God So Loved Sermon preached at Joy Metropolitan Community Church June 7, 2009
I believe that if I asked most of you, regardless of your faith heritage, what the most learned, memorized, and quoted verse from the Bible is, you would respond: John 3:16. God so loved… Contemporary translations modify the words somewhat, but not the message: There are four aspects to that famous message: God loved, God gave, we believe, we live. There is a second verse that is quoted with much less frequency, but that verse, particularly for those of us who have felt the condemnation of the world is just as important. We hear this truth: “For God sent the Son not to condemn the world, but through the Son, the world might be saved.” The promise that Jesus did not bring condemnation with Him when He walked upon this earth is crucial to our understanding not only of Jesus’ mission on this earth, but of our own mission.
First, however, I want to look at Nicodemus’s question in the first part of the gospel passage. Nicodemus was a learned man, a member of the Sanhedrin, well thought of and well-respected. He wasn’t quite comfortable with Jesus, though, and he came to Jesus, by night the scripture tells us. Nicodemus, nevertheless, had the beginnings of faith—He says to Jesus—“we know you come from God, because you couldn’t do the things you do without the power of God.” Jesus didn’t give him the simple response he may have desired—how easy it would have been for Jesus to say, Yes, sir, that’s how it happens—God just zaps those folks through my fingers and makes them whole. Instead, Jesus gives Nicodemus a quandary for him to think about. Jesus says, “Unless one is born from above, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Now Nicodemus is a bit of a linear thinker, so he opts for the obvious, though nonsensical explanation. He asks again, because it doesn’t make sense even to him—this being born a second time. Jesus explains again, one must be born of water and spirit—flesh is flesh and spirit is spirit. This is the quandary that leads to the central truth of Christendom. It deserves our attention.
If you don’t know the little, yet profound book, “Hope for the Flowers”, I highly recommend it. Written to resemble a children’s book, it is anything but simple. Briefly, the story is this—two caterpillars, Stripe and Yellow meet up in a mass of caterpillars who are climbing all over each other trying to get to the top of this pillar of caterpillars. The point of getting to the top is unknown to all the caterpillars, they just know they need to get to the top in order to survive. One day, Stripe and Yellow decide to stop climbing. They leave the pillar of caterpillars and set up housekeeping in the forest. Eventually, Stripe decides that, in spite of his love for Yellow, he must try the climb again. Yellow listens to her inner self over her heart and remains in the forest. Now Yellow is out for a walk, well crawl, one day trying to deal with her desolation at the loss of Stripe. Here’s where our story picks up:
“One day a grey-haired caterpillar hanging upside down on a branch surprised her. He seemed caught in some hairy stuff. “You seem in trouble,” she said. “Can I help?” “No, my dear, I have to do this to become a butterfly.“ Her whole insides leapt. “Tell me, sir, what is a butterfly?” “It’s what you are meant to become. It flies with beautiful wings and joins the earth to heaven. It drinks only nectar from the flowers and carries the seeds of love from one flower to another.” Without butterflies the world would soon have few flowers.” “It can’t be true!” gasped Yellow. “How can I believe there’s a butterfly inside you or me when all I see is a fuzzy worm?” “How does one become a butterfly?” she asked pensively. The grey-haired caterpillar replies, “You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” “You mean to die?” asked Yellow. “Yes and No,” he answered. “What looks like you will die but what’s really you will still live. Life is changed, not taken away. Isn’t that different from those who die without ever becoming butterflies?” And if I decide to become a butterfly” said Yellow hesitantly. “What do I do?” “Watch me. I’m making a cocoon. It looks like I’m hiding, I know, but a cocoon is no escape. It’s an in-between house where the change takes place. It’s a big step since you can never return to caterpillar life. During the change, it will seem to you or to anyone who might peek that nothing is happening, but the butterfly is already becoming. It just takes time! And there’s something else! Once you are a butterfly, you can really love—the kind of love that makes new life.”
Well, as you either know or can imagine, Yellow spun her cocoon, and eventually became a butterfly. Longing to share the glory of this new way of being, she went off to find Stripe. Find him, she did, and through some extraordinary butterfly to caterpillar communication, she convinced him to build a cocoon and become a butterfly himself. Their story ends with two butterflies kissing in the sun. Ours is just beginning, but the changing from caterpillar to butterfly bears much resemblance to being born in the spirit. Our essential selves remain through the transformation, but, at the same time everything about us is different, new, free.
