Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on April 6, 2014
Scripture text: Ezekiel 37:1-14, John 11:1-14
Brennan Manning, whose book The Ragamuffin Gospel has been the topic of our Bible study sessions these many weeks, has a wonderful allegory of the church today. He says there are two kinds of Christians. There are settlers and there are pioneers.
The settlers all live in town where everything is nice, cozy, safe, and secure. The church is the courthouse, where order and stability are maintained. God is the mayor who lives in the courthouse. Jesus is the sheriff, who maintains law and order. The Holy Spirit is the saloon girl, who is there to mend the settlers’ sorrows. The pastor is the banker, whose job is to protect the settlers’ valuables, which are the traditions, institutions, and other sacred cows that matter most to the settlers.
The pioneers on the other hand are out on the trail. The church is the covered wagon and God is the trail boss. Jesus is the scout, out looking ahead to where things are going. The Holy Spirit is the hunter, the wild crazy untamed character who provides the wagon train with all its food and supplies. The pastor is the cook, who prepares the food the Holy Spirit provides. There is little security, little safety on the trail, but what there is instead is a sense of mission, movement, and high adventure.
Manning points out that Jesus came into this world to make of us pioneers and somewhere along the way we became settlers. We surrendered the wild, passionate, powerful evangelistic journey for the staid, tame, comfortable life of institution and tradition. When people are more concerned with what’s going to happen to “the building” than the mission, when people question the future of “their” church over God’s church, when folks only care about the doors being open long enough for their funeral to be in that building, you know you are dealing with Christians who are settled into their comfortable rut and have lost all sense of what faith is supposed to be about.
And we also know that a vast majority of so-called Christians have done exactly that.
The sermon of Manning’s from which I drew this illustration was likely preached sometime in the 1990s. Long before the current crisis of our times had emerged. So I’m going to adapt his metaphor to say that what is happening in our world over the last few years, all the cultural changes, all the technological changes, the economic realities, all that, is a fault line. And there are tremors. When the 1906 San Francisco quake hits our quaint little Old West town, it will flatten every building. Not one stone will be left upon another. Not one piece of wood that will not be splintered. The decision all Christians face, I believe, is whether we are going to hit the trail again (become pioneers) or stay put and take our chances with the earthquake.
“Mortal, can these bones live?” Well, can they?
That is the question we face. In many ways, we don’t have a choice anymore. It’s the pioneer trail or it’s extinction. Ezekiel saw the choice of his people, but he also saw something else. He saw the one thing that the settlers always forget; God’s plan is still in motion. God is still at work. Their failure to see that is the reason they became settlers in the first place.
Settling is an act of fear, it is an act of despair, it is an act of faithlessness. We are afraid because the world is a scary place, full of dangers both real and imagined. And yet what is every fear but a manifestation of the power of death? Death is ultimately the only thing we fear and look at what God does with death. “Lazarus, come out!” John calls (or at least implies that) Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead is the greatest of his signs and with good reason. There is no vision of God’s kingdom greater and more important than the conquest of death, an act Jesus himself accomplishes on Easter and then promises the same to each and every one of us.
The apostles packed up and headed off to the four corners of the world. The martyrs stood bravely before tribunals and trails. Disciples have willingly and openly defied the injustice of tyranny and exploitation. They have all done this willingly and eagerly because they knew that the worst thing their enemies could do to them was kill them and what was that compared to the promise of resurrection secured for them through Christ? They lived in that hope and they trusted in that promise, even in the face of terrifying and even lethal opposition. God did not call them to be safe, he called them to change the world.
Do we truly believe that Christ has been raised from the dead? Do we truly believe his word that this miracle is not a one time thing but the prelude of a gift he will grant to each and every one of us? If so, why then have we let ourselves wither and dry up, placing our trust in institutions and traditions crafted by human hands when our salvation is in God and God alone?
I am increasingly convinced that we have come into a time of trial. Not one like those our ancestors faced. There are no lions in the arena across from us, but it may be just as important. It seems to me that God has put a question to us. I am tearing down your traditions and institutions, your edifices and your idols. I’m knocking your crutches out from under you. Are you now going to let me breathe my spirit into you again and be the church I have called you to be? Are you going to stand again and live or remain dry bones?
