Proselytize: 1 John 5:9-13
Seventh Sunday of Easter
9 If we receive the
testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of
God that he has borne concerning his Son. 10 Whoever
believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not
believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the
testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. 11 And
this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life
is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life;
whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
13 I write these
things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know
that you have eternal life. (ESV)
I’ll admit, this has not been my favorite
passage to work on unpacking. It’s
short, it’s repetitive, and it shades a bit too closely to all the churchgoers
who threatened me with the fires of Hell far from eternal life when I was a kid
for my swearing or my desire to wear shorts as a girl or my habit of talking
back to the Sunday school teacher when he said things that didn’t make sense to
me.
It is probably
unsurprising that I was not a compliant child.
But this last
section of 1 John matters enough to keep wrestling with it, to keep returning
to it and hearing the movement of the Spirit—even if that movement is simply
getting us to read the text. The thing
about studying the Bible is that it’s not always going to be a breathtaking
mountaintop experience; some of the passages are dull, or frustrating, or weird. It’s a complicated book, this Bible, and it
is our starting point for understanding the life of faithfulness to which we
are called. So, onward.
Trying to
unpack this text is made more difficult by the fact that there’s a holy day
thrown in; the Ascension of Christ was this past Thursday, marking the moment
in Acts 1 when the resurrected Christ returns to the heavens to, as the creed
says, sit at the right hand of the Father and judge the living and the
dead. There’s a whole sermon in the
Ascension. There’s a whole sermon in 1
John.
But I only
have one sermon. (I know, I’m relieved,
too.)
“Whoever
believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself.” Part of the reason this passage conjures up
the spirits of passionate churchgoers from my youth is this notion of “testimony.” I don’t think I’m alone in the idea that
hearing “testimony” means a very specific thing in church settings. In legal settings, it’s a person’s
declaration of what happened or, if they’re an expert in whatever, of how
something could have happened. But
testimony in Christian circles can mean “the story of how I got to be
Christian” or “the story of how Christ came through for me.” “Testimony” is often a means by which we
either badger people into an altar call or how we ourselves revisit the
miraculous moments that fuel our faith; it can beautiful, or it can be
downright manipulative. It’s a tricky
word, an expectation of proselytization—an attempt to convert someone else to
my way of thinking. So if “whoever
believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself,” I’m a little wary of what
comes of this—is God telling me about a life-changing moment of Godself?
Well, not
exactly. The language here of
“testimony” is more legal in the sense of “a true statement about the identity
or occurrence of something,” but the ferocity of this passage is in the author’s
use of belief. Whoever believes—in
Greek, pisteue, also meaning “to have faith.” Funny enough, I have a tattoo on my shoulder
that says pisteuo; it’s the command form, “believe,” and when I told my
best friend I was getting it he said that was absurd, you can’t command belief. I told him that was the point.
It sounds a
bit like the writer of 1 John is commanding it because the choices seem
to be believe or die—historically, not a very helpful way to approach
faith. “Whoever has the Son has life,”
and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t; not only that, but whoever does not have the testimony
calls God a liar, which is a pretty serious accusation. No wonder I’m doing a double-take for that
Sunday school teacher.
“Although our
pericope begins at 1 John 5:9-13,” writes Professor Elizabeth Johnson, “the
preceding verses in chapter 5 are critical to understanding the passage, which
returns to the Christological controversy dividing the community. 1 John 5:1-5 emphasizes the importance
of believing that Jesus (the human Jesus) is the Christ and
Son of God.”[1] This isn’t a passage of speaking outside the community
to all the recalcitrant teenagers and other assorted unfaithful; this is speaking
from faith to faith, the ones who are already in the fold and are figuring out
what that means. The fledgling Christian
community to whom 1 John is written was stumbling over their articulation of
who Jesus was to them, especially now that He had ascended and they couldn’t
just go over and ask. Jesus repeatedly
referred to God as His father, speaking of their connection, so if the
Christian community now is trying to figure out where Jesus fits in the scheme
of things, it’s important that they listen to Jesus’ own words. “If we receive the testimony of men,” of
those imperfect messengers who get half the idea before going off and telling
everyone else, “the testimony of God is greater”: that God, Who is love, came and hung out with
humans for a while, will send the Paraclete to be with us forever, will never
abandon us, has come to abide with us always.
Believe becomes a command not in the sense of “or else” but in
the sense of “this is what you have been looking for, faithful followers; this
is what you already have said is true, stay the course.” But what course? What is it that they—and we—believe?
“And this is
the testimony: that God gave us eternal
life, and this life is in His Son.”
Nope, this is
still not a “and you wrongdoers will be sent to the fires of Hell” text. From faith to faith, the writer has just
spent four and a half chapters building up Who God is and emphasizing over and
over that the core of that faith is love.
