Unfortunately I have two beginnings to today s sermon, and I just couldn t choose-so, here they both are.

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Esmond Flowers
5 years ago
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1 Sermon-2 Lent March 16, 2014 O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen. John 3:1-17 3Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God. 3 Jesus answered him, Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. 4 Nicodemus said to him, How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother s womb and be born? 5 Jesus answered, Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, You must be born from above. 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. 9 Nicodemus said to him, How can these things be? 10 Jesus answered him, Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 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. 17 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. Unfortunately I have two beginnings to today s sermon, and I just couldn t choose-so, here they both are. If you watched sports on television in the 1980s, there is an almost 100% chance you saw a guy in a clown s outfit holding a sign in the end zone, behind the bucket, at the winner s circle of car races and at major golf tournaments or behind home plate. What did the sign say? That s right: John 3:16. The man s name was Rollen Stewart. He had a stormy life, severe mood swings and after 13 years causing great headaches for tv cameras, began to preach that the rapture was coming. In 1992 he was arrested for trying to kidnap some guys and is now serving 3 life sentences in jail for attempted kidnapping and setting off stink bombs. 1

2 But everyone who watched sports for about 13 years remembers Rollen Steward, the Rainbow man, and the Bible verse that he was holding up, right? Ok, that s one. Here s the second one. I go in to see my barber about 10 days ago, and I say to him, is it time for me to shave my head? And he says, oh no, you have a lot of hair-look at all this? and he holds up about 4 hairs. He says, I m not just saying this because of my job, but because it s true-you re a long way from being bald. I bring this up because there is a phrase that every minister really really hates, and we hear it-a LOT. People, complete strangers, will seek me out in Kroger s to say this to me, they will say, I am not religious, I m. People think we hate it because if everyone was spiritual instead of religious we wouldn t have a job. I won t speak for other clergy, but I hate hearing it because it implies that people who are religious, aren t spiritual-and nothing could be further from the truth. But, ok, later on that. Ok, John 3:16, thanks to one guy, the best known Bible verse there is, and you re not religious, you re spiritual. Hold on to those. I am not a big fan of John the gospel writer. For a lot of reasons. Jesus never feels real in the gospel of John, I always feel as though I am being set up for a speech. Lots of reasons, but every third year, in year A, instead of the gospel of Matthew, we hear stories from the gospel of John in Lent. Not just stories, but GREAT stories. And this is the year. Starting with this week and continuing for the next 3weeks we hear wonderful stories from John-stories that are only in John. Like this one. And each week the story will go like this, Jesus will have a confrontation with someone having a terrible spiritual dilemma. The stories go into great detail, and great depth as John describes what the problem is. In each story, Jesus interacts with the individual, but you get the impression that a large crowd will be affected by what happens. What I like about each week s stories is that they each engage a different spiritual battle that I also fight.

3 Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews, comes to Jesus-at night. In John, the time of day always means something. This is mysterious, shadowy stuff, that s what John is saying. Nicodemus is scared, he s anxious. And he comes to Jesus and says, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God in other words, I know you re different, I know you re special-but and then starts the confusion, the struggle. Nicodemus suspects Jesus is different, but he doesn t know for sure who Jesus is, or what he is about. Nicodemus struggles throughout this conversation. Who are you-and what does that mean for me? Nicodemus doesn t know what to believe or what it means for him if he does. Nicodemus is scared of faith, scared of believing, scared to trust in Jesus. Maybe this isn t a problem for you-but it has been for me. Karoline Lewis writes: What does it mean that faith is ambiguous (for Nicodemus)? Perhaps it has to do with how belief is played out in the Fourth Gospel. We tend to talk about "our faith" or "having faith," assuming that it is a done deal, that believing is as simple as acquiring faith. But the Gospel of John never refers to faith as a noun. Faith is not a possession, not something that one gets, not something that one has--it is something that one does. Believing for the characters in the Fourth Gospel is a verb. And as a verb, believing is subject to all of the ambiguity,(all) the uncertainty, and (all) the indecisiveness of being human. We need to ask more often than we are willing to admit, [like Nicodemus] "how can these things be?" We need to take seriously what faith looks like when it is active, living, permeable, and dynamic. We need to consider earnestly that having God (in the flesh) may require an (in the flesh) faith -- that believing is just as complicated as it is to be human. I loved that phrase, believing is just as complicated as being human. We are always trying to make spirituality, faith, believing, so simple. Think about your life-what important parts of your life are simple? Your family? Your friendships? Your career? 3

4 Important things, critical parts of our lives are not simple-which is why we struggle with them, wrestling, wondering, arguing, debating. That s what we do with things that are important. Nicodemus is trying to figure out-is Jesus the one-and if he is, what s that mean for him. Have you ever struggled with that? Ever wondered if Jesus is the oneor should I be looking someplace else? Listen to Nicodemus: How can anyone be born after having grown old? (4a) Can one enter a second time into the mother s womb and be born? (4b) How can these things be? (9) Nicodemus wants to know the meaning of life, and the meaning of his life. And Jesus tells him that he has to start all over again. And Nicodemus doesn t understand, he is literally, in the dark. Nicodemus wants it, faith, Jesus, to be simple. He wants to understand. But, faith isn t something we possess, something we either have or don t have, faith is something we are constantly growing into. Faith is a verb, we are always working on it, always questioning, striving, working at, trying to understand. Some days we aren t there and we just say, it s a Nicodemus day. John Calvin declares that the mind of Nicodemus was filled with many thorns, choked by many noxious herbs.... And some days, so are we. God didn t send Jesus because we were perfect -always trusting, always believing, always having the right faith. Listen to verse 17: God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Jesus came to save us, to offer us hope, to bring us strength, to make life worth living. Don t worry if some days we don t get it, don t understand it, struggle to believe. The world s salvation doesn t depend on us-it relies on God. This first week in the stories of John, this great story of Nicodemus, is about a man who desperately wants to believe, wants to have faith, but he is in the dark. He is

