No Rooting, Shooting, or Fruiting... Just Abiding

John 15: 1-8

Jesus said, ”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

So, do you prefer cane pruning or spur pruning?  Cane pruners, do you like the Guyot or Guyot Double?  Spur pruners, the Cordon Simple, the Cordon Double, or the Goblet?  When Jesus first said, “I am the true vine” the people he was talking with would all have had first hand experience with viticulture.  Either they would have owned a vineyard or they would have worked in a vineyard during pruning and harvest time.  That knowledge of viticulture isn’t as universal here in the Berkshires in 2024! 

 

So, if we’re going to get something out of this Gospel lesson, we’re going to need to learn a little about growing wine grapes!  The first thing to know is that left to their own devices, grapes will grow very long vines and make lots of leaves leaving little to no energy left for fruit.  So, in a vineyard, grapes are RADICALLY pruned so the plant if forced to put a lot more energy into fruit production than it would on it’s own.  But we also need to know that with too much fruit, you’ll damage the health of the vine.  The skillful pruner will shape the vine, while it’s dormant in the winter, so that in the summer there’s a healthy balance between foliage and high quality fruit. 

To get that right, a shocking amount has to be pruned.  90% of the previous year’s growth is cut away!  The first time you prune grapes it feels TERRIBLE and because of that the biggest mistake people make is that they are tempted to keep too much from the past.  “It was so good last year!  I don’t want to get rid of what was SO good!” BUT, here’s the truth about grapes... GOOD FRUIT DOES NOT GROW ON LAST YEAR’S BRANCHES.  

The vine grower prunes 90% of last year’s branches away because the Vine Grower KNOWS that healthy fruit only develops on new growth.  So after the pruning there are only a couple of two inch long branches on each side of the vine and on each one of these stubby branches there are only a couple of buds left.  It is from just those couple of branches, each with a couple of buds that come all of the coming year’s foliage and fruit.  

Jesus is the vine.  You and I are those stubby, two inch long branches.  And still, we want to be the ones telling the Vine Grower how it should be done, aren’t we?  We’re tempted to hang on to what was..  After all, what we had was WONDERFUL!  It grew AMAZING fruit!  It was so SWEET.  It was SO PLENTIFUL and so, even though our IQ as two inch long branches isn’t in the same league as that of the Vine Grower, we often try ANYTHING to keep what was from being pruned away.

  

Jesus didn’t randomly pick GRAPES to illustrate his points.  Jesus picked GRAPES on purpose, because Jesus knew that we, like grapes, grow wild on our own.  Jesus knew that we, like grapes, when we hold onto the parts of us that grew good fruit in the past, we too would become unbalanced, unhealthy and less productive going forward.  This lesson then implores us to trust the Vine Grower EVEN when that means 90% of what happened before gets cut back to just a little branch with a couple of tiny buds!  

This lesson also teaches us that after our pruning, our job as two inch little branches is not to grow vines or leaves or even fruit.  Our job, as branches… in fact OUR ONLY job, is to ABIDE.  Our job, as individuals and as a congregation, is to live deeply connected, both to the vine… to Jesus… and to the other branches… one another… and to the world around us.  Here at the church end we’re fed and nourished.  Here on this end we take in all the love, compassion, grace, and generosity that God in Christ gives us. THEN as a congregation, we turn right around in the length of our short two inch branchyness and send it all out into the new-this-year shoots where the fruits of God’s sweetness will counter the bitterness and sourness of our world.  Jesus said, “I am the True Vine” and you and I… we’re the branches.  The stubby, two inch long branches.  We’re not in charge of rooting, shooting, or fruiting!  Our job is abiding, we’re the highway that moves God's love, compassion, and hope out into the world.  We’re the vehicle baby!…  the rest is for the Vine Grower to worry about.  

