Sermon
The problem with some kinds of evangelism is that much of what is used to bring people to Christ only makes sense if you are already a believer.
Take John 3:16 for example. Do any of you remember seeing signs that read “John 3:16” behind basketball backboards? Or behind television live reporters on the scene? Or anywhere where cameras were likely to be? That was before the days of “I put every thought I have on-line without thinking” came about, and now people don't need the cameras for large gatherings to get their message across. I had no idea what that sign meant, and assumed it had something to do with distracting the opponent from making a basket, or a score, or something. If I did want to find out what it meant, I never would have thought to look in the bible for an answer. The name John, followed by a number, a colon and another number doesn't mean anything if you don't already have an idea that Biblical verses are notated that way. It would be like Beatles fans holding up giant signs that said “Imagine” all over the place. Or a classical musician holding up a sign that said “Bach's Magnificat!” It's just not a great marketing strategy.
The third chapter of the gospel of John, line 16, is not a marketing strategy. John 3:16 is a beautiful, undeniably remarkable statement that means everything about Christianity and a life of faith – if you have the right context. If you have an experience of what all of the words in that statement refer to, and what they mean, it's spectacular. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
It only makes sense as the answer to a question.
You may remember the story of Nicodemus visiting Jesus at night. Nicodemus was a Pharisee and part of the Jewish leadership. He couldn't be seen approaching Jesus, the very one his crew were suspicious of, but he had questions, so he came under dark of night. Immediately preceding the reading for today, the beginning of John 3, we read that Nicodemus did acknowledge that Jesus was from God, but didn't understand many things. He asked Jesus “How can these things be?”
As part of Jesus' answer, he recalls for Nicodemus some of the saving history of God for God's people. We begin in the middle of Jesus' response with reference to Moses raising the serpent in the wilderness. The reference refers to a portion of scripture from the book of Numbers, which tells of the time when the Israelites in the wilderness were complaining against God for sending the poisonous snakes to them when they were in the wilderness. Many were bit and many died. God heard their cry and had Moses build a giant serpent and put it up high for all to see. All who looked upon it would receive physical healing from their poisonous serpent bites. The serpent is a side story for us today, but it would have been a reference that Nicodemus was familiar with.
Including reference to Moses' raising the serpent tells Nicodemus, and us, that what follows is not another serpent story, not another wilderness story, but rather another part of the saving history of God for God's people. It seems that even the context of the context of John 3:16 is helpful for the full meaning of those signs behind basketball nets.
Moses made an image of a serpent and raised it high up, so that all who looked at it would be healed. In the same way God's Son must be lifted up, so that all who believe in him may have eternal life. The physical gift of healing in Numbers is transformed into the spiritual gift of eternal life in John.
And from there, John continues to speak in spiritual terms. People don't live for an eternity. But our spirits do. Entire religions and cultures have been built around whether, how and why this happens. As Christians we believe that God initiated one final way to restore humanity to its God-given intention, and that was to send someone to us who had a unique relationship to God and a unique message to us from God, to give even God's self – God's Son – completely to us, to teach us and show us in a absolutely NEW way – that God loves us. If God gave us God's Son without the resurrection, then Jesus would have only been about the teaching and earthly ministry of his life. But the resurrection is what shows us that eternal life is just that, and it's something that happens after our bodies perish.
God initiated this. God did not send Jesus because you or I sinned, which we do, but initiated this on God's own, for us. No one sinned and caused Jesus to die. No one person gets to hold the blame for Jesus dying. Jesus does not want us to follow from a place of guilt and blame or shame. God wants us to follow out of a place of stunning love, and gratefulness.
I have asked people off and on why they believe or don't believe the Christian message. One answer that has always stuck with me was from someone who had been hurt a great deal throughout her life, and ended up hurting others by way of protecting herself from what she perceived as harm. She said, “I've always had trouble with heroes.”
Knowing the pain that she had caused others throughout her life, I heard this and felt so sad. If she had been treated properly in her lifetime maybe she would have been able to comprehend a way of life that included someone who was there for her all the time, loved her all the time, forgave her all the time, wanted a beautiful life for her. All the time. Maybe her choices might have changed. Maybe her menu would have changed.
Our faith in God is nothing short of a gift. Because you and I are able to somehow hold this amazing love in our hearts doesn't mean we are smarter, more clever, better quality people, sin less than others, do more important things than others. We who hold this gift in our hearts are beneficiaries of God's grace. Our human lives and relationships find so many ways to tell us we are less than or undeserving of good things. With God it is different. I can just picture God saying to me, “How many times do I have to tell you?!”
I am quoting a sermon I heard about 30 years ago. In the sermon, the minister said, “The Gift of Grace. If we earned it, it wouldn't be a gift. If we deserved it, it wouldn't be grace.”
God's grace is something we cannot work toward, purchase, save up, or spend. It is a gift. Free.
God's grace is not limited. You and I don't decide who gets God's allotted amount of grace for the day. This isn't something that can be quantified and distributed by a third party.
If you think you have done something terrible and God has withheld grace, you're wrong.
If you think you can have more grace because you gave 20% instead of 10%, you're wrong.
If you think there is a checklist that this church or that church has that will “just tell me what to do!” in order to receive God's grace, you're wrong.
If you think bad things happening to you means that God has removed grace, you're wrong.
If you have any doubt about this, come talk to me. Come to church at Bethany. I promise you, you will never be told that God's grace is conditional, or that it is not for you.
What we do with that tremendous love and grace is up to us. Writers from the beginning of Jesus' ministry until now have been writing to answer our question, “How can this be?”
Well, Jesus said, how much time do you have?
Humans, especially white Americans, are accustomed to earning things, pulling ourselves up by our boot straps, being smart enough, wealthy enough, to be self-made people, completely empowered to make our own dreams happen if we just work hard enough. If we are unhappy, that's our own fault. We take the crown instead of the cross. Only people who fail don't succeed; only people who don't succeed have a cross to bear.
When churches spread that false gospel, especially based on out of context scripture we offend God. White people, including myself, don't understand that when we talk about decolonizing scripture, rejecting white privilege, quitting systemic racism, and talking about Black Lives Matter, or being a More Light church – we are talking about taking action that will not only give more people access to “what we have” – more importantly it will give us access to something people on the margins have been experiencing all along. Not just suffering and exclusion, but a rich heritage born of way too much practice, of overcoming, of resiliency, of deeper love, of deeper intimacy with God. Nothing that we “accept” will make us smaller. What if we don't need to learn to accept the other, or tolerate the other, which implies something less-than in the first place. What if the other is graciously learning to accept us. Whoever “they” is to each of us, does not want our dream. “They” just want access to the processes toward their own dreams, which may or may not be the same as ours.
I have been having lots of conversations with people lately who have been finding themselves appalled at historical events and all of the ways people strategically keep others out, how people cause harm to others, with malice, who are also asking “How can this be?”
Yes, John 3:16. But more than John 3:16. God loved the world, translated better the “cosmos” and sent Jesus not to condemn us but to give us a better life. Give us eternal life. Not just because we say certain things at certain times with certain words. Because God loves us. Our response to that love is a result of our belief in such an amazing truth. This is not something that we could have made up.
All that we have, all that we are, all that we do, is a gift from God. That doesn't mean we aren't also strong ourselves, resilient ourselves, know how to overcome. It means that we have lived experience of God's love and God's grace and that gives us strength.
Thanks be to God!
Amen.