Your Faith Journey - Finding God Through Words, Song and Praise

This is a special musical performance of Once Upon a Tree by the Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan's  Chancel Choir.

Come and hear the Gospel of John 2: 13-22 this morning as we explore Jesus Clearing the Temple and what that means in our own lives.

Come and hear the Gospel of John 2: 13-22 this morning as we explore Jesus Clearing the Temple and what that means in our own lives.

This is a special musical performance from the Faith Lutheran Okemos Chancel Choir of Jesus Clear the Temple.

This is a special musical performance from the Faith Lutheran Okemos Chancel Choir of Jesus Clear the Temple.

I am sure all of you know what a cliché is.  Clichés are phrases that, upon their inception, were striking and thought-provoking.   However, as they started to catch on, people began overusing them, making them seem trite, and turning them into what we now know as clichés. 

Well, as we look at today’s gospel reading, we come across a verse that has truly become a cliché.  It is probably the best-known Bible verse ever.  While many people may know very little of scripture, they know John 3:16.  And, quite honestly, this verse is often misunderstood.  I love what Lutheran Pastor, Nadia Bolz Weber, says regarding most Christians’ insight into this Scripture passage.  Giving a brief, snarky synopsis of people’s early Sunday School understanding of this passage, she writes:

Basically, God created us and all that is, but because the first woman ate something she shouldn’t have we are basically screwed for all of time. And since we are all so terrible at following rules God needs to punish us. But here’s where Jesus comes in. Jesus…as the story goes and so many of us were told, well, Jesus is like, God’s little boy — and he only had one! I’m not sure why – fertility issues I guess…but the point is that God had this one little boy – and he loved that little boy so much… but he had to KILL that little boy because you stole a candy bar, or lied to your mom, or felt up your girlfriend or maybe you used swear words or looked at dirty pictures. The important thing to know is that God killed his little boy rather than punishing you, because let’s face it, someone had to pay, and you should feel so grateful about all of this that you believe and (most importantly) you behave. But the good news is that if you believe all of this and if you try really hard to be good, then when you die you get a special all-inclusive vacation package called Eternal Life.

Yes, that pretty much sums up and articulates the early Sunday School version everyone has learned, and you know what?  That version soooo misses the point of what Jesus is saying.  That version has instilled fear in people’s lives.  That version has created a religion that is permeated with judgement, judgement that Christians impose upon others.  Far too often, this passage has promoted an understanding in which the story of Jesus is about God having to be pacified, or a God having to be persuaded to forgive.  Far too often we carry around within us an image of an angry, unforgiving God and a loving, forgiving Jesus.  Quite honestly, that understanding of God has been used as a tool to scare people out of hell by promoting what is known as decision theology.  Ironically, these very words that Jesus was speaking to a rigid and legalistic Pharisee named Nicodemus, trying to help him see salvation more expansively, have become the very symbol of conditional love instead of unconditional love.

God is not someone who sends Jesus in order that Jesus might be punished so that our sins will be wiped out.  God is not the angry monarch, seeking vengeance or retribution for our sins.  No! God is more like the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, who is not happy until is wandering children have come home.  God is love.  Love is the essence of the being of God.

So, today, I want to challenge that Sunday School understanding of this passage.  First of all, in the gospel of John, the word for “world” refers to the cosmos – to everything!  And, when John uses the words “eternal life,” he is not simply talking about life after death.  John’s use of the words “eternal life” are meant to mean the same thing as Matthew’s use of the words, “kingdom of heaven,” or Luke’s use of the words, “kingdom of God.”  “Eternal life” is about the “reign of God.”  In John, “eternal life” is something that we are already living, it is living life that truly matters right here and right now, it is living life to the full.  With that in mind, let’s take another look at today’s reading.  And, I again want to quote Nadia Bolz Weber as she  so beautifully retells this passage from John as a love song, which is what the gospel really is.  She writes:

In the beginning God – the source and ground of all being – set the universe into motion through sound and breath and self-giving in a love song.  God so loved the world that God gave God’s own breath to speak into existence that which was not – and then God so loved the world that God gave God’s breath another time, breathing into dust to create humanity. Through dust and the very breath of divine love we were created. In the image of the songwriter we were created, and we too were given voice and language and breath and song.  And that love song of creation continued, but we tended to create our own melodies in another rhythm, in another key, in our own scale.

So, there is the song of life which rings through eternity and then there are human-generated temporary alternate songs. With our own breath, language, voice, we still tend to create our own rhythm and melodies – that we think will save us, songs of domination, violence, greed, and power.

