Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.2008, Page 29

the saying “you will leave me alone.” Even if the book was written for the
“community of the beloved disciple,”1 in the Gospel of John, at least, also
this disciple does not always get it right. Indeed, the Fourth Gospel still
has Peter making a basic confession of faith (6:68-69), still has Philip and
Andrew evangelizing (1:41,45; 12:20-22), still has these original disciples as
the company to which Mary Magdalene is sent and among whom the Risen
One appears. And the later “appendix” to the Fourth Gospel, chapter 21,
probably legitimately develops the interest of the Gospel itself by presenting
a story about the reconciliation and continued leadership of Peter who
denied Christ, and by doing so side-by-side with an acknowledgment of the
ministry of the “beloved disciple,” indicating a sense of difference between
the two leaders but not a sense of competition.
Still, the Synoptic Gospels are clearer yet. The relentless criticism in these
books — especially in Mark — of the misunderstanding of the leaders in
the earliest community never goes paired with even the suggestion of some
other, better leaders.2 The most remarkable single example of this may well
be the heightened Matthean account of the confession of Peter. Mark’s “get
behind me Satan” is still there, addressed to Peter (Matt. 16:23; Mark 8:33),
but so is now also “on this rock I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18).
Matthew holds both assertions together. This basic leader of the primitive
church, this holder of the keys, this rock of church-building faith and
confession, also becomes a rock of stumbling, an offense, speaking wrongly,
getting in the way, even opposing God’s own intention. Indeed all three
of the Synoptic “passion predictions” are marked by the misunderstanding
disciples and, specifically, the badly misunderstanding Peter, James and
John. Yet, in one way or another in all three of these texts, the following
narrative goes on to have Jesus teaching a reform in the way that leadership
should be exercised in the community (cf. Mark 8:32ff.; 9:33ff.; 10:35ff.),
not a replacement of these leaders.
The Gospel books are not primarily “histories.” They are books about
and themselves symbols of the meaning of Jesus in the current life of the
churches. They were and are words into the present of the church, including
1 See Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist, 1979).
2 Pace Theodore J. Weedon, Mark: Traditions in Conflict (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 73 ff.
27