth to what is so-called factual. so that what is symbolic is often judged to be untrue. Oh, it's only symbolic. As a matter of fact, when it comes to spiritual or divine truth, only symbolism is able to express it adequately so that the most important truths of all are conveyed in a non-factual manner.

[14:33]

Sandra Schnauders makes this clear in a book she wrote We are increasingly aware today that fact and truth are not identical and that often enough the truth is best conveyed by the non-literal, for example, by symbol, myth, or story. This prejudice that we have in our scientific world, technological world, that you have to be able to see it and name it and measure it for it to be real and meaningful. The most important truths cannot be conveyed in that manner and cannot be measured, cannot be subjected to the laboratory. Sandra Snyder, they brought this book along, came out in 1999, so fairly recent. Sandra Snyder is an Immaculate Heart of Mary sister. who teaches at Berkeley, California, Jesuit School of Theology.

[15:38]

And she's written some very good books recently on biblical interpretation. And this one, written that you may believe, by the way, just came out, and it's on the Gospel of John. Encountering Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. Strongly recommend, especially the first five chapters. Henry Schneider gives the following definition of a symbol. It is a sensible reality, something that we can see or hear, touch, which wonders present and involves us subjectively in a transforming experience of transcendent mystery. It is something that introduces us into the world of mystery, divine mystery, and in the process transforms us.

[16:39]

It leads us into another world, not just to be looked at, but to become part of. We note immediately that symbolic language is most appropriate for biblical revelation, which is intended to bring about conversion transforming experience, and to put us in touch with divine power, transcendent mystery. This also explains why purely scientific interpretation has serious problems in dealing with John's gospel. She writes, no matter how slippery the terrain of gospel interpretation originally appeared to scholars trained in the highly positivistic historical critical type of exegesis, it became necessary to re-engage the issue of symbolism in the gospel of John. If a text is intrinsically symbolic, and many, many texts of John are intrinsically symbolic, then there is no such thing as a purely literal interpretation of it.

[17:50]

Non-symbolic interpretation of a symbolic text is not literal, it is inadequate. It is bad interpretation. Modern biblical scholars have great difficulty with symbolic interpretation because precisely it cannot be controlled. It cannot be controlled scientifically. And if there's one thing that science yearns for, it's control. And it wants to dismiss whatever cannot be controlled. Symbolic interpretation is not something, therefore, to be grudgingly accepted as a last resort. It is the first and only adequate interpretation of most Johannine texts. In order to appreciate this symbolic dimension, one must be attuned to the transcendent world, and that can happen only through the charism of faith.

[18:52]

We know, of course, that the insights of faith cannot be fully verified scientifically. However, they are not at all incompatible with valid scientific conclusions. The world of science and the world of the Bible are different worlds, but they are not contradictory. In the case of the Bible, scientific interpretation provides a solid basis, but it is not the end of the process. When faith is authentic, and not just some strongly held opinion, It provides access to a rich meaning of scripture that cannot be discovered in any other way. Come now to one of the most important questions in John's Gospel. Why is it so unique? Why is it so different from Matthew, Mark, and Luke? Even a cursory comparison of the fourth gospel with the synoptics will highlight its uniqueness.

[19:56]

I mentioned already there is no transfiguration. In fact, some of them have thought that the transfiguration is all through the gospel. You don't need a transfiguration in John's gospel. Jesus is divine, obviously divine everywhere. There's only a passing reference to the agony in the garden. There is a Last Supper, chapter 13, but amazingly, there is no institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Incredible oversight. However, there is a long treatment of the Eucharist in chapter 6, 60 verses. In John's Gospel, Jesus centers his activity in Judea rather than Galilee. In the Passion story, John's Gospel is similar to the Synoptics, but there is a very detailed account of the trial before Pilate, no less than 39 verses, over twice as much as Mark, and only a casual reference to the trial before the high priest.

[21:06]

In the Fourth Gospel, the divinity of Jesus is on display everywhere, so that even in the darkest moments of the Passion, He is in charge. And then, of course, there is the beloved disciple, who appears only in the Passion narrative, and who is never named. For a long time, it was thought to be John the Apostle, because John the Apostle is never mentioned in John's Gospel. But modern scholars have problems with that. The main reason basically is that the beloved disciple seems to be a native of Judea, not Galilee, for he knows his way around Jerusalem. You recall when Peter fled from the garden and Jesus was taken to the high priest for trial, Peter followed and wanted to enter the high priest's courtyard, but he could not.

