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Jesus Would Exclude No One
by Betty Vos
The writer of the Gospel of John chose to open his account of the ministry of Jesus with a story that has no moral! With such a beginning, we were off and running in a riotous but deeply poignant encounter with New Testament characters, places and events. Lifting up the Romans conference theme “Transforming in Christ, Uniting in Faith,” Rev. Dr. Donald Juel, Princeton New Testament Scholar, focused his three Bible lectures on what the Gospel might tell us about the kind of transformation God has in mind.
Bible Lecturer, Rev. Dr. Donald Juel
To begin our exploration Dr. Juel selected John’s account of the miracle at Cana: Jesus opens his ministry at a party producing an enormous amount of wine. Not only that, the vessels he uses to collect the roughly 180 gallons of water for this obviously frivolous purpose are ritual jars. This is very unlike the way the other three gospels open his ministry, with Mark’s casting out of demons, Luke’s account of Jesus interpreting the scriptures in his home synagogue and nearly being cast off a cliff, and Matthew’s sermon that goes on for three whole chapters. What was John up to? In Dr. Juel’s perspective, the ministry of Jesus is about a grand party: the Kingdom of God is a great celebration, like a king who gave a wedding party. John’s Gospel brings us a God who has in mind for us abundant life, sheer celebration and gift.
Why would anyone have a problem accepting this message? What is the major source of resistance in Jesus’ time (and, by implication, in our own) to such bounty? A hint exists in the hymn that has opened John’s gospel: the world didn’t ask for such light, and the very darkness seems afraid of it.
To help us further understand such opposition, Dr. Juel turned in his second lecture to the Prodigal Son, a story found only in Luke’s Gospel, set near the middle of Luke’s account. The Pharisees—the most deeply observant and highly committed among the Jews of the day—are grumbling: Jesus eats with sinners. In response to their accusations, Jesus tells a story about two brothers in the Prodigal Son, and Dr. Juel puts us in the older brother’s sandals. Squirming. We’re not happy with the generosity of God. What the older brother can’t quite grasp and believe is the possibility that love can overcome. Churches are full, he says, of responsible people who deep down resent God’s graciousness.
But the story continues: it doesn’t depend on our ability to control our resentments. To conclude his series, Dr. Juel examined the experience of two despairing disciples on the Road to Emmaus, the first post-resurrection account in Luke’s Gospel. With heavy hearts, these two persons greet the stranger who has joined them on the road and tell him their terrible anguish over Jesus’ trial and execution. Jesus listens patiently. “And then,” says Dr. Juel, “they do Bible study!” Jesus spends the rest of the journey explaining all the Old Testament promises to them, showing them how the old and the new are connected. Still they do not recognize who he is.
The center of the Emmaus story is a meal: the guest becomes the host. The two travelers recognize Jesus “in the breaking of bread”—in the words and actions he shared the night before his death, the very words and actions at the center of the meal of our faith, what we ourselves do to remember him. They recognize him and he is gone; a word that is spoken and disappears must be spoken again.
Our author, Dr. Betty Vos, offers the constituting prayer and the necrology at the 47th Annual NACCC Meeting.
By itself, the Bible doesn’t deliver the goods. Jesus becomes known in breaking and distributing the bread, the Body of Christ broken for us. Worship is a place where God actually does things to people, a first hand experience of the bounty with which God feeds us. There are a total of seven scenes in Luke’s gospel focused on a meal, and almost always there is controversy over who gets to come. In attempting to keep Christian tables pure and clean, Dr. Juel suggests, the church has probably made its greatest mistake. The Pharisees didn’t trust the grace of God. The mission of the church is surely to extend hospitality to strangers—strangers who may upset our habits and our thinking patterns, but who will, as Jesus did, become a source of new life for us. All are invited to this party of abundant life, sheer celebration and gift.
Dr. Betty Vos, a registered family therapist, lives in Virginia, Minnesota. Signe Morgan, Chicago, Illinois, and Joe Polhemus also contributed to this article.
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