When One Iota Matters A Sermon by Rich Holmes on John 14:23-29 Delivered on May 1, 2016 at Northminster Presbyterian Church in North Canton, Ohio If you are as much of a nerd as I am, you may like knowing where certain common expressions come from expressions like It s raining cats and dogs, The whole nine yards, or Having an ax to grind. As you ve probably guessed, there are stories behind all these things. And one of my favorite stories is the one behind the expression It doesn t matter one iota, or It doesn t make one iota of a difference. My father always used to say that, and I always wondered what an iota of a difference was. Well, that brings us to the story of the Arian controversy. Now some of you are saying, Oh the Arians! Yes, those are the blonde haired blue eyed people that the Nazis loved so much amid their racist hatred of everyone else. But no, those aren t the Arians I m talking about. I mean a different group of Arians. Back in the fourth century, there was an important debate going on in the church. On one side of the debate were the Trinitarians, and on the other side were the Arians. Now the Trinitarians, you see, were those who read the bible to say that Jesus Christ is equal to God, equal in importance, equal in power, equal in divinity and all the things that could make anyone equal with God, simply because he is God. But on the other hand, the Arians were those who followed a guy named Arius. And Arius, you see, believed everything the Trinitarians believed, except he didn t believe Jesus to be equal to God. Is Jesus holy? Yes, he said. Is he the Son of God? Yes, Arius said, but the Son is just not equal to the Father. Now, let s cut to the chase. Who won the debate? Well, since you have probably never heard of Arius you have probably already guessed that he lost the debate. The church decided 1
that the Trinitarians were right and the Arians were wrong. And you may be interested to know that the Nicene Creed which we will be saying in our worship service today would not have been written had it not been for this Arian debate. Now you know why the Nicene Creed talks about Jesus saying God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, of one being with the Father. Why is it important to talk this way? Why did it matter that Jesus was God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God and all that stuff? Because those who wrote this creed were talking to the Arians. The Arians denied these things. Well, by now, you are probably saying that this is all very interesting but what does this have to do with the expression it doesn t make an iota of a difference? Well, you see, the debate between the Arians and the Trinitarians all came down to the Greek letter iota. The Trinitarians said that Jesus was homoousis with the Father, which means he was made of the same stuff. But the Arians said that Jesus was not homoousis but homioousis, which means that Jesus and the Father were only made of similar stuff, and the difference between homoousis and homioousis is, guess what? One iota. So, one iota made the difference between the Arians and the Trinitarians. So now you know. Now, I tell you this story today not just to tell you about the origins of the expression an iota of a difference, but because today s gospel lesson has one of the Arians favorite passages. In today s gospel lesson, the Lord is giving a sort of farewell address to his disciples, telling them that he is going away, and telling them that soon he will be ascending to the Father, but also telling them that if they love him they should rejoice that he is going away because the Father is greater than he is. So, the Arians read this and they said to their opponents, Aha, see there, God the Father is greater than Jesus. And in some way they must be right because that s what 2
Jesus says. We don t have to believe that the Father was greater than Jesus in the same way that they believed, or that at least in his divine nature Jesus was not equal to God, but in some way, Jesus says, The Father is greater than I. But regardless of how we understand Jesus statement The Father is greater than I, here is the important thing. In this passage Jesus tells the disciples that because the Father is greater than I, you should rejoice that I am going to the Father and not be sad that I am going away. And I think a lot of people would say that this strike their ears as strange. How could the disciples not be sad that Jesus left them? How can we, two thousand years later not be sad that our Lord is absent from us and has not returned to us still? Jesus answer is this. If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going away, because I am going to glory. I am going to sit on the right hand of God the Father in glory, and I am leaving this world of pain and sorrow and woe. I am going to where there are pearly gates, and streets of gold. I will return to you, and furthermore I will not leave you orphaned. I am giving you the Holy Spirit, but for now, if you love me, you should rejoice over where I am going. I think we can all agree that our Lord is right. If we love him, we should rejoice that he has gone away. But while I think we can all agree that it matters greatly that God loves all of us, as long as we are talking about iotas today, does it make an iota of a difference whether we love God? We can never overstate the importance of the good news of the gospel when we proclaim that God loves us. The world hasn t always believed in a loving God. The ancient Greeks had a very different view of the divine. Prometheus was punished by Zeus because he dared to show compassion for mortals. In Aristophanes comedy The Frogs, Dionysius and a slave named 3
