Essay 34 (6/11/04)

 

THE FOUR GOSPELS: UNITY IN DIVERSITY

 

During a half-century as an editor, I was for much of that time vigorously opposed for advocating unity-in-diversity as the unity mandated by the apostles and prayed for by the Christ. I pointed out that if we have to agree on all "the issues" -- and each faction among us has its own list of what these are -- we will never be united. We can differ on theories, opinions, and methods and still be one in Christ, I urged. Unity in diversity, not unity in conformity! I observed that unity by its very nature is diverse -- in any area of life -- whether a marriage, a friendship, or a community of faith. The only unity possible is in diversity, I noted.

 

  For this I was branded with "the unity-in-diversity heresy" label. That became the title of a chapter in my recently-published autobiography -- "My Unity-In-Diversity Heresy" -- which concluded with good news, that over the years things changed, and my heresy became increasingly less heretical.

 

  Amidst that controversy I frequently referenced the diversity among the apostles themselves -- Peter and Paul had their differences --, and the primitive churches -- such as between Jerusalem and Antioch. I noted that modern scholarship was increasingly recognizing the substantial diversity of New Testament Christianity -- such as the research of British scholar James G.D. Dunn, who published a book on Unity and Diversity in the New Testament.

 

  But I didn't -- and I don't recall that Dunn did -- reference the four gospels themselves as a pronounced illustration of this. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are remarkably diverse, and yet they are one in their witness that Jesus of Nazareth was both the Jewish Messiah and the risen Lord. But they tell the story in different ways -- sometimes even in conflicting ways -- and yet they reach the same glorious conclusion: the fact of the empty tomb that produced the resurrection community.

 

  If the four gospels could be so diverse and yet one in their witness, it should not be surprising if we find the community of faith itself -- which produced those gospels -- both diverse and united. A survey of the New Testament congregations is hardly a picture of conformity!

 

  That there are four gospels is itself something of a problem. If the purpose was to provide the church with a written gospel -- after decades of an oral tradition -- why was this not neatly done in a single document? If inspiration -- the leading of the Spirit -- means a plenary, verbal (word for word) handiwork, why was the written gospel vochsafed to us in four separate gospels -- particularly when there is so much repetition between them.  For example, Mark -- unanimously accepted as the earliest -- has 661 verses. Of these 661 verses only 24 are not reproduced in either Matthew or Luke! In those Bibles that divide Mark into 105 sections, only four do not occur in Matthew or Luke!

 

  If the Holy Spirit was precisely orchestrating all this -- as some claim -- why was it necessary to say the same thing in three different documents? And it is frequently the case that the parallels are in exactly the same words. This is why it is the consensus of scholars that Matthew and Luke copied Mark. This is why we may conclude that these three men were not consciously writing the Bible or parts of it. They had no idea that their handiwork would one day be considered Holy Scripture, equal to the Old Testament. Each was writing to a particular audience for a particular purpose. They drew upon such information as was available to them, crafting and shaping it for their chosen readers. The church has always believed -- as I believe -- that the Holy Spirit led them in their writing. But that doesn't mean that the Spirit wrote for them, or dictated to them

 

  Mark wrote as early as 65 A.D. -- a lean, pointed, concise account of what Jesus did -- not so much what he taught -- so as to present him as the Son of God, which was his purpose. Matthew wrote about 80 A.D. to believing Jews and to other Jews who might be interested, and his purpose was to present Jesus as the Messiah, the fulfillment of Jewish Scriptures. This is why in telling his story about Jesus  he often says -- sixteen times in all! -- "All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying . . ."

 

  But Matthew -- who must have had access to numerous documents -- found in Mark not only apostolic authority, due to his association with Paul and Peter, but a concise record of what Jesus said and did, especially did, and so he made abundant use of Mark's account, copying copiously. But he added 462 verses not in Mark -- most of it being Jesus' teaching. Consequently he gives us the Sermon on the Mount -- the greatest of all summaries of what Jesus taught. It is not found elsewhere in the gospels, except that Luke gives a very abbreviated and very different version.

 

  That presents still another problem. Why, for example, would Luke have Jesus saying, "Blessed are you poor" -- apparently referring to the oppressed and marginalized of society -- while Matthew has "Blessed are the poor in spirit" -- apparently referring to those with humble hearts. Not the same. Luke's is the harder teaching. And Luke adds a list of Woe's to the Sermon that Matthew does not have. And while Matthew's Sermon was on a mountain, Luke's was on the plain. While I believe I should honestly recognize such problems, they don't bother me. They would bother me, of course, if I believed in the verbal, plenary, inerrant inspiration of the Bible.

