Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator
To fully understand the passage which serves as the Gospel reading for today's liturgy, one has to go back to verse thirty-one where we read: Jesus then said to those Jews who believed in him. . . (John 8:31) What follows is a rather lengthy and angry discussion between Jesus and these particular Jews about Jesus and Abraham. When first I read this passage, I admit to being confused. If they believed in Jesus, why the rancor, and why does the passage end with these men trying to stone Jesus? Only after I realized that they had believed in Jesus but had also separated themselves from the Christian community did it make any sense.
This is not the only place in John's Gospel where we find evidence of what was happening in the Christian community in the years following Jesus' death and resurrection. The Christian community lived as part of the Jewish community from 33 A.D. to about 76 A.D. when the Temple was destroyed by the Romans. The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple changed the relationship between the Jewish Christians and the rest of the Jewish community. The Jewish community blamed the Jewish Christians for the Roman actions and began to expel them from the synagogues unless they recanted their faith in Jesus. Another episode of the Gospel which illustrates this is the story of the man born blind. The man's parents refuse to support their son's claims for fear that they will be expelled from the synagogue.
In order to understand this, we have to remember that being part of the community was essential to life in the Middle East. One's identity, one's history, one's present and one's future were all wrapped up in being part of the clan, the family, the community. Cutting oneself off from the "group" could be called social suicide. Part of the community stepped back from their faith in Jesus. These are the men with whom Jesus is arguing in chapter eight. (It would be far easier to understand if the translation read: "those Jews who had believed in Jesus. . .")
For Westerners, people who think of themselves as "rugged individuals," the Middle Eastern "group" mentality is difficult to grasp. However, it might help us to understand if we would remember that solidarity with the group sometimes offers strength of conviction. For instance, it is by no coincidence that the martyrs of the various Roman persecutions usually died in groups. This is not to denigrate in any way their commitment to the faith. However, let us remember that the Christian faith is, almost by definition, a communal experience. We come to know Jesus in the community just as the first apostles and disciples came to know Jesus as part of a group. This also speaks to the importance of the community today. We worship together, we believe together, we remember what Jesus did for us together. The word "communion" means "with unity." Christians must stick together. When they don't, our Christian culture and its moral fiber are very tenuous. We don't need to look far for evidence of that fact.