God confronts each of us with that question. The old ways are gone. The earthquake has flattened the town. The settlers have been unsettled. But the trail remains and the wagon train is ready to set out. Who’s on board? Who wants to leave this valley of dry bones and head out to wherever and to whatever God will lead us? Amen.
Pastor's note: I've taken the liberty of embedding the sermon by Manning from which I drew the central illustration of my own sermon. It's about an hour long, but well worth it to watch.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Sermon for 4th Lent 2014
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on March 30, 2014
Scripture text: John 9:1-41
In my experience, human beings have two general responses to tragedy: “how can I help?” and “who or what is to blame?” Take recent events for examples. We have two sad events dominating our news cycle right now: the disappearance of MH370 and the landslide in Washington state. If you listen, you can hear and see both of those responses at work in these stories.
“How can I help?” Well, you can see people from all those different countries pitching in to search for the missing airliner. You see all those volunteers digging through the muck trying to find survivors. You see people acting out of that frantic energy to do something useful and helpful in the face of calamity.
“Who or what is to blame?” Was it terrorists? Pilot error? Pilot suicide? A failure of the aircraft? Was the landslide caused by global warming? God’s wrath? What is the reason these things happened? You hear people asking those questions, trying to make sense of the cause-and-effect of how these catastrophes has taken place.
Both of these are valid responses in the face of evil. And we all do them, sometimes both at once. But like many of these questions, our Holy Scriptures will make the definite claim that one response is better than the other. It is, in fact, the central question of our Gospel lesson today.
Jesus and the disciples are walking along and they come upon a blind beggar. The disciples ask a question “Whose sin is the reason for this man being born blind? His own or his parents?” In other words, who is to blame for this man’s condition?
That’s where our story begins, but I want to step back for a second to make sure you recognize how utterly ludicrous that question is on its face. Of course, that’s precisely the reason John includes this story. “Who’s to blame?” is for him and for Jesus, a ridiculous response. Let me break that down further so as to be perfectly clear here.
The disciples are basically asking one of two things. The first is does God punish the innocent for the crimes of the guilty? That would be the case if this man was blind due to his parent’s misdeeds. And certainly others have laid the same claim at times. According to Pat Robertson, hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for the debauchery of New Orleans. Funny that the hurricane wiped out the 9th ward and most of the gulf coast while leaving Bourbon Street pretty much intact. God has either bad aim or is exceedingly unjust. Neither is true.
The second thing the disciples are asking is this. Did God look into the future at this man’s life and see that at age 14 or 25 or 50 or whatever, he committed some heinous sin, so bad that God has to punish him in utero, decades before he’s even committed it? But if he’s blind, maybe he can’t commit it so there’s no need to punish him if he...okay, my head hurts already. This is starting to feel like one of those “if I go back in time and impregnate my grandmother, can I be my own grandfather?” time paradoxes that leads to a lot of bad science-fiction stories. This doesn’t make sense either.
Jesus cuts through all this crap, all this blame, and says simply. “This isn’t about sin. It’s about opportunity.” And to prove that, he reaches down to the man and heals him of his blindness.
What follows in the rest of this story is an object lesson to us all. The man is passed around the city, encountering various folks who are astonished at his miraculous healing. In each case, this man’s proclamation of Jesus Christ as his salvation grows bolder and bolder. Like so many who have been granted the gift of true grace, he cannot shut up about the one who restored his life.
Blaming is always backward looking and as this story points out, often pointless. Why did I get cancer? Well, you were born with a genetic disposition for this kind of disease. What good does that do to know that now? Why was there a landslide? Well, the mechanizations of local weather and global climate...again, what good does it do to know that now? More often than not, we find out the reasons for some calamity or tragedy are things that truly cannot be avoided or controlled.
But that’s a hard truth for many, too hard in some cases. We don’t like knowing that life is out of our control. So we pretend otherwise, for ourselves and for others. Very often, “who or what is to blame” is used as an excuse for us to NOT respond to people in need. I’m not going to help those poor people; They’re just lazy worthless drug addicts, ghetto queens and welfare moochers. Who’s sin caused this? Well, even if there isn’t one, I’ll make up one based on my own prejudices and need to maintain the illusion that what happened to them could never happen to me.
