"God so loves the world..."
God So Loves The World
John 3:16-18
If you are of a certain age, then maybe the most vivid memory of our text this morning is of a guy wearing a clown wig at an N.F.L. football game or some other big public event. He was always in the endzone, perfectly positioned so that when the field goal or the extra point was being kicked, he would be visiible for all the world to see: “John 3:16!” The guy’s name was Rollen Stewart. Apparently, after living a rather wild life, he became a born-again Christian. The clown costume and the sign were his way of sharing the “good news,” until 1992, when he was arrested and convicted on three kidnapping charges. He received three life sentences. Of course, this was not John 3:16’s fault…
Generally, I tend to avoid preaching John 3:16 but only partly because of Rollen Stewart. (Who, after all, wants to be associated with the clown guy/kidnapper, right?). What I really don’t want to be associated with are Christian billboards and Christian evangelicals in general. There are a group of Christians—the big time heaven and hell folks, the ones who seem to take special delight in fleshing out the sufferings of hell—who yell and scream, “John 3:16!”all day long.
I have two issues with them when they do this. One “beef” is not wanting to be that kind of Christian, the one who believes that Jesus came to teach us how to save people from hell. It’s a theological problem but it’s also a leisure suited, pancake make up, “Let’s make the name, ‘Jesus’ have four syllables (Ja-he-u-zuz)” objection, too. I don’t want to have to keep explaining that I am a pastor but I’m not that kind of pastor all day long.
The more substantial “beef” that I have with those folks is that I think the “bury the lead” on this text. They emphasize the wrong message. Traditionally, for a lot of Christians, the mesmerizing part of the message of this text is that Jesus was sacrificed and that sacrifice was for whoever believed in him. It’s a vision that recalls the moment in the Old Testament when Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham took Isaac to the mountain top and was ready to roll until God stopped him at the last moment. (Isaac was no doubt traumatized for the rest of his life!) Thinking about Jesus as the sacrificial lamb of God resonated with centuries of sacrifices of animals at the temple to get right with God. “Of course God would work this way because that’s how things work at ‘God’s house!.’ In other words, having seen this “atonement sacrifice” all the time, a listener in John’s day would have focused on that meaning. And, having sung a thousand hymns in their lifetimes about “the blood of the lamb,” it’s hard for evangelical Christians to see anything else, either. We see what we have been taught to see.
Here’s the thing, though. The notion of an “atoning sacrifice,” to be honest, it is an old and dated understanding that doesn’t speak to me. I don’t go to temples to sacrifice animals so that I can get right with God. Can you imagine if that’s what we did on Sunday mornings? I believe in a God who would much rather see us care for animals than slaughter them to make a point. And, if you have been listening to me for any length of time, I think you know that the bottom line on Jesus wasn’t that he came to pay off our debts. I think he came to save us from wasting our lives by focussing on the wrong things. I think he came to show us how to really live, in this lifetime, in this world.
Back to the text…I said it a minute ago. Folks bury the lead on this text all the time. What does that mean? It means the newsworthy part of the story doesn’t appear until three paragraphs into the story. You want to lead with the news, with what’s worth knowing, with what you want your readers to carry away. Tell me what matters—what happened—then, once that’s been established, spend some time helping me understand what happened. Give me the facts up front. Then, help me to make sense of those facts.
Understand…John’s not burrying the lead. It’s centuries of preachers and guys with signs in the end zone who have. Here is the lead: “For God so loved the world…” I want us to stop and consider what this really means and just how revolutionary this notion is…
Start here…in the ancient world, the “gods” might accept us or be kind to us of give us what we want, but if and only if (and that’s a giant IF)…if we do what they want. The sun god might shine on your crops but only if you make a huge sacrifice at that god’s altar. The fertility god might bless you with a child but only if you stop at that altar and “buy off” that god, too. Whatever it is that you want most, there’s always a god for that (just like there’s always an “ap” for our needs today) and beside each of those altars will be a person who knows what they want, too—your money or your crops or your absolute loyalty which they intend to reap because apparently they own the rights to that “god.”
Lest we think this was only true in ancient days, consider one contemporary example—the deep desire that many people have to never age. In our world, there are so many altars to visit—the gym, the beauty counter, the plastic surgeon’s office—all of which are about looking and feeling youthful and defying the truth that we age every day that we’re alive. Open up your wallet, widen your moisturizing rituals, try this new supplement, do three days of leg work and three days of upper body work and on the seventh day thou shall rest. As soon as a human need is rocognized, someone will show up to exploit that need.
