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GOD SO LOVES THE WHOLE WORLD, WE GOTTA DO SOMETHING

By Administrator | February 17, 2008

GOD SO LOVES THE WHOLE WORLD, WE GOTTA DO SOMETHING

a sermon based on John 3:16

February 17, 2008 at Palm Bay, FL

by Rev. Scott Elliott

For a few years during elementary school I attended a conservative Baptist church. A very nice older woman down the block made it her business to see that my older sister and I got there. I say older woman because that is how I perceived her as a six-year old.In retrospect though she may very well have been younger than I am now! So it may be more accurate to describe her as aged-just-right.

Mrs. Harris was this aged-just-right woman’s name; and I am sorry to say that I must have been a disappointment to her. You see, Mrs. Harris was also my Sunday school teacher and one of her great joys was having her charges recite scripture from memory and proudly marking each child’s progress with colorful shiny star next to their name on a chart that hung bigger than life on a wall.As I recall students got rewards every time they reached a numeric milestone with the stars. I remember that for the first star you got a bookmark. I can’t recall what the other prizes were, because, well, I never made it past one star. Oh, I was there a lot and although others may have perceived my lack of star power as a sign of not being very bright, at the time I saw it a bit different. In fact, I thought I was pretty smart. See I tried it once to see what it was like, but, all that work for a shiny star and bookmark didn’t make sense to me. I had army men to melt with a magnifying glass, walnuts in the backyard to heave over the house onto my sister and her friends in the front-yard, and of course, dozens of other more exciting things to do at home and parents completely unaware of any homework due in Sunday school.

The one bit of scripture I learned was not “Jesus wept” (I must have missed the day that one came around). No, the only scripture I memorized was one of today’s verses, John 3:16. I have long thought it quite ironic that one verse used by conservative Christians to claim that Christianity is the only way to avoid perishing and gaining eternal life is the one verse I have had in my head for more than forty-years.

My guess is that a lot of us here still hear that verse as saying you must believe in Jesus to get to eternal life.Most of us have been conditioned to hear John 3:16 as an exclusionary text, one that if literally true leaves non-Christians perishing and missing out on eternal life. John 3:16, you, see seems to be about asserting not only that non-Christian paths to God are invalid, but are paths to hell.  In seminary I spent a good deal of time discussing and debating our need to honor and respect other paths to God, even the need for us to consider other religions as members of the Body of Christ. Even at the somewhat liberal Eden Theological Seminary this sounded to some like heresy, but, I made it one of my rallying cries. Believe is or not a number of famous theologians had legal training. While I may not be a famous theologian, as a retired lawyer let me tell you legal training was a blessing in seminary.  Here are two lawyer tricks . . . I mean legal skills, I often used to hold my own in discussions at seminary. The first was to find and have precedence for a given position. In seminary a bible verse was akin to a Supreme Court decision. I always sort of mixed in some poker rules and so I made sure to have three-of-a-kind or at least a pair of verses in the tougher debates. I discovered that if I had at least a pair of bible verses I could respectfully hold my own in theological debates and on term papers.  The second legal skill I discovered worked well at seminary was to take verses used against an assertion and do, what I called in my law practice, a “judo flip of the other side’s argument.” I’d take a verse that purportedly opposed my idea and show how it actually supported my assertion. This is particularly effective with people who insist the bible must be read literally and without interpretation, because the bible is the be-all-end-all of debates for them. Okay, for the price of admission to worship this morning, you just got about two years worth of law schooling! Find binding precedence and flip your opponent’s arguments against them.I am being a bit light heartedly smug about arguing – and it may, perhaps, even sound crass– but it’s really not. Unless you take your theology spoon-fed testing your’s and others’ notions and understandings of God against tradition, other verses and contemporary thinking helps you and all of us in the community to grow.

In fact Jesus does this type of intellectual sparing. For instance in Luke we hear him asked how he can work on the Sabbath picking grain and healing people. Jesus goes to the bible in reply noting that David broke Torah to eat and he points out the Sabbath was made to do good not harm. Two judo flips, two bible references. Score one for Jesus!

I mention all this, because I want to look at John 3:16 and flip a common interpretation of this verse completely on it’s head. No matter what you have heard about this verse, take a deep breath and set it all aside for a moment. It won’t hurt.

 Okay, I think most of you know this verse pretty well already but humor me and let bring down the screens for a second and read aloud the KJV of John 3:16 . ” For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”  Let’s begin by reading it literally. Who does God love? The World. Not just the Jewish followers of Jesus that John is addressing. Not just Christians who believe as fundamentalists do. Not just UCCers, like us. The whole world – literally no exceptions.  And it is a whole lot of God Love, so much Love that what happens as a result of that love for the world? God gives God’s child to the world.And what happens to those who believe in that child? They shall not perish but have everlasting life. Well, literally can you believe in the Jesus, but not believe he is the only Way? I believe in Bill Cosby, I have seen him live and on T.V. I believe in him. I am sure that most Jews, and Muslims and Buddhists can claim they believe in Jesus, in the sense that he was a historic person, though I doubt they’d think he is the only Way to God. John 3:16 does not literally say you must do anything more than believe in “him.”And wait a second God is a “him” in this verse as well. Literally speaking you can read this to mean God gave his Son and whoever believes in him, God, (not the Son) shall not perish and will get eternal life.

So some of you by now may be secretly groaning at the lawyer tricks. . .legal skills by now. But I am only reading it literally. See it is impossible to read it literally without some interpretation. Which him is it? Well it is probably the Son, but can you see how it could be interpreted as God?

