"Jesus"

John 12:20-21                                 

25 March 2012

John D. Lane

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

Let me set the scene. Just before this encounter, Jesus has returned to Bethany, the home of Mary and Martha–Mary being the flaky spiritual member of the family, Martha appropriately enough the Martha Stewart of her time, much concerned with cooking, setting the table, picking just the right flowers for a gorgeous centerpiece, raising chickens who lay the perfect color eggs, serving, getting things just right, then complaining to Jesus about her shiftless sister who leaves Martha with all the work to sit at his feet and learn. Lazarus their brother also lives there. The news of Jesus’ arrival has caused no small commotion. He is famous for his many miracles, most especially for his raising the local boy Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus was in the tomb three days, and by then, as his sister Martha memorably put it–as captured verbatim in the Authorized Version (King James): “He stinketh.” Sometimes the King James gets it just right. On the other hand, how many of you could stand up right now and define another KJV word for the edification of us all: “Propitiation”? My unabridged dictionary defines it: “that which propitiates.” Glad to clear that up. Consult I John 2:2 for further developments.

But back to Jesus, the rock star of the moment. He is at the top of his celebrity. Everyone wants to get near him, touch the hem of his garment, hear him speak, catch a glimpse–if only from afar. But he’s in a hurry to get to the Passover festival, centered at the Temple in Jerusalem, less than an hour’s walk away, clearly visible from Bethany. Off he goes towards the Holy City itself, with crowds pressing in, throwing down cloaks and palm branches at his feet, hoping for another big miracle–tune in next week for more detail. Among those making pilgrimage to Jerusalem are some Greeks, who say to Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

I can’t remember where it is, but there is a pulpit somewhere, I think in an Episcopal seminary–Paul or Shelby may know–where the words of John 12:21 are engraved in stone where only the preacher can see them while looking out at the congregation: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Paul suggested last week that the heart of the gospel may be John 3:16: “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.” In a similar way, the words a preacher should live by may be today’s text: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

A number of you have read books by biblical scholar Marcus Borg or heard him speak. I recommend both. One of his biggest sellers is Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, an intriguing title. Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. Borg’s thesis is that most of us, make it all of us, have some fairly clear vision of Jesus, a vision that is inevitably wrong or incomplete. Borg tells us that, in order to find fresh inspiration we need to erase our preconceptions and start again–kind of like Etch-A-Sketch or the Magic Slate, erase what we’ve so carefully constructed and begin anew. What does it mean to be a Follower of Jesus?

We think of Jesus as a miraculous healer. It is clear that he is, but it also clear that healer is in a sense only his opening act. Healing comes early in his ministry. There is a time when it stops.

We hear a lot these days about family values, with Jesus as the leader who will help us to recapture what we think we have lost in this area. But Jesus was no model in words or actions for what we call family values. He never married–we think. He didn’t treat his mother, brothers, or sisters as anything special, au contraire. He told his followers that they would need to abandon their family ties if they were serious about being his followers. I love my family and I’m pleased that other people love their families, but it’s not because the Bible tells us so. In order to get closer to knowing the real Jesus we need to erase our fantasies about him–and Jesus the family guy is a popular fantasy among many.

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

Some scholars believe that what the Greeks are telling Philip is not that they want to look at Jesus from afar or take a moment of his time for a photo op or get a chance to ask him a question or two. These two guys are more serious than that. What they are telling Philip is that they want to follow Jesus. How do we join up?

Rick Warren, the very successful pastor of Saddleback Church in California writes the following in his best-selling book, The Purpose-Driven Church:

We've never encouraged other believers to transfer their membership to our church; in fact, we have openly discouraged it. We don't want transfer growth. In every membership class we say, “If you are coming to Saddleback from another church, you need to understand up front that this church was not designed for you. It is geared toward reaching the unchurched who do not attend anywhere. If you are transferring from another church you are welcome here only if you are willing to serve and minister. If all you intend to do is attend services, we'd rather save your seat for someone who is an unbeliever. There are plenty of good Bible-teaching churches in this area that we can recommend to you.” (p. 39)

I think Warren is on to something, though I think he may take this idea too far. Whether you have grown up at Trinity–and there are some adults here who have never been members anywhere else–or have recently begun attending here, the questions are the same. Who is Jesus? What does it mean to follow him? How are you following him right now? What could you do to follow him more closely? What have you been thinking about for a long time, but keep putting off? If someone looks at you, do they see Jesus, at least a bit?