Jesus calls us not only to recognize this hard truth, but he also calls us to a harder path. It’s not about the why, it’s about the what now. Those people need help, so what are YOU going to do about it? What am I doing to do to help them?
Jesus shows us in the blind man what people do when they are the recipients of graces undeserved. This blind man, beggar, poor, of no account in that society, becomes a vocal and unceasing voice for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. By our kindnesses to our neighbors, we may inspire the next MLK or Billy Graham to shout from the mountaintops “God saved me.”
After we ate of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden, we came to think we’ve got this whole blame thing down pat. But we’ve seen ample evidence that we don’t get it at all. We find evil where there is none and we are blind so often to good even when it is right in front of us. God sees things clearly, which is why his plan of salvation is not the destruction of evil, but its redemption.
God isn’t worried about the blame. Whose sin...? Irrelevant. For God, it’s about what can I do now? That’s why he sent his son, come to earth to save sinners and to redeem the unworthy.
As Paul wrote in our lesson last week, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were evil and enemies of God, God reached down not to destroy us, but to save us and reclaim us as his own. The man born blind was reborn by that grace. We, in the waters of baptism, are likewise renewed. And we are called to do likewise with those around us. Amen.
Scripture text: John 9:1-41
In my experience, human beings have two general responses to tragedy: “how can I help?” and “who or what is to blame?” Take recent events for examples. We have two sad events dominating our news cycle right now: the disappearance of MH370 and the landslide in Washington state. If you listen, you can hear and see both of those responses at work in these stories.
“How can I help?” Well, you can see people from all those different countries pitching in to search for the missing airliner. You see all those volunteers digging through the muck trying to find survivors. You see people acting out of that frantic energy to do something useful and helpful in the face of calamity.
“Who or what is to blame?” Was it terrorists? Pilot error? Pilot suicide? A failure of the aircraft? Was the landslide caused by global warming? God’s wrath? What is the reason these things happened? You hear people asking those questions, trying to make sense of the cause-and-effect of how these catastrophes has taken place.
Both of these are valid responses in the face of evil. And we all do them, sometimes both at once. But like many of these questions, our Holy Scriptures will make the definite claim that one response is better than the other. It is, in fact, the central question of our Gospel lesson today.
Jesus and the disciples are walking along and they come upon a blind beggar. The disciples ask a question “Whose sin is the reason for this man being born blind? His own or his parents?” In other words, who is to blame for this man’s condition?
That’s where our story begins, but I want to step back for a second to make sure you recognize how utterly ludicrous that question is on its face. Of course, that’s precisely the reason John includes this story. “Who’s to blame?” is for him and for Jesus, a ridiculous response. Let me break that down further so as to be perfectly clear here.
The disciples are basically asking one of two things. The first is does God punish the innocent for the crimes of the guilty? That would be the case if this man was blind due to his parent’s misdeeds. And certainly others have laid the same claim at times. According to Pat Robertson, hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for the debauchery of New Orleans. Funny that the hurricane wiped out the 9th ward and most of the gulf coast while leaving Bourbon Street pretty much intact. God has either bad aim or is exceedingly unjust. Neither is true.
The second thing the disciples are asking is this. Did God look into the future at this man’s life and see that at age 14 or 25 or 50 or whatever, he committed some heinous sin, so bad that God has to punish him in utero, decades before he’s even committed it? But if he’s blind, maybe he can’t commit it so there’s no need to punish him if he...okay, my head hurts already. This is starting to feel like one of those “if I go back in time and impregnate my grandmother, can I be my own grandfather?” time paradoxes that leads to a lot of bad science-fiction stories. This doesn’t make sense either.
Jesus cuts through all this crap, all this blame, and says simply. “This isn’t about sin. It’s about opportunity.” And to prove that, he reaches down to the man and heals him of his blindness.
What follows in the rest of this story is an object lesson to us all. The man is passed around the city, encountering various folks who are astonished at his miraculous healing. In each case, this man’s proclamation of Jesus Christ as his salvation grows bolder and bolder. Like so many who have been granted the gift of true grace, he cannot shut up about the one who restored his life.
