Raymond E. Brown, The Churches the Apostles Left Behind.
Chapter 6: The Heritage of the Beloved Disciple in the Fourth Gospel: People Personally Attached to Jesus, p. 84-101

(Detailed summary)

The ecclesiology of the fourth Gospel is distinguished by its emphasis on the relationship of each Christian with Jesus Christ. Of course, for him, God saved a people in Christ, and salvation is perceived collectively, as shown by the symbolism of the vine and the branches in chapter 15 and that of the shepherd and the flock in chapter 10. Nevertheless, within this collective presupposition, there is an unparalleled focus on the individual believer's relationship with Jesus.

1. The proposed solution is based on his Christology.
   1. We move from a Jesus who will return to a Jesus who has come.

      Ecclesiology in the fourth Gospel is dominated by the extraordinary Johannine Christology. Indeed, only John explicitly posits a pre-existing career of the Son of God. Pre-existence before creation appears poetically in John 1:1-3, but also in prose as an affirmation by Jesus himself in John 17:5 (see also John 8:58). The Johannine Jesus had glory with his Father before the world began. He came down from heaven to this earth, became flesh, and revealed to men what he had seen and heard when he was with the Father.

      A common image in the early Church was that after an earthly ministry that ended with crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus ascended to the right hand of his Father until he finally returned to earth in glory to exercise his judgment. Without denying a final coming, John radically transformed the Gospel image by insisting that Jesus had already come down from heaven to earth in glory, so that his public ministry constituted a judgment: “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, but people preferred darkness to light” (Jn 3:19). Until then, no one had seen God (Jn 1:18); but since Jesus came from God, whoever saw Jesus saw the Father (Jn 14:9). Indeed, because as the Son he has the life of the Father, he can give us the very life of God (Jn 6:57). The fundamental idea is so simple that it is breathtaking. A child receives life from a parent, and the only life our natural parents can give us is the life of the flesh (Jn 3:6). But if God begets us, we are God's children and we have his eternal life. This generation comes through water and the Spirit to those who believe in Jesus (Jn 1:12-13; 3:3-6).

   2. We move from Jesus as the foundation to Jesus as the present source of life.

      Rather than using the image of the cornerstone to describe Jesus' role in the Church, an image associated with an inert and past reality, as some New Testament writings do (see Mt 16:18; Eph 2:20), John preferred the image of the vine, with Christians as the branches that draw their life from the vine. More than the founder of the community, Jesus is its animating principle, always “alive and present” within it. He is the shepherd who cares for his sheep, knowing them and calling each one by name. To obtain eternal life, one must continue to follow the shepherd or adhere to the vine (Jn 10:27-28; 15:2-6). This is an ecclesiology particularly influenced by Christology. In the collective imagery of the vine and the flock, the heart of ecclesiology is a personal and ongoing relationship with the one who gives life, who came down from God.

   3. We move from a discourse on the kingdom or reign of God to a discourse centered on the person of Jesus.

      The Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels introduces and proclaims the kingdom, reign, or dominion of God in the world, and most of the parables refer to the dynamism of its growth. But in John, figurative or allegorical images refer to Jesus himself; for example, he is the bridegroom (Jn 3:29). Most often, the metaphors are the predicate of his sovereign “I am”: I am the vine (Jn 15:1, 5); I am the gate of the sheep or the shepherd (Jn 10:7, 9, 11, 14); I am the bread of life that came down from heaven (Jn 6:35, 41, 51); I am the light of the world (Jn 8:12; 9:5). Thus, instead of entering the kingdom of God as a place, as in the synoptic Gospels, in John one must be in Jesus to be part of the community.

