One of the most challenging things in parochial ministry is the ministry to the dying. I do hope that those who seek help to travel along this last journey, find the services of a clergyman to be a support. For me, a greater challenge than the not-infrequent bed-side vigils with the dying, were two occasions when total strangers, arrived at the front door, apparently in good health. These individuals, each announced that they had only months to live. In each of these cases, separated by some fifteen years, I had no prior knowledge of their background or spiritual state. I simply had to make up a response as I went along.
These two incidents that I remember vividly from my time as a parish priest turned out to be similar in the way that I responded. One person was a successful businessman in his 60s and the other was a younger woman in her 40s. Each had each received a terminal diagnosis days before. Fortunately, neither was expecting me somehow to wave a spiritual wand and make everything go away. We were thus able to start looking together at the fact of death and how they, with my help, could approach it and prepare for it.
Each episode consisted of my seeing them for around five sessions before the journeys to the vicarage became physically impossible. Because neither was a formal Christian in the sense of expecting the sacraments or having any knowledge of doctrine, there was in the sessions some element of instruction, like a confirmation class. This was followed a period of silence and deep meditation. The main resource that I brought to bear was the gospel of St John. It was this instinctual choice of this book as a helpful guide to the issue of dying which is what I wish to share in this blog. What I write is not in any way meant to be a DIY to ministry to the dying, but simply a sharing of experience in case it might be useful to someone else.
St John’s gospel is for me a profoundly helpful resource for Christians as they try to go deeper into the significance of Jesus and understand the way that his teaching and life impacted certain communities of Christians around the end of the first century. I have always found it helpful to treat John’s gospel, not as an add-on to the other gospels but as something new in the way we read and assimilate the Christian message. It is without doubt written with an utterly different style from the other gospels. The other three, called ‘synoptic’ to denote their similarity, seem to belong to a different world. For me, the suggestion that Jesus may not have spoken all the words ascribed to him in John’s account is no problem. The words ascribed to Jesus right at the end of John when he speaks about the Holy Spirit bearing witness to him, give us permission to believe that the revelation of God through Jesus was a process that went on beyond his earthly life. John’s writing is truly inspired Scripture in the sense that God in Christ is speaking to us through it.
Christians through the centuries have spiritually fed on the words of John’s gospel whether or not they are all thought to be the actual words spoken by the earthly Jesus. Such a discussion was certainly not appropriate for the two strangers who came to seek the resources of the Christian faith for their final journey. What was helpful for my purpose was the way this gospel is an encounter between two sides. One is the figure of Jesus who speaks to us from the timeless perspective of eternity. The other is a human being who is reading the text. That individual represents each and every one of us who comes to God, recognising a state of need.
Much of John’s gospel consists of an exploration of the ways that Jesus encounters human longing. He especially reveals his nature in the great ‘I am’ sayings. He is the Bread of Life, the Living Water, Light of the World, the Resurrection and the Life and the True Vine. The structure of the Gospel is carefully ordered to give, not just Jesus’ sayings, but concrete examples of his feeding the hungry, making the blind see, shepherding the lost, promising ‘streams of living water’ and raising the dead. Miracles and teaching intertwine with one another throughout the gospel account. It seems clear to me that a reader is being called to identify him/herself with the thirst, the hunger, the blindness, being lost and the one facing death. In summary, Jesus meets all of us whenever we come to him, confessing our need of him. Because he responds, as it were from the perspective of eternity, somehow our situation is raised out of the here and now and placed in a new dimension. This is the sphere of being that the dying want to know about, particularly when they are preparing to enter it.
I do not remember all the details of my sessions with the two who came for support, but I do remember inviting them to identify with the different aspects of longing and need identified in John’s gospel. Then, through the process of meditation and silence, we could quietly listen to the ‘I am’ sayings and allow Jesus through them to encounter the need that had been uncovered in us. We are all beings who at a deep level are in need and through silence we can invite Jesus to respond to that need. These meditations and their embedded invitations to the Risen Christ were as much declarations of faith as any formulaic ‘confession of faith’.
When John’s gospel is used only as a mine for favoured proof texts, such as chapter 3.16, the full dramatic sweep of the gospel will pass us by. What I wanted to share with those two dying parishioners was, not some short cut to faith, but an invitation to finding and being drawn into the beauty of eternity that Jesus inhabits. The words that are often used in a funeral service are very powerful in this context. ‘I will come and take you to myself so that where I am you may be also’. That surely is the ultimate promise by Jesus, one that will give us courage to cross into the unknown with the assurance of his eternal presence.
Fabulous! Thanks Stephen.