Blaming is always backward looking and as this story points out, often pointless. Why did I get cancer? Well, you were born with a genetic disposition for this kind of disease. What good does that do to know that now? Why was there a landslide? Well, the mechanizations of local weather and global climate...again, what good does it do to know that now? More often than not, we find out the reasons for some calamity or tragedy are things that truly cannot be avoided or controlled.
But that’s a hard truth for many, too hard in some cases. We don’t like knowing that life is out of our control. So we pretend otherwise, for ourselves and for others. Very often, “who or what is to blame” is used as an excuse for us to NOT respond to people in need. I’m not going to help those poor people; They’re just lazy worthless drug addicts, ghetto queens and welfare moochers. Who’s sin caused this? Well, even if there isn’t one, I’ll make up one based on my own prejudices and need to maintain the illusion that what happened to them could never happen to me.
Jesus calls us not only to recognize this hard truth, but he also calls us to a harder path. It’s not about the why, it’s about the what now. Those people need help, so what are YOU going to do about it? What am I doing to do to help them?
Jesus shows us in the blind man what people do when they are the recipients of graces undeserved. This blind man, beggar, poor, of no account in that society, becomes a vocal and unceasing voice for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. By our kindnesses to our neighbors, we may inspire the next MLK or Billy Graham to shout from the mountaintops “God saved me.”
After we ate of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden, we came to think we’ve got this whole blame thing down pat. But we’ve seen ample evidence that we don’t get it at all. We find evil where there is none and we are blind so often to good even when it is right in front of us. God sees things clearly, which is why his plan of salvation is not the destruction of evil, but its redemption.
God isn’t worried about the blame. Whose sin...? Irrelevant. For God, it’s about what can I do now? That’s why he sent his son, come to earth to save sinners and to redeem the unworthy.
As Paul wrote in our lesson last week, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were evil and enemies of God, God reached down not to destroy us, but to save us and reclaim us as his own. The man born blind was reborn by that grace. We, in the waters of baptism, are likewise renewed. And we are called to do likewise with those around us. Amen.
Sermon for 3rd Lent 2014
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on March 23, 2014
Scripture text: Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-42
There’s an old saying in theatre and creative writing: Show, don’t tell. It’s a nice summary of a simple truth: story is more effective when you see the action as opposed to just hearing about it second-hand. This applies not just to the narratives we see on stage and screen, but also to real life. It’s one thing to say you love someone, but quite another to show them how much. It’s one thing to hear about a tragic event, but quite another to watch unfold on your TV in front of you. The latter always has more impact, more power. It’s more real to us.
Jesus, it seems, understands this as well as any quality scriptwriter in Hollywood. We heard last Sunday through him of God’s unlimited and constant love for the “kosmos” in his explanations to Nicodemus. We saw how this conversation Jesus has in John 3 is tied into the width and breadth of the Scriptures, Old Testament and New, showing that this is not some new idea of God’s, but rather the culmination of a plan he’s been working on since the beginning of human history.
But it’s one thing for Jesus to say he’s come to save the whole world. It’s another thing entirely to see it in action, but that is what happens in our Gospel lesson today. Jesus granting a tremendous gift on one of the least likely individuals you can imagine.
This is another remarkable text from the Gospel of John, and I want to break it down a bit to show you just how truly remarkable it is. It begins, as these tales often do, innocently enough. Jesus is traveling from Point A to Point B and makes a stop in a Samaritan village. Jesus does a lot of travel and Samaria is kind of the border-country between his two favorite destinations, his home villages around the Sea of Galilee (Nazareth, Capernaum, and their like) and the holy city of Jerusalem in the south. So Jesus is in Samaria a lot as he moves back and forth between these two destinations. It’s a bit like, for me growing up, La Vale, MD. We would always stop at La Vale for lunch when we were traveling from Charleston to my grandparents outside Philadelphia.
While Jesus is in this border town, he runs into...oh, how do we put this politely? The town wild woman, I suppose (There are far more uncomplimentary phrases I could use, but this is church after all.) Where do we start with this person?
We’ll start with the obvious: her race. She’s Samaritan and I think most of us have been part of church long enough to have heard more than a few times how much the Jews of ancient Palestine looked down on the Samaritans. Half-breed mongrels, impure, tainted, an inferior people by dint of their blood. Racism is not a new thing; it’s existed for a very long time. If you wanted to transport her into a modern context, we’d make her black or Latina or Arab or any number of other dark skinned non-English-speaking “unAmerican” peoples that we white folk have come down on hard either historically or presently.
