THE HOUR HAS COME: In the midst of Jesus' final movement "out of the world," an eerie stillness overtakes the discipleship community. What will happen to the disciples? Who will lead them when Jesus is gone? How can they (we) face "the world" without Jesus' strong presence?
In response to these questions, the fourth gospel's Jesus lays out for his followers a thickly metaphorical path to follow after his departure that the disciples themselves misunderstand. The author's irony is nowhere more comic nor more deadly than in the farewell discourse that comprises chapters 13 through 17 of John.
Many readers and commentators are tempted to skip over the Last Supper discourse because of its apparent wordiness and imposing structure. However, without it, Johannine discipleship is cut loose from its moorings. An "aerial" view will give us a basic map of the terrain before we take a ground level look at the promises and hopes offered in this intricate narrative.
To begin with, let's look at the largest segments. The discourse is shaped as a large chiasm—a concentric structure—with five parts focused around repeating themes:
a) 13:1-32: Jesus' hour; the disciples' mission; God's glory
b) 13:33-14:31: going away; the "Paraclete"; asking in Jesus' name; peace
c) 15:1-25: vine and branches
d) 15:26-16:33: going away; the "Paraclete"; asking in Jesus' name; peace
e) 17:1-26: Jesus' hour; the disciples' mission; God's glory
Each of these basic units is in turn made up of a chiasm (or two!) that provide detailed emphases upon the lesson to be learned. In the first episode, the footwashing, the centerpiece is the explanation of the action that Jesus has performed in 13:12-17: "I set the example for you; as I have done, you should also do." This theme is echoed in the fifth passage, the parallel to the footwashing, where Jesus says, "I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world...but the world has hated them because they are no part of the world" (17:11-14). As Jesus has gone into the world witnessing to God's love, so also should those who follow him.
In the second unit, the focus is on the gift of the Paraclete (14:15-17), "the spirit of truth, which the world cannot receive." This is paralleled in section four, where Jesus again says, "The spirit of truth will guide you" (16:13). Finally, at the center of the discourse is the uniquely Johannine metaphor of the vine and branches, the model of a Jesus/Spirit-centered discipleship community of equals. At the heart of this image is the joyful fulfillment of Jesus' commandment to love one another by laying down one's life for one's friends (15:6-17, centered at 15:11).
Thus, the discourse can be summed up: Jesus' "hour" to leave the world has come, but his presence will remain in the world through the love shown by his disciples. The disciples will be hated and persecuted by the world that does not know God, but will be comforted and supported by the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth that remains with them. Amidst trials and grief, the community is called to remain bonded to Jesus like branches to a vine, lovingly laying down their lives for one another as Jesus has done for them by example.
With this overview in mind, we can look at how the gospel uses its techniques of irony, misunderstanding, and metaphor to draw us into commitment to its way of life—and way of death.
THE FOOTWASHING episode raises the curtain on the community gathered for an evening meal, destined to be Jesus' last on Earth. It is Passover once more, the time for re-enactment of the Israelites' Exodus journey from bondage to freedom, the time for the slaughter of sacrificial lambs. Jesus performs what is clearly a ritual act: He ceremoniously rises from the table, "lays down" his robe (Greek, tithesin), girds himself with a towel, fills a basin with water, and washes each of his disciples' feet in turn.
Only Simon Peter dares to challenge this humiliating action by his master: "Lord, are you washing my feet?" (13:6). Jesus knows Peter cannot understand until "after these things," but solemnly warns the leading disciple that unless Peter accepts Jesus' washing, he will be disinherited (13:8)! Peter's characteristic overreaction shrouds the grave import of Jesus' warning with ironic humor, leaving the "knowing" reader feeling superior. After the narrator's mention of betrayal, Jesus "takes up" (Greek, elaben) his robe again and offers an explanation for the ritual.
The washing is no mere example of "humble service," as it is often taken to be. Rather, Jesus' words and actions make clear that the "example" he gives—which the disciples are to imitate—is the laying down of his life for his friends. The description of Jesus' "laying down" and "taking up" of his robe call to mind his statement in 10:17-18 that "this is why the Father loves me: because I lay down (tithemi) my life so that I might take it up (labein) again. No one has taken it from me, but I am laying it down on my own."
Jesus' solemn saying that "the slave is not greater than the master, nor the one sent forth (Greek, apostolos) greater than the one having sent" in 13:16 is expressly repeated in 15:20: "remember the word I told you, 'the slave is not greater than the lord.'" If the footwashing's link with laying down one's life was not clear in the first part of chapter 13, it is made explicit toward the end: "I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you" (13:34). The import of this commandment is clarified in chapter 15: "This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has love greater than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you" (15:12-14).
