notes on march 15 sermon John 3

March 16 John 3:1-17, Rom. 4, Ps. 121

Our readings this morning push us toward shoring up the foundations of our beliefs. Here we are at square one, or the first stage of Christian theology. Many of us had grown accustomed to seeing John 3:16 plastered on bedsheets at football games, even rainbow head did so for a while (Rollen Stewart is in jail on kidnapping conviction).the trouble with using single verses is that we los their depth, their context.

Before the narrator moves in we have a story of a religious person named Nicodemus. While we stereotype the religious people, he is obviously a seeker. In the dark, he comes at night. His name is greek, not aramaic, victory fo the people. In John’s gospel, Jesus is frustrating, as he often talks a good bit, but rarely directly. i think of a Zen master. We have here a basic religious truth. the physical level is the gateway to the spiritual level. They do work together, but if we conflate them, we misunderstand. this teacher of israel is stuck on the physical plane and misses a spiritual truth. of born anew/from above  some of our fellow Christians see this as an event of singular power. this  view took particular root in our country, so that it is perhaps the standard of religious practice in many Protestant circles. We tend to see it as a constant activity of god through our lifetimes. This is a much more democratic statement than a decision that people have to all have a religious experience they way others have decided it must be. No this is about about not our experience of god. We are given the gift of new life, just as we receive the gift of physical life itself. water and spirit in our interpretation refers to the new life demonstrated in baptism.

Grace has been mentioned forever in the church and has particularly force in some Protestant churches. yet, few words seem to have as little meaning as it does.We have  a hard time grasping a gift with no strings attached.Paul’s take on new life is stark and powerful-God gives life to the dead-Yes in Lent we live in the shadow of the cross but the shadow comes form the light of Easter resurrection of the god who gives life to the dead.

Ps. 121 is called a traveller’s song. the chinese said that every jor\urney begins with a first step. In Christian baptism every day of our lives is a step in the journey toward the far horizon of hte soul. we get some good starting points in these readings today. Ps. 121 reminds us that even if we go off course, even if we stumble god is there in our going out and in our coming in, or coming home.As a travelling psalm, it is a fine counterpart to the travel sof Abram and Sarai as they set off from Iraq southeast out to an unkown future.

Let’s refer to the reading in our passage again-not to condemn the world-If we peel the onion of our beliefs down, we tend to see God as condemning us. Some Christians delight in condemning the failures of others. Here that temptation runs counter to God’s action in Jesus. If you will it condemns condemnation.God so loved the world, the cosmos, the who inhabited world. Hear those words with real care again. Not hated, not angry with, not liked, not even loved, but so loved the world. that love continues unabated right now. God so loves the world that we can receive Communion this morning here in 2014’ springtime.Communion feeds the Christ within, the new life we all share.