   4. We move from sacramental instructions for the Church to Jesus' current action for the disciples.

      In Matthew 28:19, the risen Jesus commands the eleven disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Similarly, in Luke 22:19, Jesus commands during his last supper: “Do this in memory of me” (see also 1 Corinthians 11:25). These two actions will take place after Jesus' departure and concern the Church. There is therefore a dichotomy: Jesus healed and preached, but the Church baptizes and celebrates the Eucharist. John avoids this dichotomy in two ways. First, his Gospel contains no institutional instructions concerning baptism and the Eucharist. In fact, there is no Eucharist at the Last Supper, but only the washing of feet. Second, Johannine sacramental references are made in relation to what Jesus normally did during his life. For example, the most direct Eucharistic reference, with an allusion to eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood (Jn 6:51-58), is found in the commentary on the multiplication of the loaves. The other Gospels do not mention any Eucharistic consequence of the multiplication; but for John, when Jesus fed people during his lifetime with physical bread, he was referring to that other food which lasts for eternal life (Jn 6:27); John focuses on the sign. The same is true in the dialogue with Nicodemus (Jn 3:3-6): when Jesus speaks of birth, he is referring to birth through water and the Spirit. It is the same again in Jn 9, where the evangelist tells us how Jesus, the light of the world, gave physical sight to a man born blind, a parable about how spiritual sight was acquired when the man came to faith in Jesus after being judged by the Jewish authorities.

      In chapters 6 and 9, John's readers thus discover a Jesus who, during his life, fed the hungry and restored sight to the blind through wonderful deeds that were, in turn, signs of a heavenly reality. At the same time, by including ecclesiastical and sacramental language in these chapters, the Johannine author taught that Jesus continues to give the illumination of faith and the nourishment of eternal life through the signs of baptism and the Eucharist. Jesus is not simply the one who instituted the sacraments of the Church; he is the one who gives life and remains active in and through these sacraments. Thus, John's unique emphasis on the Christian's relationship with Jesus is underscored by sacramental imagery.

   5. We move from charisms in the service of the Church to the prominence of the status of disciple.

      In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul uses the imagery of the body and the necessity of all its members to affirm the necessity and importance of all charisms (apostles, prophets, teachers, miracle workers, healers, speakers in tongues). But John is not interested in the various charisms that distinguish Christians: he is interested in a fundamental status, that of receiving life, which all enjoy. The absence of distinction based on charisms or functions is particularly notable in Johannine ecclesiology with regard to the question of apostles. In the rest of the New Testament, the importance of the apostle is clear. Someone like Paul constantly emphasizes his own apostleship (Gal 1:1; 1 Cor 15:9-10; 2 Cor 11:5). He places the apostleship at the head of the charisms that God has established in the Church (1 Cor 12:28; see also Eph 2:20; 4:11). After the death of the well-known apostles, they are prominently commemorated in the Synoptics, Acts, post-Pauline and post-Petrine writings, and Revelation. But the term “apostle” is completely absent from the Johannine writings, both the Gospel and the three epistles. No named apostle is exalted as the great hero of this community, as was the case in the Pauline and Petrine legacies. On the contrary, the figure par excellence is a disciple, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Even though he knows the Twelve (Jn 6:67, 70, 71; 20:24) and the act of sending them on mission (Jn 17:18), for John the apostolate is not what constitutes the primary dignity in his ecclesiology. He prefers to emphasize the status of disciple, a status enjoyed by all Christians; and in this status, what confers dignity is the love of Jesus.

      The difference between Johannine ecclesiology and that of other New Testament authors on this point is illustrated by the constant contrast in John between the beloved disciple and Peter.

      Synoptics	John
      Peter is the spokesperson for the Twelve when he addresses Jesus (Mt 16:16; 17:24; 18:21).	At the Last Supper, Peter must instead address Jesus through the beloved disciple who is closest to Jesus, leaning on his chest (Jn 13:22-26).
      Peter is the only one of the Twelve to follow Jesus after his arrest in the courtyard or palace of the high priest.	Simon Peter cannot follow Jesus into the courtyard until the disciple has obtained permission to enter (Jn 18:15-16).
      Peter ends up abandoning Jesus, so that none of Jesus' disciples are standing near him when he dies on the cross.	At the foot of the cross stand the beloved disciple and Jesus' mother (19:26-27).
      Peter was the first among the Twelve to see the risen Jesus (Lk 24:34; see also 1 Cor 15:5).	At the empty tomb, the beloved disciple is the first to believe that Jesus has risen (Jn 20:8).

