God So Loved (Third Sunday after Epiphany; John 3:1-21; January 28, 2018)

God So Loved

Third Sunday after Epiphany
John 3:1-21
January 28, 2018

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, Iowa

There is no single more quoted verse in all of the Bible than the one--you know the one I mean--in today's reading. This is a challenge for the preacher. Everyone already knows what it means; why, they've memorized it; they know it by heart. How much better can you know something than to know it "by heart"? Somehow, whenever we hear a very familiar text, we have to allow it to speak in such a way as to become strange to us. The work of the historian, I have heard it said, it to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Something like that has to happen with John 3:16.

The other problem is specific to me because, as you know, as I have said repeatedly, John's gospel is not a favorite book of mine. This chapter is, in fact, one of the reasons for my dislike of the book. Too often I have heard John 3:16 brandished as if it were a weapon. Some besotted Christian takes Paul's admonition to treat the "Word of God" (which may or may not refer to the Scriptures) as "the sword of the Spirit" just a little too literally. God's love gets weaponized and wielded against unbelievers and heretics heedless of the spiritually dead and wounded they leave in their wake.

The temptation to abandon John to those who practice a sort of "kill them for their own sake" holy warfare is pretty great. But I'm not going to do it. This book is our book and it belongs to all of us, not just to one party among us. So with whatever personal reluctance I have, I will take it up and see if it has something for us this morning. Maybe it would be good to back up and getting a running start.

Okay. Remember John's hurting community, expelled from the synagogue, cut off from their deep tradition and the place that it had provided them in the world, not just their cultural world, but their cosmic world. They had been denied their connection to God's purposes in history by the authorities of the synagogue, they have found themselves adrift--metaphysically, spiritually, psychologically, socially--you name it, they're experiencing it. They have lost community, synagogue, even family in some cases.

Some might say, "Well, get over it, snowflakes. It happens. Stop feeling sorry for yourselves. Get up, dust yourselves off, and go on with life." As in our day, so in theirs, there were people who dismissed any suffering they did not share or understand.

But that's not what the author of John does. He takes their pain seriously. He trusts them to tell their own story. He believes their testimony. So John locates them in God's cosmic purposes once again and emphasizes that God is coming/has come to them where they are. He has reminded them that with Jesus in their midst even their pain cannot keep them from celebrating. He has reminded them that with Jesus raised from the dead they have a holy place from which they cannot be excluded. The authorities of their tradition can say what they want, can decree what they want. They can place John's community outside of their circle of care, but they cannot place John's community outside of God's circle of care. John's people do not have to entrust themselves to those who do not have their best interest at heart.

And now, Nicodemus, a member of the leadership circle, comes to Jesus by night. We can make of that what we will. Is Nicodemus afraid that his peers will find out that he is talking with Jesus? Or does he just want a chance to have a private conversation without the distractions of a Temple crowd? I tend to think that he is a conscientious leader who wants to find out about Jesus firsthand. So he begins with the appropriate courtesies, acknowledging Jesus ability to work wonders and complementing Jesus' wisdom in advance.

Jesus should do the same, since Nicodemus is a fellow teacher, but instead sets a little trap for him. "If you want to see God's dream, you have to be born..." Oh, there is a little translation problem here. The Greek word is anôthen which can be translated either as "again" or "from above." The version we heard this morning has "again" while the New Revised Standard Version, for example, has "from above." The Common English Bible has both Jesus and Nicodemus understanding anôthen as meaning “again.” That is, they are on the same page. But the NRSV translators (and I) have imagined that Nicodemus has misunderstood what Jesus has said and heard "again" when he should have heard "from above."

The difference it makes is that it tells John's readers, "Look, the grand poobahs don't know everything. They're foolish sometimes and dense. You understand Jesus and they do not." There is more in this exchange, but I think this is the important part. It's like this: I'm a highly educated person, and I am ordained and appointed and all that, but if I tell you that you are outside of the circle of God's care and love, you do not have to believe me. In fact, you should not believe me. Whatever my authority is worth, and I think it's worth something, it won't help you or me much if I do not understand how God's love works.

“God so loved the world,” Jesus says. God's love, he says, is for the cosmos--the entire ordered world. That doesn't just include the people of the synagogue (or, we might add, the church); it doesn't just include people for that matter. Go outside on a clear, cold winter night. God loves everything you can see and everything you cannot see--everything in the universe. And whoever might be out there. And, I'll add, everything and everyone in any possible universe beyond this one.

No authority can take that away from you, not me, not some televangelist, not some ICE agent or immigration judge, not a gossiping neighbor, not an abusive parent, partner or boss.

And here is what John's community has to do to earn that love: nothing. Not a thing. Not a single thing. They can trust it and it will become a source of life for them. But if they don't trust God's love, God will not stop loving them. Nothing will stop God from loving them.

In the words of Gregory Palmer, "God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it."

Please repeat after me: God loves me...and there is nothing I can do about it. God loves you... and there is nothing you can do about it. God loves our families and friends... and there is nothing they can do about it. God loves our enemies...and there is nothing they can do about it. God loves us all...and there is nothing we can do about it.

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