US John 3:16-17 April 17 2016 I. US and them. But what if there is no them? That is the question we will investigate today. II. First in our investigative journey is one of the greatest battels of all time. A. Bigger than Ali vs Frazier. Bigger than Godzilla vs King Kong. Bigger than Batman vs Superman. B. And I m not exaggerating. It really is bigger and has had a much greater effect upon our world than almost any battle ever waged. C. That battle is none other than--- Luke vs John. Although it is really more of a tag team match with Luke, Matthew and Mark all taking turns against John. D. Yet, in the eyes of many John was the victor, or is winning; since the battle is still being waged. E. Enough pre-game build up on to the battle.
III. The stakes for this match are very high. The winner gets to define what it means to be Christian. A. To clarify the battle lines, we have before us two options. 1. The first option presented by Luke and backed up by Matthew and Mark is that a Christian is one who follows in the way of Jesus. 2. The second option presented by John is that a Christian is one who believes certain things about Jesus. 3. I am sure you are aware that this is a battle that has been waged over the last two thousand years and it is one in which the ramparts still stand and the participants are still engaged. B. Now historically, John got the last word. 1. John wrote his gospel, which is very different from the other three, around 90 CE. 2. Matthew, Mark and Luke/Acts were written around 80 CE to 60 CE. 3. To put this in context, Paul wrote in the 60s and 50s and Jesus died in the 30s. 2 2
4. As I said, John got the last word, and having the last word can be very powerful in a debate. 5. So to even things out I will give the last word to the other gospel writers today and now let John go first. C. The Christian according to John. 1. Whether John intended us to understand the following words as coming from Jesus or as a commentary of John is debated among scholars, but in either case these words give us a clear synopsis of John s position. 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. [John 3:16-18] 3 3
1. Now it is true that to believe in someone is to trust them, to believe what they say and to follow in their footsteps. John holds that one must do this if they are to receive God s goodies and maybe this is all John meant, which would bring him closer to agreement with the other gospel writers. But, possibly for John, but clearly for many Christians, is the interpretation that also for John one must believe things about Jesus and those that don t believe such are condemned. 2. The most important thing people must believe is that Jesus is the Son of God, which for John, as made clear in the first chapter of his gospel, implies that he is God. IV. Now entering the ring, we have Luke. So let s hear what Luke has to say about what it means to be a Christian. A. From Paul who wrote first about Jesus and from Luke who wrote about Paul and Jesus we have the story of Saul [aka Paul] who was a persecutor of the Way. 4 4
B. The Way as you may recall is what the early Christians were called before they were call the Christians. C. Luke helps us to see that for the earliest Christians, being a Christian was not about believing things about Jesus, it was about believing Jesus and living their lives in the way Jesus had taught them. D. And for these early Christians the phrase Son of God was not an equation of Jesus with God. This is clearly seen in Luke s account of the stoning of Stephen as Stephen has a vision of the Risen Christ standing next to God, clearly as a separate entity. E. For them, Son of God was to give Jesus the authority of God. F. Luke also makes it clear who will get God s goodies and who is following in the Way. He does this in the parables he tells, such as the Good Samaritan, and in his telling of Jesus blessings and curses. 5 5
Here we find Jesus blesses the poor, the hungry, the peace makers and curses the rich and powerful. G. For Luke the deciding factor was how you treated others, especially the least of these. In other words, the determining factor is how well you love God and others. V. Let s let Matthew jump in the ring. A. Jesus, according to Matthew, tells us who will receive God s goodies and it has nothing to do with believing things about Jesus. According to Matthew [25:31-46] Jesus tells us that the judgement will not be of individuals but nations. It is an us that gets judged. Let s hear what Jesus says. When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 6 6
Then the king will say to those at his right hand, Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you? And the king will answer them, Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. 7 Then he will say to those at his left hand, You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 7
for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. Then they also will answer, Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you? Then he will answer them, Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. B. Did you hear anything in that about the judgement being based on what you believe about Jesus? VI. Well, let s let Mark have his shot at John. Time to tag off. A. In Mark 10:17-22 we hear that As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? 8 8
Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother. He said to him, Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth. Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. B. When again you heard what is needed to inherit eternal life, did you hear anything in Jesus response about believing certain things about himself? 9 9
C. I didn t. What I did hear was this rich man asking the very same question that the Lawyer askes Jesus in Luke s gospel, where Jesus response elicits the parable of the Good Samaritan; which is what we re going to get to right after I share a bit about why this debate is important. VII. Hannah Ingram is a doctoral student who is currently in discernment to be ordained and she tells this story in her ordination paper draft. During the first year of my doctoral program here in Denver, my paternal grandmother back in Indiana died. She and my grandfather, who is still living, were the pillars of faith in our family. They were devoted members of Nineveh Christian Church, where I was raised from birth until age 15. It was in that sanctuary that I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior and it was there that I was baptized. I went home to Nineveh Christian Church for the funeral. 10 10
This church meant so much to me growing up, and I am still influenced by my evangelical roots. At the time of the funeral, though, I had been a member of the UCC for a couple of years, and I would soon be in discernment for ordination. My father told me a couple of days before the funeral that if he was asked to speak at the funeral, he wanted to cede most of his time to me if I was willing. This was an honor I took seriously; I wanted to both honor my grandmother and comfort my family. I took great care in determining what might do both of those, and I settled on focusing on how my grandmother lived her faith by the way she engaged directly and playfully with her grandchildren, whether that meant acting as a student while I played school or traipsing through the garden and the woods with us. While I knew the other adults in my life loved and supported me, when I visited them, I was on my own to entertain myself or to spend time with cousins. 11 11
Grandma, however, would drop what she was doing and play with us. That was how she loved us. 12 During my eulogy, I described that in the context of the story of Mary and Martha hosting Jesus. While Martha was preoccupied with the tasks that she thought she needed to do, Mary spent her time at the feet of Jesus, which he affirmed as the better way. This was how I made sense of my grandmother s actions; she chose to be present with us in the moment rather than be preoccupied by the other things she could or should have been doing. Even while I knew my grandmother to be a woman of great faith, she never preached at us grandchildren at all. Instead, I believe she mirrored the very love of God in her actions, trusting that love to be enough. 12
As I wrapped up my eulogy, I could tell that my words were well received, and I believed I had indeed honored her life and spirt and brought comfort to my family by telling stories and speaking the shared familial language of Bible stories. Then it was the pastor s turn to speak. The pastor focused his remarks on a call for repentance and the acceptance of salvation in the face of death. I was not surprised by this tactic, as I grew up in conservative evangelicalism and knew that this is often the approach at a funeral. (After all, when else is the message of Get right with God to avoid Hell! as compelling as at a funeral?) What I did not expect was the way the pastor used my own eulogy to bolster his message. He boldly asserted, That was a nice story, but Norma Adams is not in Heaven today because she got on the floor and played with her grandchildren! She is only in Heaven because she accepted Jesus as her personal savior, and she would have wanted me to tell you that you need to do the 13 13
same I was livid and devastated; yet looking back, I can see now that that experience captures so much about how my theological perspective has shifted throughout my life. In fact, this experience is useful in considering the specifics of how my perspective has changed as I look ahead to ordination in the UCC. VIII.With that I want to return to the parable of the Good Samaritan. A. As you may recall, when the Lawyer asked Jesus who was his neighbor that he must love in order to inherit eternal life ; Jesus replied with the parable that taught us that we need to be a neighbor to all we meet. B. Inheriting eternal life wasn t about believing anything about Jesus, it was about believing Jesus that to live eternally required that we be a neighbor to all. C. There s no us and them, there s only us. 14 14
D. And so we pray give us our daily bread. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. IX. When there is only us and no them, we will have entered the beloved community of God; we will have entered eternal life. AMEN. 15 15