John 1:1-10

Easter 4 - Year A

John 1:1-10

Simple stories are usually ambivalent stories. There is much more that is needed.

If we don’t take into account more stories, this one, by itself, becomes overly exclusive. What else in John would point you in an exclusive or inclusive resolution of the kind of gatekeeper Jesus might be? That you are called to be?

One helpful image is that of Franz Kafka laughing at readings of his writings. In the introduction to the Penguin collection of Kafka’s published short fiction Metamorphosis and Other Stories translated by Michael Hoffman, Hoffman writes “When some of these stories were read aloud, people-including Kafka, reading them- fell about laughing. He is not sombre, he is not grim, but often very funny.”

Try reading this Kafka story about a gatekeeper and see what connections with the scripture you make and whether you would “fall about laughing” with Jesus or with Kafka: Before the Law.