[22:12]

because the gatekeeper did not recognize him. But the beloved disciple came to his help and got him admitted because he knew the gatekeeper. He knows a lot about Jerusalem and Judea, which would not have been the case of John, brother of James, son of Zebedee from Galilee. John obviously had good reasons for not naming the beloved disciple. He does not want the beloved disciple to become simply an historical figure of the first century. He wants us to see in the beloved disciple our own image. He is a symbolic person as well as historical. And he suppresses historical information about him so that we can see more clearly that we are to become beloved disciples. Discover the love of God. revealed in Jesus.

[23:14]

While the fact of the uniqueness of John's gospel is evident, it is not at all clear how this gospel came to be unique. Roman Brown has attempted to reconstruct the origin and development of the historical Christian community out of which the fourth gospel came. And he details that in his book, The Community of the Beloved Disciple, which is a reconstruction of the community tentative reconstruction. But those who criticized Brown were told by him, well, if you have a better explanation, let's see it. It's easy to stand back and say, oh, we're not sure of that. Well, Brother, this is the best we can do. But it's very important to know something about the community, because the community came before the gospel. And the gospel was written for that community. And if we don't know the problems of community, we'll have a much more greater difficulty understanding the Gospel.

[24:18]

He concluded that this community began its unique journey when Samaritan converts entered it and brought with them elements of Samaritan thought, including a Christology which was not centered in a Davidic Messiah. The Samaritans were rejected by the Israelites who came back from the exile. They offered to help them build the temple and they were rejected because they were considered not pure Jews anymore because they had intermarried with other people in Palestine. So they were spurned and so this animosity grew between the Samaritans and the Jews. So the Samaritans had their own mountain, Mount Gerizim, which was in competition with Mount Zion or Jerusalem. So Samaritan converts would have come in and of course, since they were out of harmony with the Jews, they're not emphasizing the Jewish Messiah from the line of David, but they're emphasizing the Messiah that was promised by God to Moses.

[25:30]

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people. I will put my word in the mouth of the prophet who shall speak to them everything that I command." In other words, a Messiah who would come directly from God, not via the line of David, and who would be the great revealer. And the Samaritan woman in chapter 4, seems to be talking about such a Messiah. For she says, when he, the Messiah, comes, he will proclaim all things to us. Revealer, primarily coming from, this would be the word of God made flesh, coming directly from God. Brown concludes that these Samaritan converts acted as a catalyst in the community because they brought with them categories for interpreting Jesus that launched the Jordanite community toward a theology of descent from above and pre-existence. Well, all well and good.

[26:34]

He's very careful. They're only a catalyst. They didn't bring Samaritan theology, but they brought Samaritan categories that allowed them to develop a Christology in a somewhat different sense. Well, I am inclined to agree with Brown. as far as he goes, it's not hard to agree with Raymond Brown. I mean, he's a great scholar. However, I am not convinced that the new discovery of new categories for describing the coming of the Messiah is sufficient to explain the uniqueness of this gospel. My own conclusion after studying this and teaching this gospel for 40 years is that this community under the guidance of the Beloved Disciple was already so mystically inclined that it was predisposed to adopt a Christology that would emphasize the divine reality in Jesus as eternal Word made flesh.

[27:36]

It was the mysticism of this community and the mysticism of the Beloved Disciple that caused them to become unique. One would expect to find just such an awareness in a mystical community for whom the divine presence is thought so intensely that the whole world becomes in a sense transparent. What is mystical experience? It is an unmediated experience of the divine. an unmediated experience of God that leaps beyond all the means and various things that remind us of God. We live in a sacramental world and the sacraments are means by which we are put in touch with the mystery of God. But mystical people, at certain moments at least, can

[28:40]

Go beyond the signs into direct, unmediated contact with the divinity. The Samaritan categories, speaking about a divine Messiah who comes straight down from God and makes God's presence real in our world, is exactly what a mystic wants to hear. This would account for the emphasis in the fourth gospel on the divinity of Jesus and the absence there of many episodes that reflect his human nature. They see a transfigured Jesus, where divinity is shining out of him everywhere, and they downplay his humanity, so much so that it has been said, if the word for the Synoptic Gospels being brought into the canon With John's gospel, it would be heretical. It would be too much one-sided. So we need both, emphasize divinity and humanity.

