Brad Sherrill: The Gospel of John
at Christ Church Cathedral
Dublin, Ireland (5th April 2008)

PUBLISHED IN "THE CHURCH REVIEW: DUBLIN & GLENDALOUGH DIOCESAN MAGAZINE", MAY 2008 AND "SCRIPTURE IN CHURCH MAGAZINE", NO. 151, JULY-SEPTEMBER EDITION, 2008.

By Margaret Daly-Denton
(Dr Daly-Denton is an author, church music composer and a lecturer in Biblical Studies and Liturgy at the Church of Ireland Theological College.)

For most people, the prospect of sitting through a “one man show” consisting of an actor reciting from memory the entire Gospel of John might seem a little daunting. One might think of fortifying oneself beforehand with strong coffee in the hope that one would not fall asleep, especially during that long discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper that goes on for four chapters. The sad fact is that the standard of Scripture reading in many of our churches is so poor that the thought of a solid two hours of it would not be many people’s idea of an enjoyable Saturday evening. However, as Brad Sherrill drew us into the narrative with his performance of The Gospel of John, we became, as it were, the little group of Jesus’ “own” (John 13:1), being drawn into discipleship, as we listened with new ears to every word. This meant that the gospel did for us exactly what it was written to do.

Brad Sherrill is a professionally trained actor from the USA. He was attracted to the Gospel of John some years ago and memorized it over a period of six months. Now he travels the world performing it, as a ministry, wherever he can find a welcoming venue. On his recent tour of these islands, he also presented it in Gloucester and Lichfield Cathedrals (in the U.K.), in St Fin Barre’s Cathedral (Cork) and in Bloomfield Presbyterian Church and St Peter’s Cathedral (both in Belfast.) The performance at Christ Church was his 503rd.

Brad uses the NIV version which he chose because of its conversational quality. His simple props are a table, a chair, a pitcher of water, a lamp and a couple of stones. At times he adopts the persona of various characters, moving among his hearers to make them part of the action, sometimes even “identifying” some of the gospel’s characters with individual members of the audience. He brings alive all the colourful characters with which John’s gospel is peopled—Nathaniel, the Samaritan woman, the man born blind, Pilate, Mary Magdalene and, of course, Jesus himself. He highlights the Gospel’s dramatic features: the elements of suspense, the irony, the occasional flashes of satire and humour. His speech is sometimes surprisingly fast, but this is purposeful, ensuring as it does the momentum of the performance. This is balanced by an intentional slowing of the pace at appropriate moments and some wonderfully effective pauses. This presentation can most certainly be mentioned in the same breath as Alec McGowan’s “St Mark’s Gospel.”

Brad recreates for us the way the gospels must have “worked” in the early Church. Nowadays, with our ready access to the printed word, we tend to forget that they were written to be “performed live.” In the ancient world literacy was restricted to the privileged few, so the vast majority of the early Christians could receive the gospels no other way but through their ears. They also received them through their eyes, not by looking at a written copy, but by looking at the person reading aloud. That person’s presence, body language, eye contact with the hearers and ability to engage them were all the means by which the message of the gospel found its way into people’s hearts. In the ancient world, educated people were highly trained in the performative dimension of public reading. Techniques like establishing a rapport with the audience, dramatizing scenes, bringing out the “personalities” of various characters in the story were highly valued. There is no reason to suppose that Christian readers laid aside such skills when they read the gospels to their communities, especially when we think of what dramatic and lively works of literature they actually are. Brad’s performance also reminds us that the first audiences for the gospels always received them in a community context. We today can take up a Bible in total privacy and read it silently to ourselves. Such a thing would have been unheard of in the early Church. The gospels were read to groups of Christians at their regular “assemblies.”

It is also quite certain that it was normal for the gospels to be read from beginning to end. The beautifully structured way that each Evangelist has designed his story of Jesus really only comes through when the whole composition is heard “at one sitting,” so to speak. We are so used to hearing little snippets of the gospels read in Church that we find it hard to believe that they would have been read in full. The experience of Brad’s Gospel of John would certainly convince us that such a thing is not only possible, but may be the ideal way to experience the story of Jesus as “Good News.”

Finally, Brad, memorizing the gospel from beginning to end, is in direct continuity with those amazing people who were known in the Judaism of Jesus’ time as “living books.” These were people trained to recite from memory the Aramaic translation/paraphrase of whole books of the Bible, even long ones like Isaiah. Their role was to provide the “interpretation” of the scriptures for the ordinary people attending the synagogue who no longer understood the classical Hebrew, as read from the scrolls. At the time of Jesus, it was forbidden to commit this translation, known as the Targum, to writing, lest it be perceived as having the same authority as the Scriptures themselves. Those early Christian readers who were the first “performers” of the gospels would have been something like that. They had to prepare well. The copies they read from had no gaps between words, no punctuation, no distinction between small and capital letters, very little space between lines, lots of abbreviations and often quite poor handwriting. From what we know about the incredible reliance on memory in the ancient world, it is certain that a really good reader would have had the text all but memorized.

Brad’s “show” is an outstanding example of the power of the memorized text. To commit a text to memory is to internalize it and then when one speaks it out on one’s breath, in one’s eyes and in one’s gestures, it has that authenticity, that conviction that goes with something coming from deep within one’s own being. Brad Sherrill is that kind of “living book,” a living Gospel of John. He must come back to Ireland.