I don’t know about you but I need help remembering that.  That’s one of the many reasons we gather here each week… to support one another in our mutual struggle to genuinely trust the Vine Grower and the True Vine.  That’s hard!  We’re being asked to trust the Vine Grower with the pruning shears!  Let them take all the dead wood they see fit to take.  It’s hard with all that chopping and changing going on around us to simply abide.  To trust and embrace… to be still and know that our collective job is abiding intimately and fully with one another in the True Vine.  It’s hard… which is why we really do need each other giving each other constant reminders that the Vine Grower really does know their business better than we ever could.  We need each other so that we won’t forget that the Vine Grower will, in the right time, make THROUGH us, an abundant and memorable, beautiful and glorious harvest of fruit, sweet enough to balance our all too often bitter and sour world and then, as Julian of Norwich said,… “all will be well and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”  Amen. 

Oddly Specific Fish

Luke 24: 36b-48

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

When Jesus said, “Peace be with you” he wasn’t saying, “Hey, guys you look super stressed out.  You should really like, you know, get some peace, man.”  No.  Jesus was ORDERING peace to get into the disciples!  “Hey Peace!  See these disbelieving, wondering, freaked out disciples still hiding behind a locked door?  Get in them now!”  Those disciples couldn’t get peace on their own!  Heck, they couldn’t even go OUTSIDE on their own!  In their entirely understandable, overwhelmingly human, completely flesh and blood, shocked disciple brains… they needed peace, not SUGGESTED to them… No, they needed to be grabbed by the shoulders, thrown in the shower and the handle labeled “peace which passes all understanding” turned on them full blast until they were soaked to the bone with it!  

We forget, I think, how traumatic this was for them!  We’ve heard the story our whole lives.  It’s familiar rather than shocking for us.  But remember, the guy they had been following for years, who they gave up jobs, family, friends and everything to follow… had just being brutally crucified!  Then his grave was empty!  Then BAM!  Jesus just appears!  Out of nowhere!  Into their living room! 

Do you remember how hard it was to even think straight during the hight of the pandemic?  That might be as close as we ever get to where the disciples minds were at in this time.  So it was into that sort of mind-numbing stress that Jesus appears and says, “Hey, you got anything to eat?”  Wait!  Huh?  Jesus Christ!  They’ve just been through a horror that’ll be told for millennia to come and you want… SNACKS!?  Apparently so… and so the disciples found him some broiled fish.  Not grilled, fried or poached but strangely and specifically broiled.   

It turns out that Jesus is pretty smart, and a bit tricksy too.  By asking the disciples this everyday question, “Hey, you guys got some snacks?”  Jesus helps them rise out the place they’ve been stuck.  With that simple question, Jesus gave their brains a chance at doing something more than just worry if the door is REALLY locked or not.  Human brains can’t resist thinking about a question.  It happens subconsciously, so a question asked is a question wondered about, and in that moment of wondering, locked mental doors are opened and that created the chance for the disciples to at least consider unlocking the physical door as well.  

Jesus first ordered the peace they needed to get into them, then he gave them a chance to step out from constant panic and onto The Way they had walked with Jesus before Good Friday.  The fact that Jesus came to them, through locked doors, gave them first the peace they couldn’t find on their own and then gave them a way to get unstuck… simply because those two things were what they needed most… that fact that Jesus did that, is something worth remembering.  Because THAT is something that Jesus does… not just for those original disciples, but for all of us disciples when our lives are at their worst.  

Luke was also up to something sneaky in this story as well.  You see, at the time Luke was writing this Gospel, there was a debate over how the faithful were to follow Jesus on this side of his death, resurrection, and ascension.  Some argued that since Jesus was now up in heaven, his disciples should now only concern themselves with spiritual things.  The worries of the flesh… physical, fleshy, earthly things like sickness, injustice, wounds, and hunger were simply inevitable consequences of a broken, flesh-filled world… and therefore should no longer be their concern. 

But Luke included this story because when HE saw that the resurrected Jesus had real, earthly, flesh and blood wounds and real, earthly, human, stomach-growling hunger… HE could see that Jesus was JUST as concerned with those physical things NOW as he had been before his death!  And if Jesus was still concerned with those things, then we disciples sure better be concerned with those things now as well!  

