The Life of the Word

The scriptures referred to are John 1:1-18.

In his autobiography Becoming Superman, Joseph Michael Straczynski tells of growing up in a family so dysfunctional that the word Dickensian utterly fails to describe its misery. His grandmother was a sociopath. His mother was chronically depressed and unable to show affection to her children. His father was an often unemployed alcoholic who psychologically and physically abused them daily. They moved nearly 2 dozen times in his childhood, adolescence, and college years, mostly to avoid bill collectors—and a big secret. What kept Joe Straczynski sane were words. It started with comic books and went on to short stories and novels. He would read everything twice, once for enjoyment and the second time to pay close attention to how the authors used words to create the characters and plots and worlds in which they took place. And so Straczynski began to write, first for himself, and then for school plays and the school paper, and then for city newspapers, and then radio, and then animated TV series, and then live action series and then comic books and eventually for movies. Today he is an award-winning writer, whose films have been produced by Ron Howard, and directed by Clint Eastwood and Sir Kenneth Branagh and which have starred Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, John Malkovich and others. And it began with a love for story and words.

Today's gospel reading is the introduction to the story of Jesus as told by a beloved disciple tradition says was John. And it says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” I have gone into the philosophical meaning of the Greek term for “word” before. Let's just look at it this way: words make sense of things. When we are overwhelmed by an event or emotion we often say, “There are no words.” A key part of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is naming the thoughts and emotions you are experiencing so as to recognize them and deal with them. In the ancient world knowing the name of someone, even if they were a god or a spirit, gave you some control over them. Adam names all the animals and that is part of God's intention that he rule over the world as his vice regent.

In contrast, nameless things terrify us. The undefined is outside our control. The fascination with Jack the Ripper comes to some degree from the fact that we don't really know who he was, and probably never will.

So in the beginning was the Word, who was with God and through whom everything was made. The Word, who is also God, makes sense out of the world. In the Genesis creation account, which John is obviously referring to, what we know about God is primarily that he is creative, and orderly, and that he takes delight in his creations and pronounces them good. John is going beyond that. And he is doing it by using 5 key words to describe Christ and therefore God.

Verse 4 says, “In him was life...” John uses the word “life” 38 times, tied only with the book of Proverbs for most appearances in a single book of the Bible. As for connecting God's words with life we find this elsewhere in the Bible as well. The most obvious example is when God creates life by merely calling it into being. But God's Word, in the form of the scriptures, also gives life. As Moses says to Israelites, “...humankind cannot live by bread alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord's mouth.” (Deuteronomy 8:3) This is true in 2 ways. By following what God says about not murdering, not stealing, not committing adultery, taking a day off, etc. you will increase the odds of having a long life. But getting into God's Word, and letting his living Word, Jesus, get into you will revitalize your spiritual life. With his life in you, you will grow in wisdom and understanding, in strength and character, in peace and love.

Verse 4 continues, “...and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Light appears in John 16 times, more than any other gospel. He contrasts it with moral blindness. Jesus' words and life act as a beacon to those who are disoriented by earth's ethical darkness. And, similarly, Joe Straczynski's grim existence under his drunken and abusive father was brightened by the Superman TV show in the 1950s and later by his discovery of Superman comic books. A TV episode where Superman took a crippled girl to the fair and protected her from mobsters moved him to tears. He wished that Superman was his father. He knew that would never happen but he resolved to become Superman. Unlike his real father, Superman was honest and kind. Joe said he came to love comic books “less for the action and flashy costumes than their sense of morality. The books emphasized the importance of standing up for others, even if doing so meant putting yourself at risk. That ethical core meant everything to a young kid trapped in a family that operated without any sort of moral compass.” Superman was created by 2 Jewish kids and has long been seen as a kind of Messianic character. Naturally some of their religious background would find its way into the character, and thence into Joe Straczynski's life. And in Jesus we clearly see the light of God as a loving and forgiving Father.

Light not only highlights what is good, it exposes what is bad. Jesus shows us not only how to live but contrasts it with how not to live. One path is the way of life and the other leads to destruction and death. To Joe, if his preferred father was Superman, his real father, who killed Joe's pet cats so he couldn't take them on their frequent moves, was his arch-enemy, Lex Luthor. And Joe decided “Whatever he was, I would be the opposite. He drank, so I wouldn't touch the stuff. He smoked; I wouldn't. He was brutal to women; I would strive to be chivalrous. He never kept his promises; I would always keep mine. He blamed others for what he did; I would take responsibility for my actions. With each choice I would try to balance out the meanness and suffering he brought into the world.” He would not let the chaos and darkness that radiated from his father overcome the light that filtered through Superman into his life. The person who is following Jesus should also imitate him in thought, word and deed.

In verse 14, it says, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.” John's use of glory is unique in the Bible. He not only uses glory and related words 41 times, much more often than the other gospels do, he uses it differently. It still means God's splendor and presence but it is revealed not passively, as in the Transfiguration, but in Jesus' work. John builds his gospel around 7 signs that reveal Jesus' glory: his changing water into wine, his healing a man's son and a lame person and a man born blind, his feeding the 5000, his walking on water and his raising Lazarus from the dead. But the most unusual manifestation of his glory is through his crucifixion. (John 7:39, 12:16, 23; 13:31) In the eyes of almost everyone, it was a bloody and repugnant death. But when seen in the light of Jesus' role as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, it reveals the depth of God's love for us. Sacrificing himself to save the people of the world is a glorious thing.