No good Jew would ever have a conversation with a Samaritan. And yet, Jesus does.
And then there’s her gender. We tend not to think about that as a negative, although sexism is probably as large a problem in our society today as racism is. Women still, on average, only make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes in the workplace. It was worse then in an era of patriarchy and male-dominance. Women were not people, they were property. They were valued only as far as they could be used to birth children and create alliances between your family and another.
No man would ever have a conversation about such deep topics as theology with a woman. And yet, Jesus does.
Lastly, there’s her moral behavior or lack thereof. In many ways, you can’t talk about this without tying it in with her gender because this double-standard still exists today. Perhaps to the great shame of our society is that women are still held to a much harsher standard when it comes to sexuality than men are. Women who are raped or are in some other way sexually harassed or assaulted are routinely blamed for what happened to them, as if they asked for it. A man with multiple sex partners is looked upon as some sort of virile demigod, often admired and envied, while a woman with the same is called a “slut” and is torn down and rejected.
This too is not a new thing. After all, Jesus himself even dealt with it. There is that story later in John’s Gospel where a woman is brought to Jesus, “caught in the very act of adultery.” If she was caught in the act, why isn’t the man dragged before Jesus also? Oh, yeah...he doesn’t count. He’s anatomically immune from prosecution for adultery.
But here is this woman with her five husbands and (presumably) other lovers. Like so many today, she is shamed and rejected by her society and we know that because she comes to the well in the heat of the day, not in the cool of the morning or evening when everyone else comes. She avoids the others of her village and they avoid her.
No holy man, no rabbi, no priest would ever have a conversation with this morally impure individual. And yet, Jesus does.
And not only does he talk to her, not only does he treat her like the precious child of God that she is, he reveals to her a mystery of the kingdom that not even his disciples have yet received.
Her response to his outpouring of respect and love is immediate. She rushes into the village, to all the people who have looked down on her and rejected her, and insists that they come to see this Jesus character. No shame. No fear. Nothing about her and her reputation stops her. She is empowered by that unlimited and embracing love of Jesus, a love the rest of the Samaritans receive themselves when they too come out to meet him.
We keep trying to put limits where God will have no limits. We say to ourselves that we cannot be loved as we are, only as what we might be if just do...something. But Jesus makes no such demand of this woman in order for him to love her. In the synoptic Gospels, no such demand is made of Matthew the tax collector; he is simply called to be a disciple with two words “follow me.” No such demand is made of us, for we are loved by God as we are, not as we should be.
That’s what St. Paul is saying when he writes “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” We didn’t stop being sinners in order that God would love us. He loves us in spite of our sin.
Jesus’ response to this woman is proof of that. All the social rules say he should avoid her like the plague, just as a holy God should have nothing to do with such flawed unholy creatures as ourselves. But that’s not what happens. Jesus embraces this woman just as God embraces all his creation. Remember, he so loved the whole cosmos that he gave his son. You, me, this woman, and everyone else.
God is not a liar. When he says he loves you, he means it. When he says he’ll save you, he means it. When he told Abraham that he would make of him a blessing for the whole world, he did it. When Jesus said to Nicodemus that God loves the whole world enough to send his son, he was thinking of you and me and he meant every word.
You need look no further than this woman, flawed and rejected as she is, to see that. He meant it for her. He meant it for me. And he means it for you. Amen.
Scripture text: Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-42
There’s an old saying in theatre and creative writing: Show, don’t tell. It’s a nice summary of a simple truth: story is more effective when you see the action as opposed to just hearing about it second-hand. This applies not just to the narratives we see on stage and screen, but also to real life. It’s one thing to say you love someone, but quite another to show them how much. It’s one thing to hear about a tragic event, but quite another to watch unfold on your TV in front of you. The latter always has more impact, more power. It’s more real to us.
Jesus, it seems, understands this as well as any quality scriptwriter in Hollywood. We heard last Sunday through him of God’s unlimited and constant love for the “kosmos” in his explanations to Nicodemus. We saw how this conversation Jesus has in John 3 is tied into the width and breadth of the Scriptures, Old Testament and New, showing that this is not some new idea of God’s, but rather the culmination of a plan he’s been working on since the beginning of human history.
