The Gospel According to John and Kagan:
When the Empire Strikes Back, the Way Must Still Be Forward
Perhaps more than ever, context is everything. That is to say, that when one reads Holy Scripture, or the newspaper, or listen to the news at home or commentary on a podcast or your favorite influencer, having an understanding of what was said before, knowing where it was said, who the primary audience was or is, and if there is a stated purpose to what is being said (or done), is important.
In a time when the amount of information coming our way - whether you are a native consumer of printed or wavelength media, or a native consumer of digital media - that information requires people committed to community and solidarity to not simply consume, but to discern.
As a pastor, I never would have thought I would be in a position to say what I am going to say now - people of intelligence, people of commitment to a politic of together we are stronger than ever, people of e pluribus unum: of oneness out of many - need to be in the business of not simply consuming information, not even only of thinking about information. People who know they are called to gather are also called to seek, to pursue understanding.
Understanding, in Spanish, entendimiento, is not simply consuming information. Understanding is a mental process towards comprehension, of personal interpretation. In Spanish, understanding - entendimiento - is the power of the soul through which things are conceived, are compared and judged, and other things known are deduced or induced. (a translation from the Diccionario de la RAE)
And all of this is done personally, and then brought into the togetherness of the gathered. That is why we gather for worship and encourage many to stay for fellowship. That is why a theology book club is convened, and we offer Bible Study on Wednesdays. All of these are opportunities not simply to consume information, but to be people who practice a faith that seeks understanding. And I would hope that we are also people who practice our politics and our social commitments and engagements in seeking understanding.
And this is what I mean by the context being everything.
In chapter 13, John, the gospel writer, narrates the time of Jesus with his disciples before his arrest. He narrates the washing of the feet, an example of service that serves as a reference to the followers of Jesus. It is in that chapter that the disciples receive a new commandment:
“...that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (13. 34-35)
Jesus also announces that he will be betrayed and tells Peter that he will deny the Lord three times.
From loving one another as a commandment to announcing two betrayals, all of this while commemorating the days of Passover. The tension in the room must have been thick.
From chapter 15 to chapter 17 (of John), Jesus continues a conversation with his disciples - most of it teaching them and ending with a prayer for them - all during the same Passover meal moment. John is sometimes convoluted in his use of language. I am one of those who believe that the reason for this is that Jesus is trying to give his closest followers those last pieces of knowledge, of information, about who he is, what he stands for, and how all these experiences and learnings they have had with him can strengthen them for the difficulty of the passion and for their lives as witnesses. And give them this knowledge as quickly as possible - the night was advancing, the passion, Jesus knew, was at hand.
The tension in the room must have been thick, and Jesus opens what we know as chapter 14 with words of encouragement - “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.
(You) Believe in God. Believe also in me.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
And you know the way to the place where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
(John 14.1-7, NRSV)
In a time of tidbits and loads of information - printed, digital, audio, or visual - it is easy to try to find the quick meaning of the text. And this is one of those texts we can be easily distracted by because of the famous (or infamous) verse 6, when Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
The church, ours and the church Catholic, must resist the temptation of basing our commitments and articulating our beliefs based on tidbits. Social media reels and memes should encourage us to go deeper into our pursuit of understanding, not to remain in the shallow end of trends.
Trends change.
Understanding deepens our capacity as humans for learning and reasoning, and strengthens our human ability for curiosity, community, and, dare I say, solidarity.
I think that the more we read Ch. 14, and the more we undertand that chapters 13 to 17 are a whole unit of consideration, the more we will realize that the purpose of the conversation of Jesus with his disciples is not about asserting exclusive access to the Divine, but to encourage his disciples, and by extension those who have found ourselves being his followers, to remain on the journey, to a life of forward movement, to seek trails and often to blaze trails:
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
And you know the way to the place where I am going.
And there, in that we know the way, is both the good news and the challenge for the church today.
Are we living into the call of Jesus in John and of his ministry, teaching, and wonders, walking together along the way, seeking paths and guiding people into paths of justice, even trailblazing paths of righteousness for us and for the whole everyone we known - a way that witnesses to the way of Jesus and the hope of a good life, a full, life a peaceful life? Or
Are we waiting for the next trend to emerge that might use words that sound right but lead us to quick reactions that, in the end, have small short-term impacts and no long-term change?
Are we keeping our eyes focused on the horizon ahead of us, a horizon of the certainty of faith that what God intends for you, for me, and for the entire human race is wellbeing, solidarity, and dignity, and love, a faith that reminds us that we are citizens of the Kingdom of God, a people called to serve hope and love?
Or are we regressing into selfishness, nationalism, and protectionism, trusting in the hopes of a republic made by human hands and whose purpose from the beginning was never the inalienable rights of every human being, but primarily, if not exclusively, the rights and privileges of white, landowning or corporate men?
That is what the majority decision of the Supreme Court seems to be communicating. People who tidbit the Christian holy scriptures, who regress, who walk backwards, away from the teachings of Jesus, and, once again, preach a message that says that color blindness is possible, even a virtue,
while ignoring that Indigenous communities, and Black communities, and immigrant communities of every color, language, and religion in the world can never be appropriately represented by political ideology alone,
and ignore willingly and purposefully that whiteness - that political structure of supremacy - is not only wrong, but it is sinful, and it is evil.
Today, though, the majority straight-facedly holds that the Voting Rights Act must be brought low to make the world safe for partisan gerrymanders. For how else, the majority reasons, can we preserve the authority of States to engage in this practice than by stripping minority citizens of their rights to an equal political process?
And with that, the majority as much as invites States to embark on a new round of partisan gerrymanders—and makes an already bad precedent into one still worse. It is not enough that Rucho has harmed the whole body politic. Now, that decision also becomes the cudgel to diminish the rightful voting influence of its minority citizens.
The consequences are likely to be far-reaching and grave. Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter. In the States where that law continues to matter—the States still marked by residential segregation and racially polarized voting—minority voters can now be cracked out of the electoral process.
I dissent because the Court betrays its duty to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote. I dissent because the Court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity. I dissent.
(parts of Justice Elena Kagan’s decent on 24-109 Louisiana v Callais, pgs. 45, 47-48)
In a day of tidbits and trends, had these words been written by a Black woman, they may have been read as those of an angry black woman.
Or if they had been written by a Latina woman, they may have been read as those of a loud Latina woman.
But in an example of community, solidarity, and the pursuit of shared understanding, it takes a special kind of courage to write these words. A Jewish woman - in a show of solidarity and community with her Black and Latina colleagues - not only wrote, but read out loud these words, because these are not words only by or for a woman, or only for and by Jewish people. These are words by, for, with, and alongside people who represent victims of - and have themselves lived - the disenfranchising, marginalizing, violence, and abuse of white, misogynist, heteronormative nationalism, and simultaneously raise the clarion call that dignity is the true virtue of humanity and solidarity is the true virtue of community.
The message of John 14 is not about Jesus being the exclusive way. The message of the gospel of John and of Elena Kagan is that even when the empire strikes back (and it is striking back), the way must always be forward, must always be towards the horizon. And if it requires blazing trails, we shall do so. For Love must overcome.
Hope must overcome.
Community must overcome.
Solidarity must overcome.
Dignity must overcome.
Life must overcome.