 

  Luke also draws heavily on Mark, but not as much as Matthew -- of his 1149 verses (the longest gospel) 320 are from Mark. Luke gives us riches found nowhere else -- parables of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Pharisee and the Publican. He also gives us Zachaeus, the story of the ten lepers, the Seventy, and more about women. And only he tells of the penitent thief on the Cross, and our Lord's awesome prayer, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." It is Luke who tells of Jesus as a boy of twelve in the Temple. In fact, one half of Luke is information found nowhere else.

 

  That is not surprising, for he explains in his preface that he had researched "many others who have undertaken to draw up accounts of the events." Luke -- besides his M.D. -- wrote a doctoral thesis on Jesus, with all the research appertaining thereto!

 

  Luke joins Matthew in telling the Virgin Birth story -- with added material -- and in giving a genealogy of Jesus -- except that Luke's is considerably different, still another problem. Unlike both Matthew and Mark, Luke is writing to learned Greeks, and his purpose is to show that Jesus is not just a Jewish guru, but Lord and Savior of all mankind. His is a universal gospel. And he is especially concerned for the oppressed and downtrodden and the place of women.

 

  John's gospel is so different from the other three -- which are known as the Synoptic gospels (meaning "with same view") -- that it is put in a class to itself. It was long thought -- since it has so much theology about Jesus -- that it was a second century interpretation and of little value for information on the real life and teaching of Jesus. It is more recently concluded that it may have been written as early as around 80 A.D., at about the same time as Matthew and Luke. And John may have been acquainted with the other three gospels. But he makes limited use of them, for he had a different purpose than they. Most of his document is extended discourses of Christ, identifying who he was in reference to God, including  the long, high-priestly prayer for unity in chapter 17.

 

  John was writing to the whole Graeco-Roman world, and his purpose was not only to picture Jesus as Savior and Lord, but as the eternal Logos -- equal with God and the creator of all things.  Jesus Christ was the eternal Word that became man. He wrote, he said,  so that the readers might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

 

  When John  writes about the same incidents as the Synoptics there are some interesting conflicts. While Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have Jesus crucifed after Passover, John has it before Passover. They place the Lord's supper at the Passover meal, but not John. And while the Synoptics have the cleansing of the Temple toward the end of Jesus' ministry -- during Passion week -- John has it at the beginning of his ministry.

 

  William Barclay, the inimitable Scottish scholar, explained these conflicts with an amusing quip: John was more interested in truth than in facts!

 

  There is only one miracle of Jesus -- the feeding of the 5,000 -- that is recorded in all four gospels. The way each one treats this story makes for an interesting study of unity-in-diversity, for while each writer reveals this mind-boggling miracle they do so in different ways and in different contexts. John says Jesus had just crossed the Sea of Galilee and the Passover was nigh. When crowds gathered, Jesus asked Philip if enough food could be bought for so many people. John says that Jesus said this to Philip "to put him to the test." Philip complained that with what little money they had they could not buy enough  bread for each person to have even a tiny piece. At this Andrew speaks up and says there's a small boy with five barley loaves and two fish, but "what is that among so many." Jesus proceeds to feed the five thousand by multiplying the loaves and fish. When the people see this they say, "This is indeed the prophet that has come into the world." (John 6:1-15)

 

  In Matthew's account John the Baptist had just been beheaded -- which John does not mention. When Jesus hears this he and his disciples withdraw to "a lonely place" where they could be to themselves. But the crowds learn where they are and "went after him on foot." Jesus takes pity on them and apparently ministers to them for sometime. When evening came and the time had slipped by, the disciples urge Jesus to dismiss the crowd so they can go home and eat. Jesus told the disciples that there was no need to send them away  -- "Feed them yourselves." They replied that they had only five loaves and two fish. Jesus told them to bring the loaves and fish to him, and he proceeded to multiply them and feed the 5,000. (Mt. 14:13-21)

 

  Matthew says nothing about Philip or Andrew, nothing about the little boy, and nothing about the reaction of the crowd.

