Sermon for Lent 4B – 2018
March 11, 2018
Jesus
said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son
of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
“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.
“Indeed,
God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that
the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not
condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they
have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment,
that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than
light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do
not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do
what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds
have been done in God.”
The
Gospel lesson today includes what some say is the most popular verse in the
Bible. John 3:19 – “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.” According to popular culture I should be
able to hoist a poster board with the reference to this verse high above my
head and sit down. End of sermon.
But
I am not letting myself, or you all, off that easily! I have to admit that I find it a bit amusing
that one of the places that you see people with signs that say John 3:19 is at
sporting events. Events where the
rivalry between fans for “their teams” appears to display anything but love
towards the rival team.
I
admit that I too love the verse and believe with my whole being that God loves
this world and us so much that God is willing to pursue us all the way to hell
to offer us that love. Unfortunately, we
seem to also use this verse as a clobber verse – a verse used to hurt rather
than to heal. We use this verse as a
gateway verse that only those who publicly profess that they love Christ are
worthy of God’s love. If we don’t
publicly espouse Christ as our personal Savior then we by corollary are going
to that fiery place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. However,
there is more to this excerpt from the Gospel of John than the, dare I say it,
trite saying of a single verse taken out of context.
Jesus
continues after John 3:19 with the part that should give us pause. After promising that God sent Jesus not to
condemn the world but to save it we have a warning. The warning is that some people prefer
darkness over light. Some people prefer
judgment over forgiveness. Some people
prefer evil and hate over goodness and love.
If we look a little closely at ourselves, we may find that we recognize
the saying of a popular cartoon character from the era of the Vietnam war – Pogo
who said “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
It seems that there is something about human nature that leads us to
dwell on the darkness to the point that we refuse to see the light.
All
we have to do is read the local news.
Turn on the TV or look at social media like twitter or facebook to see
the baseness of our society. We can read
quotes from people who would happily hoist a John 3:19 sign at a sporting event
take to twitter to demonize the young survivors of the Parkland Massacre in
Florida who are advocating for Gun control.
I read an article in the Sacramento Bee just yesterday about how the
young survivors are taking to social media – particularly twitter – to continue
to advocate for controls that would hopefully reduce the occurrence of school
shootings. In the article it mentioned
that in response to these young adult’s advocacy they are the subject to
various twitter attacks that have included death threats. The article mentions that the twitter
overseers are monitoring the feeds and blocking particularly violent attacks
directed towards these young people.
How
is attacking survivors of a horrible mass shooting spreading the love of
God? It is not. Instead it is following the warning in the
Gospel that we are attracted to the darkness. Some in response to an evil
attack are responding with darkness instead of with light. How do we respond when we read such
stories? Do we respond with light or do
we too descend into darkness? I admit
that my initial response is to demonize those who demonize these young
adults. Which again heads me down the
path of darkness instead of light.
One
of the most popular movie franchises of all times took this concept and ran
with it. Can you guess which movie
series? Star Wars of course. With its battle between the light – the
goodness in us all, and the dark. The
evil Darth Vader who followed the power of darkness versus his son Luke who is
struggling to follow the light – the goodness of creation. Darth Vader represents a power that threatens
to destroy the world. It is probably no
secret that we are attracted to this battle of darkness against light – of evil
trying to overtake the good. We are
attracted because deep down it is a battle most of us wage on a regular
basis. The dark side can be attractive. We can almost hear the breathy voice of Dark
Vader calling us to embrace the power in the hate. “Rik – let go of the light. Come to the dark side and enjoy the power
that you will receive.”
Jesus
calls us again and again to let go of the power of hate. To let go of judgement. God did not send Jesus to judge and to
condemn but to spread light and show us a different economy. One that instead of judging people who act
darkly looks to find the spark of light in their souls and breath air on it so
that the light will ignite and consume their souls. A light that is powerful enough to shine into
the dark corners where hate and prejudice like to lurk waiting for their moment
to jump out and take over our better instincts.
It
is hard to find ways to respond to hate with Love. It is easy to respond in kind to those who
demonize others. When I read editorials
or social media tweets that caricature homeless people as lazy slobs who
enjoying using our alleys and byways as toilets. That complain that all homeless people want
to be on the streets because they are lazy and just want to do drugs and drink
themselves into oblivion. When I hear or
read such things I become angry.
I
get angry because I minister with a good number of homeless people. People who have been on the streets for many
years who really are trying to find a way to get a home off the streets. I know some young people who have been on the
streets for most of their lives – indeed they were practically born on the
streets and in one case both parents are homeless and have been for over a
decade. One young man yearns to get a
Job and a home. But it is nearly
impossible because having lived on the streets for most of his life he has no
high school diploma. He has no address
to provide prospective employers. So how
is he supposed to get a job. I know many
homeless people who would love to get off the streets but for various reasons have
trouble connecting with services or with finding a landlord who will rent to a
person who has no recent housing history to provide.
Similarly,
when I hear people demonize immigrants as “bad hombres” who are all criminals
that come to our country to continue in a life of crime and to take Jobs away
from “good Americans” my response is to get angry. This caricature refuses to acknowledge that
most of the people in this country, with the exception of the first peoples – the
Native Americans – have relatives who just a few generations back came to this
country as immigrants looking for a better life. My own Great-grandmother came to this country
form Ireland as an indentured servant likely to escape the brutality of the
potato famine. It seems the response is
now that our families have the better life our ancestors were seeking we need
to slam shut the doors to people from countries who are fleeing violence and
economic disasters. We hear people lump
all people with brown skin as evil while those with white skin are ok and to be
welcomed. Racism is one of those dark
forces that lurk and lure folks to the evil side.
The
hard part is that when we get angry over just causes, be it for the victims of
violence, for folks without shelter, or for immigrants looking for a better
life, as did my ancestors, the hard part is not to respond with darkness but to
respond with light. It is far too easy
for us to caricature those we disagree with as insensitive gun huggers, as
insensitive elitists who want a country where the homeless are not seen, or as incurable
racists. It is too easy to take a dark
road in the name of light. And that
never works.
So
how do we respond to evil with lightness?
We do that when we respond with love to those who are demonized. We do it when we look for ways to influence
policy by advocating for just laws. We
do it when we vote for politicians that we hope will also spread light. Frankly we can spread light in simple ways
such as advocating for public bathrooms so that homeless folk, not to mention
anyone else who is out in our city, have a sanitary place to go. But I won’t get on that soapbox today. I’ll save that one for another sermon!
Jesus
did indeed come to the world to save and not to condemn. But he also came to warn us against our own
dark sides. To warn us against following
that dark instinct that leads us to hate instead of love. But God promises if we just repent and follow
the light. If we feed the love rather
than the hate. If we do that we will be
welcomed with open arms into God’s great dream of love.
Lent
is a great time for us to examine our hearts and see if we are fanning the
flames of love and following the Great Commandment to Love God and Love our
neighbors. Or are we following the
breathy voice of Darth Vader and going over to the dark side – fanning the
flames of hate. And if we find areas of
darkness Lent is a great time to shine the light of God’s love into those dark
places. For when we do that our dark
sides will be crucified with Christ and the light and love will be raised with
Christ into glory on Easter.
Amen.
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