Of all the needs that we have, the most universal need may be this core insecurity that human beings carry with us every day: am I good enough; do I measure up; am I worthy; am I lovable? We spend so much time in our lives being haunted by such questions. As a baby, when our parent doesn’t show up in our moment of need, we might be outraged at first but most babies then double-down on connecting more deeply with the parent to keep this from ever happening again. They make more eye contact. They learn to smile. They pat the parent lovingly. It’s pretty transactional. This is what I have to give you to get what I want.
If I’m lucky enough to have parents who love me, my world expands and I ask a whole new question: “Fine…my parents love me but what about these other people all around me?” We experiment with identities, trying them on to discover which versions of me draw attention and praise from a teacher or an appreciative laugh from the rest of the class. We mold ourselves continuously for the sake of fitting in, in the hope of being accepted, with the dream of being loved by someone other than those loving parents who have to love us because they’re our parents.
Again, there are lots of people who recognize this desire and use it to manipulate us. We all had that boyfriend or girlfriend who recognized our insecurity and vulnerability and used us, right? We had the coach or the teacher whose own needs to be loved or admired and those needs dictated who they were with us. We all live in a society that tells us a thousand different ways in a day that we are this close to getting the admiration, the acceptance, the joy, and the love that we want…if only…we change what we wear or drive a different car or join in the joy of a pumpkin spice latte.
Honestly, sometimes you have to wonder would the world just end if we were ever satisfied, if we ever took a look inside of ourselves and around ourselves and thought, “You know what, I think I’m good. I think this is enough.” Of course, in an isntant, satisfaction could turn into it’s own competition: “Hey, I’m satisfied, too, but I think I’m more satisfied than you;” “Hey, I’m leading a simple life and I think I need even less than you.” That’s how we end up with a small group of people who are totally committed to living in tinier and tinier “tiny houses.”
Here’s what’s funny at this point in this sermon, though: in the hopes of explaining what it means to “bury the lead,” I’ve buried the lead again! It’s not news that human beings are insecure and that exploiting this insecurity has made a lot of people rich, but not rich enough that they aren’t looking for a new and improved way to get richer. That’s old news. That’s also an apt description in my view of what pretty much every religion has been guilty of doing: making itself indespensible in people’s lives by convincing people that they’ll never get what they want or be satisfied unless they worship with us and not them. (Oh no…I just buried the lead again!)
Here’s the news. The news, according to John, but revealed by Jesus of Nazareth is that God already loves us. We may not be entirely or irresistably lovable but the verdict is already in and we are loved. Just so we don’t let this go to our heads, it’s not about us. It’s about who God is—namely—that God is a loving God. It’s what God does. It’s what God wants us to do. And God, being God, knows us well enough to know that we’re never going to get on with the business of loving the people around us unless we are loved first. “So…fine…I’ll go first: I love you.”
Apparently, God, unlike so many churches, doesn’t see the marketing opportunity that is there in manipulating human beings! God could add a bunch of “if onlys” to the equation but, God has a good enough memory to recall how the whole “ten commandments” experiment went. “I’ll be your God and you will be my people but only if you keep these rules. No one kept the rules. They debated the rules. They added rules. We still don’t keep the rules.
No…God so loves the world and God so understands human beings that this time God’s going to become one of us and show us how it’s done. God’s going to show us what a loving life looks like. Jesus didn’t come as a “get out of jail free” card. God isn’t using Jesus to pay off some debt that’s owed to God. Jesus is not a lamb being sacrificed on our behalf. Rather, Jesus is showing us that if we lead a loving life we will have to be willing to be self-sacrificing, which is an entirely different matter than some temple sacrifice.
Our parents understood what it means to be self-sacrificing when they loved us: when we cried, they got up in the middle of the night; when we were sad, they comforted us; when we needed to be changed they held their noses and approached us with a diaper and wipes in hand. It’s a messy, inconvenient, exhausting business—this whole love thing—and that’s when we adore that baby.
Here’s the kicker, though: God doesn’t just love us. God so loves the world! And, in what seems like a grossly overblown expectation on God’s part, God actually expects us to so love the world, too. The person we like and the one we can’t stand—we’re supposed to love them all. Jesus showed us that. This life? We’re supposed to cherish it. Jesus showed us that, too. And the really hard moments of being loving? Jesus told us to take up our crosses and follow him. Then, he picked up his cross and started walking.