22At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; 26but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. 30The Father and I are one.”
I’ve spent a bit of time on Keith’s blog this week (www. arestlessfaith.com.au) and I must say that it was encouraging to engage in some of the online debate that’s taking place in that little corner of the virtual world.
Keith (in case you missed it) recently published an article in support of gay marriage. More specifically, he wrote about how we might respond to the Biblical injunctions that appear to prohibit gay marriage, and his article has generated a healthy amount of discussion in the comment section that follows his article.
I was thoroughly convinced by Keith’s article (of course) so my comments were friendly and supportive. Not everybody who commented was quite as supportive but I must say that I was encouraged by the fact that nobody was openly hostile either!
This is not my normal experience in online debate, and I do get involved in online arguments quite a lot. I publish just about every day to www.israelandpalestine.org. We generally add at least one new sermon per week to www.fatherdave.com.au, and I also manage an online forum on www.fighting-fathers.com where we have had some vibrant discussions of late – probably the longest and most painful of which was on the topic of gun-control in the USA.
I did not start out as an expert on issues of global gun control, but after many hours on our forum I feel that I have become one! Certainly I (along with many others) have managed to pull out statistics from this country and from around the world about the effectiveness of gun-control laws and their correlation with reduction of gun-crime.
What I found remarkable though, when I eventually stood back and looked over the lengthy forum thread in which so many people had participated, was that not a single participant had actually changed their mind! Those who had started out as being in favour of restrictions on gun ownership (like myself) were still adamantly despising firearms. Those who had started out beating the drum for the ‘right to bear arms’ were still sticking to their guns (so to speak).
And so I thought I should look more carefully at the way Keith manages his blog, as he seems to be bringing people around on there! Moreover, I thought it might be worth going one step higher and looking at the way that Jesus handled those he debated with, to see if He might help me master the art of persuasion.
Today’s Gospel reading seems tailor-made for that purpose, for in today’s Gospel reading we find Jesus debating with some of his religious opponents, and so we get a direct window on Jesus in debate!
He was in the temple, we are told. More specifically, He’s in the ‘Portico of Solomon’, which is on the outskirts of the temple. Apparently the ‘Portico of Solomon’ was on the outer perimeter of the temple and was walled on the outside, to the east, which would stop the cold east wind from coming in. The Gospel writer is quite explicit in telling us that it was winter, which helps make sense of the whole scene.
Jesus was in the most user-friendly part of the temple if he was looking for a debate. He wasn’t in the inner part of the temple, reserved for prayer and sacrifice, but he hadn’t left the temple either. He was in the ‘Portico of Solomon’ where, even on a winter’s day, you could still stroll and converse comfortably.
And as we might have expected, a number of worshippers do approach Jesus with a question, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly” to which Jesus replies “I did tell you, but you do not believe!” (John 10:24-25)
This is exactly the sort of question we might have expected from members of the temple community. Jesus’ response though is probably not what we might have expected, and it was almost certainly not what His questioners expected!
We assume it is a sincere question – “tell us plainly if you are the Messiah”. Jesus says “I told you already” which suggests that either Jesus hadn’t told them very clearly the first time round or that his listeners were too stupid to grasp what He was saying, and I think that, being good Christians, we’re going to lean towards the latter option – that the problem didn’t lie with Jesus but with them.
These people must have been just too stupid to work out what Jesus was saying. Perhaps Jesus hadn’t used the actual word ‘Messiah’ and explicitly applied it to Himself but, so far as He was concerned, He had said enough to communicate His hidden identity to them, and if they couldn’t work that out they were just ignorant!
That’s a comfortably Sydney Anglican take on the passage, certainly! We Sydney Anglicans do tend to believe that if someone fails to embrace the Gospel it’s because of some kind of failing at an intellectual level. That’s why our diocese invests so much energy in educating our clergy and why all our Archbishops have to have doctorates and why our iconic leaders are people who are master debaters rather than people with a history of caring for the poor. We know that the encounter with God takes place first and foremost in the mind and that there’s nothing that turns a person’s life around better than a good argument!
We’re at the end of a ten-year mission in this diocese, and the vision, if I remember, was to see tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of new members added to the church over that time, and the method for achieving this was to communicate the Gospel message clearly and compellingly to our neighbours!
The assumption is that if you communicate the Gospel clearly enough to someone, the compelling logic of that presentation will overwhelm them to the point where they will suddenly ask for baptism! That’s how it works, isn’t it?
That’s how it worked for you! That’s how it worked for me! We – all of us – were overwhelmed by the logic of the Gospel, weren’t we?
That’s how the Biblical figures themselves were converted, wasn’t it? St Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus happened like that, didn’t it? There was Paul, travelling on the road to Damascus – all ready to imprison and persecute Christians, and then he stopped at a roadside café for a coffee and got into a long, detailed conversation about the Bible with a travelling Sydney Anglican academic! Lo and behold, four hours later Paul emerged and had changed his mind about everything!
No, that’s not how it worked! God didn’t convince St Paul with a good argument. He convinced him by throwing him off his horse, shouting at him from the Heavens and blinding him until he came to his sense!
Paul’s conversion experience was more like being in a boxing ring than a classroom, and the issue in Solomon’s Portico wasn’t an academic one either. According to Jesus’ own analysis, the problem with the people with whom he was conversing was not an intellectual problem but a spiritual one!
The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; 26but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:26-27)
This issue was not that they couldn’t understand what Jesus was saying. The issue was that they weren’t Jesus’ sheep and so they weren’t listening!
Now I have to admit that I know almost nothing about sheep and shepherding, but I know enough to know that the relationship on view runs entirely parallel to the relationship between a boxer and her trainer who works her corner.