      Thus, the beloved disciple embodies Johannine idealism: all Christians are disciples, and among them, greatness is determined by a loving relationship with Jesus, not by a function or office. When the conclusion of chapter 21 of the fourth Gospel addresses the pastoral question as Peter is given the role of shepherd, Peter must answer the question: “Do you love me?” If authority is given, it must be based on love for Jesus. Moreover, Jesus continues to speak of “my lambs, my sheep.” The sheep do not belong to Peter or to any human leader of the Church; they continue to belong to the one who said, “I am the model shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me” (Jn 10:14). And if Peter is entrusted with the task of shepherding, he must meet the Johannine criteria for being a shepherd, namely that “the model shepherd lays down his life for his sheep” (Jn 10:11). That is why, after telling Simon Peter three times to feed/guard the sheep, Jesus immediately tells him (Jn 21:18-19) how he will be put to death. This death will be proof that, in his role as shepherd, Peter gave priority to the love of the disciples: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another... And no one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends” (Jn 13:35; 15:13).

   6. Transition from a hierarchical church to an egalitarian church

      We have seen that in the ecclesiology of the pastoral letters there is a distinction between teachers and learners, and we have emphasized the danger that this distinction becomes fixed rather than flexible, so that the capacity of many “learners” to teach in turn is ignored. In particular, 2 Timothy 3:1-9 refers to women among the disciples as being excessively gullible: “They will listen to anyone and will never be able to arrive at the truth.” Even if “they” does not refer to all women, this categorization is degrading; and the practical result is clearly expressed in 1 Timothy 2:12: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must remain silent.” There was therefore a tendency toward discrimination against women in some New Testament churches, particularly those where community functions were more rigorously structured.

      John's attitude toward women, as it appears in the pages of the fourth Gospel, is remarkably different, a difference that is all the more interesting if John's writings are contemporary with the pastoral epistles. In Chapters 4, 9, and 11, the Samaritan woman, Martha, and Mary are characters just as important as the blind man and Lazarus. In the description of the main believers, both men and women, there is no difference in intelligence, liveliness, or reaction. Martha serves as the spokesperson for a confession of faith (Jn 11:27: “You are the Christ, the Son of God”), which is placed in Peter's mouth in Matthew 16:16-17, earning him Jesus' blessing and recognition that divine revelation has been at work. While at the Last Supper, the Johannine Jesus prays for those who will believe in him through the word of his (male) disciples (Jn 17:20), an entire village comes to believe in Jesus through the word of the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:39). In Jn 20:14, it is not Peter but Mary Magdalene who is the first to see the risen Jesus; and when she goes to the disciples, she is the first to proclaim Easter: “I have seen the Lord.” If rank in the community of disciples is determined by love for Jesus, as illustrated by “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” it is said: “Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus” (Jn 11:5).

2. The Strengths and Weaknesses of this Solution
   1. The Strength and Weakness of this Emphasis on a Personal, Loving Relationship with Jesus
      1. The Strength

         The first and greatest strength comes from the fact that the individual relationship of church members with Jesus is a necessary component of a healthy ecclesiology. The ecclesiologies discussed in the previous chapters presuppose attentive pastoral supervision and reliable Christian doctrine, a sense of continuity with the past, the intervention of the Spirit, belonging to the people of God, and being members of the body of Christ. But none of this replaces the relationship with Jesus. Even though the ecclesiology of the body in Colossians/Ephesians gives a central place to Christ, the fact remains that Christ, who is the head of the body, remains faceless. This is the result of the Pauline tradition, which never speaks of the historical Jesus except to recall the words of his last supper. But the kind of person Jesus was and the reasons why people followed him during his lifetime never come through in these letters. Thus, in the epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians, the image of Christ remains abstract and impersonal, failing to satisfy the religious desire to encounter God in a personal way. John's description of Jesus responds to this need in an extraordinarily effective way.

         Thus, John used the evangelical form as a vehicle for his thought and therefore had to integrate the mystery of Jesus' ministry into his ecclesiology. We speak of the “mystery” of Jesus' ministry in order to do justice to an element of Jesus' life that eludes any discursive description. For Jesus is remembered as someone who manifested love in his actions and who was deeply loved by those who followed him. Of course, love was not everything, but it was part of the picture. If we ask the question: how did love for Jesus survive after his death? The answer is that it survived only because love for Jesus was seen as a permanent feature, even among those who had never known him during his ministry. It can therefore be said that the loving relationship with Jesus, which was part of the lives of Jesus' disciples during his lifetime, remains an intrinsic necessity in the Church.

