The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospell

by Craig R. Koester

Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2008. 259 pp. $21.00. ISBN 978- 0-8028-2938-2.

CRAIG KOESTER PROVES AN adept guide to John’s theological
landscape in this latest book.His earlier respected study, Symbolism
in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (Fortress, 1995; 2nd edition, 2003), illumined the evocative and multi-faceted nature of John’s symbolic language, helping readers appreciate the spectrum of meanings conveyed by a single image. The insights of that fine work permeate the comprehensive and richly nuanced reading he now provides of the major theological dimensions of John’s Gospel.

Koester describes John’s Gospel as “a passionately theological work that opens readers to the world of God and invites them to consider their place within it” (p. 1). It does not provide pat answers to theological questions, but rather draws readers into continued encounter with Jesus, challenging them to look more deeply than they had nticipated. Indeed, the first words Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John come as a question: “What are you looking for?” (1:38). His second words (as well as his final ones) are these: “Follow me” (1:43; 21:22). But who is Jesus and what does it mean to follow him? Koester maintains that responses to such questions begin to take shape as readers continue following the gospel’s account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection:“To focus specifically on John’s theology means developing responses to questions about God, people, and the world based on a reading of the Gospel” (p. 2).

This is the distinguishing mark of Koester’s presentation of John’s theology: his grounding of it in the gospel narrative in its present form.He does not try to identify the background of John’s ideas and trace their adaptation; nor does he trace the development of Johannine theology over time,distinguishing between “earlier” and “later” theological emphases—thereby eschewing approaches others have taken. Instead, he focuses resolutely on the gospel narrative itself, in its entirety, striving to integrate three dimensions of its message into a coherent whole. These dimensions include l) what the gospel presupposes (e.g., monotheism, and Jesus’ humanity and death— crucial aspects of his identity that are assumed rather than argued); 2) theological points for which the gospel must build a case (e.g., Jesus’ divine origin and the role of his death in the purposes of God); and 3) implications of what is said (e.g., as there is no explanation of how the death of the“Lamb of God” takes away the sin of the world [1:29], the implications must be teased out through attention to related themes throughout the Gospel of John). Koester’s synthesis tries to take account of the whole story, interpreting Jesus’ ministry in relation to the cross and resurrection, and the death and resurrection in light of the preceding ministry.

Koester organizes his chapters in categories that are based on major theological emphases in
the narrative: God, the world and its people, Jesus, the crucifixion and resurrection, the Spirit,
faith, and discipleship. The discussion of these theological dimensions of John is preceded by an introduction that provides an overview of the Gospel of John and shows how disputes about John’s theology throughout history have significantly shaped the church and society at large. Throughout, Koester unravels layer upon layer of theological nuance, providing a richly detailed discussion—whether of varied Johannine images of God (as master craftsman, witness, host at a banquet, and vinedresser); of the human, messianic, and divine tones of John’s multidimensional presentation of Jesus; or of the way in which love holds together human and divine, sacrificial, and militant dimensions of Jesus’ death.

Arresting interpretive insights emerge from Koester’s careful attention to the gospel narrative in its entirety. The expression “born again,” for example—that most sloganized, billboarded, and bumper-stickered phrase in the NT—is, as Koester notes, usually assumed to involve a conversion experience, a clear movement from unbelief to belief at a specific moment in a person’s life. But is the transition from unbelief to belief always clear and identifiable? Koester attends to all three of Nicodemus’ appearances in John (in chs. 3, 7, and 19), noting the tensions that persist to the very end of his story, which suggest that it is not always easy to determine when a person comes to genuine faith. The same difficulty can be observed in the story of the man born blind (John 9). Does his confession,“Lord, I believe,” at the end of the story (9:38) mark the moment when he is truly a believer, or has faith emerged along the way? What Koester observes is that, “The Gospel’s sharp distinctions between unbelief and belief press for clarity in commitment to Jesus. But its portrayals of various people show an appreciation for the many forms that the journey can take” (p. 143).