And we can say that Jesus' self-sacrifice is also a manifestation of God's grace. According to the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, grace “connotes favour, usually by a superior to an inferior, including but not limited to care for the poor, deliverance of those in distress, and other acts of compassion. Such beneficence is given freely, and thus can be requested, received, and even withdrawn, but never claimed, coerced or possessed.” I like a definition of grace I once heard: “Grace is God's unreserved, undeserved goodness towards us.” While John only uses the word “grace” 3 times, all in our gospel passage, the same article points out that “the fourth evangelist everywhere highlights the significance of God's love for an unperceptive, intractable, and undeserving world.” Still Jesus does not give up.

I wasn't originally going to use an example from Joe's life to illustrate God's grace in action when I remembered a striking incident in his adult life. Joe was at a low point. He was blackballed in the TV industry for being difficult; ie, doing great work that got ratings and being unwilling to compromise his vision of the series he created. And he was running out of money. One morning he heard a group of outdoor cats crying in his backyard. They were clustered around a landscaping pipe missing its cap. At the bottom of the pipe was a kitten. Joe couldn't reach it and it moved away from him further into the network of pipes. He called plumbers; he called animal control; he called the fire department. “They dug a massive trench, pulled out a cypress tree, cut into one of the pipes, and used a mirror to look around. There was no sign of the kitten, who had moved as far as possible from the commotion.” They left him with the wreckage and a still mewing kitten lost somewhere in the bowels of the pipe network. Not even a can of tuna could draw the cat out. He started calling plumbers again. At 3 am, one arrived and used a plumber's snake with a camera to locate the kitten: “wedged in tight, half covered in water, he literally had to raise his mouth out of the water to mew.” They used the snake to prod him into backing out while Joe jumped into the trench, reached in and managed to pull the kitten out. Remember how Joe's father would kill his pet cats every time they moved? This one Joe was determined to save, trench, tree and expense be damned. Buddy became his boon companion for the remaining 15 years of its life.

God in Christ was determined to save us, regardless of personal risk. Jesus stood up for others, for those the world considers inferiors, though it cost him his life. He went through hell. And the reason those in power tried to silence him was because he spoke the truth. And the truth was not pretty.

Joe Straczynski always knew his family had secrets. His father in particular had a very big one, which turned out to be one of the reasons they moved so often and why his father once changed his name. I won't spoil his book, which you really should read, but it was Joe's experience of how secrets can destroy families that led him to dramatize the story of a lone person tried and punished for seeking the truth. The film, Changling, was the result and the success of this powerful true story finally vindicated Joe Straczynski's integrity in seeking the truth and writing his stories.

The truth Jesus tells us sounds ugly at first. It is that we are our own worst enemies. Monsters and aliens need not apply. Evil comes from the heart. (Mark 7:21-22) External rituals, however religious, cannot change that. What changes us is the truth, which can, if we live by it, set us free. (John 8:32) And what is the truth?

Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) Jesus is the Word that makes sense of the world. As C.S. Lewis wrote, you cannot say anything either good enough or bad enough about life. That's because God gave us a world full of good gifts which we have proceeded to abuse and use against each other and against ourselves. And then we use the gift of our intelligence to create systems which keep such practices in place and to justify the evil we do to ourselves and to others.

Jesus came to shine a light on that and to show us through his life that we could live differently. We can be compassionate, merciful, a healing presence, and peacemakers, while still speaking truth to power. We can show grace in our dealings with others and demonstrate the presence of God in how we act.

But we can feel inadequate to the job. So we need to let the Spirit of Truth, as Jesus calls the Holy Spirit in John's gospel, live in us (John 14:17) and guide us. (John 16:13)

Joe Straczynski's experience of religion was not good. The nuns in his schools mistreated him; he got kicked out of a youth commune where he later lived when he exposed the pastor for taking advantage of female parishioners. Yet, filtered through Superman, this is what he learned: “Being kind, making hard decisions, helping those in need, standing up for what's right, pointing toward hope and truth, and embracing the power of persistence...those were the qualities of Superman that mattered to me far more than his ability to see through walls. Because all of us can do those other things, can be those things; we can be Superman whenever we choose.” Which is why he called the story of his life Becoming Superman.

Christianity is ultimately about becoming Christlike. As someone pointed out, we may be the only Christ some people see. So as Jesus is God's living Word, let us be the living expression of who God is: just but merciful, giving and forgiving, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable as necessary. Which is why Jesus said that following him involved taking up our cross. He never promised it would be easy. But he will be with us every step of the way and he will never forsake us.

“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God...” The light of the world calls us to be the light of the world. (John 8:12; Matthew 5:14) Let him live in us so that we too may be full of grace and truth. And may every thought we entertain, every word we utter, every action we take glorify the God who is love, as we grow daily in becoming Jesus.