But it’s one thing for Jesus to say he’s come to save the whole world. It’s another thing entirely to see it in action, but that is what happens in our Gospel lesson today. Jesus granting a tremendous gift on one of the least likely individuals you can imagine.
This is another remarkable text from the Gospel of John, and I want to break it down a bit to show you just how truly remarkable it is. It begins, as these tales often do, innocently enough. Jesus is traveling from Point A to Point B and makes a stop in a Samaritan village. Jesus does a lot of travel and Samaria is kind of the border-country between his two favorite destinations, his home villages around the Sea of Galilee (Nazareth, Capernaum, and their like) and the holy city of Jerusalem in the south. So Jesus is in Samaria a lot as he moves back and forth between these two destinations. It’s a bit like, for me growing up, La Vale, MD. We would always stop at La Vale for lunch when we were traveling from Charleston to my grandparents outside Philadelphia.
While Jesus is in this border town, he runs into...oh, how do we put this politely? The town wild woman, I suppose (There are far more uncomplimentary phrases I could use, but this is church after all.) Where do we start with this person?
We’ll start with the obvious: her race. She’s Samaritan and I think most of us have been part of church long enough to have heard more than a few times how much the Jews of ancient Palestine looked down on the Samaritans. Half-breed mongrels, impure, tainted, an inferior people by dint of their blood. Racism is not a new thing; it’s existed for a very long time. If you wanted to transport her into a modern context, we’d make her black or Latina or Arab or any number of other dark skinned non-English-speaking “unAmerican” peoples that we white folk have come down on hard either historically or presently.
No good Jew would ever have a conversation with a Samaritan. And yet, Jesus does.
And then there’s her gender. We tend not to think about that as a negative, although sexism is probably as large a problem in our society today as racism is. Women still, on average, only make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes in the workplace. It was worse then in an era of patriarchy and male-dominance. Women were not people, they were property. They were valued only as far as they could be used to birth children and create alliances between your family and another.
No man would ever have a conversation about such deep topics as theology with a woman. And yet, Jesus does.
Lastly, there’s her moral behavior or lack thereof. In many ways, you can’t talk about this without tying it in with her gender because this double-standard still exists today. Perhaps to the great shame of our society is that women are still held to a much harsher standard when it comes to sexuality than men are. Women who are raped or are in some other way sexually harassed or assaulted are routinely blamed for what happened to them, as if they asked for it. A man with multiple sex partners is looked upon as some sort of virile demigod, often admired and envied, while a woman with the same is called a “slut” and is torn down and rejected.
This too is not a new thing. After all, Jesus himself even dealt with it. There is that story later in John’s Gospel where a woman is brought to Jesus, “caught in the very act of adultery.” If she was caught in the act, why isn’t the man dragged before Jesus also? Oh, yeah...he doesn’t count. He’s anatomically immune from prosecution for adultery.
But here is this woman with her five husbands and (presumably) other lovers. Like so many today, she is shamed and rejected by her society and we know that because she comes to the well in the heat of the day, not in the cool of the morning or evening when everyone else comes. She avoids the others of her village and they avoid her.
No holy man, no rabbi, no priest would ever have a conversation with this morally impure individual. And yet, Jesus does.
And not only does he talk to her, not only does he treat her like the precious child of God that she is, he reveals to her a mystery of the kingdom that not even his disciples have yet received.
Her response to his outpouring of respect and love is immediate. She rushes into the village, to all the people who have looked down on her and rejected her, and insists that they come to see this Jesus character. No shame. No fear. Nothing about her and her reputation stops her. She is empowered by that unlimited and embracing love of Jesus, a love the rest of the Samaritans receive themselves when they too come out to meet him.
We keep trying to put limits where God will have no limits. We say to ourselves that we cannot be loved as we are, only as what we might be if just do...something. But Jesus makes no such demand of this woman in order for him to love her. In the synoptic Gospels, no such demand is made of Matthew the tax collector; he is simply called to be a disciple with two words “follow me.” No such demand is made of us, for we are loved by God as we are, not as we should be.
That’s what St. Paul is saying when he writes “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” We didn’t stop being sinners in order that God would love us. He loves us in spite of our sin.