                  

Following Jesus is not an easy thing. It is not without cost. As he says: “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.” To paraphrase Rick Warren, Jesus doesn’t call us to sit in the pews to be entertained. He doesn’t call us to reinterpret the gospel so it supports our preconceptions–take family values as an example. Jesus calls us to follow and serve and minster, utilizing our God-given talents in the name of the gospel, wherever it leads us. Where is Jesus leading you?

I remember a sermon I heard 40 years ago. Actually, I don’t remember the sermon per se, but I remember the opening question. It has haunted me all these years. “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” A question worth pondering, to be sure. If you were arrested for being a follower of Jesus, would there be enough evidence to convict you? If yes, what evidence? If not, why not?

Think about it.

John 3:16

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on John 3:14-21. An audio version of this sermon is available here.

(Holding up a cardboard sign that says “John 3:16”) Have you ever seen one of these? I tend to see signs like this in the stands at sporting events — especially when someone knows the camera is on them. I’ve seen this on vanity license plates. I’ve seen it on signs in people’s front yards by busy highways. I’ve seen this simple reference in all kinds of places.

Now, the reason you see this reference in so many places is that many people say this verse is the heart and soul and center of the gospel Good News. The whole message about Jesus and the Church and Christianity, they say, can be summed up in this one sentence: “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.”

Of course, the thing about summary statements is that they have to be unpacked. You have to take the summary keywords and expand upon their meaning, in order to bring out everything the statement has to say. And different people unpack John 3:16 with different understandings.

One way that John 3:16 is understood, a way I think is very common in American Christianity, and especially in American Evangelical Christianity, goes something like this: God loves the world so much that God wants to save it, rather than destroy it. Now, the world deserves to be destroyed: because of sin, because of rebellion against God’s commandments, the world needs to be punished, and the punishment for sin is death. But because God loves the world, God wants to save the world — or at least a part of the world — and not destroy it after all. So God gives his Son Jesus to die on the cross, to suffer on the cross the punishment that should rightly fall on all of us, so that we won’t have to be destroyed. And if you believe this, if you accept as true that Jesus died for your sins and that God will now no longer punish you, then you are saved, then you are rescued from perishing when this world is destroyed, and you are given assurance of eternal life in heaven with other faithful people who have believed like you. I think that’s the way a lot of people who hold up their “John 3:16” signs understand the meaning of their famous verse.

But this understanding is not without its problems. It seems to set up a dichotomy in God between judgment and love — and I don’t think there are any dichotomies in God. It seems to draw a big dividing line between those who believe and those who don’t, between those who will get into heaven and those who will be made to perish — and I don’t think God draws big dividing lines. And it seems to say that the whole meaning of the good news is about getting into heaven, as if there is nothing good or meaningful or encouraging to say about our life on earth here and now — and I think God cares a lot about our life on earth here and now.

So is there another way to unpack John 3:16? Can we open up this famous verse with a different understanding?

Here’s what I think it means: God loves the world. Period. No judgment, no punishment, no destruction. God loves the world. God created the world for love, so that God could share the gift of love with something that was not God, so that God could nurture the universe into evolving and growing and developing creatures that could love each other and could love God back. That doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as sin, it doesn’t mean God makes no judgment and no distinction between what is loving and what isn’t loving. But it does mean that God does not simply destroy sin, it means that God has made a solemn promise, a covenant, to deal with sin not by destroying it but by loving it into redemption and reconciliation. God loves the world.

God loves the world so much that God sends the Son, not just to die, but to live, to live with us as one of us, to show us how a human life can be when it is lived in the fullness and height and depth and breadth of God’s own holy love. Jesus reveals God’s love with a human face and a human voice and human hands and in a human way that we can see and touch and relate to and love back in our very human ways. Jesus’ death on the cross is the sign that God loves us so much that God will be with us even in the worst pain and suffering and loss and humiliation we can imagine, and God will raise even that up to a meaningful role in a new life. God loves the world so much that he sends the Son to show that love.