And so once again, God’s breath was given to us…through sound and self-giving: only this time, the sound interrupted the din of the Roman empire. This time, God’s divine love song was heard in the cry of a newborn baby. For God so loved the world that God gave God’s self to it in the form of a son. This was such a big deal that angels sang back up – the heavenly hosts joined in the divine love song interrupting our regularly scheduled program of soldiers and taxes and purity codes.

God so loved this corrupt world of empires and victims and violence that God gave God’s self to us. God so loved the world that God came to us in the most vulnerable and fragile way possible. God so loved the world God created that God walked among us as love.

But not the “us” kind of love. Our love is limited by self-interest, biology and time. No, God’s love takes no account of opinion or history, but insists on ignoring information we think of as important: data about worth, beauty, status. God’s love has quite ignored the Kelly Blue Book Value on us.

For God so loved the world, for God so loved soldiers and prostitutes and traitors and unwed mothers and soccer moms and CEOs and ex-cons and Burger King janitors that God gave of God’s self in the form of Jesus. And Jesus was like a clearer set of lyrics so that we might be saved from the noise of sin and self-preservation. So that we might not perish. But be reminded again of the true beat, the real rhythm, the clear lyrics of the song of creation and salvation that is life and that is eternal.

And those who heard this tune, began to sing it to others, they wrote about it in Gospels and hymns and we who are gathered here in this room, maybe for only a moment a breath a flicker, hear it for ourselves and we know it is life and it is right here, and it always has been and always will be. It is eternal life and it is for you. Don’t try and believe it. Listen to it and just hear it.

          Friends, the love song that God has been singing from the beginning

of time, is the song of life for all eternity.  It is being sung right now in this moment and it will continue forever.  It is a divine love song that is always calling us back home to the very heart of God.  It is calling us again and again.  Sometimes, it is drowned out by the white noise of the world.  But, this love song will never become exhausted. 

Yes, God so loves the world with an immense, redeeming love.  And, quite honestly, the love song God sings for us at times disturbs us, gnaws at our hearts, creates a hunger for God, and even unsettles us.  But, it is also a love song that grasps us, and draws us into the very arms of God’s love where we become forever changed and transformed.  And, once we have been grasped by this love, we find it is a love that will never ever let us go.  We then discover that our home, the home of all creation, is in God.  Yes, God so loves the world.  

So, on this fourth Sunday in Lent, as we continue to journey with Jesus to the cross, we continue to grow in our understanding of God’s love for the cosmos.  I encourage you to let go of some of those early Sunday School cliché interpretations and be taken to deeper places in your understanding of God’s love for us – God’s love for all of creation.  Let yourself fall back into that love.  Let yourself discover it is a love that holds us, and it is a love that will never let us go!

I am sure all of you know what a cliché is.  Clichés are phrases that, upon their inception, were striking and thought-provoking.   However, as they started to catch on, people began overusing them, making them seem trite, and turning them into what we now know as clichés. 

Well, as we look at today’s gospel reading, we come across a verse that has truly become a cliché.  It is probably the best-known Bible verse ever.  While many people may know very little of scripture, they know John 3:16.  And, quite honestly, this verse is often misunderstood.  I love what Lutheran Pastor, Nadia Bolz Weber, says regarding most Christians’ insight into this Scripture passage.  Giving a brief, snarky synopsis of people’s early Sunday School understanding of this passage, she writes:

Basically, God created us and all that is, but because the first woman ate something she shouldn’t have we are basically screwed for all of time. And since we are all so terrible at following rules God needs to punish us. But here’s where Jesus comes in. Jesus…as the story goes and so many of us were told, well, Jesus is like, God’s little boy — and he only had one! I’m not sure why – fertility issues I guess…but the point is that God had this one little boy – and he loved that little boy so much… but he had to KILL that little boy because you stole a candy bar, or lied to your mom, or felt up your girlfriend or maybe you used swear words or looked at dirty pictures. The important thing to know is that God killed his little boy rather than punishing you, because let’s face it, someone had to pay, and you should feel so grateful about all of this that you believe and (most importantly) you behave. But the good news is that if you believe all of this and if you try really hard to be good, then when you die you get a special all-inclusive vacation package called Eternal Life.

Yes, that pretty much sums up and articulates the early Sunday School version everyone has learned, and you know what?  That version soooo misses the point of what Jesus is saying.  That version has instilled fear in people’s lives.  That version has created a religion that is permeated with judgement, judgement that Christians impose upon others.  Far too often, this passage has promoted an understanding in which the story of Jesus is about God having to be pacified, or a God having to be persuaded to forgive.  Far too often we carry around within us an image of an angry, unforgiving God and a loving, forgiving Jesus.  Quite honestly, that understanding of God has been used as a tool to scare people out of hell by promoting what is known as decision theology.  Ironically, these very words that Jesus was speaking to a rigid and legalistic Pharisee named Nicodemus, trying to help him see salvation more expansively, have become the very symbol of conditional love instead of unconditional love.