Jesus’ response to this woman is proof of that. All the social rules say he should avoid her like the plague, just as a holy God should have nothing to do with such flawed unholy creatures as ourselves. But that’s not what happens. Jesus embraces this woman just as God embraces all his creation. Remember, he so loved the whole cosmos that he gave his son. You, me, this woman, and everyone else.
God is not a liar. When he says he loves you, he means it. When he says he’ll save you, he means it. When he told Abraham that he would make of him a blessing for the whole world, he did it. When Jesus said to Nicodemus that God loves the whole world enough to send his son, he was thinking of you and me and he meant every word.
You need look no further than this woman, flawed and rejected as she is, to see that. He meant it for her. He meant it for me. And he means it for you. Amen.
Sermon for 2nd Lent 2014
Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on March 16, 2014
Scripture texts: Genesis 12:1-9, John 3:1-17
You may not know it, but we are presented today a remarkable opportunity. Perhaps even more so because of how routine it is; every three years in our lectionary cycle we are given this opportunity. What am I talking about? Well, let me explain...
Imagine you were given a task to condense the whole of the Scriptures down to just 10 verses that summed up the whole of the great plan God has for our world. What 10 verses would you pick?
You see, if I had that task, if I had to do that, five of those ten verses would be found in our lessons today. Five of them. Half of that number. That’s why I consider this to be a remarkable event. We have almost the whole of the Gospel story condensed into these small passages before you.
Now, my guess is that many of you would probably choose at least a few of the same verses that I would. In fact, I’m sure the number one verse would be the same for pretty much all of us. Come on, say it with me. “For God so loved....” Pretty much considered to be the verse that best sums up God’s plan for our world.
I haven’t seen Bannerman in a while. You probably know who I’m talking about. Christian musician Steve Taylor once wrote a song called “Bannerman” about the guy at all the sporting events who would hold up the “John 3:16” sign. Yeah, that guy. I don’t know if he’s even still around, but he’s a good example as to this universal acceptance of the importance of that verse.
But I would argue that the very next verse, John 3:17, is nearly as important. “For God did not send...” You see, I think we need to be reminded of a very simple truth about God’s plan and that is that it is not a plan to destroy evil, to destroy sinners, but rather to redeem evil and to save sinners and that it is not a plan that is limited, but is meant for all of creation.
One of the biggest clues for that is the word that is used in the original language of Greek for “world.” It’s a word that has come back into vogue to some degree just within this past week. kosmos. Substitute that in. For God so loved the cosmos...
Now what isn’t covered by the cosmos? Who can escape this outpouring from our God of his love? This salvation that he brings in Jesus Christ? Do any of us here think that the circumstances of our lives, the mistakes we’ve made, the trials we’ve endured, or anything else can keep us from our Savior when it’s the cosmos that he seeks to save through Christ?
Two lessons from the Old Testament give further credence to this and guess what? One of them is our first lesson. Told you there were 5 verses, which means there are 3 more to go and here they are.
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
The kicker is that last part. “In you, ALL the families of the earth shall be blessed.” This is the Old Covenant, the one that God makes with Abraham in ancient days and even then, thousands of years before Jesus, God has declared his purpose. The Christ will come for all.
I said there were two lessons in the Old Testament that give support to what Nicodemus is told by Jesus in our Gospel lesson. The other comes from the Noah story (also soon to be in vogue again thanks to Hollywood.) We all know that God makes the rainbow at the end of that tale, but what he says about that rainbow is what is really important. (We’ll count this as verse #6 in my list.) “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off...” (Genesis 9:11)
Now doesn't that sound a little familiar? It should. For God did not send the son...
Jesus expresses bafflement that Nicodemus is so astounded by what he’s teaching him. The truth is, it’s all there. What Jesus says and does throughout the Gospels is the culmination of everything God has been planning since the beginning. As a scholar of the ancient Scriptures, Nicodemus should have known all that, but he didn’t get it.
Do we?
We keep creating excuses, reasons why we think God will cut off ourselves and others. Those people over there are such...whatever. Lazy, worthless, unworthy, pick your adjective. But the blood of Christ on the cross takes all that away. I’m not worthy. I’ve done terrible things. God could never forgive me. Bull. He already has. The cross was for you and for me and for everyone. That is the heart of the Gospel.
