Last night I found a bit of sarcastic prose that can do quite well as an example of how to write offensively. But today the most difficult part of the lectionary is below. Jesus is being completely blunt and (to Jewish eyes) heretical. He is saying that he is greater than Moses, and is greater than any human.
The ancients were not bereft of judgment: it is interesting that they did not restrain him as madman, but later chose to instead execute him.
30“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
31“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 32There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true. 33You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth. 34Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. 35He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. 36But I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. 37And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, 38and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent.
39“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. 40Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. 41I do not accept glory from human beings. 42But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. 43I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? 45Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. 46If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”
To tell a Jew, who holds his lineage from Abraham with pride, and is zealous to uphold the law, that one is greater than Moses is in front of him who Moses wrote about is more than confrontational. More than offensive. It is alienating.
It is not polite. But Christ did exactly that.
Now, returning for a second to the issue of healing and power. Christ says that the things he had done — like no one else in the history of Israel – spoke to whom he was. One has to apply this with caution, for there are many false teachers in this world with healing ministries, or worse. However, the works of healing are designed, like many gifts, not for ourselves, but to be used to glorify God.
Finally, Christ gives a hint for the reason for the trinity (foreshadowed in Genesis itself: let us make…) The three persons are one God. And they confirm what each other is saying. For the law is correct: no one should be condemned on the words of one witness. The Godhead bears witness to itself: God is fair and just and keeps the rules and covenants he has made with us.
For without that, there is no salvation.
Be aware, however, that telling truth to power: particularly if you are seen (in my society) as rude, will lead to cyber lynch mobs. Christ paid for his teaching, in Jewish eyes, with his life: dying damned on a tree. To our eyes, fully human and fully God, he laid his life down to make a new covenant which allows our salvation.
We worship him for this. But let’s not pretend that he would even care about speech codes and what is politically correct. He did not when he was in earth: his words and teachings, if spoken now, with a pagan civil religion, would be seen as subversive and hate speech.
So let us, knowing the cost, follow his example.