God is not someone who sends Jesus in order that Jesus might be punished so that our sins will be wiped out.  God is not the angry monarch, seeking vengeance or retribution for our sins.  No! God is more like the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, who is not happy until is wandering children have come home.  God is love.  Love is the essence of the being of God.

So, today, I want to challenge that Sunday School understanding of this passage.  First of all, in the gospel of John, the word for “world” refers to the cosmos – to everything!  And, when John uses the words “eternal life,” he is not simply talking about life after death.  John’s use of the words “eternal life” are meant to mean the same thing as Matthew’s use of the words, “kingdom of heaven,” or Luke’s use of the words, “kingdom of God.”  “Eternal life” is about the “reign of God.”  In John, “eternal life” is something that we are already living, it is living life that truly matters right here and right now, it is living life to the full.  With that in mind, let’s take another look at today’s reading.  And, I again want to quote Nadia Bolz Weber as she  so beautifully retells this passage from John as a love song, which is what the gospel really is.  She writes:

In the beginning God – the source and ground of all being – set the universe into motion through sound and breath and self-giving in a love song.  God so loved the world that God gave God’s own breath to speak into existence that which was not – and then God so loved the world that God gave God’s breath another time, breathing into dust to create humanity. Through dust and the very breath of divine love we were created. In the image of the songwriter we were created, and we too were given voice and language and breath and song.  And that love song of creation continued, but we tended to create our own melodies in another rhythm, in another key, in our own scale.

So, there is the song of life which rings through eternity and then there are human-generated temporary alternate songs. With our own breath, language, voice, we still tend to create our own rhythm and melodies – that we think will save us, songs of domination, violence, greed, and power.

And so once again, God’s breath was given to us…through sound and self-giving: only this time, the sound interrupted the din of the Roman empire. This time, God’s divine love song was heard in the cry of a newborn baby. For God so loved the world that God gave God’s self to it in the form of a son. This was such a big deal that angels sang back up – the heavenly hosts joined in the divine love song interrupting our regularly scheduled program of soldiers and taxes and purity codes.

God so loved this corrupt world of empires and victims and violence that God gave God’s self to us. God so loved the world that God came to us in the most vulnerable and fragile way possible. God so loved the world God created that God walked among us as love.

But not the “us” kind of love. Our love is limited by self-interest, biology and time. No, God’s love takes no account of opinion or history, but insists on ignoring information we think of as important: data about worth, beauty, status. God’s love has quite ignored the Kelly Blue Book Value on us.

For God so loved the world, for God so loved soldiers and prostitutes and traitors and unwed mothers and soccer moms and CEOs and ex-cons and Burger King janitors that God gave of God’s self in the form of Jesus. And Jesus was like a clearer set of lyrics so that we might be saved from the noise of sin and self-preservation. So that we might not perish. But be reminded again of the true beat, the real rhythm, the clear lyrics of the song of creation and salvation that is life and that is eternal.

And those who heard this tune, began to sing it to others, they wrote about it in Gospels and hymns and we who are gathered here in this room, maybe for only a moment a breath a flicker, hear it for ourselves and we know it is life and it is right here, and it always has been and always will be. It is eternal life and it is for you. Don’t try and believe it. Listen to it and just hear it.

          Friends, the love song that God has been singing from the beginning

of time, is the song of life for all eternity.  It is being sung right now in this moment and it will continue forever.  It is a divine love song that is always calling us back home to the very heart of God.  It is calling us again and again.  Sometimes, it is drowned out by the white noise of the world.  But, this love song will never become exhausted. 

Yes, God so loves the world with an immense, redeeming love.  And, quite honestly, the love song God sings for us at times disturbs us, gnaws at our hearts, creates a hunger for God, and even unsettles us.  But, it is also a love song that grasps us, and draws us into the very arms of God’s love where we become forever changed and transformed.  And, once we have been grasped by this love, we find it is a love that will never ever let us go.  We then discover that our home, the home of all creation, is in God.  Yes, God so loves the world.  

So, on this fourth Sunday in Lent, as we continue to journey with Jesus to the cross, we continue to grow in our understanding of God’s love for the cosmos.  I encourage you to let go of some of those early Sunday School cliché interpretations and be taken to deeper places in your understanding of God’s love for us – God’s love for all of creation.  Let yourself fall back into that love.  Let yourself discover it is a love that holds us, and it is a love that will never let us go!

This is a sermon from the Lenten service based on the Gospel of Matthew 5:4 

This is a sermon from the Lenten service based on the Gospel of Matthew 5:4 

This is a special musical performance by the Faith Bells of Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan of O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.