Alright let’s assume that it is the Son at issue and so belief makes you non-perishable and gets believers eternal life. Well, first of all is this literally true? Have you ever met a Christian that is or was non-perishable? St Francis died and so he perished. Sister Teresa died too and perished too. Jerry Falwell died and perished as well. It is safe to say that literally ever Christian who has passed away has literally perished.

But let’s say that a non-perishable Christian means their souls live forever– they get eternal life.

Okay. Fine. So now what does this famous verse say happens to non-believers? Does it say anywhere that they shall perish? No, it does not. Does it say they in any way forgo eternal life? No, it does not! It says God loves the world, it says some, those who believe (whatever that means) in him (presumably Jesus), get eternal life.

Importantly it does not say those who don’t believe don’t also get eternal life. Nor does it say that they can’t otherwise find a way to eternal life; and it certainly does not say that non-believers are damned to hell. John 3:16 literally does not pronounce Christians alone as saved– nor does it condemn others in the world. That’s a judo flip. It’s also a verse that says God loves the whole world, not just Christians.

Now you may be thinking – as I surmise some in seminary did– something like:”Oh come on all this fancy word play is smoke and mirrors. Anyone can isolate a verse and play around with it.” Well, my response is “Hey, I read it literally and did not add anything to it and it says what it says don’t blame me.” The judo flip is built-in.

And I’ll even dare to go to the next verse John 3:17. Make that I will dare anyone who read John 3:16 as condemning the world to go to John 3:17. Here is what it says in the NRSV: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

The world is literally not condemned by God’s sending the Son, but rather through him it might be saved. No condemnation. None. The Son was literally only meant to be a way to save.

The word translated as “save” in Greek means to deliver or protect, to heal, preserve or make whole.1. Jesus the Christ is a means, a gate an access an opening in the universe through which the world can be protected and made whole. Now that’s my kind of salvation. Jesus is a blessing to the world not just to Christians.

How could he be a blessing to the world if his coming means those who don’t believe in him will be condemned? How could God, whom we are told loves the world, have literally sent his Son “not to condemn the world” while at the same time causing the world to be condemned for not believing in him? This is not lawyer’s trick it is literally an impossibility.

I am running out of time but Verses 18 and 19 which were not in the Lectionary reading go on to indicate that those who do not believe are in Greek “judged” and the judgment is that those who are deemed to have loved darkness rather than light are found to be evil, the Greek word for evil actually means hurtful, but, note that there is no mention of hell!

The Old Testament Lectionary reading for today is from Genesis 12 (the verse I read at the invocation). Genesis 12 indicates that Abraham was sent to be a blessing not just to his family or the families of the Jewish people. We are told he was to be a blessing to all families. God did not send Abraham to the world to only work in favor of the Jews, or to condemn non-Jews. God gave Abraham as vehicle through which all the world would be blessed.

It is no accident that this verse in coupled with John 3:16. Like Abraham it is through Jesus that all families of the earth are to be blessed. How? Through us. Jesus saves, protects and makes the world whole, not by our belief in him, but in our faithful actions through him.

Our good deeds are Christ’s good deeds . . . are God’s good deeds.

Sometimes the deeds take a long time to render salvation. Like abolition and the civil rights movement. Sad, but, true it took thousands of years to recognize slavery as evil. It’s taken another 100 years to get serious moves going on with civil rights in this country. Sometimes it takes time.

But sometimes we can move more quickly to help save our own part of the world, protect and make whole our communities and our friends and neighbors.

The five people who have been commissioned as Stephen Ministers today are going out in the world to literally do just that. Their mission is not to save the world by converting personal beliefs, their mission is far greater that. It is one of the missions and ministries that we are all called to. It’s not romantic stuff of stereo typical save the world concepts. It is the save-the-world stuff of everyday reality where salvation can come in the form of an ear that listens, a mouth speaks care and comfort, or just being Christ’s presence in the moment for someone in trouble or in need.

These Stephen ministers’ belief in God’s begotten Son has led them to take up Scared Holy tasks like care for people who are grieving, injured, let down by others or even let down by themselves.

Their belief in God’s begotten Son has led them to offer care for folks facing surgery in the hospital or those in waiting rooms.

Their belief in God’s begotten Son has led them to offer to care for those in the darkness and confusion of divorce, death and despair.

The Stephen Ministers have spent many, many hours in lessons and prayer leading to this day when they could be commissioned to go into the world to save it, to work toward making it whole one person and one moment at a time.

        Help these wonderful sisters and brothers do this         saving the world work.  Let your belief in God’s begotten Son lead you to prayerfully support these outstanding dedicated sisters and brothers and to call on them when you are in need. Let your belief in God’s begotten Son lead you to express your gratitude for a job well done and for these ministers’ availability to provide such a wonderful ministry in this church.  And most of all, remember that today’s sermon was not really about skipping two years of law school, it was about seeing text anew, it’s about understanding that through Jesus we really do help save the world, help transform creation in the here and now by doing our part as followers and believers in God’s begotten Son to help make the world whole.  For God so loved the world he gave us Jesus so that we might do just that; that is, love the world.  And through Jesus we are called to action to save the world. If you remember nothing else remember this God did not send his Son to condemn the world but to save it.   And our church through believers like Tony, Bonnie, David, Doug and Phyllis are going out to do just that!  And you are called to do save the world as well! AMEN.

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