And God shows us this love in Jesus so that we can love like Jesus, too. That is really what it means to “believe” in Jesus. We today usually use the word “believe” to mean accepting something as true even if we can’t logically prove it. But the word originally meant much more than that. Our word “believe” comes from an Old German root word for “love.” Believing in someone is connected to loving someone. The Latin word “credo” — from which we get our word “creed” and repeat in church every Sunday when we say “We believe in God...” — comes from the word “cardia,” which means “heart.” To believe in Jesus is to take to heart in Jesus, and to give your heart to Jesus, it means to enter into a loving and trusting relationship with Jesus, and with the community of disciples that follow the way of Jesus, so that the divine love we see revealed in Jesus begins to be revealed in us, too. God loves the world so much that he sends the Son to show that love, so that we can give our hearts to that love and live that love as well.

And when we live that love, then we do not perish but have eternal life. In this understanding, eternal life is not something that comes to us only in heaven, beyond this world, but is something we can begin to know and experience in this world, in this life, here and now. The Greek phrase that John uses here, which we translate “eternal life,” literally means “the life of the ages”; and what that phrase points to is a vitality, an aliveness, a creativity that endures through all times and places. Age after age, epoch after epoch, year after year, day after day, even moment after moment, things change, the world is full of changes, governments rise and fall, weather systems form and disperse, people come and go, health waxes and wanes. Things change; and yet through all that change there is something that endures, something that is always there, some fundamental creativity out of which all the changes come and into which all the changes return. That steady, trustworthy, always-there creativity is what John calls “the life of the ages,” or “eternal life,” the life that comes from God and will not let us go. Eternal life, if we understand it this way, is a quality of vital creativity that we can come to know in the justice and peace and love we work for here and now, with each other, in this life — and that will also endure with us as this life changes and opens up into a height of life, a heaven of life, beyond anything we now know. When we believe in Jesus, when we give our hearts in trusting relationship with Jesus, then we begin to live with divine creativity here and now and forever.

“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.” God loves the world so much that God sends Jesus to show that love, so that we can give our hearts to that love and live a life of love that endures through all our changes and through all the ages. That’s what I mean when I hold up my “John 3:16” sign.

In this Lenten season, when our spiritual disciplines and faith practices help us cut through distractions and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast, let us stay focused on this central gospel truth: God loves us so much that God gives us Jesus, so that, giving our hearts to his love, we may share his enduring life. Amen. 

A Necessary Upheaval?

The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen

John 2:13-22 

March 11, 2012

An audio version of this sermon is available here.

When our oldest son Graham was just a little boy, maybe around 7 or 8 years old, I read the story from the Old Testament to him about the prophet Isaiah’s call.  This is where God is calling him to be a prophet, and protesting, Isaiah says, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips.” And then one of the seraphs, one of those strange heavenly beings, brings a hot coal from the altar and touches Isaiah’s lips with it.  Graham’s response was a very poignant and resolute, “There is violence again in the Bible!”  It would not be the only time I was speechless to my children’s utterances. Graham was right.  There are many instances of violence in the Bible, including today’s Gospel reading.

When you think about Jesus, what comes to mind?  Gentle shepherd? Teacher, healer? A quiet man with children surrounding him? Meek and mild, kind and humble? Well in today’s passage from John, we have anything but those common images, anything but the meek and mild Jesus.  Here we have a strong and powerful man who literally turns tables over, pours out the coins of the money changers, and taking a whip, drives out sheep and cattle which have been in the temple court. 

 As John is apt to do throughout his Gospel, the writer shows Jesus here as in control of the situation, as “large and in charge”, as one who knows exactly what he is doing and as the ultimate authority.  This is no meek and mild man who would show such inner strength, such conviction, as enacted through this burst of righteous anger, and an act, yes, of violence.  This is the side of Jesus many of us do not usually think much about, not the side most of us snuggle up to when we are feeling sentimental. 

When Jesus gets physically and verbally involved in the temple scene, he is reacting to the entire system itself, as well as its abuses.  The religious establishment is entrenched in its own practices, many of which have moved away from justice and truth, away from the love of neighbor, away from the reign of God.  Jesus’ setting things right is a response to the Jewish leaders not being open to the fresh revelation of God.  Since the building of the temple until this time the Jewish understanding was that God’s presence here on earth was centered at the temple.  And here is Jesus as the instigator of a major temple upheaval that would not have made him friends with the authorities.  In the cleansing of the temple, John shows the contrast between Jesus’ authority and the authority of the temple leadership.  And this marks the beginning of an ever-deepening conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders, one that will lead to his crucifixion. 