Xanthias wanted to have a test to see which if either of them were divine. The test they came up with was that they would both be flogged with a whip and whichever one of them squealed out in pain or even batted an eyelid will have proved not to be a god at all. The ancient Greeks thought that to be divine meant to be free from suffering and free from compassion. These things weren t worthy of a divine being, and so for the gospels to say that in Jesus Christ we have a God who is unlimited in compassion and who suffers when we suffer, well that s great news. What if God were not only unloving but as incapable of suffering as the ancient Greeks believed? Surely we are better off living in a creation where God loves us and suffers when we suffer. But does it make an iota of a difference if we love God? Are we better off for loving God? Well, imagine this. Imagine on your street where you were growing up there were two kids in two different homes. One kid in one house got everything he could possibly wish for from his parents. He wanted a puppy, his mom and dad gave him a puppy. He wanted all kinds of electronic gadgets, his mom and dad gave him that too. And every year when it became time to plan a summer vacation, he got to be the one to decide where the family would go on vacation. But the second kid, a few doors down, didn t get all that stuff. He didn t get anything like that from his mom and dad. He received the clothes he needed on his back, the shelter he needed, the food he needed, but not much else no pets he could collect insects in a jar and poke holes in it if he wanted, but no pets and no electronic gadgets maybe a few cheap toys from the dollar store every now and then, but no electronics. And as for vacation spots, not only was he not asked where he d like to go, most of the time his family didn t even go on vacation. 4
The first kid got everything his little heart desired, and the second kid got the bare necessities and not much else. But the second kid genuinely loved his parents as most normal happy children do, and the first kid did not. Which of the two kids would you say was better off? Which of the two would you say had a better childhood? Maybe these two kids describe some of the people you grew up with when you were a kid, maybe we all had these two kids in our neighborhoods, I don t know. But, I think we would all agree that the second kid was better off. And that is because for all the advantages that the first kid had with the electronics and pets and vacations, in not being able to love his parents and feel gratitude toward his parents for all they gave him, the first child was missing something missing something quite important, and missing something which could not be compared to what the second kid was missing. For maybe the second kid was missing a life filled with material things. But there was something of value in what the first kid was missing, and something of value that could not be compared to the so called value of material things. And I know and you know, we both know that some people out there will tell us that loving someone else does not make an iota of a difference if you don t have all the things the second kid had. But I think we all know that they re wrong. I think even they know that they re wrong. And in the same way, you may know people who are missing a little something in their faith. For they have the kind of faith where they worship a Lord who is like a fairy godmother. They believe that if they raise their prayers to heaven they will get whatever they want from God if they just ask, if they just pray, just like a fairy godmother who gives them whatever they wish for. They will get everything they want not just in terms of relief from sickness and distress, but even in the form of success, and wealth and power. But then once they get whatever they 5
want, they have absolutely no need of God anymore, that is, until they happen to need something else and then they call on the fairy godmother again. And some people may say to me, Pastor Rich, isn t it better to believe that God is like a fairy godmother than it is to believe that God is like one of the ancient Greek deities who doesn t care about us at all? Yes, I suppose. But if you see someone who has a fairy godmother Lord and a fairy godmother faith, then I think you are right to feel sorry for such a person. They re missing something. Their faith is impoverished. It is immature; it is incomplete. They are missing something unless their faith also includes a love of God for God s own sake. And so now we understand Jesus message to his disciples. His message is that it is great if you want to rejoice that God has sent me to love you and to be with you, that s wonderful. But if you love me, don t just rejoice that God let s good things happen to you, rejoice that God let s good things happen to me. For all those who know that God loves them, there are some who love God in return and there are some who don t. And ask yourself if that makes an iota of a difference. 6