Attention to the whole of John’s narrative also illumines a much-debated reference to the
work of the Paraclete/Spirit, whom Jesus promises will “declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:13). Is John suggesting that the Spirit will reveal secrets concerning the future, inspiring people to predict coming events? Koester notes that this is not the focus of the passage, for the verb“declare” (anangello4) in John usually has to do with making known what something means (4:25; 5:15; 20:18).He also points out that in the context of the Last Supper, “the things that are to come” are primarily the events of Jesus’ passion and resurrection. Thus “the primary meaning of this passage is that the Spirit will declare the meaning of the death and resurrection, which are coming, by showing how they reveal Jesus’ love and obedience in the face of the world’s sin” (p. 156). Secondarily, the Spirit may make known the meaning of the world’s opposition to the Christian community, which is also among the things that are “coming” after Jesus’ return to the Father.

The final chapter on “discipleship in community and world” is especially intriguing, as discussion
of John’s contribution to Christian reflection on this subject tends to focus solely on Jesus’
command that disciples love one another. Koester’s attention to other images in the Gospel of
John (“walking in the light,”“a seed falling to the ground,”“footwashing,” and “abiding in the vine/bearing fruit”) teases out implications of what Jesus’ command might mean.He also spins out varied metaphors that inform communal/ecclesial dimensions of discipleship (e.g., family, friends, and flock), highlighting the permeable boundaries of the ever-expanding circle of believers whose divinely-given unity with each other bears countercultural witness in the world to the love of God. Koester emphasizes that discipleship, as John construes it, is decidedly world-engaged: “Jesus calls people out of the world and into the believing community, but then he sends them back into the world as his witnesses (17:14–18; 20:21)” (p. 188). Indeed, separation from the world is the basis for engagement with the world and stems from the work of Jesus himself: “John speaks of a world that is hostile to its Creator and of God sending his Son into the world to bear witness to the truth. Jesus encounters the world as someone ‘other,’ who can speak to the world precisely because he is different. The same is true of his disciples” (p. 209).

Throughout, Koester takes seriously the questions raised by modern readers of John’s Gospel.
One might wish for more explicit attention to the anti-Judaic rhetoric that imbues John’s narrative and its dangers—a serious ethical problem for all who preach and teach this gospel. But he does provide careful attention to what are currently the most controversial words in John, Jesus’ claim in 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” These have become fighting words among believers, for many find their exclusionary ring problematic and downright embarrassing in a religiously plural world; others find in them a litmus test of authentic Christian faith. Koester argues that in John’s narrative context, the claim is actually one of the gospel’s most inclusive, giving expression to a fundamental human problem: all people are separated from God.“No one” includes everyone! In Koester’s view, this negative assessment of the human situation underlies the Gospel of John’s positive presentation of Jesus as the way: John does not identify Jesus as the way in order to close off relationships with God, but to open up relationships with God where sin has created separation (14:6a). The word ‘except’ . . . means that the categorical judgment that ‘no one comes to the Father’ is not the last word (14:6b). ‘Except’ is like a window that lets light into a closed room. . . . Rather than restricting access to God, the word ‘except’ creates access to God.” (p. 211)

Moreover, Koester insists that the particular and the universal aspects of John’s message must
be heard together, for the Fourth Gospel presents a particular message with a universal scope:
John is no stranger to interreligious controversy. In this context, he seeks to show that
God is known in a definitive way through what God has done in Jesus. John can speak
to the pluralistic world in which his readers live because he has something particular
to offer. To make the message less particular would mean making the love of God less
radical, since the evangelist understands that divine love is definitely conveyed through
the crucified and risen Messiah. At the same time, John understands that God’s love is
given in this particular way for the sake of the world (3:16). (p. 214)

This compelling reading of 14:6 in John’s narrative context does not resolve all the problems facing those pressed to expound upon it in a pluralistic world, but it does provide intriguing food for thought. The comprehensive, detailed, and nuanced nature of Koester’s presentation make the book better suited for a seminary classroom than for group study in congregational settings. But it will be of great use to preachers and teachers of the Fourth Gospel. A Scripture index would have enhanced its usefulness, but a topical index provides navigation to theological themes that might be featured in a particular text. All who engage Koester’s reliable guide will come away with renewed appreciation for the rich complexity of John’s theological vision.