God is love, our bond with our fellow humans is love, our call to
understand ourselves is love, the gift of the Christ is love. It would be one heck of an about-face to
write so much on love only to come to the conclusion of judgment without mercy,
throwing everyone who doesn’t walk a particular line into the shadows. “Eternal life,” like “testimony,” has come to
have a rather specific meaning in Christian circles, so we need to take some
time to peel back what that is. “Eternal
life” is often the idea of the thing that happens after this decidedly finite
life; cue the angels, the fluffy clouds, the jokes about St. Peter at the gate.
But all of
that imagery is foreign to the writer of this text. We in the 21st century have
thousands of years of accumulated Christian ideology; he had a few
decades. As Professor Johnson explains, “The
author writes not to convince unbelievers but to fortify the faith of believers
who have this testimony within them (verse 10). ‘And this is the testimony: God
gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has
life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life’ (verses 11-12).
In verse 13, the author again echoes John’s Gospel in stating the purpose of
this writing: ‘so that you may know that you have eternal life’ (see also John
20:31).
“Life (zoê) and eternal life (zoê
aiônios) are virtual synonyms in John’s Gospel and in 1 John. In John 17:3,
Jesus prays to God: ‘And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.’ Eternal life begins here and
now for those who believe in Jesus Christ and know the only true God. It is
abundant life (John 10:10), life that death cannot destroy (John 11:25-26).”[2]
The testimony of God is eternal life
in the Son not after our death but right now, here in the blessed community of
people bound together by the God Who is love.
Eternal life is living into the commandment to care for one another, building
God’s kingdom here on earth just as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer—“Your kingdom
come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This is that moment, that life eternal where
earth becomes a little bit more like heaven because God is in both places, all
places, drawing us to the perfection of love that is far greater than whatever
other stories we have told ourselves about the world. Reverend Barry Petrucci puts it this way: “This
is the first mark of eternal life, that God comes to be part of our life now
and came to be part of our life then,”[3] this God Who abides in
love, in us.
It is the relationship to the created
beings around us and to the eternal God Who made us that brings life, and life
eternal. So it would behoove us to pay
attention to the beings around us.
It has been growing and growing in
the news as a story these past few weeks that Israel and Palestine are nearly
at war. It is a messy, complicated,
nasty tale of long-held animosity, of historical tendrils of hate and fear, and
the way in which the three Abrahamic religions bang up against each other is a
Gordian knot of prejudice. It is taking
a passage like this about testimony and eternal life and using it slam down the
Other as someone less worthy, less human.
But the violence of the last few
weeks—the holy month of Ramadan, in Islam—are not complicated. They have been the Israeli army forcibly
evicting Palestinians from their home, shouting, “Death to the Arabs.” They have been bombings of journalism
buildings and a raid on the Al-Aqsa Mosque.[4] They have been $3 billion worth of American
support to Israel while the UN considers officially naming the actions of
Israel as war crimes.[5]
I am aware that several of you are
not thrilled when I bring political happenings into the sermon, although I in
no way apologize for doing so. I am also
aware that doing so must be done with great care; there are many moments when “Scripture
is used to lead dangerously,” as Boyd Drake says.[6] So it is with great care that I take this
text of eternal life after an entire Easter series on what it means to love and
how central to the idea of this faith love is and say we who are called to love
must be aware of what is going on in our world.
It’s not a matter of charging into the Middle East and fixing the two-state
problem, but it is a matter of learning a bit more about how American
Christianity has contributed to it. It
is about looking up hashtags on social media like #SaveSheikhJarrah or #FreePalestine
in order to familiarize yourself with what’s going on before simply saying, “It’s
too complicated.” It’s about signing
petitions to call for support in getting Israel to stop bombing civilian sites.[7]
“If we receive the testimony of men,
the testimony of God is far greater…and this is the testimony, that God gave us
eternal life.” There’s a poem by Mary
Oliver called “The Summer Day” that ends with the question, “Tell me, what is
it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?”[8] If we receive the testimony; if we recognize
that we are called to the work of justice and love, of building the kingdom
here, now, bringing healing to the broken and hope to the grieving by the power
of the Spirit Who has done both for us, is doing both for us; if we grab
hold of the eternal life we have been given, what shall we do? What shall we do with this wild and precious
life that death cannot destroy?
Love, says 1 John. Love and love and love and love, for it is
what God is and what God is calling us to be, even on the difficult days;
especially on the difficult days when it is far easier to say that is too
complicated.
May God’s love infuse us with
strength, Christ’s mercy immerse us in hope, and the Spirit’s justice instill
us with integrity. Amen.
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