         Thus, in addition to providing doctrine and pastoral care, liturgy and sacraments, as well as a sense of belonging to a caring community, a Church must bring people into personal contact with Jesus so that they can discover for themselves what initially motivated people to follow him. Churches that do this will survive. That Christ wanted or founded the Church may be adequate theology for some, but an abstraction, centered on the past, will not be enough to keep others faithful to a Church unless they encounter Jesus there. They will join small groups where they will find an encounter with Jesus, even if these groups are tangential or separate from the Church.

         This is the observation of the pastors of our Roman Catholic parishes, who note that worship alone, without personal spirituality, is not enough to retain certain people. Even in liturgical celebration, the Church can seem distant from the Jesus described in the pages of the Gospel. To what extent will large, impersonal parishes of all denominations lose more parishioners, not only because they do not have an active sense of belonging to a community from which they derive their identity, but also because they do not encounter Jesus in the Church? Therefore, John has a corrective role to play in traditional churches when he is read critically rather than harmonistically. He can remind them, as he did the Christians of the first century, that belonging to the Church is not a sufficient goal, because the Church must lead to Jesus. Church members receive life by being attached to Jesus and must be in a loving relationship with him.

      2. The Weakness

         The main weakness of this approach in Johannine ecclesiology is that it tends to promote Christian individualism to the point where the meaning of the Church is lost. When John is read to support the mentality that “Jesus is my personal savior,” some may logically conclude that they really have no need for community, sharing with others, liturgy, or sacraments. Pietistic groups for whom certain passages of John constitute the gospel should reflect on the pastoral epistles, the epistles to the Colossians/Ephesians, and the first epistle of Peter as a corrective.

   2. The Strength and Weakness of an Egalitarian View of Membership in the Church
      1. The Strength

         A second strength of Johannine ecclesiology is its egalitarianism, that is, the sense of equality among members of the community. In other New Testament churches, which recognize different charisms (apostles, prophets, teachers, etc., see 1 Cor 12:28) or have developed regular functions (presbyter-bishops and deacons in the Pastoral Epistles), there is a tendency to give priority to one charism or function over another. This reflects the evolution of any society where primacy is equated with value. This explains various passages in the Gospel that correct the attempts of the Twelve to occupy the first place in the kingdom or to be the greatest (Mark 9:33-37; 10:35-40; and par.). This attempt is not mentioned in the fourth Gospel; ambition is not a factor if all are disciples and if primacy or status comes from the love of Jesus. The Johannine correction is perhaps more important today, when many feel like second-class citizens in the Church because they have no authority—a tacit recognition of the importance that power has taken on in the Church. Those who are ambitious and want authority and those who are sad because they don't have it have not understood the lesson of the vine and the branches.

      2. The Weakness

         Such an ecclesiology does not allow for the integration of the function of an ordained priesthood. With reference to 1 Peter, we have emphasized that the presence of an ordained priesthood can have the unfortunate side effect of minimizing the appreciation of the priesthood of all believers. With regard to the equality of Christians as disciples, it is particularly difficult for the ordained priesthood to remain in the category of service (to God and to the community), because the ordained are often considered more important and automatically more holy, superior to ordinary Christians. In my own Church, some would find surprising this almost elementary statement: the day a person is baptized is more important than the day he or she is ordained a priest or bishop. After all, the first sacrament touches on salvation; it makes the individual a child of God, a dignity that goes beyond appointment to special service to God. Recent popes have commendably renounced one after another the royal attributes associated with the installation into the papal office, such as the tiara, the coronation, etc. But why should he not decide not to accept the special royal name but to retain his baptismal name, explaining that he wants to be known to the Church by the name with which he was sealed as a Christian and presented to Jesus Christ? This gesture could dispel the mistaken feeling shared by many outsiders to the Church that the pope claims royal power, as it would demonstrate the conviction that, in terms of salvation, Christian identity is more important than the identity acquired through authority. This gesture would bring to life what John was trying to say when he compared the beloved disciple to Peter.