Sermon 21st April 2013

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, introduces our new study series - the writings of Jesus' beloved disciple, John.

Well, I always think that a new series calls for a new thing; so here’s my best offer to get this one going, then. But first I need to ask you not to tell any member of my family who’s not present that I have confessed to this in public. Unbelievably, some of them seem to be rather ashamed of the fact that I am a serious fan of the Antiques Roadshow!

Of course I do try to draw them in. I love seeing how a plant bought for £1 in a car-boot sale turns out to have been in a Lalique vase that’s worth £30 000. And such things do happen rather more often that you may think. But every now and again there’s something that is truly extraordinary; like last Sunday. There was a 110-year-old liquid-filled compass, probably worth £2-300. Well it would have been, had it not been owned by a Dr Edward Wilson; and been found on his body after the ill-fated 1912 Scott expedition to the South Pole. The BBC valuer wouldn’t even touch it: he spoke of being “on hallowed ground”, as he estimated it at £150 000 – minimum! What made all the difference was where it had been, who it had been with, on what occasion: and this is just a compass, remember!

Now: look down at what you hopefully have in your hand, and start calculating – if you dare!

 [GNB] “We write to you about the Word of life, which has existed from the very beginning. We have heard it, and we have seen it with our eyes; yes, we have seen it, and our hands have touched it. When this life became visible, we saw it; so we speak of it and tell you about the eternal life which was with the Father and was made known to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you also / [NIV] That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard” – and that is what you are not just looking at but are holding right now, more than 1 900 years later!

Of course this isn’t the actual book that John physically wrote in – obviously! But they are the words that he wrote (here translated into English), which have been faithfully transmitted down the centuries – as they will continue to be until the end of time. What are they worth, then? Words written by one of Jesus’ closest friends; a member of his inner circle of 3; his ‘beloved disciple’; who was there himself; who saw and heard and touched; both sides of the Easter tomb; and who now tells this same amazing story to anyone and everyone who’ll listen? This is surely literally beyond value; and that needs saying not least because this can only be measured in terms of eternity.

Hallowed ground? Absolutely that’s where we all sit right now; if we’ll but stop and think about it, as Tom Wright urges us to in his commentary on this letter. Of course there’s also the wider point that needs making, about the whole of the Bible, and how we approach and value it for what it is. But it’s especially applicable here, to this letter: in the light of whom it was written by; and for what purpose. There’s been remarkably little scholarly debate over any of that, even in this, much more sceptical, modern era. To be honest, the biggest arguments are about whether 1 John should be classed as a letter at all! It lacks so many of the conventional markers of a letter: it isn’t addressed to any person or group; it doesn’t claim to have an author; and nor are there any personal remarks to, by, or about anyone; and all of those are common in letters.

So, this might not be a letter, then: but so what, frankly? It has been in the canon of Scripture from when that was first compiled – and it has always been attributed to John too. By ‘John’ people have always meant the original disciple; the one who wrote the Gospel that bears his name; who was, as I’ve said, an eye-witness to all that Jesus said and did. Even today there’s very little doubt that when he wrote this letter (as I will continue to call it, for ease), John was the only disciple left alive. He’d escaped from Jerusalem when the persecution became unbearable, but before the city was destroyed in 70 AD. He’d co-led the first church there with Jesus’ brother, James, and he wasn’t going to give up his calling. John slowly made his way to the distant area around Ephesus, where Paul had left a thriving group of churches. Paul had also died by then, so John assumed leadership of those churches, and that lasted until his own death, at about the end of the First Century.

John probably wrote later to that same group of churches by name in part of his other well-known book, Revelation. He did that from his exile, on the nearby island of Patmos. From there he tried his hardest to keep on caring for the people who had come to believe in the same Jesus that he’d known so well. As his writings show, though, by the end of the 80’s/into the 90’s AD that was getting ever harder to do. It wasn’t ‘just’ that the Roman persecution was biting harder and wider and deeper – though it certainly was doing that. It was also that people were having to grapple with a reality that they hadn’t ever expected to. Not surprisingly in many ways, the early Christians were convinced that Jesus would return in their life-time. Now they were coming to terms with the fact, that he hadn’t done so; and at least some of the ways they were doing so weren’t good!