Luke reminded those early followers… that Jesus was PHYSICALLY present, giving his peace.  They touched his PHYSICAL wounds, and fed his PHYSICAL stomach with an oddly specific piece of broiled fish so there would me no mistaking it for just a symbolic or spiritual meal.  All those human, earthly concerns that Jesus had for people before Good Friday… THOSE were still Jesus’ concerns after Easter as well!

This story is included here in Luke’s Gospel to remind us that our focus is to be here… in THIS world, caring for our neighbors.  That there is nothing that should stop us from that work… AND when we inevitably get stuck because of the horrors of this life, Jesus will come to us… will break through our fears no matter how locked in them we’ve become… and will send his PEACE into our lives.  Then with that peace we will once again be set free from our fears and once again start walking again the Jesus Way amongst our neighbors, transforming a world that deals in death and crushes life, into a world that lifts all of creation into the abundant life God created for us all to live.  Amen.

Loon-a-palooza

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Tomorrow a solar eclipse will be visible along a swath of the country from Texas to Maine.  While the moon has, from time to time, ever since there was a moon, come to a point in it’s orbit where it passes between the earth and the sun and has cast a shadow on the earth as a result, this has not kept the right wing conspiracy theorists from their appointed rounds.  On the contrary, they’ve seemed to take this very normal thing and turned it into some kind of Loon-a-palooza!   

From the path of the eclipse forming the Hebrew letters that signify the end of the world, to the ushering in of a new world order led by billionaires, to an opportunity for masons, occultists, satanists, and gnostics to perform rituals that will do unspeakable things, or NASA’s “rocket launch” that is ACTUALLY a cover for the government’s worship of an Ancient Egyptian snake god… the conspiracy theorists have, in this past week, cranked Loon-a-palooza up to eleven!  

But this coming week’s craziness over a shadow, and today’s Gospel lesson do give us an opportunity to talk about how the Church has handled conspiracy theories in the past.  The first opportunity is in the way the Gospel of John and his community use of the phrase, “The Jews”.  While John didn’t intend this phase to be used to create an antisemitic conspiracy theory (John and his community were Jewish, after all) it’s been used that way by the church and others in genuinely horrific ways over the centuries.  For that, parts of the Christian church including our parts, are now trying to make amends and figure out how to keep that misuse from moving forward.  

Some suggest just eliminating that phrase and substituting something else, such as “The Judeans” but for me, the best way to address this conspiracy theory is to address it the same way we address any conspiracy theory.  Ask questions.  Use our minds, and intellect.  Consult with experts, do the research, and share the truth.  When we do that we find that in John’s community “The Jews” were shorthand for the religious leaders who had sold out to the Romans and were doing whatever they needed to do, right or wrong, to stay in power.  

So, with some good questions and research into those questions and the use of a relatively few brain cells, we can easily find out BOTH, that NASA is NOT using the eclipse as a chance to worship an Egyptian snake god AND that John did NOT intend for anyone to demonize or persecute people of the Jewish faith!  With that knowledge and understanding we are now able to do our part to ask forgiveness for the sins of past generations, repair the rifts with our Jewish neighbors that we’ve inherited, and build new, healthy and fruitful relationships with our Jewish neighbors going forward.    

That idea that asking questions, using our minds and intellect and sharing the truth is the best way for us to combat all sorts of destructive conspiracy theories is actually EXACTLY what we see Thomas doing in today’s Gospel!  Thomas, very understandably, told the rest of the disciples that he wasn’t going to believe… he wasn’t going to give his heart to the idea that Jesus had been raised from the dead… he wasn’t going to buy into their conspiracy theory without using his brain, doing the research, and seeing for himself.  Then, when Jesus showed up the next time, it looks to me like Jesus was just fine with the way Thomas handled that unbelievable news!  Jesus didn’t shame Thomas.  Jesus simply showed him the evidence.  Jesus didn’t get mad at Thomas for not leaving his brain at the door.  Jesus didn’t chastise him for asking questions.  It seems to me, when you set aside all that’s been drummed into our heads over the years about "Doubting" Thomas and just read the text, Jesus was just fine with the way Thomas came to believe.  Jesus, it seems, is just fine with Thomas using his intellect and experience to not just immediately dive into the deep end of a crazy conspiracy theory.  Jesus seems to be just fine with Thomas bringing his brain into that locked room with him and not just hanging it on a hook out in the hallway.  So once again, in contrast to those attending Loon-a-palooza this week... reason, experience, hard questions, and intelligence turn out to all be VERY welcome EVEN by Jesus. 