For God so loved the world and everyone in it, you, me, and everyone, that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him would NOT perish, but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the son into the world to condemn you, me or anyone else, but that we would be saved through him.
There it is. That is what God intends for us. That is what he’s done for us. That is his plan, forged in the far depths of human history and brought to fullness in Jesus Christ, all for you and me and everyone. Amen.
Scripture texts: Genesis 12:1-9, John 3:1-17
You may not know it, but we are presented today a remarkable opportunity. Perhaps even more so because of how routine it is; every three years in our lectionary cycle we are given this opportunity. What am I talking about? Well, let me explain...
Imagine you were given a task to condense the whole of the Scriptures down to just 10 verses that summed up the whole of the great plan God has for our world. What 10 verses would you pick?
You see, if I had that task, if I had to do that, five of those ten verses would be found in our lessons today. Five of them. Half of that number. That’s why I consider this to be a remarkable event. We have almost the whole of the Gospel story condensed into these small passages before you.
Now, my guess is that many of you would probably choose at least a few of the same verses that I would. In fact, I’m sure the number one verse would be the same for pretty much all of us. Come on, say it with me. “For God so loved....” Pretty much considered to be the verse that best sums up God’s plan for our world.
I haven’t seen Bannerman in a while. You probably know who I’m talking about. Christian musician Steve Taylor once wrote a song called “Bannerman” about the guy at all the sporting events who would hold up the “John 3:16” sign. Yeah, that guy. I don’t know if he’s even still around, but he’s a good example as to this universal acceptance of the importance of that verse.
But I would argue that the very next verse, John 3:17, is nearly as important. “For God did not send...” You see, I think we need to be reminded of a very simple truth about God’s plan and that is that it is not a plan to destroy evil, to destroy sinners, but rather to redeem evil and to save sinners and that it is not a plan that is limited, but is meant for all of creation.
One of the biggest clues for that is the word that is used in the original language of Greek for “world.” It’s a word that has come back into vogue to some degree just within this past week. kosmos. Substitute that in. For God so loved the cosmos...
Now what isn’t covered by the cosmos? Who can escape this outpouring from our God of his love? This salvation that he brings in Jesus Christ? Do any of us here think that the circumstances of our lives, the mistakes we’ve made, the trials we’ve endured, or anything else can keep us from our Savior when it’s the cosmos that he seeks to save through Christ?
Two lessons from the Old Testament give further credence to this and guess what? One of them is our first lesson. Told you there were 5 verses, which means there are 3 more to go and here they are.
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
The kicker is that last part. “In you, ALL the families of the earth shall be blessed.” This is the Old Covenant, the one that God makes with Abraham in ancient days and even then, thousands of years before Jesus, God has declared his purpose. The Christ will come for all.
I said there were two lessons in the Old Testament that give support to what Nicodemus is told by Jesus in our Gospel lesson. The other comes from the Noah story (also soon to be in vogue again thanks to Hollywood.) We all know that God makes the rainbow at the end of that tale, but what he says about that rainbow is what is really important. (We’ll count this as verse #6 in my list.) “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off...” (Genesis 9:11)
Now doesn't that sound a little familiar? It should. For God did not send the son...
Jesus expresses bafflement that Nicodemus is so astounded by what he’s teaching him. The truth is, it’s all there. What Jesus says and does throughout the Gospels is the culmination of everything God has been planning since the beginning. As a scholar of the ancient Scriptures, Nicodemus should have known all that, but he didn’t get it.
Do we?
We keep creating excuses, reasons why we think God will cut off ourselves and others. Those people over there are such...whatever. Lazy, worthless, unworthy, pick your adjective. But the blood of Christ on the cross takes all that away. I’m not worthy. I’ve done terrible things. God could never forgive me. Bull. He already has. The cross was for you and for me and for everyone. That is the heart of the Gospel.
For God so loved the world and everyone in it, you, me, and everyone, that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him would NOT perish, but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the son into the world to condemn you, me or anyone else, but that we would be saved through him.
There it is. That is what God intends for us. That is what he’s done for us. That is his plan, forged in the far depths of human history and brought to fullness in Jesus Christ, all for you and me and everyone. Amen.
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