Lectio: John 1:1-14
December 25, 2009
At the start of all was the Word.
The Word was with God.
The Word actually was God —
at the start of all and with God.
All things came into existence through the Word.
Apart from the Word not one thing that exists came into being.
Life was in the Word.
This life was light for humankind.
It shines, still shines, in the darkness;
darkness failed to snuff it out.
There was a man sent from God.
His name was John.
He came as a witness,
a witness to the Light,
came so that everyone would believe through him.
Make no mistake:
he wasn’t the Light;
he came only as a witness to the Light.
The Light was the True Light.
Coming into this world of ours
it provides light for all humankind.
He (the Light) was in our world,
and though the world was made through him,
the world didn’t know him, didn’t get him.
He came to what was his own,
and yet his own people didn’t receive him.
But some did.
For those believing in him
he gave an open door
to become children of God.
They are not born
by bloodline or human will or desire.
No, they are God-born.
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For me translation is a form of both meditation and listening. The act of translating forces me to ponder or “listen” to the text in a way that feels very different from sitting with the English for a while. Much like in lectio divina, my habit is to read the text several times before even beginning. After making a start, I linger over each sentence, phrasing and rephrasing it, noticing connections with what goes before and comes after. There is some effort, but it doesn’t feel strained. That is, I’m not struggling to pin it down. That task is a dead end. Language is too subtle and nuanced and fluid to every be mastered. (No matter how good your particular phrasing may be, you can always come up with another that has its own merit.) Rather, I’m trying to sit with the text for a while, let it seep in and find a new voice through me in a language familiar to others. In this process the text speaks to me, and by faith I often take it to be the Lord speaking to me through the text. I don’t see this “voice” as something unusual and mystical; I take it as a very natural outcome of pausing long enough to listen.
What I “heard” most loudly in this reading was the part “the world didn’t know him, didn’t get him.” And what I noticed was how quickly I identified the world as “them,” meaning “someone other than myself.” That’s where I was checked. As long as I automatically align myself with the “good guys,” my ability to ask tough questions of myself, to receive the tough questioning of others, or to receive a loving critique from God is compromised. With the check, however, came an invitation and a desire to know him better, to “get him” better.
“Lord, I want to be one who knows you, who gets you, who walks through your open door into childhood, a state of dependency and trust where I am born and reborn in you.”
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