 

  Mark also says that the occasion of the miracle was when Jesus and his disciples stole away to a lonely place to be to themselves, but for a different reason than in Matthew. It was not because of the sad news about the Baptist, but because the disciples had just returned from a mission. Jesus had sent them out in pairs among the villages to preach repentance, cast out demons, and to heal the sick. They had now returned, and they told Jesus all that they had done and taught. Realizing it had been trying for them, Jesus bids them to go to a lonely place "all by yourselves and rest for a while."

 

  But the crowds learned where they were going -- and got there before Jesus and the disciples did! Again, Jesus took pity on the crowd and taught them for sometime. As it got late the disciples urged Jesus to send the people away so they could get food. As in Matthew, he told them to feed the people themselves. They complained that they did not have enough money to buy the food needed. He asked them how many loaves they had. They didn't know. He sent them to find out. They reported that they had five loaves and two fish. He took these and fed the 5,000. (Mk. 6:17-29)

 

  Mark says nothing about Philip being tested or the role of Andrew or the little boy, and nothing about the reaction of the crowd, as John does.

 

  Like Mark, but unlike Matthew and John, Luke places the miracle upon the return of the disciples from their mission. He alone identifies the" lonely place" -- though he does not use that term -- as near the town of Bethsaida. The people find out where they are, and the miracle unfolds as in the other accounts. (Lk. 9:10-17)

 

  Diverse and different, but not necessarily contradictory. There are three different contexts for the miracle. John starts the miracle with Jesus testing Philip -- for he knew all along what he was going to do, John adds. The occasion in Matthew was the sad news of the death ofJohn the Baptist, causing Jesus and the disciples to seek seclusion. In Mark and Luke the setting is the return of the Twelve from their mission -- Jesus saw they needed rest and withdrew. Only John tells about the little boy who had the fish and loaves, the role of Andrew, and the impressive response of the crowd, extolling Jesus as the expected prophet.

 

  Diversity in detail in reporting, but still a united message! All four accounts include the essentials of the story. Jesus had pity on 5,000 people and wanted them fed. His disciples could come up with but five loaves and two fish. Jesus takes these and multiplies them into enough to feed a multitude -- with enough left over to fill twelve baskets full! All four accounts record this crucial detail -- probably symbolic of the abundance of God's grace.

 

  All four also include a defining detail about Jesus. With the loaves in hand, Jesus "raised his eyes to heaven and said the blessing; and breaking the loaves he handed them to his disciples, who gave them to the crowds." The Lord gave eucharistic significance to the multiplying of the loaves -- in anticipation of the Cross where God's grace overflowed to the multitudes of a sinful world.

 

  It is this way all through the four gospels. Each tells the story in a somewhat different way -- even with occasional clashes -- but they come out at the same place: the dreadful darkness of Friday leads to the glorious light of Easter morning. Mark takes us within the empty tomb, and we hear an angel tell the women, "He is not here, he is risen." Matthew tells us of a violent earthquake that Easter morning, and how an angel came from heaven and rolled the stone away, and then said to the women, "He is not here, for he has risen, as he said he would. Come and see the place where he lay." The angel rolled the stone away, not to let Jesus out, but to let the women (the witnesses) in!

 

  Luke, like Mark, takes us inside the tomb where the women find the body of Jesus missing and are puzzled. Then two angels appear and say to them, "Why look among the dead for someone who is alive? He is not here; he has risen."

 

  John tells us that when Mary Magdalene reached the tomb that Easter morning and saw the stone rolled back, she did not enter but ran to tell Peter. Peter and John ran to the tomb. John reaches the tomb first, but hesitates to enter. When Peter arrived he barged right in -- as Peter always did! Then John enters -- and here is the setting for stunning evidence for the resurrection. It reads: "when he saw he believed." It was the first time that an apostle believed in the resurrection -- even though Jesus told them again and again that it would happen!

 

  What did John see? He tells us in his own gospel. Not just a bare slab, which would indicate that the body had been taken away. Rather he saw the burial cloths collapsed (with the weight of all the spices) or folded, with the head cloths folded and apart. That added up to only one thing -- resurrection.

 

  By now Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping, John tells us. When she stooped to look inside the tomb, she saw two angels sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and the other at the feet.  They asked her why she is weeping, and she replied, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have put him." When she said this, she turned and saw Jesus himself standing near her, but she thought he was the gardener. He at last calls her name and reveals himself to her as the risen Lord.

 

  Even in reference to the resurrection the four gospels tell the Story in different ways, but the message is the same -- the crucified Jesus is the risen Lord.

 

  Not a bad lesson in unity- in- diversity.