Fourth Sunday Of Easter
JOHN 10:1-10 (Acts 2:14a, 36-41; 1 Peter 2:20b-25)
This Sunday’s gospel reading consists of remarks preliminary to the parable of the Good Shepherd. John depicts Jesus beginning with his customary oath when an important principle is proclaimed. “Amen, Amen, I say to you, the one who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way is a thief and a robber.” The Hebrew Old Testament, Isaiah 65:16 notes, “He who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God Amen.” That “Amen” is a divine title is confirmed by Revelation 3:14. An angel refers to the risen Lord Jesus, “The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness….” Thus John affirms the absolute, divinely sanctioned truth of what he is about to proclaim.
John writes on two levels. The setting is the time of Jesus, but the writing of the gospel is at the end of the first century. The question is this: what instruction is John giving to the Christians of his time? He will later make it clear through the parable of the Good Shep-herd that Jesus is the shepherd. Who are the thieves and robbers? The setting is the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah). It commemorates the re-consecration of the Temple in 164 B.C. after the expulsion of the Syrian army and their pollution of the temple by idol wors-hip. The victory over idolaters was achieved through the Maccabees (Hasmoneans).
The Hasmoneans were a priestly family who later on served as high priests and kings. As is often the case with hereditary rulers, they began as good shepherds and ended as evil shepherds. The same can be said of the kings descended from David. The Davidic family ruled from about 1000 to 587 B.C. Very few of them receive a positive review in the Old Testament. Even David, founder of the dynasty, is exposed as a manipulator, adulterer, and murderer. In contrast to these past rulers of the flock of God Jesus is the true Shep-herd. But John, writing at the end of the first century, seems to have in mind someone or a group of his own time. Who are these “thieves and robbers” of whom John says, “All who came before me are thieve and robbers?”
One answer is found not in the Gospel of John but in the other gospels in the story of Jesus’ attack on the temple and temple hierarchy who controlled its revenue. All three authors refer to the temple as having become “a den of robbers.” This label is not original. They echo Jeremiah 7:11, that 6th century B.C. prophet’s scathing verbal assault on the temple and its rulers. The prophet asks, “Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers…? Behold, I myself have seen it, says the Lord.” Thus the concept of thieves and robbers echoes Jeremiah and seems to refer to the high priestly families and other Sadducees who controlled the temple.
The above solution works for the time of Jesus, but when John composed his gospel, the temple, the chief priests, the Sadducees, were gone. Their rule came to an end with the destruction of the temple a quarter century before John wrote. We have to come closer to John’s time, the last decade of the first century, to identify whom he meant by “thieves and robbers.” The Pharisees, devout Jews, mostly laity, were the only influential group left. Because of their devout lifestyle, their study and interpretation of the Torah, they were the real leaders of the Jews in the time of John. Letters of Paul, the four gospels, the Acts of Apostles – all echo the struggle between the Christian movement and the move-ment that through the great scribal interpreters of the Torah evolved into Judaism.
Struggles between Judaism and Christianity came to a head in the synagogues and in the writings of the two sides. John’s gospel indicates that Christians were sometimes expel-led from the synagogues of Judaism. Christians then created their own synagogues. The writings of both sides display severe mutual criticism, demonizing, name-calling. The hero of Judaism was Moses. The hero of Christianity was Jesus. John is once more comparing Jesus and Moses, as he has already done frequently. Those who enter the sheepfold through Moses are called thieves and robbers. The sheep do not recognize their voice, their teachings, which to us today for the most part seem to be admirable. Being admirable meant little to the Christian opposition in heated exchanges with Judaism.
Christians would have compared the opposition to the situation of the Jews of Palestine during a plague of locusts about 375 B.C. of which the prophet Joel says, “They leap upon the city. They run upon the walls. They enter through the windows like a thief.” Those who enter the sheepfold through Jesus, the true door or gate of the sheepfold, are Christians leaders like the author of John’s gospel, and Christian teachers and prophets whose activities come to light in John’s Letters and in the Book of Revelation. They are shepherds whom the sheep trust. They recognize their voice and the sheep follow them instead of being led astray by “thieves and robbers.” John’s depiction of the opposition leaders of Judaism is not pretty. It does not fit well into our more ecumenical times. Today we recognize Judaism as the mother of Christianity. Moses was also a “door.” Christians pass through that door too, and from there through Jesus, the final door or entrance to the sheepfold of God.