I would like to be able to tell you that this week’s Loon-a-palooza will be the world’s last… but it won’t.  But what I can tell you is that as you go about your day to day lives, both inside the church and out…  and as you think about things both secular and religious, taking your God given brain with you into any room including this one, asking questions of any kind, even the hardest kind, and taking the time to talk to experts and do the research using your intellect and experience... doing that is not just OKAY with God, but is FULLY and COMPLETELY endorsed by God in Christ Jesus in the resurrected flesh!  

It is okay to doubt.  It’s okay to ask questions.  It is absolutely required for you to take your brain with you into every room you enter.  Because if we don’t learn anything else from this story, we should learn that when God wants to show us what we need to see, God, it seems will find a way.  So blessed are those… blessed are us... who have not seen exactly as Thomas did… but who have come to believe because God, in one way or another, has found a way to show each of us the risen Christ none the less.  Amen.  

It's Easter. Where's Jesus?

Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

In this version of the Easter story you’ve got two Marys, one Salome, two angels… and… um… that’s it.  It’s not like I’m an expert on this whole Bible Thing but… aren’t we missing someone?  It IS Easter Sunday, right?  Yup, lilies, bigger than usual group of people, bonnets.  Yup, it is IS IN FACT Easter.  And Easter IS about Jesus being raised from the dead, right?  Yeah.  So where’s our guy?  Where’s the headliner?  Where is Jesus!?  He’s not there!  You can look again if you want to, it says, “they entered the tomb, they saw a young man blah, blah, blah.  Young man says “Do not be alarmed” Classic.  (Angels always say “don’t be afraid” right after they show up out of nowhere and scare the POO out of you.)  “You’re looking for Jesus” he says.  Yeah, we are too to be honest here.  “He’s been raised, HE’S NOT HERE.”

No Jesus.  That is how Mark’s Gospel ends.  Not just this story, either.  That’s how the WHOLE GOSPEL ends.  What do you think of that ending?  Does it just seem wrong?  You’re not alone, years after Mark wrote it this way, so many people hated it so much they wrote a new ending for Mark’s Gospel.  One with Jesus in it!  They put that NEW ONE in the Bible and told Mark to just deal with it!  

But here’s what I’ve been wondering as I’ve thought about this text and Easter Sunday.  What if Mark was trying to tell us something important by ending his Gospel that way?  What if he wasn’t just a bad writer, terrible at endings, got distracted with a new project or whatever.  What if he was trying to DO SOMETHING with this ending?  What could he have been trying to do?  What could he have been trying to tell us?  

I think it’s worth another look.  So here’s how Mark's Gospel ends, “‘Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  Could it be that Mark was trying to tell us that our job is to just GO?  Go, even when nothing really makes much sense?  Go, even when you are seized with terror?  Go, and tell the story even when you don’t really have all the pieces of the story figured out?  Go, even when you’re tongue tied and don’t know what to say?  Go, even when you have absolutely, not even a tiny inkling of how this story is going to end?  Is Mark telling us for Easter… to Go?  

I still don’t necessarily like this ending, but you have to admit, it sounds a WHOLE LOT like life, doesn’t it?  How often do we GO into the world ONLY when the world makes complete sense?  Yeah, pretty much never… especially this year!  How often do we just have to GO without everything figured out?  How often do we get up in the morning, creak and groan out of bed and have absolutely no idea… not even a tiny inkling, about how that day will end… and we're expected to GO anyway?  Just pretty much every day, I’d say.  