Jesus calls us to this new life, this changed life, this free life, this decision to leave caterpillar life behind. It is after this change that we truly understand John 3:16: Yes, God so loved the world as to give the Only Begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life.
Is not the decision to believe, to become one of the “whoever believes" much like the decision to risk becoming a butterfly. We are not certain where that decision will lead us, or what we may look like after the transformation. What kind of butterfly will we be? Where will or can we go? How high can we fly? But we know that we will experience eternal life, free from condemnation, free from death. This freedom, given because God sent the Only Begotten to save the world leads us to John 3:17, a verse of utmost importance to our community, to our families, to our friends on this the first Sunday of June, Gay Pride month. There are few among us who have escaped the condemnation of the world for our lifestyle, our choices, our very personhood. But John 3:17 brings the good news to all of us: “God sent the Only Begotten into the world not to condemn the world, but that through the Only Begotten the world might be saved.” This condemnation, is then of the world, and Jesus is clear in His words. He was not sent into the world to condemn the world (or anyone or anything in the world). He was sent into the world so that the world would be saved.
Let us briefly review how the four aspects of John 3:16 make up the glorious truth as it plays out in our lives. God loves because that is who God is. God needs no reason to love us, God loves because that love is the basic nature of God. The transformative aspect of this lies in the remembering that we are made in the image of God. If it, then, is in God’s nature to love the world, it is in ours as well. God gave the Only Begotten Son: This ultimate giving act springs out of God’s inherent nature as a loving God. This is the first half of the formula.
The second half of the formula actually takes us back both to Nicodemus’s question and to our story of Yellow, the butterfly. We believe, we choose to quit the life of a crawling, hopeless caterpillar, and enter into the risky cocoon of transformation. At the end of this transformation, is our final step: we live. Just as Yellow was no longer hopelessly looking for what was at the top of the pillar of all those other caterpillars climbing over and on each other to get to the top, we find that the goal of life is the transformation into children of God. Now, there will be times when we ask ourselves just what that means. I believe that John 3:17 holds the answer. We fly free in the knowledge that Jesus did not come to the world to condemn the world but to save the world. And herein lies our mission.
I found it quite humorous, in that “been in the ministry too long” kind of humor, when I first saw the reading from Isaiah. Can you believe that on Gay Days weekend we get a passage about winged seraphs and smoke machines—these seraphs would have fit in just fine last night at most of the parties a few miles from here. Heavenly drag queens in every sense of the word, oh my. These winged creatures have a significant message, however, and I can see their words floating and wafting through the billowing smoke and fog: “Holy, holy, holy is the God omnipotent! All the earth is filled with God’s glory!” All the earth, not part of the earth, but all the earth is filled with God’s glory. This is the same earth, the same world, is the world that was not condemned, but rather saved when God sent Jesus to walk among us, not as an angel, or winged creature of some sort, but as our brother, our teacher, our redeemer.
If Jesus did not condemn the world, why do we? I’ll pause a moment as you contemplate my question…….and, yes, I am suggesting that we condemn the world. Every time we fail to bring the gospel message of acceptance to one of our gay, bi or trans brothers or sisters, we condemn their world. And their world is our world. Every time we sit idly by when some young person is bullied or rejected we condemn their world. And their world is our world.
When we lift up our brothers and sisters, in every walk of life; when we pray, when we give, when we invite others to share in the joy of salvation, we carry on the work of Jesus in their world. And their world is our world. And so we fly free not only in our own salvation, but just as Yellow could barely wait to fly over and save Stripe from the pillar of hopeless, crawling caterpillars, we use our bright fluttering wings of joy and redemption to attract others to the great truth we have learned: God so loved, God gave. We believe and we live to share in the redemptive work of Jesus in this our world. We believe that God wants us to do it now—to be a part of the changing of history in the outcasts’ world, their world, our world.
And so, we carry on—will you carry on with me?
And so, we look for ways to bring the good news—will you look with me?
We seek to find the lost, the scarred, the less than whole—will you seek with me?
We explore ways to expand our walls, to encourage everyone to enter—will you explore with me?
We pray that God will use us to redeem the world, and not condemn it—will you pray with me?
Oh God, we believe that you want to send revival to this church and to the church universal. We pray for a renewed passion to bring Your justice upon this earth, Your earth. Forgive us when we are complacent or fearful, empower us to change the world, Your world. In the name of all that is holy and in Jesus Christ who came to the world to redeem the world.
Amen.
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