Frances Taylor Gench
UNION-PSCE
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
    

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Preaching from Memory to Hope

by Thomas G. Long

Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 2009. 152 pp. $19.95. ISBN 978-0-664-23422-5.

THIS NEW VOLUME BRINGS together Thomas Long’s 2006 Lyman Beecher lectures (Chs. 1, 2, and 5), along with two essays examining and critiquing the rise of “neo-gnostic” spirituality in the church (Chs. 3–4). The book is thus a collection of essays loosely structured by an overall narrative movement from memory to hope.

In his lively and engaging style, Long addresses the upheaval—a “nervous breakdown,” he calls it (p. xiii)— in homiletics that has resulted from the decline of a general, mainline consensus around “narrative preaching” (understood broadly as a “cluster of homiletical styles and techniques,” p. xiii), as well as from the challenges posed by a new spirituality that has led to much homiletical experimentation, from PowerPoint presentations to video clips to 3-D holographic projection. In response to these homiletical challenges, Long seeks to offer some “calm in the midst of the storm” (p. xiv), reminding homileticians and preachers that upheavals and challenges to preaching have come and gone for centuries, and there is no need for panic. More importantly, however, Long seeks to get beneath the fads and fashions of the day to explore the serious theological challenges facing the church and preaching, in particular a kind of gnostic spirituality that distorts the Christian faith.

In this context, Long argues for a chastened form of narrative preaching, which affirms a central role for story, but also requires theological instruction and ethical challenge. The
preacher, Long argues, can no longer rely on the congregation to process narratives internally,
but must help believers with the theological and ethical processing. Drawing on Augustine’s
threefold purpose of preaching, Long argues that sermons today must not simply “delight”
(central to the role of the preacher as “storyteller”), but also teach (theological instruction)
and persuade (ethical challenge).Within this framework, stories play an important, but limited
role; they serve as 1) a dress rehearsal for living the Christian life; 2) a congregational canon;
3) a means for remembering the lost and silenced; and 4) a process for coming to faith, for
configuring and reconfiguring the world. Long thus emphasizes the importance of story, but
places it within a larger, Augustinian understanding of preaching.

Long’s book in many ways enacts the kind of homiletic he proposes. He is a master storyteller who continually amazes with the range of stories that grow out of his experience and his incredibly broad reading. The book is loaded with stories. In conjunction with the stories,
Long engages in serious theological instruction and ethical challenge for both preachers and
homileticians. That is, the stories in the book play the roles Long suggests they should play in
sermons. And Long helps us with the theological and ethical processing. His treatment of
Cormac McCarthy’s novel,No Country for Old Men, for example, models in a profound way the
interplay of story, theological reflection, and ethical challenge.

In addition, Long’s work embodies a narrative theological homiletic at a deep, structural level. For Long, narrative is the essential theological framework within which Christian faith and preaching live,move, and have their being. Consequently, the book has an overall narrative
structure: past, present, and future. Over the course of the book, Long challenges preachers
to remember and preach the stories that configure and reconfigure the world (the past, ch. 1); to risk foolishly proclaiming a living God who continues to act in our midst (the present,
ch. 2); and to dare to speak a word of eschatological hope—the “sense of an ending” to God’s story that changes both past and present (the future, ch. 5).

