When We Find Ourselves in the Crowd

Daily Office Readings: Psalm 119:1–24; Psalms 12, 13, 14; Job 6:1; 7:1–21; Acts 10:1–16; John 7:1–13

Sometimes I read a passage of Scripture that I know I must have read many times before, and yet it seems completely new to me. That happened yesterday with John 6, and it happened again today as I read John 7:1–13.

What caught my attention wasn’t so much what Jesus said. It was the people around him.

Jesus was staying in Galilee because the religious leaders in Judea were looking for an opportunity to kill him. The Festival of Booths was approaching, and Jesus’ own brothers urged him to go to Judea. They told him that if he was doing these great works, he ought to go where people could see them. Show yourself to the world!

But John adds an interesting detail: even his brothers did not believe in him.

I can almost hear a little ridicule in their words. If you really are who people say you are, why are you staying up here in Galilee? Go down there and show everybody what you can do.

Then there are the religious leaders. They are looking for Jesus.

And then there is the crowd.

Some say, “He is a good man.”

Others say, “No, he is deceiving the crowd.”

Yet nobody wants to speak openly about him because they are afraid.

As I sat with this passage, I began to see something very familiar. I saw humanity.

We like to divide people into categories. Good and bad. Righteous and wicked. Believers and unbelievers. Sometimes the Psalms themselves speak in those sharp contrasts. There is truth in those distinctions, but human beings don’t always fit so neatly into the boxes we make for them.

Most of us are a mixture.

We can believe and still have doubts. We can be courageous one day and afraid the next. We can know something isn’t right and still go along with everybody else. We can love someone and misunderstand them. We can make a terrible decision without being a terrible person.

I know something about following the crowd.

When I was in high school, I became one of five boys involved in what we called the “lunchbucket rebellion.” It started with a discussion in study hall about the food being served in the school cafeteria. Four other boys were talking about protesting, and I became part of it.

My mother advised me not to participate. But she didn’t forbid me. She left the decision to me.

I participated.

What began as five boys protesting cafeteria food eventually became a battle between us and the principal. It became serious enough that we were threatened with having our diplomas withheld at graduation.

Looking back after all these years, I can see that young man differently than I could then. I don’t think I was simply “bad.” Neither do I need to make the principal “bad” in order to justify what we did. I was young. I had my own ideas. I was influenced by four other boys. There was excitement in standing together against authority. My mother gave me another perspective, and I chose not to follow her advice.

That was part of learning.

And perhaps that is why I recognize something of myself in the people surrounding Jesus in John 7.

It is not easy to be the one person in the crowd who sees things differently.

History has shown us how dangerous crowd thinking can become. People have remained silent because they were afraid. People have accepted what their society considered normal without seriously questioning it. Christians once called Native Americans “savages.” Slavery was once protected by law, and Christians could even find ways to defend it. Under Nazi rule, fear and conformity helped make terrible things possible.

It is easy for me, standing safely on this side of history, to say what those people should have done.

The harder question is: What would I have done?

I know there have been times when I went along with the crowd even when something inside me questioned whether I should.

That’s why I don’t want to stand outside the crowd in John 7 and point my finger at them.

I am standing there with them.

Sometimes I am one of the brothers who doesn’t understand.

Sometimes I am among those making judgments about another person without knowing the whole story.

Sometimes I am afraid to say what I really think.

And sometimes I simply follow along because everyone around me seems to be going in the same direction.

But there is something else I don’t want to miss.

The story isn’t finished.

Jesus’ brothers do not believe in him here, but this moment does not define them forever. At least some of Jesus’ family would later become part of the believing community, and James would become an important leader in the early church.

That gives me hope.

We don’t have to remain the person we were at one particular moment in our lives.

The one who doubts today may believe tomorrow. The one who remains silent today may someday find the courage to speak. The one who follows the crowd may learn to stand alone. The person who makes a poor decision can learn from it.

Perhaps John 7 is not asking me to decide which people in the story are good and which are bad.

Perhaps it is asking me to look around that crowd until I recognize myself.

And then, instead of condemning myself or anyone else, I can leave room for grace to continue its work.

Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,
help us recognize ourselves in the people we are so quick to judge.
Give us courage when fear would silence us,
wisdom when the crowd would carry us along,
and humility when we think we already understand.

Teach us to see others as people whose stories are still being written,
and remind us that our stories are still being written too.

Continue your work of grace in all of us.

Amen.