So could it be that Mark was not simply bad at his writing job, but that he wanted to tell you and me that as Christians, we’re not to wait until its all figured out.  It never will be.  We’re not to wait until we’re not scared.  We will always be afraid.  We’re not to wait until the world makes sense, because the world ain’t gonna make ANY sense ANY TIME SOON!

Instead, what we are supposed to do is follow Jesus.  His first stop apparently was in Galilee, but Galilee wasn’t the final destination… in fact, I think Mark was trying to tell us there IS no final destination when it comes to following Jesus because following requires the followers to always keep moving!

That’s us.  We’re the followers.  The followers of Jesus and we’re called to follow EVEN when the world makes no sense, even when we’re terrified, even when we can’t even talk we’re so scared.  We’re called to GO!  That’s the message I think Mark was trying to give us by writing the Easter story this way.  

So let's GO!  Going together makes it a little easier.  So, Go and bring God’s love to the world.  Go and surround the broken with compassion.  Go, even though its terrifying and stand up for the widow and the orphan, the immigrant and the refugee.  Go, and find that little way that you, yourself can inject kindness into your small corner of the world.  Go, even when people tell you it won’t make any difference.  GO.  Jesus, it seems, is already out there ahead of you… out there ahead of all of us… all we've got left to do now, is to Go.  Amen.  

God Goes First

Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

It has been A LOT so far, hasn’t it?  That’s why I want to make sure that in all that we’ve seen and heard and experienced tonight, we haven’t lost the take home message for tonight, which is “God Goes First”.  We saw that in the stories tonight.  In the Creation story, God Goes First, loving all of creation into being and declaring it not just good but VERY GOOD.  After people were created, they were invited to live in response to what God had done, but in the Creation story, God Goes First.  

After the flood, God places the Divine War Bow in the sky with the business end pointed in God’s direction.  “May this go off and shoot me” God is saying, “if I ever try to fix the world ever again through retribution.”  So again after the flood, God Goes First.  Then in the Exodus, God Goes first.  Bringing the people out of Slavery through the Red Sea.  God does this up front, without conditions.   Later, of course,  God invites them to respond to that gift by entering into a covenant built on growing healthy, mutual relationships with God and each other, but DOING the covenant didn’t get God to act.  In Exodus God Goes First.  Then in Isaiah God offers, cajoles, and sells for FREE through the prophet’s words what humanity needs up front and without condition.  God Goes First.  Then in the last story we see Rack, Shack, and Bennie leaning WITH THEIR LIVES into the promise they had FIRST received from God, that God would take care of them.  They were able to do that because God had Gone First. 

 

Now with the lights turned on and alleluias sung, we see it once again in the Resurrection.  God Has Gone First.  With the Resurrection, it wasn’t anyone’s faith that raised Jesus.  Everyone had given up!  Run off!  One even ran off without his drawers!  If Jesus’ resurrection had depended on the people then or even us people now, Jesus would still be in that tomb!  It is ONLY because God Goes First that Jesus is raised from the Dead.  It is only because God Goes First that death no longer has the last word.  It is only because God Goes First that light shines in the darkness!  

So tonight we celebrate and give thanks, because through all of time and space God Goes First.  We celebrate that with stories.   We celebrate with Baptism… Baptism where God Goes First, grabbing hold of us up front, promising to love us unconditionally, forever, no matter what. We celebrate with the Eucharist where all are invited to God’s Table for no other reason than that God wants to share this meal with us! 

God Goes First.  We’re invited to respond to what God has done first, sure.  We’ve even been gifted some really good tips for how to respond in healthy ways.  Jesus spent his life telling us with his words and showing us with his life the Way to respond… but the take home message for tonight remains.  God Goes First and will not undo what God has done, is doing, or promises yet to do, regardless of how we respond.  God Goes First.  Thanks be to God.  Amen. 

Like Endless Waves on a Beach

John 12:20-33

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Do you remember way back at the very beginning of John’s Gospel when Mary came up to Jesus at the Wedding in Cana and told her son to fix the “out of wine” situation?  In that moment Jesus told his mom, “My hour has NOT yet come.”  (Then of course he turned water into wine because not even Jesus tells his mom “no”.)  Well, here we are, three years later in Jesus’ ministry and it turns out that now… NOW, is when Jesus’ hour HAS actually come.  

