2 nd Sunday after Eastertide (B) Acts 4 Psalm John 1 John 20b

Transcription

1 1 2 nd Sunday after Eastertide (B) Acts 4 Psalm John 1 John 20b - Resurrection community-evoking, -forming, -authorizing event - Lections -> astonishing outcome is the community - John 20b o Jesus comes unexpectedly o Fear? No community o Intrusion of Jesus regathers + reconstitutes o 3x shalom = assurance o Summons to life of belief = life of faithful obedient living - Psalm Acts 4 o Affirm joy, power, well being community receives o Extravagant materiality o No greed or hording o No threat or fear o Some communal trust in Acts - 1 John 1 doesn t fit as well o Peculiar Johannine rhetoric o Easter church = new fellowship o Communion in God + one another o Pushes communal life in ethical direction o Marked by light, truth, righteousness o Needs of world on horizon - Community is odd + crucial presence in culture of competition, conflict, isolation, brutality o Easter makes possible a different way of life 1 John 1-6 epistolary readings from 1 John - Replays themes from gospel of John - Language about fellowship comes into play - Protect community from those who separated themselves - Love of God takes on ethical connotations - Threats to social, ethical cohesiveness

2 2-1:1-4 stuck on what writer + others experienced - from the beginning - tradition without using the term - Because we witnessed we guarantee reliability of that tradition o Connect beginnings to present - Tradition so you may have koinonia o With other Christians, God, with Jesus Christ o Note later references to ruptured community o Tradition connects believers with origins and with one another - And koinonia also exists for another goal - V 5 -> center of koinonia is belief (that God is light) o Not color but day + night o Ancient times dark was total - God is light clearly important o Yet no dispute about this o Leads to ethical discussion o If we believe and live in koinonia o How can we live in darkness? o Actions must align with what we profess o (1 John struggles to articulate what Paul or James also say) God is light is a practical claim - Yet profound reality of human sin o Nuanced understanding of sin o Belong to light + do not sin o Yet sin inescapable o Fellowship of believers = not do not sin o Yet sin inescapable o Fellowship of believers = not do not sin but have Jesus as parakletos when they sin - Last words in tension - Sounds exlusivistic - God s love for insiders? Scorn for outsiders? - for sins of whole world leaves door ajar - God s mercy falls on those inside walls - And extends beyond them 1 John 1, Moody Smith - 1 John s strange prologue echoes gospel + only makes sense in light of it

3 o life refers to Jesus o word of life -> word = gospel message o beginning -> John 1:14 + incarnation o life revealed Eternal life = eschatological life of God s new age that Jesus brings - V 3, fellowship = goal of proclaiming the gospel o Vertical + horizontal o God = Father in Johannine language o Fatherhood of God -> relationship can be entered + shared o mutual indwelling of Father, Son, Holy Spirit and believers constitutes their fellowship => the church o Koinonia is distinct emphasis in Jon o so joy may be fulfilled o abide in Jesus + his love -> joy abiding -> eschatological joy = eternal life - 1 John 1:1-4 reminiscent of John 1 but not a commentary on it o Many elements of John not here o 1 John: visibility + palpability of word -> flesh o Dwells on reality of Jesus flesh o Not enough to say word became flesh o Perhaps his humanity was being diminished o Jesus really came in flesh, not to affirm = heresy o That Jesus = (1) human and (2) God is classical paradox o If Jesus not human then irrelevant for salvation o Yet cannot save if he is not God Emphasis on his death which presupposes his humanity o Orthodoxy threatened when divine-human tension is threatened o Problem of Superhuman Christology o Emphasis on witness + proclamation o gospel is realized, actualized in act of proclaiming it o Break between 1:1-4 and 1:5-2:2? Elaborates message of coming, nature, work of Jesus Do we walk in light or darkness? If we can walk in light we can in darkness atoning work of Christ dealing with sin becomes next theme of letter Incarnation and atonement are linked - 1 John 1:5-10 3

4 o Now the message Jesus brought and was proclaimed o God is light o Conduct of believers, confess their sin o 1:1-4 -> person of Christ o 1:5-10 -> work of Christ o Without God s intervention we go nowhere but are locked in darkness o God = light therefore freedom from darkness + death o Evokes John 1:5 o In Jesus the light shone + illumined human life - V 6, ethical-practical turn o Now koinonia o walking (in light or darkness) = conduct o Tension between talking + doing o walking in light = fellowship with each other o And being cleans < sin by blood of Jesus o Christ s death as a blood sacrifice o Earliest Christians understood Jesus death as sacrifice on analogy of temple sacrifice o Only blood of Jesus could accomplish salvation o Sin as pervasive malady of human condition o sin before Christ cleansed us? o No ongoing confession + forgiveness as part of Christian life + worship o (tension in John + Wesley) o Sin is conquered + must be rooted out o to strike concordat with sin + deny effectiveness of Christ s work as decisively as refusing to acknowledge sin (45) o Tension = (1) reality of sin (2) demand for perfection o Christ s death as blood sacrifice?? Widespread practice of animal sacrifice sin leads to sinning leads to sins Sin = alienation from God + one s fellows One cannot avoid traditional-historic doctrine Christ s death = answer to problem of sin Preaching: original in presentation but not in its themes We tend to think we must prove humanity is lost in sin This assessment comes from the gospel Reason from solution to problem, from answer to question 4

5 5 Should strike a familiar chord o John Wesley began with statement of God s grace (1) good news is announced (2) reality of sin is juxtaposed - 2:1-2, teknia = all Christians? o Work of Christ -> leas to ethical o Use of sacrificial terminology hilasmos o Jesus = dikaois as his followers should be o How can we be sure we know him? o When testimony is acted upon o Claim to know Christ + not obey? = lie o Know Jesus Christ = live in love with fellow believers + walk in the light o Unsure? Obeying his commandment? Walking as he walked? o = loving unconditionally without limitation o Christ is presently alive + at work -> central to NT Christology o Reasonableness of lection = 1:1-2:2 (not 2:3 et passim) 1:7, Christ s death on cross 2:1 present heavenly intercession o (Rw oh? How? Does Smith explain?) (related theologically) o Atoning + intercessory work of Christ 1 John 1, Clifton Black - 1:1-4 looks backward to expanse of church s proclamation - 1:5-10 community life in present - 2:1-6 ties proclamation to paraenesis o Church lives what it preaches o Preaches what it has heard - Prologue represents Jesus Christ o Christ is made present to generation of Christians who no longer see or hear o Christ present in preaching (Bonhoeffer) - 1:5, message given more content o Light + darkness in a moral context o he = Father or Son? Or Father visible in and revealed by the son - 1:6-10, antiphonal theme of sin + restoration o Escalating claims (sin -> lying -> self-deception -> false claims about God) o Unfolds practical conditions of koinonia o Not mystical or intellectual

6 o Fellowship manifested in conduct Hebrew halak and Greek peripatein o Truth = activated integrity - Church where sick gather to be healed of sin disease - communion of saints and forgiveness of sins go together - Community set apart in Christ lives continually by gospel of forgiveness because we are sick and need physician (Mark 2:17) - Objections to Christianity spring from insubordination o Something about being upset at contingency - (a) in a moral universe sin is real + lethally toxic - (b) Rupture between sinners + God is real and demands giving of our lives for its repair - Jesus merciful giving of his life for us heals our estrangement from God - Jesus gave his blood (= life) for others - Along with Levitical understanding of blood = (seat of) life - (Rw so not about punishment but giving of life) 6