“Beats them at their own game”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Saturday, March 18, 2023

John 8: 47-59 (Forward, p. 48) CEV p. 1113

Here, in today’s passage, Jesus’ opponents try a tactic that has become all too popular, and frequent, in today’s political discourse. It is the tactic of name-calling, of labelling someone with an unpopular, pejorative or nasty epithet, all depending, of course, on one’s point of view or political stance. Now days to be labelled racist, or homophobic, or misogynist, or socialist, or Communist, or white nationalist, is, in certain circles, enough to shut down all conversation, all further comment. The person perceived to have these views, and labelled as such, is basically ‘written off’, exuded from any further notice or consideration.

That is what Jesus’ opponents tried to do in today’s reading. They label Him as being a hated and despised Samaritan, and certainly, in their eyes there couldn’t be anything worse. (That, by the way, is why Jesus’ example of hobnobbing with a Samaritan woman at the well outside of Sychar was so remarkable, and why His naming a Samaritan man as the hero in the Parable of the Good Samaritan was so revolutionary—and outrageous! Why, for most Jews, even our modern label of him as ‘the Good Samaritan’ would have been out of the question!)

And, as if to ‘better’ that pejorative label and take the name-calling down one notch, they then allege that Jesus has a demon (or, as suggested elsewhere, see Matthew 12:24 & Luke 11:15) that He is in league with the devil, working with him.). Actually, His opponents delight in this former charge, using it repeatedly within this one gospel (John 7:20, 9:48, 52; 10:20-21). It basically allowed them to write off Jesus and consider Him to be of no account.

But here Jesus seems to ‘play into their hands’, to give them yet another thing to use against Him. Initially, He states that if anyone will obey His words, that person will never die. His opponents reply that that is preposterous, absurd, Abraham died, the prophets all died, everyone will die, sometime. Jesus then adds ‘insult to injury’ by stating that Abraham ‘was really glad to see him’. Flabbergasted, the crowd replies, ‘but how can that be, you are not even fifty years old?’ But Jesus is not yet finished with them. He ends the discourse—and almost His life—by announcing categorically, “I tell you for certain that even before Abraham was, I was,

and I am.” Calling Himself ‘I am’ was nothing less than a claim to deity, to being God, and, as far as the crowd was concerned, nothing less than a claim to deity, to being God, and, as far as the crowd was concerned, that was blasphemy. No wonder they wanted to stone Him! So, Jesus didn’t need their labelling, their slander, to give them ammunition against Himself: He provided it with His own words! He beat them at their own game.

So, where does this leave us, us Christians? The fact is that Jesus made all sorts of claims, claims that could seem to be even more outrageous. I would suggest “I am the Good Shepherd”, “I am the Resurrection and the Life”, “I am the Light of the World”, as just a few examples. But perhaps the most outlandish and audacious is what He said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me”. So then we are left with a choice: ‘are these titles and claims accurate, are they true, or is Jesus merely pumping up His status and importance needlessly. We who have put our faith in Him and learned to love Him, obey Him and trust Him, would say that all of these claims are definitely true, definitely ‘on the mark.’ We would say that these labels, rather than being negative, are most definitely true and trustworthy, for us, and for all of humankind.

Forward notes: “Jesus answered, 'If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, ‘He is our God’” (verse 54).

“I still have a hard time saying, ‘You were right, I was wrong.’ I sometimes think this limitation is my personal version of original sin. The Holy Spirit has tried to plane and sand this edged ego of mine into humility, and to be sure, it matters far less these days whether I am right or wrong than it used to. I’ve learned that being right versus wrong is a zero-sum game, and life is not zero-sum. Not black and white.

“This is why I tried to teach my children to say these hardest of words: ‘I dropped the ball.’

“Owning one’s failures or errors or humanity is a part of the sin-repentance-growth dynamic, the cycle through which the Holy Spirit leads us to deeper places, or higher places, or whichever direction you consider growth to be. When Jesus mounts the cross for the sin of the world, he takes ownership of all our failures. But it is not, thanks be to God, a zero-sum game.”

Moving Forward: “How are you acknowledging your mistakes? Are you willing to ask the Holy Spirit for help?”