[29:43]

In this regard, I benefited greatly from L. William Countryman's book, The Mystical Way in the Fourth Gospel. He will certainly agree with Sandra Schneider's that critical scholarship is at an impasse when it comes to appreciating the highly symbolic nature of John's gospel. He writes, one might find reason to suggest that modern analytical scholarship has made us uneasy about studying the specifically religious or mystical wellsprings of Christianity. And even Schneider's notes, the spirituality of John's gospel is essentially mystical and contemplative, giving rise to a theology that is very little concerned with institution and very much concerned with union and life. For this reason, it has always been the third word gospel of the church's mystics. We will see, as we go through John's Gospel, I will, you know, hop, skip, and jump.

[30:51]

We can't take the whole Gospel, obviously. I will take selected passages, and we will see how much John is concerned about the danger of those means that lead us to God. Sacraments, rituals, all those things. Because there's a great danger that we stop at them, we don't see that they are to lead us beyond themselves. all these institutional elements. Now, God knows we need the institution. And John's community found that when they broke apart. Institutional elements. Now, God knows we need the institution. And John's community found that when they broke apart after the death of the beloved disciple. But the institution must not block divinity. It must lead us to divinity. What is our schedule?

[31:54]

In the presentations I want to make here, there will be ample opportunity to deal with aspects of Jainite thought that clearly move beyond the realm of scientific interpretation. We will note in particular Jain's special concern for religious experience. Religious experience that goes beyond rituals. beyond titles, beyond theology, beyond formulas, and which is never satisfied with less than a profound, personal, mystical experience of God in Jesus Christ through the ministry of the Spirit. In order to appreciate the symbolism, we must take into account something that is often overlooked, but is critically important for biblical interpretation. And that is that the essential revelation in the Bible is not found just in the words, but is found in the great biblical events.

[33:09]

Bible is a book of words, hundreds of thousands of words, and biblical scholarship is devoted to the interpretation of those words. So you study Hebrew and Greek and the cognate languages, and there are university courses, and there are catechism courses, and all from beginning to end, the whole spectrum of biblical study is about the words. What do these words mean? How can they be properly translated? How can we enter into the deeper meaning of the words? And that is valid. I've spent my whole life explaining the words. It's a barbier for me to dismiss them. That is where we must start. But the words come out of events. The words explain the meaning of events. The whole Bible, from beginning to end, is centered in two great biblical events.

[34:19]

Every single word of the Old Testament was written after the Exodus. The critical, revealing, revelatory event of the Old Testament was the Exodus of Israel from the bondage of the Pharaoh. God's great act of liberation by which he chose a people call them to himself, ask them to respond in covenant. This is the heart and soul of the Old Testament. Every single word of the Old Testament was written after the exodus, was written in the light of the exodus, would probably not have been written had there been no exodus. And this is especially true of the story of creation. We would think, well surely the story of creation exists. No, no, no. the story of the creation cannot be understood except in the light of Exodus. Because creation was understood to be a great liberation of God, liberation of being from nothingness. And what they did was slain through a deliverance from Egypt simply projected on the universal screen their own experience.

[35:28]

They were nothing. They were living in chaos. They were living in darkness. They were living the empty and the void. That was their experience of slaves. The empty and the void. Tohu wabohu. It's worth learning Hebrew just to know, to hear those two words, because you can tell from the sound of them that they're not good. If you're trouble doctor, you got tohu wabohu in you. Call the ambulance. This man is sick. They lived in the tohu wabohu, the empty and the void, no meaning in their lives, no future, no destiny. And then God entered their world through the ministry of Moses. Not with the same kind of power that the Pharaoh had. No, if he brought only that kind of power, there would have been another Pharaoh. But he brought a whole new kind of power.

[36:32]

has said, loving-kindness, almost untranslatable. Loving-kindness, graciousness, the soft eye of God compared to the hard, flinty eye of the taskmasters, sizing up how many bricks you can deliver. That is why the first book of creation is light. Then there's no sun and moon and stars yet. by the first day of creation. But light is symbolic of what happened to the Israelites. Light is symbolic of freedom, of security. You can see what's going on. You're no longer living in darkness. Corresponding event which anchors the New Testament is Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. It's the second exodus. Every single word of the New Testament was written after the resurrection. It would not have been written had there been no resurrection.