This is the best thing on the Gospel of John I can remember reading. It’s always been my least favourite gospel – not because it isn’t biographical but because I can’t get on with John’s style of writing. Better not say more or I’ll be CDMd!
Anyway, you’ve made sense of what he’s doing in the gospel. It’s an interesting approach to ministry to the dying, too.
Janet. I can understand why some people do not like John’s gospel. I remember my father pointing out that Jesus repeats himself in the gospel. That was initially a very threatening notion to a 9 year old who assumed every word was spoken by Jesus. Once you stop reading as an historical record of actual speech, it becomes something different and something wonderful. My self-imposed word limit has limited what I could say. I recommend the big book by C.H.Dodd on John. It takes you vividly into the world of John’s thought and his understanding of Jesus. I used to have a copy – sadly no longer.
Stephen, I agree about the limited value of using the Bible as a mine for proof texts. I have always appreciated reading entire books through, many times, and getting the sweep of it. In the process, I discover nuggets of my own. To give a thought related to John 3:16, why don’t people also quote verse 17 with it, as many people think that condemning the world is just what God does do. Also verses 19 and following struck me as such a clear statement of why people resist the gospel that I learned them this January. Very instructive.
Thanks.
Dodd’s 2 large books on John are: The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (1953) 453pp + index; and Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (1963) 432pp + index. The first covers thought-background (though is in a minority when it comes to the importance or otherwise of parallels with Hermetic and (the much later) Mandaean thought); key concepts; and commentary section by section. The latter is more narrowly focused on the question of history, which had already begun to interest him in the appendix of the first.
In recent years I’ve had many and good reasons to doubt the reliability of scripture. The actions and inaction of senior church leaders has been behind this doubt.
However coming back to John’s gospel again by coincidence, in the last few days, has renewed my confidence in its authenticity. For me, and I appreciate we each see things differently, John gives the clear sense that he spent time with Jesus and really “got” Him. The Christ he portrays is entirely believable. Thanks for this article Stephen and everyone for your reflections.
More on John 3:16 and proof texting.
It so happens that I looked at John 3:16 in the Greek yesterday. I had always read it “For God loved the world so much that he gave…” but on inspection, the word used is Hootose (my pronunciation of it), so a better rendering might be “For in this manner God loved the world, that he gave…” referring back to the previous verses about the serpent being lifted up in the desert being the means of deliverance from snake bites. In other words, God’s love is seen in the lengths he went to deliver us from the snake bite of sin.
Notice how a knowledge of the Greek has helped me. When I went to theological college, my aim was to learn biblical Hebrew and Greek, to help Bible interpretation. Whenever I meet a young person going along that path, I always ask if they are going to tackle Greek and or Hebrew. In nine cases out of ten, they make excuses about being poor at languages. I think this is such a shame. Learning New Testament Greek is not that hard.
The theme of how to deal with the Bible is a frequent one on this blog, so I have just ordered a copy of Use and Abuse of the Bible by Denis Nineham, which I have been meaning to do for a long time. It’s a brilliant title. I’m not looking forward to reading it, having once heard him preach, in the chapel of Trinity College Cambridge. His opening sentence made me so angry that I missed the rest of the talk. So I don’t expect to find the book congenial! I will write a review of it when I have finished it. Hey ho!
When a preacher displays knowledge of other languages, such as New Testament Greek, that tells me she is perhaps educated and studious.
It also tells me she could be showing off. Many of us develop a filter to screen out or apply lesser weight to certain speakers depending on our assessment of the motives behind their speaking.
Alternatively the preacher may in all innocence be unaware she is putting people off. Her education might be dismissed as elitist by a less privileged listener, who is discouraged by a perceived disparity.
Delving deeper and deeper into biblical texts, for example in their original languages, does have great value of course, but we must also stand further and further back to assess the meta meaning of a book.
For example, to me John’s Gospel could be summed up in a single word: “Love”. There is tension in using words like this, as we all know.
Words, like shifting sands, have multiple meanings and different words for our one word, in other languages, as has been written about many times. Words can change their meanings within a short space of time. For example “sick” means “good”, or at least it did a couple of years ago. Placing too much store on our translation of last year’s meanings is therefore risky. I would extend the warning exponentially therefore, to actual words transcribed several thousand years ago.
That said, good luck with your reading.
I find it useful when a preacher or teacher explains a passage using original language. I have both Greek and Hebrew interlinear Bibles. The point being that you don’t need to know the language, but it can help if you are interested in looking at a translation. Bit of a girls’ toy, but helpful. But I don’t really have enough interest to learn them, I’m afraid.