This was the moment.  The “judgement” of the world.  Not a guilty or innocent kind of judgement.  Not a who’s in and who’s out sort of judgement.  But the kind of judgement that comes from the Greek word “krisis” which is where we get our word, you guessed it, crisis.  This was a crisis for the world.  The moment the world would completely change.  That change would create an opportunity for everyone to walk out of the darkness and become the light... to go from death into life.  That change would also create an opportunity to bring down the powerful and lift up the lowly… to fill the hungry with good things… to scatter the proud… and send the rich away empty.  This was the time that outsiders would be turned into insiders… the time for the world to return to what God created it to be.  

The “Judgement” that the world was going to return to the way God created it to be sounded GREAT to some, but sounded like a horrible crisis to others.  People threatened with the loss of power back then, were just like people threatened with the loss of power today...  and they would do ANYTHING for things not to change.  Greeks included as equal to Jews?  Women to have control of their own bodies?  People of all sexual and gender identities being brought from the outside to the inside?  Borders opened for brown people?  Widows and orphans set on their own two feet?  Debt forgiven?  That much change to the way things have always been is dangerous!  An opportunity for those who had been forgotten, sure, but dangerous for those who have always been in charge. 

Jesus, of course, was the very center of this moment; this opportunity for the lowly and forgotten and this mortal danger for the rich and proud.  This moment was THE moment to which everything in John’s Gospel had pointed and this moment, the moment of opportunity and crisis, was inextricably woven into the moment of his death and resurrection.  That would be the moment the world would be turned upside down… the moment death ceased to have the last word… the moment of infinite opportunity for some and the moment of terrible crisis for others.  THIS was the moment.  

But this moment would not just be a one and done thing.  This moment would then ripple out from there in infinite waves impacting every time and every place from that moment on into eternity.  For those of you who are deeply into Greek grammar… and who among us isn’t, really?  There’s a special Greek verb tense used here that indicates that an action in the past is still affecting the present and will continue to affect the future… forever.  It’s called the Perfect Tense.  So THAT moment was to be THE PERFECT moment in which God turned the world upside down, but like the perfect moment of a stone being dropped into an infinitely large pond.  The ripples from that moment would continue to change the world… to change us… even here… even today.  Today, right here and right now, the changes that began in that moment way back then continue to wash into each of our moments like waves upon a beach.  And just like waves upon a beach, to some they feel like gentle, healing ripples, while to others they feel like world ending tidal waves.  

ALL OF THAT crisis and opportunity is what those Greeks walked into all those years ago.  They knew the dangers of seeing Jesus… the earth shaker, the world changer.  They knew who Jesus was making uncomfortable and angry.  But as outsiders they also knew that in Jesus they had the opportunity to be transformed… to be lifted up to be Children of God… to be accepted unconditionally into a community of faith… to be wrapped up in God’s love and surrounded with God's peace... a peace which passes all understanding… to not just walk in God’s light but to become part of God’s light that shines into the world's darkness.

Those same ripples, from that same moment, are here today, lapping up onto this very moment and they ask us the same question they asked the Greeks.  Will you join with Jesus in this moment… will you join with the earth shaker, the tidal wave maker, the God’s Kingdom bringer and continue to transform the world?  Will you join with the One who says, “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw ALL people to myself” and insist, along with Jesus, that ALL really does mean ALL and that a few or even a bunch just isn’t enough and that only ALL people and ALL of creation will do?  

Because THAT is Christianity!  Joining with Jesus to change the world into a world ruled by radically inclusive love and unlimited compassion, and working on that project endlessly, incessantly, interminably, on and on, tirelessly, perpetually, relentlessly, like the waves of the ocean work on thousand foot high cliffs of stone.  THAT is what those Greeks came to see Jesus about that day.  May we too have the courage of those Greeks to want to see Jesus.  Amen. 