5 religious, and he desperately wants to be spiritual. He s confused and scared. And yet he comes to ask Jesus-are you the one. It is not simple. But he starts down the road where faith continually challenges, constantly dares. It is not an easy road. Nicodemus will show up several times in the gospel of John. Today s story is just the first time. Each time Nicodemus arrives at a critical point in Jesus life, and is unsure what to do. In a sense we are all Nicodemus-all wanting to know for sure all struggling with our faith, but even when we have to walk in the darkness we still come to Jesus wanting to know how we can begin our lives, and live out our faith. This is the first of four great stories, and will push us down the road in Lent as we watch other people try to figure out how to be religious and spiritual-and still keep their hair. Amen. Recently on your America Online site you posted your old column about Rock'n Rollen Stewart, the guy who used to hold up those "John 3:16" signs at sports events. You may be interested to know that Stewart is now serving a life sentence in jail. Name withheld, via AOL Cecil replies: Yipes. I lost track of Rollen after talking to him in At the time he struck me, and I'd say most people, as a harmless if obsessed flake. Shows how wrong you can be. A few years later Stewart went completely off his nut, staged a series of bombings, and wound up in prison after a bizarre kidnapping stunt. The whole story is told in The Rainbow Man/John 3:16, a new documentary by San Francisco filmmaker Sam Green. If you doubt that too much TV is bad for you, you won't after seeing this flick. Stewart's problems started during his childhood in Spokane, Washington. His parents were alcoholics. His father died when Rollen was seven. His mother was killed in a house fire when he was 15. That same year his sister was strangled by her boyfriend. A shy kid, Rollen got into drag racing in high school, married his first love, and opened a speed shop. But his wife soon left him. Crushed, he sold the shop and moved to a mountain ranch where he became a marijuana farmer, tried to grow the world's longest mustache, and watched a lot of TV. In 1976, looking for a way to make his mark, Rollen conceived the idea of becoming famous by constantly popping up in the background of televised sporting events. Wearing a multicolored Afro wig (hence the nickname "Rainbow Man"), he'd carry a battery-powered TV to keep track of the cameras, wait for his moment, then jump into the frame, grinning and giving the thumbs-up. Rollen figured he'd be able to parlay his 5

6 underground (OK, background) celebrity into a few lucrative TV gigs and retire rich. But except for one Budweiser commercial, it didn't happen. Feeling depressed after the 1980 Super Bowl, he began watching a preacher on the TV in his hotel room and found Jesus. He began showing up at TV events wearing T- shirts emblazoned with "Jesus Saves"-type slogans and various Bible citations, most frequently John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," etc.). Later accompanied by his wife, a fellow Christian he married in the mid- 80s, he spent all his time traveling to sports events around the country, lived in his car, and subsisted on savings and donations. He guesses he was seen at more than a thousand events all told. This brings us to the late 80s. By now Rollen had gotten his 15 minutes of fame and was the target of increasing harassment by TV and stadium officials. His wife left him, saying he had choked her because she held up a sign in the wrong location. His car was totaled by a drunk driver, his money ran out, and he wound up homeless in LA. Increasingly convinced that the end was near, Rollen decided to create a radically different media character. He set off a string of bombs in a church, a Christian bookstore, a newspaper office, and several other locations. Meanwhile he sent out apocalyptic letters that included a hit list of preachers, signing the letters "the Antichrist." Rollen says he wanted to call attention to the Christian message, and while this may seem like a sick way to go about it, it wasn't much weirder than waving signs in the end zone at football games. In any case, no one was hurt in the bombings, which mostly involved stink bombs. On September 22, 1992, believing the Rapture was only six days away and having prepared himself by watching TV for 18 hours a day, Stewart began his last "presentation." Posing as a contractor, he picked up two day laborers in downtown LA, then drove to an airport hotel. Taking the men up to a room, he unexpectedly walked in on a chambermaid. In the confusion that followed he drew a gun, the two men escaped, and the maid locked herself in the bathroom. The police surrounded the joint, and Rollen demanded a three-hour press conference, hoping to make his last national splash. He didn't get it. After a nine-hour siege the cops threw in a concussion grenade, kicked down the door, and dragged him away. About to be given three life sentences for kidnapping, Rollen threw a tantrum in the courtroom and now blames everything on a society that's "bigoted toward Jesus Christ." A cop who negotiated with him by phone during the hotel standoff had a better take on it: "With all due respect, maybe you look at a little bit too much TV." For info on the Rainbow Man documentary, write Sam Green, 2437 Peralta St., suite C, Oakland, CA 94607

Sermon- Year B-4 Lent-March 15, 2015 The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and

Sermon- Year B-4 Lent-March 15, 2015 The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of that Life