SUNDAY, MARCH 5, 2023 | LENT (A) - Second Sunday in Lent

Preliminary

John 3:1–17 NRSV

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 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.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 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?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 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.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? “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. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.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.

18 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. 19 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. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 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.”j

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Jn 3:18–21.

A contentious passage - misused a lot, especially out of context

Need to be seen in the context of Nicodemus

John 3:17 - that is where we need to caution - the faith in Jesus is not meant to be used for condemnation, but liberation

Genesis 12:1–4a NRSV

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

It is a journey - Abram received affirmations from God and went out - it can be nerve-wracking to do so. He needed affirmation that God will be with him and will pay attention

Romans: Abraham was rewarded through his faithfulness, not what he actually did. And rightfully so as he did some messed up things as well....

Recording: https://recorder.google.com/77a2917b-157f-40f4-8878-6446117fb202

Good morning,

We continue onwards with Lent and today we have a very well known text in front of us. Of course, that has its upside and downside. Let’s address the downside first - John 3:16 ““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.” is of course present all over, especially in the U. S. - on bread packaging, on business materials, in songs, movies, on marquees and shirts…you name it. You can even get John 3:16 Dogwood Tissue paper if you really want that. This verse has been used and used to the point when it is more of an icon of certain brands of Christianity rather than God’s Word. Those that especially talk about winning souls, fighting the devil, and so on. However, I would argue that this verse is so much better if used in its rightful context of the whole section. Perhaps less bendable and it definitely would not fit on a tissue paper, but so much more true, I think.

Let’s rewind a little bit and give this passage a little bit of context - Just in the preceding section, Jesus went up to Jerusalem as the passover was nearing and he was horrified at what he saw:

he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Jn 2:14–16.

And when people demanded on what authority he was doing that, he told them:

The New Revised Standard Version Jesus Cleanses the Temple

Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

People that were present there, did not understand he was speaking of the temple of his body and to be fair, it took the disciples to witness Jesus’s raising from the dead to remember these words and then they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Jn 2:22.

During Passover festival, Jesus gained more followers as many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Jn 2:23.

Then, while he was in Jerusalem, a Pharisee named Nicodemus approached him, calling him a Rabbi, a religious teacher. Jesus starts talking about being born from above as a prerequisite to seeing Kingdom of God and Nicodemus gets a bit lost in the literal meaning of it, so Jesus continues to explain - it is about being born of the spirit and not flesh and that is made possible through the life and death of Jesus. And then we get into the two important verses:

John 3:16–17 NRSV

“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.

But it continues for a bit more:

The New Revised Standard Version Nicodemus Visits Jesus

18 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. 19 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. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 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.”

There you have it, John’s cliff note.

In some ways, I think it is an apocalyptic gospel text we have in front of us - the stakes are high, the end seems to be just beyond the horizon, and the powers of good and evil are against each other. The community of John, the authors of the gospel are by then pretty detached from the events of Christ's earthly ministry - at least a generation's worth and we can assume they have seen some high points and low points of the first few decades of the early Jesus sect and budding religious movement. Communities coming together, serving one another, sharing in the love feasts and the Lord's supper, baptizing using primitive baptismal rites, piecing together first confessions of faith, but also experiencing divisions and conflicts as described in Paul's letters and Acts of the Apostles, experiencing exclusion from temple and later synagogue era Judaism, persecution from the Roman empire, or gradually waning excitement of expecting Jesus Christ's imminent return as it became increasingly obvious that they might need to settle in the world after all and not just wait it out.

They were in a much different place than the early apostles and the communities they founded and supported - I imagine they would have people like Nicodemus in their midst quite a bit, people that struggle to grasp all the theology and tradition and would need a lot of explaining, even though they are drawn to the stories about Jesus. Jesus in this passage seems more patient than elsewhere - clarifying and explaining what he meant beyond the literal meaning of what he said, giving it context as well. Just like the early church had to turn away from mere proclamation of Christ's love through words and actions towards adding education to the mix, to not only retain the faith, but also pass it on. And yet, there is an edge to the text, it is not all a didactic Jesus teaching the basic tenets of the faith. There are those that walk in the light of the faith their good deeds illuminated as coming from God, but then there are those that choose to walk in darkness as they love darkness more than light. A bit like older Disney movies, where the good natured and bright protagonists are easily distinguishable from the evil and hate filled villains. In fact, just a few days ago, I was in California visiting family and we got to go to Disneyland and let me tell you - some of the oldest rides are a window to a different world, in more sense than one. A world before diversity training that leads to some problematic waters. Quite literally, as we went on a canoeing ride and what started quite innocently with some artificial deer and some Native Americans in the distance led to a full on animatronics "Indian village" that made us rather uncomfortable as it spoke to the power imbalance - we are the one in canoes in a multi billion theme park observing a caricature of a culture that was pretty much erased by violence and trickery of the colonizers, many of which claimed to be Christian. The guide did not address it, merely redirected our attention to the animals. Don't get me wrong, there were great things at the park - the food, general cleanliness, everything styled and well crafted, especially on the newer rides...but that does not fix that. And I think we must take care not to turn our reading of the Bible in such a Disney ride. To read this passage straight up would be like taking that ride without critically examination of the time the ride was made in. If we just extract the theology and then ignore the rest, similarly to the guide at the ride, we are not interpreting well.

There is an inherent bias against the Pharisees, in John and elsewhere, as Pharisees and their beliefs were the driving force behind the development of the synagogal Judaism after the fall of the Jerusalem temple in the year 70, so we may assume they had more than enough rivalry with early Christians as they were both in the process of reimagining their religions in the face of new sociopolitical challenges of the second half of the first century. Just like Indians are viewed as rivals in romanticized colonial narratives, caricatures of real people depicted as killers, primitive savages, or womanizers. To view both at face value would be to diminish and stereotype whole peoples groups and their rich history and culture, as well as their right to their primacy in the lands Christians came to inhabit. Martin Luther made that mistake again, when he assumed that if the right gospel is preached, then surely all Jews will convert and turn to faith in Jesus, never mind the long history of European antisemitism and anti Judaism up to that point, turning Jews into their piggy banks and then driving them away when repaying the debts became too hard. As we go through this Lent, I propose another dual lens. On one hand, we can glean the good from the texts and rejoice in God loving the world so much that God sent Jesus not to condemn, but liberate world from the burden of sin, but at the same time critically observe where the biases and prejudices of the authors seeped into the text and are coloring the Holy text with undertones that are human, oh so human. And then look at where our own baptismal eyes are colored by similar biases - we are called to attend to the poor, but do we see them as fellow bearers of God's image or just as an opportunity to prove our righteousness as walkers in the light? We are urged to call for unity among all people, but do we do it so that all can be one in God's love and grace no matter what or do we call for it up until it would inconvenience us in some way? Do we proclaim Jesus, so that people can be invited into the healing light of God or mainly because we want our institutions going? God is doing wondrous things for us all in the world and through Jesus with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we get to participate in that. However, let us continue discerning our biases, so that we may become more as Jesus that loved and cared for ALL people and all of creation. Amen.