euphemos

I noticed this Easter how Jesus refers to us first as disciples/servants/slaves, then friends, and ultimately his brothers. I have noticed this progression in my own experience, but hadn’t previously recognized it so explicitly in the gospel. The theme seems to be consistent across all the gospels. I trace it here through John since that’s where I noticed it during our Lenten gospel readings, and since looking at a single gospel should avoid clouding the issue with stylistic or linguistic discrepancies between the various evangelists.

When Jesus first called his disciples, he called them as disciples, subject to his rule as their teacher. Jesus states the condition for entering this state of discipleship is to follow him, saying “Follow me” (John 1:43), and “If anyone serves me, he must follow me.” (John 12:26). In John 13:13-16, Jesus makes it clear, after having washed the disciple’s feet, that it is right to recognize him as Lord, and Master, saying

“You call me Master and Lord. And you say well: for so I am. If then I being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also. Amen, amen, I say to you: The servant is not greater than his lord: neither is the apostle greater than he that sent him.”

We are not left in this state of servanthood, however, but progress ‘farther up and deeper in’ to become his friends. Jesus gives his great commandment, to love one another as he has loved us, then says that in obeying this commandment, we are not merely good servants, but that “You are my friends if you do what I command.” (John 15:13) What a strange master this is, that in obeying his commandment, we become his friends. Jesus underscores that this is not merely a hypothetical promise when he proceeds to say

“No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

Or, in another translation,

“I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends. because all things, whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you.”

This word friend is used the same way as in our culture, but I noticed it has another significance that is particularly important given that he is speaking to his apostles.

Friend (Philos – Strong 5384): a friend, an associate, a companion, or one of the bridegroom’s friends who on his behalf asked the hand of the bride and rendered him various services in closing the marriage and celebrating the nuptials

Is that not exactly the apostles’ calling? To ask for the hand of the bride of Christ, and to render him various services in sealing the marriage covenant?

It is hard to imagine that we could proceed from slave to a trusted friend and companion, but Jesus is not content to leave us even in this exalted state. He makes us his sisters and brothers.

“When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own.” (John 19:26-27)

In giving us his mother through John*, “The disciple whom he loved,” Jesus makes himself our brother. He has already dignified humanity by humbling himself to become man; now he again confirms his choice despite our rejection and betrayal of his love.

* Even for those hesitant about “the whole Mary thing,” the relation is clear. At the very least, setting aside the symbolism of Jesus giving Mary to the entire church through John, even the most Protestant can agree that the Apostle John is our brother in Christ, and therefore John’s mother is our mother. How it must grieve the heart of Jesus that so many of his brothers reject his and their own mother’s loving kindness, and refuse to allow her to interceed with him on their behalf.

“In self-knowledge, then, you will humble yourself, seeing that, in yourself, you do not even exist; for your very being, as you will learn, is derived from Me, since I have loved both you and others before you were in existence; and that, through the ineffable love which I had for you, wishing to re-create you to Grace, I have washed you, and re-created you in the Blood of My only-begotten Son, spilt with so great a fire of love. This Blood teaches the truth to him, who, by self-knowledge, dissipates the cloud of self-love, and in no other way can he learn.”

–St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue

Francis X. Maier presents a provocative article on InsideCatholic.com giving some additional perspective on the scandal (and it is a scandal) of sexual abuse by clergy as compared to that occurring in our public schools. Why is it we’re fixated on the scandal of clerical abuse, but blind to the far more prevalent occurrence of the same abuse in public schools? How is it that such a small percentage of perpetrators in the public school environment ever face prosecution, or even lose their teaching credentials? Are we so driven by greed that we’ve chosen to target the deep pockets of the Catholic Church? Pockets that are deep only because the faithful give faithfully? Are we being deliberately mislead by a media intent on destroying the Christian faith, and in love with secular public education as a tool easily manipulated in that aim to destroy faith and the institutions of religion?

He quotes Professor Charol Shakeshaft, who reported in 2006 “Of the approximately 45 million students attending public and private K-12 schools, more than 3 million will have been the target of physical sexual exploitation by an employee of the school by eleventh grade… These 3 million [victims] include only students who have been the target of sexual abuse that includes touching. This number does not include adults who show students pornography, who expose themselves, or who direct other forms of visual and verbal sexual abuse at children. I’m only talking about sexual abuse actions that include forced touch. If those [other abusive] actions are added, the number of students nationwide is 4.5 million.”

Maier points out that even if you were to assume the data is off by half, the scope of public school sexual abuse involves many hundreds of thousands of students and eclipses anything in the Catholic clergy.

The late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus also has some comments relevant and interest. They are primarily in his columns for First Things, and are collected for easy reference at http://richardjneuhaus.blogspot.com/. He points out that the number of abuse cases reported in the public school systems in one year 1998) is ten times greater than those reported in the church or by clergy from 1950 to 2003.

It’s worth a read, and some serious consideration. By no means is sexual abuse ever acceptable, nor are we excused from guilt by virtue of being in bad company, but is there an agenda other than justice for the abused driving the selective prosecution of the real and alleged perpetrators of abuse?

“We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.”

St. Theresa of Avila (Interior Castle)