If we imagine this event would have upset the so-called authorities, Jesus will only continue to challenge them, continue to irritate, continue to throw the status quo on its ear as he heals people on the Sabbath, eats with tax collectors, talks to prostitutes, gives time and care to the Samaritans, whom most Jews considered enemies.  It seems that at his every step and turn, Jesus is doing the most loving thing for those whom he encounters, through acts of justice, truth, love and kindness.  And it also seems that at every step and turn Jesus is doing something to upset the establishment.  This temple cleansing is a necessary upheaval, a necessary shaking of a foundation, a necessary violence, if you will.  Jesus himself is the temple of God and here he shows unwavering determination and singleness of purpose to set things right, to bring the situation into the reign of God, to put the priority of love back in its proper place.   And we see that this new life poses a very deep threat to the existing order.

What does this mean for us?  How might we put the priority of love back in its proper place and let God’s love flow through us to build up this world to his glory. We might need a somewhat violent (maybe a better word is “aggressive”) change in order to get ourselves in line with the vision of God for us.  Jesus calls us sometimes to make radical changes as members of the body of Christ, both as members of a world-wide body, as well as our own seemingly individual lives.   Those changes he calls us to all point to the question: “What is the most loving thing I can do in this situation?”  With each situation, on every level, we can ask ourselves and ask God, “What is the most loving thing I can do?

~When we encounter economic injustice or our poorest are deprived of health care, the most loving thing might be to get politically involved or to work for justice from another angle.

~When we are working out our own personal finances the most loving thing would be to set aside enough so we can help others in need.

~When we have become safely embedded with our own bitterness, anger, or self-righteousness, the most loving thing would be forgive others and ourselves, even when it seems ridiculous.

Sometimes it is difficult to know what exactly the most loving thing in a given situation is and sometimes the loving thing is difficult.  We must love anyway.  When we find ourselves allowing anything, be it the establishment, pride, perfectionism, ambition, power, money, or self-comfort, to get in the way of loving God, loving ourselves and our neighbors, and we find ourselves unwilling to do the most loving thing, it might be time to overturn some tables.

Amen.

Things Human, Things Divine

The Rev. James Gilman

Based on Mark 8: 31-38

Introduction

            Question: What does Jesus mean when he says to Peter that he is “setting his mind on human things and not on divine things”? What are “human things” and what are “divine things”? How do we tell them apart?

            Peter is one of those guys who thinks he knows more about things than he really does. He is self-confident, insightful, and bold. He at least has sense enough to take Jesus aside before he rebukes the Son of Man; kinda like taking your boss aside and telling him where he went wrong. And look what Peter rebukes Jesus for: for saying that the Son of Man must suffer, that he must be rejected by the religious leaders and theologians, be killed, and “after three days rise again.”  I can’t help but chuckle at Peter, a little bit. But perhaps we sometimes live in a way that rebukes Jesus; sometimes we live in a way that prefers “things human” to all “things divine”; Perhaps sometimes we live in a way in which we “gain the whole world” but “forfeit our life,” as Jesus says it.

Difference: Things Human, Things Divine

            So what is the difference between setting our minds on human things instead of setting them on divine things? Jesus does give a clue. He says, “setting the mind on divine things” requires three things: first, it requires that I “deny my self”, secondly, that I “take up my cross”, and thirdly, that I ”follow” Jesus. From this we can infer what “setting the mind on human things” means; it means failing to do these things; it means failing to “deny my self”, failing to “take up my cross,” failing to “follow” Jesus. You can see that this is the perfect Lenten passage. It helps us see, along with Peter, how along with Peter, we often preoccupy ourselves with all things human: catering mostly to our own egos, our own needs; living chiefly for our own comfort and convenience; investing most of our time and energy and talents in entertaining and gratifying our selves. When I set my mind on human things, I work to avoid any kind of self-sacrifice, any suffering and cross-bearing, any personal inconvenience and discomfort.

The good news of Lent calls us to repent of our preoccupation with ourselves, and by God’s grace be transformed/figured in the image of God and God’s son. God freely offers us the power to turn from “human things” to divine things”.  We can choose repeatedly to set our hearts and minds on God and others until practicing divine things become an irresistible and joyful habit of heart. Yes, it requires self-denial; yes, it requires self-sacrifice and the cost and inconvenience of bearing a cross; yes, it means losing life as a preoccupation with ourselves. But at the same time self-denial frees us from the prison of ourselves, so that we find life and self again in the practice of divine things. 