[37:37]

Jesus would have been simply another misguided idealist. The resurrection said, oh no, the wisdom of Jesus is valid wisdom, not what it seems to be, foolishness. After the resurrection, every single word In the light of the Resurrection, presupposing the Resurrection, I like to fabricate it by what Peter might have written in his diary before the Resurrection, during the public ministry. I think Peter might have kept a diary. He was always talking, probably writing, too, a little bit. I think most entries would have been very similar in his diary. like that one says now, October the 8th, 28 AD. He didn't work any sense today either. We see how confused the disciples are in the public ministry stories even after the resurrection.

[38:47]

Can you imagine how confused they were before the resurrection? And the resurrection, passion, death, and resurrection had to happen on the anniversary of the Exodus, on Passover time. The Bible's New Testament is very little concerned about dates. In those days, sometime after that, they were nightmarishly historian. But oh no, not the passion, death, and resurrection. Now it was Passover time, and Jesus went with his disciples up to Jerusalem. the great second exodus that gathers up all the meaning of the first exodus and transcends it to become the definitive and final exodus, the final liberation. God acting in our world no longer through the ministry of Moses, but God acting in our world in the person of Jesus, the new Moses.

[39:48]

The very significant consequences come from this, and that is how we receive revelation that is centered in a great event. The words describe the event. The words draw the implications out of the event. But if the center of the revelation is in the event, then the only way to really receive that revelation is by becoming part of the event. And we do that not by hearing words or seeing words, reading them, but we do it by experiencing the event. And all these words and all the liturgical ritual is to bring us into an experience of the events that are being sacramentally represented To understand the words, one must be reasonably intelligent and have access to at least some of the aids available for dealing with an ancient book.

[41:01]

To understand the meaning of the biblical accounts, however, it is necessary to approach these stories in a condition of personal honesty and integrity. personal honesty and integrity. These biblical events are the most real events in all human history. And only those who are in some measure in touch with the reality of their own lives will be able to enter experientially into the meaning of these events. Christianity is not a spectator sport. where we sit in the stands and watch the great biblical events being presented on the field of play or on the stage. No, no. If we are not on the stage and don't know how to participate in these events, we don't understand Revelation. We are not Christians.

[42:03]

This seems to be the import of the words of the Vatican Instruction when it says, access to a proper understanding of biblical texts is only granted to the person who has an affinity with what the text is saying on the basis of life experience. As you know, of course, that great spiritual guru, Benedict of Murcia, positively emphasized the importance of self-knowledge. I'm convinced that stability was a way of acquiring self-knowledge. Stay in the community. Stay in one community and listen to your brethren who will soon tell you who you are. You won't find that out in a mirror. But your brethren will tell you who you are, hopefully in a charitable way. But certainly in one way or another. And that is critically important, because if I live in the illusion, the great danger of spiritual conversion, I think, is illusion.

[43:10]

To live in the illusion, the daydream. Spiritual daydreams are notorious. Why do we resort to illusion? Because conversion is painful. Reality is painful. The truth is painful. Being honest is painful, and we want to flee from pain. But beyond the pain of the experience of divinity... I'd like to wrap this up. John had, therefore, a very special concern. As one ponders the Fourth Gospel, one becomes more and more aware that its author has a special concern that governs the way in which he presents the story of Jesus and of our salvation.

[44:11]

This gospel was written several decades after the Synoptic Gospels, and it is evident that the author has noticed something happening in the Christian communities that is a source of deep concern to him. It is clear in all the Gospels, as in the entire Bible, that salvation is offered to us humans in a sacramental way. We are made up of body and spirit, and therefore our contact with God will inevitably be expressed in a way that respects this reality. Jesus himself, as Word made flesh, became the primary and essential sacramental contact between us and God. This ultimate of religious expression will always involve ritual words and actions, Indeed, the great saving events of Exodus and Resurrection have always been reenacted in a sacramental way, either in Israel's Passover meal or in the Christian Eucharist. We are not angels. We should not act toward God as if we were pure spirits, nor does God act that way toward us.

[45:18]

John's special concern seemed to derive from the fact that the Christians of his day had begun to succumb to that most dangerous temptation of sacramental religion, namely a careful observance of ritual without the deep spiritual counterpart which constitutes the true meaning and purpose of the ritual.

[45:42]

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