Interesting as they definitely are (to some of us anyway), there isn’t time now to detail the development of First- and Second-Century heresies. What we do need to know is that at least some of the false teaching seemed to draw on John’s own Gospel! We can easily imagine how he took that! John wrote his eye-witness account of the story of Jesus so that people would come to believe in who he was and what he’d done; not for them to warp the glorious truth! But that’s what some people were doing, it seems. They took John’s rather more theological approach to the telling of Jesus’ story, and were saying things that weren’t true about him. They were also developing patterns of behaviour to make their own lives more convenient. If you do want to know more, the two movements to research would be Gnosticism, and Docetism; or you can ask me for summary.

As I say, what’s important is that we know there were big issues afoot in the early church – just as there are today! John saw it as his duty to do everything that he could to combat this. He was both the last apostle, and the person whose writing was being so badly misused. So the scholarly consensus is that John most likely wrote this as covering letter to go out with his Gospel. He had already told the story of Jesus; and he had done it with a deliberate, stated, aim of helping as many people as possible to come to faith in Jesus. Thank God, despite the very real dangers to their life, plenty of people were still doing that, not least through John’s gospel. The trouble was that where they then went with that faith wasn’t in the best Godly directions.

So John wrote a brief second volume, then: what we know as 1 John. For those who had come to faith, here now was a practical guide on how to make that faith real, and then stick to it in their everyday life, and belief. I think that it’s all wonderfully summed up in the introduction to John’s 3 letters in the Message version of the Bible. The editor, Eugene Peterson writes there: “The 2 most difficult things to get straight in life are love and God. More often than not, the mess people make of their lives can be traced to failure or stupidity or meanness in one or both of these areas.

“The basic and biblical Christian conviction is that the 2 subjects are intricately related. If we want to deal with God the right way, we have to learn to love the right way. If we want to love the right way, we have to deal with God the right way. God and love can’t be separated.

“John’s letters provide wonderfully explicit direction in how this works. Jesus, the Messiah, is the focus: Jesus provides the full and true understanding of God; Jesus shows us the mature working -out of love. In Jesus, God and love are linked accurately, intricately, and indissolubly.

“But there are always people around who don’t want to be pinned down to the God Jesus reveals, to the love Jesus reveals. They want to make up their own idea of God, make up their own style of love. John was pastor to a church (or churches) disrupted by some of these people. In his letters we see him re-establishing the original and organic unity of God and love that comes to focus and becomes available to us in Jesus Christ.”

Now it isn’t hard to work out how the preaching team got us to here, I hope. Since the start of the church year at Advent, we’ve been hearing the story of Jesus again. We have gone through all of it, as it’s told by Luke, to explain the meaning and place of both Christmas and Easter. Part of our aim in doing that was to be clear about what it is that we believe about God and Jesus, and why. Hopefully it has helped some people come to, or closer to, faith in Him; and it has refreshed the memory, and restored the energy of those who were there already. Wherever you may be along that spectrum, there is no doubt the end of Luke isn’t where to stop. What we need to do next is to live it out, then; and who better to teach us between now and the summer break how to do just that?

Yes, I would say it’s true that we are holding a document that is beyond value. And it was written by someone who had been in the presence of a person who couldn’t be valued. Just see how John describes who Jesus is: the Word of life, or “Life-come-to-life, life-in-person”, as Tom Wright puts it in his commentary. He, Jesus, had existed since the beginning, with the Father; and then he had become visible, in person, to be seen and heard and touched by people like John – who long to tell us about it too. And not just to tell us about it; but for us to become part of it, as he himself had. That isn’t just possible: it is what God wants; and what God has wanted since the beginning of time.

As Tom Wright also says, this “Life-in-person”, Jesus, became “Life-turned-into speech, God’s communication of Himself to his people and world”: to all. God has spoken in Jesus; He now speaks to others through the words that Jesus’ friends speak and write about him; with the same hope and intention that He has always had. This is how John now rounds off his introduction to this letter. He too wants what God wants: for us to become part of the relationship – fellowship is the word that he uses – that God has with His Son, and with those who believe in Jesus. That brings God joy; it brings joy to his people too, John wrote. In the rest of his letter he will go on to describe exactly how we can bring joy to God and his people; by living practical Godly-loving lives. He will show us how to get those two key things in life straight, to deal with both God and love the right way: in and through Jesus. We are in for real treat this term then: it’s a treat that is of infinite eternal value. It’s also one that demands practical responses to the God who makes himself known to us in Jesus, the Word of life. So, as this series begins, let’s pray that we will indeed be ready to make those responses, then: starting right now. So let’s pray ...