Long’s theological reliance on narrative also shapes his critique of contemporary neo-gnostic
tendencies in the church, which occupies a large, central section of the book and includes a
lengthy, withering critique of the work of Marcus Borg (ch. 4). Long delineates four basic
characteristics of Gnosticism, which he explores in relation to contemporary neo-gnostic spiritual trends: 1) salvation by knowledge, with a minimization of human sin; 2) an antipathy toward incarnation and embodiment; 3) a focus on the spiritual inner self, the “divine spark”within; and 4) an emphasis on a present spiritual reality rather than eschatological hope.

The book’s detailed theological critique of contemporary neo-gnosticism is fundamentally a narrative one. First of all, the neo-gnostics tell a different story from the Christian narrative; they shift the narrative grammar of the gospel, giving up key aspects of the story, such as creation, sin, and incarnation. Second, more specifically, the neo-gnostics so emphasize the present that they have lost eschatology; they offer no “sense of an ending” that reframes
both past and present, and that is critical for narrative in general and the Christian story in
particular. Forms of gnosticism, therefore, not only distort the Christian story, but also in fact lack an essential narrative structure altogether. Consequently, according to Long, those who
preach in the context of such a neo-gnostic spirituality are engaged in a kind of “interfaith dialogue”; they are engaging with people who fundamentally have a different religion. In his critique of neo-gnosticism, Long thus enacts an important affirmation he makes in the opening
chapter: Christian theology functions within the overarching dynamic of the Christian story,
with a beginning, middle, and end shaped by the living God.

Long offers a welcome and helpful reassessment of the role of narrative in preaching. In the process, he provides guidance for a serious and bold theological engagement with contem-porary culture. His critique of neo-gnosticism offers an important word for a particular segment of the North American church, which many pastors struggle to address—if not the “cultured despisers of religion,” at least the “cultured questioners of Christianity” (e.g., those influenced by the views of authors like Elaine Pagels and Marcus Borg). Through this specific cultural critique, Long provides direction and encouragement for preachers to engage theologically with other cultural issues.

One aspect of the book invites further reflection: Long’s assertion that preaching is in the
midst of a “nervous breakdown.” Long is correct that homiletics is undergoing an extraordinary
upheaval.Homiletics today has become more intentionally contextual, just as Long’s critique of
neo-gnostic spirituality is itself addressed to a particular social and ecclesial context. And the
voices in homiletics have become much more diverse than a generation ago. Today in North
America alone, one encounters not only narrative homiletics, but also process, post-liberal, and
liberation homiletics; feminist and womanist homiletics; evangelical and post-evangelical
homiletics; African-American,Hispanic, and Asian-American homiletics; conversational, sacramental,
and testimonial homiletics—all of them, and many more as well, offering fresh perspectives
on preaching in different contexts and cultures. The days of a dominant voice like
Fred Craddock’s or a dominant approach such as “narrative preaching” are probably over. The
participants in the homiletical conversation today are simply too numerous and diverse for any
such consensus to emerge (if there ever really was one). Perhaps this upheaval is not an indication of a nervous breakdown, but rather a sign of health and promise.

This rich, unsettling diversity is actually the fruit of seeds planted and watered by influential
teachers such as Craddock, Henry Mitchell, David Buttrick, and Long himself, who have
inspired and nurtured new generations of diverse homileticians who are now taking their
places as preachers, teachers, and authors. There is in fact much interest in homiletics today,
evidenced by well-attended preaching conferences, active graduate programs, extensive
publications, and promising new international conversations. Moreover, many pastors and
students do not seem frustrated, but excited by the diversity of voices in the field; they resist
any single approach, knowing that the gospel is richer than any one homiletical theory within
which we might seek to capture it. The current homiletical upheaval often seems to be generating energy and exploration.

Amidst this homiletical diversity, which has dislodged “narrative preaching” from its
central position, Long makes an energetic case for a chastened narrative homiletic and offers a
passionate call for serious theological reflection. Just as importantly, he reminds us that there is
no need to panic. This lively, unsettling diversity is here to stay. And it need not be a source
of consternation, but can be an opportunity for richness and renewal.

Charles L. Campbell
DUKE DIVINITY SCHOOL
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA

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