Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me! For my life is spent with sorrow. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors! Let me not be put to shame, O LORD, for I call on thee.

Ps 31 (30):10.16.18

Impulses on Jer 20:10-13 and John 10:31-42

It seems that, in John's Gospel, Jesus and "the Jews" are constantly talking at cross-purposes. Today, Jesus is to be stoned to death – for the second time already – on account of blasphemy: "I and the Father are one" (Verse 30), he had said. This is the verse immediately preceding today's reading. But did they understand Jesus correctly...

"Dread and horror all around!" one is inclined to shout with Jeremiah. The mood in this conflict is anything but agreeable. It is provoking / provocative. Jesus is provocative before his Passion and then especially during / in his Passion. What are our feelings concerning Jesus, the Son of God?

I am touched by the fact that, in John's Gospel, the conflict between Jesus and those who think they have to defend God's honour, is laid out in such great detail. They believe they know exactly who GOD is and how GOD acts – and in so doing, they bring about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, Son of God. 

Religious fanaticism always sins against God AND human beings. It belittles God: GOD has no need to be protected by us. It belittles human beings; their experience is suppressed because it does not fit in with the fanatics' conception of GOD. I am no religious fanatic. But maybe I am also offensive to others because of my know-it-all attitude? Do I force GOD too much into my own views and conceptions? Am I putting others under pressure who are experiencing a totally different side of God? 

What does that mean for the ecumenical movement of all Christians? Perhaps even the ecumenical and interfaith movements of all believers (and seekers and nones...)? Pope Francis has chosen the image of a multi-faceted prism. Ideally, we can think of a diamond refracting the whole colour range of the rainbow. In the endeavour of find and know God, every human being needs the others, because even one of us can only see "one colour of God" – and in the end, we think that we understood GOD. The others, however, strangers, help us to at least have a presentiment of a great variety of the "whole colour range of God". The overwhelming fullness of God can only make us marvel in awe. 

Augustine starts his "Confessions" with this awe: "Great are You, LORD, and highly to be praised, and great is Your power, and Your wisdom is immeasurable. And humans, miserable sketches of your creation, want to praise you, dragging around their mortality, the testimony to their sin and the testimony that you resist the haugh­ty. And yet, humans, miserable sketches of your creation, want to praise you: You yourself encourage the idea that it is a joy to praise You, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in You"  (conf I:1). 

God's abundance is humbling: God remains non-disposable. But as He is seeking to enter into a relationship with us, we can experience HIM – sometimes quite immediately – and then, all that remains for us to do is marvel and praise. 

The warning to the "wise and clever" who think they already know everything comes from Jesus himself: "I thank you, Father, LORD of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father, except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 11:25f). However, those who do not listen carefully and think they already know everything, risk missing God's message for that very reason.

A reflection written by Jeremias Kiesl O.S.A., Priest, Erfurt, Germany

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