“The Beast with Two Minds”
John 7:10-13, 37-43
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
7/2/23
But now hear this, Jacob my servant,
and Israel, whom I have chosen.
2 The Lord your maker,
who formed you in the womb and will help you, says:
Don’t fear, my servant Jacob,
Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.
3 I will pour out water upon thirsty ground
and streams upon dry land.
I will pour out my spirit upon your descendants
and my blessing upon your offspring.
4 They will spring up from among the reeds
like willows by flowing streams. (Isaiah 44:1-4 - CEB)
10 However, after [Jesus’] brothers left for the festival, he went too—not openly but in secret.
11 The Jewish leaders were looking for Jesus at the festival. They kept asking, “Where is he?”
12 The crowds were murmuring about him. “He’s a good man,” some said, but others were saying, “No, he tricks the people.” 13 No one spoke about him publicly, though, for fear of the Jewish authorities.
37 On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and shouted,
“All who are thirsty should come to me!
38 All who believe in me should drink!
As the scriptures said concerning me,
Rivers of living water will flow out from within him.”
39 Jesus said this concerning the Spirit. Those who believed in him would soon receive the Spirit, but they hadn’t experienced the Spirit yet since Jesus hadn’t yet been glorified.
40 When some in the crowd heard these words, they said, “This man is truly the prophet.” 41 Others said, “He’s the Christ.” But others said, “The Christ can’t come from Galilee, can he? 42 Didn’t the scripture say that the Christ comes from David’s family and from Bethlehem, David’s village?” 43 So the crowd was divided over Jesus. (John 7:10-13, 37-43 – CEB)
In best-case scenarios, the most influential people in our lives embody love and forgiveness. They speak challenging yet transforming truth to us. They evoke laughter and tears, humility and confidence, gratitude and awe. And if they’re truly influential, we can’t help sharing what they teach us. Both of my parents have been wonderful teachers. And while I’ve shared some of my dad’s wisdom, my mom has spoken some memorable words, too.
I am the second of four children, and when any of us complained about something we had just received or experienced, something we had expected to be pleasing but which had been rather disappointing, Mom would say, “Things are almost always better while you anticipate them than when you actually get them.” I was too young to get the irony that she would say that while she was cooking for us, cleaning up after us, or breaking up some fight among us.
Still, I didn’t want to hear it! I was a kid. I didn’t have a driver’s license yet. I hadn’t earned a paycheck yet. I hadn’t kissed a girl yet. I was looking forward to those things with great anticipation! So, I dismissed Mom’s advice as a symptom of her advanced age. She was in her thirties for crying out loud!
To my chagrin, Mom proved more right than wrong. Selfish anticipation tends to breed unrealistic expectations. When hit by enough disappointment, we often try to protect ourselves through suspicion or even full-on cynicism. When fear drives anticipation, the effects can be even worse. Fear devolves into impatience with and judgement of those whose desires and expectations seem different from ours. That impatience and judgment can create festering division in any society.
In John’s gospel, one of the main characters is the crowd. Following Jesus everywhere he goes, the crowd represents any of us and all of us. It represents our belief and disbelief, our hope and despair, our gratitude and disdain.
In John 7, Jesus is in Jerusalem for the Festival of Booths. This festival amounts to a kind of Thanksgiving meets Mardi Gras meets Holy Week. It’s a week-long, harvest celebration with parades, feasting, and solemn worship. Word is out that Jesus is in town. The Jews are looking for him, and the crowd is in an absolute lather.
Jesus is here? Where! He’s really something special, say some folks.
Nah! He’s just another fraud, say others.
The crowd has heard stories about Jesus, and rumors that he could be the Messiah, But coming in from north and south, east and west to gather at the table, they’ve listened to different storytellers. There are two basic camps of messianic expectations. Some see messianic hope in Jesus’ authoritative teaching, in his compassion for the poor, and in stories about things like turning water into wine, and five loaves and two fish into enough for everyone. Others expect the Messiah to bring both religious and political redemption. So, until Jesus leads the Jewish people in successful rebellion against Rome, he’s just one more charlatan hawking snake oil.
The crowd may be one literary character, but being of two minds, it is at its own throat. The tension we see and feel at the Festival of Booths exposes more than a momentary dilemma. It illustrates the way of life for people of faith.
All the gospels acknowledge that tension. Just last week we read the text in which Jesus says, “I haven’t come to bring peace but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34 - CEB)
We’re hardly strangers to tension. The last decade or so has been one of acute division in our own culture. Religiously, politically, socially, and economically we are the crowd. Divided and anxious, we’re at our own throat, like a beast with two minds.
Watching the crowd wrestling with their expectations, and with each other, Jesus says, “All who are thirsty should come to me! All who believe in me should drink! As the scriptures said concerning me, ‘Rivers of living water will flow out from within him.’”
Jesus is calling us to a sacred memory, and within that sacred memory are words from Isaiah, the prophet to exiles. Through Isaiah, God said: “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my spirit upon your descendants…” (Isaiah 44:3 - CEB)
The purpose of sacred memory is to re-connect us to holy community. One fly in the ointment is that, in both the first and the twenty-first centuries, some in the Judeo-Christian tradition hear different promises in those ancient words. Some hear a promise of a return to oneness in community with God, neighbor, and earth. And others hear God promising to return one particular community to religious freedom and political prominence—be that Israel, or America, or our party, or our race. And as a single character–as a community—the crowd hears both. And what can a divided body expect? “A house torn apart by divisions,” said Jesus, “will collapse.” (Mark 3:25 - CEB)
Being divided and of two minds, and having expected something very different, the crowd collapses and turns on the one who represents all that is kind, loving, faithful, peaceable, and true. Blaming Jesus for their disappointment, the crowd rejects him. And both religious and political leaders are only too happy to be rid of Jesus.
When he would not go away, though, when goodness, light, and truth persisted, the empire, with its armaments and influence, persecuted those who continued to follow Jesus.
When the suffering witnesses to the light continued to live humbly, graciously, and with courageous commitment to peace and justice, the empire, in the fourth century, did its deepest and most lasting damage. It co-opted Jesus and made him the mascot of the empire. To be a good citizen, then, one had to identify as Christian. And the symbols of the nation stood next to the symbols of the faith as if they were somehow equivalent.
So, the division continued; and it continues still.
Long before John wrote his version of the Gospel, Paul wrote to the Corinthians saying, “Christ is just like the human body—a body is a unit and has many parts; and all the parts of the body are one body…We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body…and we all were given one Spirit to drink.” (1Corinthians 12:12-13 - CEB)
As followers of Christ, our first priority is to live as members of his one body. And even when we experience division, even when that division precipitates one Friday after another, we are still the body of love. And love will, finally, have the last word.
This morning we come to re-unite at Christ’s table. We come to drink from the well of living water. And here we will receive and share the meal that reminds us to whom we belong and that our call is to live and serve as one body, demonstrating to the world the love, mercy, peace, welcome, and joy of Christ in whom we find our only true and lasting home.
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