Above all the noise and the chaos of the ring-fight, the fighter hears the voice of her corner-man, and then follows what she’s told.
I worked the corner for a young girl on Friday. She had a tough time. She twisted her knee in the first round. She went on to fight two more rounds but couldn’t finish the bout. She couldn’t move properly and so she couldn’t perform. I did ask her though afterwards “did you hear my voice” and she said “yes”.
You have to have a relationship with your trainer in order to hear your trainer’s voice and to understand what your trainer is saying to you. That’s the way it works. Likewise, you have to have a relationship with Jesus in order to hear the voice of Jesus and to understand what He is saying.
“My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27). These people in the temple, on the other hand – they are not His sheep and so they don’t hear His voice and so they don’t follow!
I appreciate that it’s a bit circular. You can’t understand Jesus until you have a relationship with Jesus. But how can you build a relationship with Jesus if you don’t understand what Jesus is saying? It’s a bit of a conundrum!
The Spirit of God solves that conundrum for us, of course, because the Spirit of God works within our hearts to bring us to Jesus, and so we understand the words of Jesus because we already have the Spirit of God working within our hearts. But if we don’t have that Spirit then we won’t understand, and no amount of solid argument is going to make any difference.
Those who know me well know that before I ever put on boxing gloves, I spent many years training traditional martial arts, most particularly in the Korean art of Hapkido.
Hapkido is a mixed martial art that teaches a bit of punching, a bit of kicking, a bit of grappling, and a lot of door techniques, by which I mean techniques that you would use if you are working a door (in a pub or a night-club). These are techniques whereby you get someone in a wrist-lock or a headlock or an arm-lock or a finger-lock, such that you’re then able to use that lock to lead them back out the door.
I studied Hapkido for more than ten years and ended up with two black belts and a lot of door techniques, such that I was ready to work the door of just about any pub or night-club in the country and could even have worked the door at the annual Sydney Anglican Synod! And yet I reached the conclusion some years ago that almost all door techniques, through which you use the mechanism of pain to lead someone where you want them to go, work really well so long as the person you’re trying to move more or less wanted to go with you anyway!
As I say, a good door technique generally uses pain (such as a hyper-extension of a few fingers) to persuade someone to go where you want them to go, but these really only work if the other person sort of wanted to go there anyway. They weren’t really looking for trouble, so the technique works. On the other hand, if they are frantically trying to kill you, they won’t care if you break a few fingers or break all of them, they’ll still kill you (with the other hand or with a weapon).
Good arguments are like that, I think. A good argument can be very persuasive in moving someone to a new position, but only if they sort of already wanted to go that way anyway!
I think that’s what I see operating in the comments section at the end of Keith’s blog. Keith’s gentle arguments are indeed shifting people in their thinking and taking them to new places, but I sense that they are being taken to places that (courtesy of the Spirit of God) they were already wanting to go to anyway!
Conversely, I assume that’s why a lot of people are impossible to shift in their thinking! They don’t want to move so they don’t.
As I’ve often said, ‘why do we expect rationality to shift someone in their thinking when rationality didn’t lead them to adopt their position in the first place?’ People hold to their beliefs – especially religious beliefs – for a variety of reasons, and no good argument is going to change someone’s life unless that person wants to change and unless the Spirit of God is at work within that person’s heart!
This is all a bit depressing really, as I would really like to be an agent for change! I would love to be able to turn people around and set them on new courses in life by the power of my words, my skilful rhetoric and my outstanding homiletical prowess!
I would love to help turn this church around with my sermons – stop the almost inevitable drift into middle-class captivity wherein we shift from being a radical outpost of apostolic activism to becoming just another Christianised golf-club!
We are in that process, I think! I’m not suggesting that there aren’t individuals and families within this church community who are still pouring themselves out for Christ and for the Gospel, but I do think that on the whole we are giving less, caring less and doing less.
And what can I do to stop that? Absolutely nothing! No amount of powerful, pithty, pulpit-pounding preaching is going to make a single bit of difference! I cannot hope to do any more with my skilful rhetoric than entertain! Not unless the Spirit of God is at work. Not unless the Spirit of God is at work, convicting and convincing people from within! Not unless His sheep hear His voice, know Him and follow!
27My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. 30The Father and I are one.” (John 10:27-30)
First preached by Father Dave at Holy Trinity Dulwich Hill on April 21, 2013.
- To watch or share the video version of the sermon click here.
- To hear the audio or download version of the sermon click here.
Rev. David B. Smith
Parish priest, community worker,
martial arts master, pro boxer,
author, father of four.
Well Father Dave, arguing for gay marriage, (at this time), is a whole lot easier than arguing for gun control. People aren’t as afraid of gays as much as they used to be. They see Ellen and her bad dancing and say, ‘Oh not so scarey.’
But they are still scared of other things. A lot of time I don’t even think they know what they are scared of, so they make things up. A gun gives them a false sense of security. Movies tell them if they have a gun, everything will work out right. People come to believe they can shoot their way out of anything. It’s totally ludicrous, but it’s not easy to have a rational discussion with frightened people.
Also, the anti-gay marriage propaganda machine is not nearly as large and organized as the anti-gun control propaganda machine. So, that too makes those two arguments not entirely comparable.
As for the Spirit of God, there’s this nun by the name of Sister Simone Campbell, (who would make a far better priest than many Catholic priests), and she tells people this: “The Holy Spirit is alive and well, and making mischief.”
So it’s always good to just keep on talking truth no matter how deaf the ears, (like those old time Prophets did), and before you know it, the Holy Spirit may make a little mischief and then suddenly POOF! and some of those deaf ears will hear. 🙂