The footwashing also shows the way in which the Christian community is invited to support one another: by shedding our protective layers and developing a mutually vulnerable intimacy with one another. To expose one's feet for washing is to reveal one's bunions, callouses, and sore spots. To wash these is to embrace sister or brother as they are, imperfect yet on the Way. Through this intimacy, a discipleship community can be prepared for any threat, whether from "the world" or from within.
IT IS IN THE midst of this challenge and invitation that the decisive act of betrayal takes place. One who "has fed on my bread has lifted up his heel against me" in fulfillment of scripture (13:18). For the fourth gospel, betrayal occurs when one fails to understand God's call. It is ignorance that causes misguided action, rather than greed or lust for power. Thus, although only Judas is explicitly named as a betrayer, we should be concerned whenever the disciples—or ourselves—fail to comprehend Jesus' message.
Once Judas has taken his step out of the community, we are told simply "it was night" (13:30). The time to work is suspended until the new day breaks. Throughout the remainder of the discourse, the disciples are revealed to be, paradoxically, in the dark while in the presence of the Light. The disciples do not know who the betrayer is, just as Peter does not know himself when he promises to lay down his life for Jesus (13:37).
Teaching Through the Noise
It is rather pathetic when Jesus' offer of comfort for the disciples' troubled hearts is met with Thomas' cry, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" (14:5). This is followed by Philip's darkly ironic request three verses later, "Lord, show us the Father and it will be enough for us."
Their ignorance reveals their lack of intimacy. The Hebrew sense of "to know" means to be intimate with, as the old translations of Genesis suggest Adam was with Eve. The disciples need to wash each other's feet, to become intimate. Otherwise, they will remain in the dark.
Given this state of incomprehension, Jesus must set out in painstaking detail the relationship between his own loyalty to God's command and that of his disciples' to his own command. While the repetitious form of the discourse may seem "boring" to our modern ears, so used to fast-paced action and seemingly direct speech, such speech is necessary to overcome what anthropologists call "noise": the pervasive distractions of a social world in which numerous possible paths beckon, each with their advocates calling to "sell" their own approach.
Thus, while first-century Palestine was in many ways a rigid social system that offered little mobility, the religious options available were numerous. The synoptic gospels warn of numerous "pseudo-Christs" and other false prophets who come proclaiming God's ways (see Mark 13:22). Pharisaic Judaism, gnostic and Greek "mystery" religions, apostolic "Petrine" Christianity, and other options presented themselves to those who might also be attracted by Johannine Christianity.
It is this social matrix that is conveyed by the confusion of the disciples in the face of Jesus' "clear" message. For the Johannine ideology to penetrate, it must be repeated over and over to get through the "noise." In the midst of the rhetoric, the misunderstanding disciples are offered this hope: If you don't get it now, wait! The Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, will explain it to you later. In the ongoing trial between God's children and the world, there will be an "advocate" who will "convict" the world "about sin, about justice, and about judgment" (16:8).
As the disciples are persecuted, judged, and killed by the powers, "the ruler of this world has also been judged" by God through the advocacy of the Spirit (16:11). Just as the world appears to be "judging" Jesus in the upcoming chapters and, after him, the disciples, Jesus tells the disciples, "Have courage! I have conquered the world" (16:33). The paradoxical and simultaneous earthly/heavenly trial situation is perplexing to even the most faithful disciples!
THE DISCOURSE CONCLUDES with the parallel to Jesus' initial ritual act: his prayer to the Father on behalf of "his own" in chapter 17. The key to this prayer is the relationship between the "world" and the disciples. Jesus does not request that God remove them from the world, but that they be protected from "the evil one" (17:15). The challenge of Johannine discipleship is to remain in the world but not of it; to love the world to the point of total self-sacrifice while simultaneously condemning unequivocally the world's evil and injustice.
For the disciple to accomplish this balancing act requires a twin commitment to remaining in union with God/Jesus and to the discipleship community. As Jesus says, "I pray that they may be one, just as you, Father, are in union with me and I am in union with you, that they also may be in union with us, so that the world may believe that you sent me" (17:21).
Despite the highly charged language of mutual condemnation we heard between Jesus and the Judeans in chapter 8, in the end the Johannine Jesus is committed to the unending proclamation and offer of truth and love, no matter what the cost. The everlasting love of God for the world (3:16; 17:24) becomes the shining joy that will buoy the disciples on their own journeys to the cross, in imitation of the Master who now calls them "friends" (15:15). All that remains is for Jesus to complete his own journey so that the Paraclete may come to lead the disciples.
Wes Howard-Brook was program director of the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center in Seattle when this article appeared.
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