So what are divine things? What am I to do? What are we to do?  I would like to answer these questions by drawing attention to what in the tradition of the church is called “Works of Mercy.” Check out your bulletin; it includes a list of these works. You’ll note that they are divided into two groups: corporeal or material works of mercy and incorporeal or spiritual works of mercy. 

Corporeal Works of Mercy                                         Incorporeal Works of Mercy

1. Visit the prisoner                                             1. Instruct the ignorant
2. Shelter the homeless                                       2. Counsel the doubtful
3. Feed the hungry                                              3. Comfort the afflicted
4. Give drink to the thirsty                                 4. Admonish the sinner
5. Visit the sick                                                   5. Forgive offenses
6. Clothe the naked                                             6. Bear wrongs patiently
7. Bury the dead                                                 7. Pray for the living and the dead

I would add to this list “Care for creation” as a work of mercy. For several decades now this list has been attached to my office door. The refrigerator would be a good place as well. Doing these things, doing some of these things, is what church tradition over the centuries has identified as setting our minds on things divine. Each of these things is rooted in Scripture; each behavior requires me to deny my self in some significant sense; it requires that I deny my ego the constant gratification and entertainment it otherwise desires. God’s grace empowers me to choose to take up a burden of mercy for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of the welfare of others. In doing so, by constantly setting and re-setting my mind on divine things, these works or mercy begin to shape and re-shape my choices, my habits, my life.

            Consider the works of “visiting the sick” and “comforting the afflicted”. It may be someone you know here at church, it may be a neighbor or someone you don’t know.  Both of these works of mercy require denying the self and bearing a cross; they take time, energy, wisdom, and compassion. Works of mercy require that we forego ourselves in service to others; they require an investment of resources, time, and energy in caring for others. Or take the example of “forgiving offenses” or “bearing wrongs patiently”. Many Christians live month after month, even year after year, with egos that refuse out of stubbornness to forgive another, often someone in their own family. We set our minds on human things when we blame and seek retaliation; we set our minds on divine things when we forgive offenses or bear wrongs patiently. Both forgiveness and patience require that we sacrifice the demands of our ego and bear a cross of mercy, granting to the offender what God through the cross of Christ has granted to us. I can hear someone object; “But we have to take care of ourselves too. Indeed we do, we must care for ourselves just as Jesus cared for himself. And Jesus teaches us that one of the best ways to care for ourselves is to help others. Works of mercy more than any single other thing, I would say, strengthens our selves and heals our egos. 

So, check out the list. Every day there is opportunity to accomplish some work of mercy. Which works of mercy are you engaged in? Which do you feel called to practice? Which you can set your mind and heart on? Think for a moment of a couple of these works of mercy that you can practice; that you know God is calling you to do. God’s grace gives us the power to deny our egos the comfort food they demand and the courage to take up the cross of mercy for the sake of another. Christ in his mercy bore that cross for us; as followers we are to bear that same cross of mercy for others.

Conclusion

            Recently I read the autobiography of Albert Schweitzer. By the age of 30 he concluded that he had ”gained the whole world” but “forfeited his life”; that he had spent his adult life helping himself and not much time helping others. He was by then a professor of philosophy and theology; he was a preacher, a biblical scholar, an author, an expert in Bach, and an accomplished organist, who performed in some of the great cathedrals of Europe. Yet as a Christian he grew uneasy with his life; a life, he concluded was devoted almost entirely to himself and to his own success. He came to realize he could not justify calling himself a Christian unless he devoted himself to divine things, to what he referred to as “the direct service of humans.”  Schweitzer quotes today’s gospel passage: “Whoever would save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel shall save it.” The rest is history. He completed medical school and spent the bulk of the rest of life setting his mind on divine things, working in Africa, serving people who otherwise had little access to medical and health care.

            Setting our minds on divine things doesn’t require us to go back to school or to Africa; it only requires that we occupy ourselves with practicing towards others the same works of mercy with which God in Christ redeems us. It’s never too early in life or too late to practice divine things, to practice works of mercy. When we receive Holy Communion we are not only thanking God for his work of mercy in our lives, but at the same time are promising to practice towards others those same works of mercy. May God grant us the power and grace to keep that promise.