All Things, All People

By Mark Andrus

[O]n the feast day of Blessed Jonathan Daniels . . . I am expecting to see people representing the Nature Conservancy . . . It may not be obvious to many why these people would be present at a religious pilgrimage honoring martyrs in a very human civil rights struggle of forty years ago, but to these people it is both obvious, and natural, and right.

This coming Saturday, August 14, 2004, hundreds of people will gather in Hayneville, Alabama, two hours south of Birmingham, to make pilgrimage on the feast day of Blessed Jonathan Daniels [a young Episcopal seminarian who was killed by white racists while he was volunteering in the South during the Civil Rights Movement], and to honor all the martyrs of Alabama who witnessed with their lives in that era. At the pilgrimage I am expecting to see people representing the Nature Conservancy , which is working to preserve the remnants of ancient prairie in Alabama; people working on ecology and public health; environmentalists seeking to reform the state environmental oversight and permitting system. It may not be obvious to many why these people would be present at a religious pilgrimage honoring martyrs in a very human civil rights struggle of forty years ago, but to these people it is both obvious, and natural, and right.

This past spring, I wrote a reflection for The Witness on some beginning biblical sources to support and nourish and shape our stewardship of Creation, focusing on Genesis. With the aforementioned upcoming gathering in mind, this article continues with the theme of biblical sources of Creation stewardship by looking at what I consider an important passage in the Gospel of John.

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit . . . Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say – Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” . . . “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. (John 12:20-33)

In John 12:32 a variant reading has panta rather than pantas, that is, “things” rather than “people.” Arguing for the text reading of John 12, “all people” is: (1) the majority of constant witnesses; and (2) the context of the verse, which may be said to be the outcome of verses 20-23 of John 12: “Among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we should like to see Jesus.' So Philip went and told Andrew, and the two of them went to tell Jesus. Then Jesus replied: ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.'” This beginning would seem to indicate that “all people” would be the significant reading, an expansion of the scope of God's salvation, or, more truly, a reiteration of its originally universal scope. The Son of Man, this reading would have it, is for all people, not just for the Jews.

What would push us towards a reading of “all things”? First, textually, research based on the respected academic source, the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, suggests this is a more appropriate translation. Also arguing for the variant reading is the application of the critical criterion – that any reading which is less generally acceptable is likely to be more original.

It is difficult, I would admit, to come down on one or the other of these two readings of John 12:32. Perhaps the best answer is to offer what I have heard Frank Griswold, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, do in his citations of this verse in teaching: “I will draw all people, all things to myself.”

Such a reading as Bishop Griswold's makes gains strength from another contextual reading of the passage. In verse 27 we read, “Now my soul is in turmoil, and what am I to say? Father, save me from this hour. No, it was for this that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.' A voice sounded from heaven: ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.' First, we note that the verb translated as “is in turmoil” is the same as occurred one chapter earlier, in the account of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. There, as Jesus nears the tomb of Lazarus, he is “deeply moved” (vs. 33). This verb occurs nowhere else besides these two verses, in chapters 11 and 12 of John, in the New Testament.   It seems to be used to indicate a state of great compassion for Lazarus (“The Jews said, ‘How dearly he must have loved him.”), and, it seems, for all people and things. It also, at the same time, seems to presage a great act of liberating love.

The connection between the Lazarus story and the passage under consideration may be further reinforced by this: in the Lazarus story, Jesus says, upon hearing of Lazarus' death, “This illness will not end in death; it has come for the glory of God, to bring glory to the Son of God.” (John 11:4). Might the raising of Lazarus, then, be the act to which the heavenly voice refers in John 12:28, “A voice sounded from heaven: ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.'”? No other sign in John other than Lazarus' raising from the dead is said to be for God's glory.

Thus, John has made significant the drawing to himself by Jesus of the whole of creation, “all people, all things.”

[Arundhati Roy] notes that her acclaimed, Booker prize-winning novel, The God of Small Things , was filled with her own understanding of the negative effects of globalization on human and all life, yet only when she began pointedly to write about these effects in non-fiction essays did stronger attacks on her begin.

The concept of eco-justice is where the above reading intersects with our daily struggle, our daily joy in living as God calls us to live. Arundhati Roy, in the lead essay of her book, Power Politics , writes insightfully about the diminution of her status and voice by the label often applied to her, “writer-activist”. She notes that her acclaimed, Booker prize-winning novel, The God of Small Things , was filled with her own understanding of the negative effects of globalization on human and all life, yet only when she began pointedly to write about these effects in non-fiction essays did stronger attacks on her begin. But it is in The God of Small Things where we can see the other side of the Johannine coin we have been discussing above; that is, until Christ draws all to himself, Creation is increasingly marked by pain, fragmentation, extinction, the work of demonic powers.

Eco-justice recognizes the intrinsic interconnectedness of all things, interconnectedness that has been strained, at best, in many places, and which goes so largely unnoticed by many. Perhaps our first role as followers of Christ in the restoration of Creation-connectedness – in the drawing of all together – is to be part of a grand raising of consciousness. When we can help make God-created connectedness manifest we aid in Christ's magnetic work.

Eddie Lama, in the superb documentary on the fur industry, The Witness , says that a miracle is a change in perspective. We work and pray for the miracle of people moving in understanding from where so many are to where they could stand in Hayneville with all those I mentioned above, and know that being there is why Christ be lifted up.

The Rt. Rev. Mark Handley Andrus is bishop suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. Mark may be reached by email at mandrus@dioala.org .