In my family we
invent words when words fail us. Some of the words and phrases we’ve invented
have become legendary, at least within our family. And some of them aren’t fit
for polite company, depending on how or why they were invented. Not only that,
inventing words used to get us in trouble when we played Scrabble, which my
father played with great ferocity. One of us would use a word we’d invented and
isomeone would cry “foul.” Out would come the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary as
the ultimate authority.
My younger sister
was – and still is – particularly good at inventing creative language. When she
was a child, she used to do it through lack of understanding. For example, once
when I was visiting, she came home from school extremely excited about an art
project. She was explaining to us how her project looked, and she had painted
part of it completely white. Having heard the expression “pitch black,” and not
knowing “pitch” was a substance, she used the phrase “pitch white.” She assumed
the word “pitch,” meant “all” or “completely.” We all laughed, and the
expression has become part of our insider language. It’s what we say when we
want to describe something as being “all” or “completely.” It not only raises a
laugh, it gets the point across. It’s the way our family communicates. If the
Papanek family owned a paint factory, we’d probably name one of our paint
chips “pitch white.” But no one else would get it.
So, in the
tradition of my family, as I studied John’s gospel, I decided to make up a word
to describe who we are. According to Jesus we are “the unsnatchables.”
Unfortunately, it’s not a real word, and it sounds like something you have for
lunch. But I’m going to use it anyway because I think you know what I mean. I
think you know being one of “the unsnatchables” means no one can snatch us away
from Jesus, which is precisely what Jesus is getting at in today’s gospel.
The small piece of John’s gospel we
heard today is a “family story.” It even starts out with the kind of
intimate details we all use when we relate a family story. We use the time, the
place, and what we were doing.
John begins this part of his gospel story
by saying, “It was the festival of the Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter,
and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.”[1] You hear the time, the place, and
what Jesus and his intimates were doing. Just like the little story I told you
about my sister.
The next thing you hear in John’s
gospel is who is a member of Jesus’ inner circle and who isn’t. Now when I told
you my story about my sister, you know who you are, and you know you aren’t
members of my immediate family. But by telling you the story, I have invited
you in to my intimate circle. You know a part of my family language. You became
at least a part-time Papanek by my invitation to intimacy.
In John’s gospel, John uses the
phrase “the Jews” throughout his gospel to indicate who is an intimate of Jesus
and who is not. John might as well call it thosewho believe in Jesus and those
who don’t. it’s an alert to the listening audience as to who are the followers
of Jesus and who are not. So John is telling us that some of the people walking
with Jesus were members of Jesus’ intimate circle, that is, they were believers,
and some were not believers. And the people who are not part of the intimate
circle question Jesus about his status. Specifically, those not part of the
inner circle ask for an explanation. They want to know if Jesus is the Messiah.
They don’t understand his language. They want explanations. They are asking for
certainty.
In his answer, Jesus tells his
listeners what it means to be a family member of the Messiah. Jesus says to
them,
“My
sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them
eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my
hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can
snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”[2]
It’s Jesus’ way of saying, “If you are a member of my inner
circle, you know my voice. You know the language I use. You know the insider
terms, the intimate expressions we use with one another. And if you know
these things, then you wouldn’t ask this question.”
It’s as if you and I were having a
conversation about the color I just painted my house. And to explain what I’d
done, I said, “I painted it ‘pitch white’.” If you were a member of my family,
or a listener in the congregation today, you’d know I painted the whole thing
white. But if you were an outsider, someone who hasn’t heard the story, you wouldn’t
understand.
If you were listening on the day John describes, and you were a follower
of Jesus, you knew what Jesus meant. Because you knew his voice, his terms, his
intimate language. You knew that Jesus and God were one. If you were a follower
of Jesus, a member of his inner circle, then you were one of “the
unsnatchables.” No one could snatch you from his hand. If you weren’t a
follower, none of it would make much sense. The comforting thing for you and for me is that we really are “the
unsnatchables.” Even when we think we probably could be snatched away.
Because most of us have some misconceptions those who sit round us in church.
Or even other people we talk to about our faith. We tend to assume, unless we
have a really deep discussion, that we are the only one who has doubts. We
think we are the only one who ever wakes up in the morning and has to wait for
belief. We are the only one for whom sometimes belief doesn’t come that day, or
the next day, or even the day after that. We think we are the only ones for
whom belief isn’t there and we hope, wait, and try to believe that someday
we’ll believe again. But a little or a lot, belief every day or belief once a
day, or belief only on alternate days, we are still held in God’s hands. We are
“the unsnatchables” in the hands of God. God’s love never ends.[3]
If we are followers of Jesus, no one can snatch us out of God’s hand. You
and I are members of the intimate circle of Jesus. We are members of The Jesus
Movement. We are gathered together by God; members of the intimate circle of
Jesus, and marked by the Holy Spirit as Christ’s own for ever. We are “the
unsnatchables.” AMEN
The Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2016
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