In John's Gospel Jesus often talks in very-heady theological concepts and today's reading (Jn 8: 21-30) is one of those times. Jesus is trying to explain to the Pharisees exactly who He is and to describe His relationship with the Father. He refers to Himself as the Son of Man at one point, and says He does not belong to this world. He even goes so far as to say: "If you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins." A few sentences later He uses the term "I AM" again to refer to Himself. That term-- I AM-- is the way that the Jewish people referred to God. According to Wikipedia the term, I AM, as a way to say God's name appears more than 300 times in the Bible, starting in chapter 15 of Genesis. So Jesus is saying that He is God, and that He has a Father who sent Him and who taught Him the things He says. No wonder that the Pharisees said: "Who are you?" They didn't understand a thing Jesus was telling them, and it is hard to blame them. We still struggle with the concepts Jesus is explaining. How, exactly, can there be one God in Three Persons? How can Jesus be fully human and fully divine? We can say these things, and we say them so often that we're used to them, but at some point the answers to these questions are beyond us. I have a friend who is a priest who says, somewhat in jest, there are two things on which he will never preach: women's fashions and the Trinity. He's a wise man. But, despite all the difficulties in the concepts Jesus is trying to explain, John tells us at the end of this passage that "many came to believe in Him." How could that be? Were they somehow just smarter than the others? We know nothing of the IQ's of those who came to believe as compared with those who did not. But perhaps that's not the issue. The issue is whether or not one is willing to believe, and that willingness does not depend on one's intelligence. Intelligence can even get in the way if it leads you to think that you should only believe what you can understand. That seems to have been the Pharisees' problem. They were well-educated, smart people. They were trying to figure out what Jesus was saying on a purely intellectual level, and they couldn't get it. So they dismissed what He was saying. The many who came to believe had the gift of faith, a gift offered to all of us, and offered to the Pharisees as well. The Pharisees, like many today, chose not to accept the gift unless they could have it on their own terms, which meant that their human understand had to grasp it. Of course, that's an ego thing. I am so smart that I can grasp anything, the thinking goes, so if I don't get it, it must not be true. So the Pharisees did not believe. The "many" who did come to believe were willing to set aside their egos and to accept that at some level we can't understand God's ways. They were willing to believe what they could not understand. They accepted the gift of faith. In an age that is much more scientifically-oriented than the time of Jesus, it can be a challenge to be among the "many." That's why it is called "faith."