Resumo:
In the midst of contemporary social relationships, it is possible to perceive a fragility in interpersonal relationships in its various areas. This dissertation assumes that such defective relationships are a consequence of modernity, especially the individualization process initiated in it, and that the ethical proposals of the Johannine community can be important as a starting point for a relational ethics. In view of this, the Johannine community in its relational ethics described in the foot washing passage, and in the order of a new commandment of love can provide bases for dialogue for the problem presented. In this way, the research analyzes, through a biblical-theological and exegetical methodology, how the foot-washing narrative, and the order of love within the Johannine community, can have implications for relational ethics. Thus, the foot-washing narrative is read as an image used by the author of the fourth gospel to demonstrate how his readers should behave towards each other, based on humility, service and the renunciation of status. Such attitudes are asserted especially by the author's own theological explanation after the foot-washing narrative. The ethical basis that involved these relational actions of the Johannine community is based on the new commandment of love. From the comparison between the traditions, it is possible to perceive that such commandment is not completely new in relation to the Old Testament, or in the very orders that involve love found in the synoptic traditions, but it is, especially, a novelty in relation to the basis of this love, being now the attitude of Jesus, but especially, a novelty that involves renunciation of status, humiliation in favor of the other, and the dedication to give one's life for the next. Thus, the present research concludes that Johannine relational ethics has important implications for the hope of changing relationships in the contemporary world.