You Keep Using That Word

 John 3:14-21

And 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.”

“Whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  “Everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” “Those who believe in him are not condemned.”  “Those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed.”  “Believing,” it would seem, is REALLY important to this Gospel lesson.  Pretty much the key to it, if we’re being honest, but what Jesus meant by “believing” 2000 years ago turns out to be very different than what most folks think “believing” means now.  Marcus Borg, who was a Biblical scholar, professor and author wrote, “Being Christian is not very much about believing, in the sense of 'believing the right things', even though the notion that it is about believing a set of teachings or doctrines is widespread. That is a relatively recent distortion of Christianity.”

It seems that the change in the meaning of “Believing” happened during the Reformation and in the wake of the Enlightenment.  In the reformation churches divided over doctrine and which doctrine you “believed,” up here in your head, put you either in the right or in the wrong.  Then, when the scientific discoveries of Enlightenment called into question things like the earth being at the center of the universe, what you “believed” about that, up here in your head, again determined right or wrong.  This was where the idea of biblical literalism began and before long “believing” had turned into “believing the right things" including that the Bible was literally true and science was wrong.  The stakes of what you “Believed” up here in your head could not be higher… it was literally heaven or hell.  

But that was not what Jesus meant when he talked about believing.  So, what did he mean?  Borg says that to Jesus, believing meant something like the English word “beloving.”  When Jesus said “BELIEVE” Jesus envisioned you and I having a relationship with God and Jesus characterized by fidelity, devotion, and loyalty.  A steadfast, trustworthy allegiance with God and Jesus.  That connection would be ardent, dependable, reliable, and true.  When Jesus talked about “Believing” he wasn’t talking about what we do up here (point to head).  He was talking about TO what or TO Whom we give this in here (our heart).  

In a few minutes we’ll profess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.  The Latin word “credo” is most often translated into English as “I believe” but that word’s roots tell us it would better translate as “I give my heart to.”  Borg says that even though the creed includes "a list of central Christian convictions… saying the creed does not mean, “‘I believe the following affirmations to be literally true.’ Rather, it means ‘I give my heart to God’ – and then it tells us who that is... The creator of heaven and earth, of all that is.  I give my heart to Jesus – and who’s that?” Well, it was the one born of the virgin Mary... and so on.    

Christianity, it turns out, is not about “believing the right things in our heads.”  Simply “believing the right things” doesn't change us but Christianity is about a transformation of our entire being that shapes the way we see the world, shapes the way we enter into relationships in the world, and shapes the way we live in the world so that what Paul wrote becomes more and more true each day, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”  

Believing isn’t a head thing.  Its a heart thing.  Believing isn’t about thinking… it’s about passion!  A PASSION to be closer to God.  A PASSION for Jesus.  NOT a Passion for the Bible, or a doctrine, or a theology… all which may (or may not) point to Jesus.  It is a passion for Jesus, the person, and a passion for living this life as Jesus lived this life.  

And HOW did Jesus live this life?  With compassion and love, never with hate or division.  With his hands and his feet, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, casting out demons, challenging oppression, standing up to an abusive economic system, raising the dead, weeping with those who mourned.  It is our devotion to that person and our emulation of that person’s way of living in this world… THAT is what Jesus meant by BELIEVING all those years ago.  THAT is what it means to be a Christian.

“Whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  In other words, whoever devotes their lives to living as he did will experience life as God intended it to be!  “Everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  In other words, a devoted connection to Jesus is something that transcends this earthly life. “Those who believe in him are not condemned and those who do not believe are condemned already.”  In other words, those whose hearts are molded after Jesus’ heart are even now experiencing abundant life, while the rest have yet to begin living at all.  

For God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, so that everyone could see a person living this life the way God created it to be lived and attach ourselves to that person as a guide to help get us through this thing called life.  Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might see that the WAY out of the hole humanity had dug for itself wasn’t hard, wasn’t impossible, and wasn’t just for a select few people, but was right there in front of everyone, given to them as a free gift… and that WAY'S name, is Jesus.  Amen.