Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
March 22, 2009
Numbers 21:4-9;
Ephesians 2:1-10;
John 3:14-21

No Matter What

God loves and cares for us – no matter what!  That is the good news being proclaimed this morning. 

At the same time, this is a hard sermon.  But this is Lent, the time for hard sermons.

Those “call and response” readings in the bulletin capture the essence of Psalm 107 – God’s steadfast love endures for all time, in spite of our sin, in spite of our “missing the mark,” the Greek word for sin.  The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians emphasizes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”  And our Gospel lesson contains one of the most familiar passages in the New Testament, one that most of us church folks can recognize when an evangelical in the crowd at a football game holds up a sign that says, “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.”  This familiar passage has been referred to as the “New Testament in a nugget” but as someone has said, the only thing that fits in a nugget is a nut.  But this God-so-loved-the-world scripture is more complicated – and life-giving – than that....

We might ask:  What does it mean that God has given his Son because God loves us so much?  It is easy to understand why God loves the world in the spring, with light overcoming the darkness, and new life swelling the buds, and the peepers singing in the night.  We love it too!  But, how does “believing in him” bring us eternal life?  These are good questions!

Our problem with understanding Biblical texts is that we take too narrow a view:  The lectionary readings give us sound bites, not the big picture.  We look at a few verses and not the context that frames them.  To understand, we need to know that this beloved “For God so loved the world” passage in John’s gospel is preceded by a visit from Nicodemus in the night.  Nicodemus is a Pharisee who comes to talk theology with Jesus, to probe what his mission is all about, to see what this talk is about being “born again.”  And in that conversation, Jesus refers to Moses’ lifting up a serpent in the wilderness and says that he, too, must be lifted up. 

Now, you and I aren’t likely to know where this serpent talk comes from, what it means.  Is this the snake that tempts Adam and Eve in the garden?  The snake that says, “Go ahead, eat the apple; it’s good for you!  And besides, it will make you wise.”  Well, no, it’s not that snake! 

But Nicodemus knows what serpent Jesus is talking about because, like Jesus, he is a student of the Hebrew scriptures.  He knows Jesus is referring to the story of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, living in an unsettled place between Egypt and Canaan.  In Numbers, the fourth book in the Hebrew Bible, we read, “The people spoke against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food,’” which, of course, makes no sense at all.

They grumbled to Moses and even to God.  And this was not the first time:  This was the fourth time, and I can imagine that God has had it with them.  So this time God sends poisonous snakes, and many of the people die.  Not a pretty picture.  The people understand their sin, and they plead with Moses to ask God to take away the snakes.  But God has a different plan. He advises Moses to make a bronze snake and hang it on a pole.  Anyone who is bitten can look up at the snake and live. 

So this snake in Numbers is not the “tempter” snake of Genesis, urging Eve to take the apple, but a “savior” snake who brings life.  And like the bronze “savior” snake lifted up on the pole, Nicodemus suddenly understands that Jesus intends to be a savior.  An article in Homiletics makes the point here:

Probably at that point Nicodemus doesn’t envision Jesus dying on a cross and being “lifted up” in that sense.  But he’s at least beginning to realize what Jesus means. Jesus is saying that just as looking at the bronze serpent on a pole enabled those ancients who were dying due to their sin to live, so looking at Jesus with belief will enable those dying in sin today to live eternally.”1

I was intrigued by the snake talk, not my favorite of God’s creatures.  Kim and I spent a week on Prudence Island two years ago July.  We knew we needed to be careful of deer ticks, so we went prepared with spray and long pants.  But a snake in our cottage?  I tried to catch it – but was afraid it would catch me instead.  So we lived with the snake.  In the Biblical account in Numbers, snakes were everywhere.  I can imagine them under the wood pile, slithering under the door, curled up in a cooking pot or under the bed.  And they bite! 

I wondered what agents of judgment they represent – and why God sent them.  The text doesn’t say – but they must have some metaphorical meaning.  It caused me to wonder:  what are the snakes that come to bite us today?  Surely the snake of greed has jeopardized the world economy.  And what of the snake of power that corrupts leaders.  And the snakes of anger and resentment, jealousy and betrayal that inhabit us all.  And what about the snake of too much food, or too much violence, or too much... [each of us can fill in the blank].  And we recognize that the Israelites in the wilderness are not the only ones who murmur against their leaders:  just read the newspapers.  We too often are guilty of the same sin.   

But, I digress.  Back to Nicodemus and Jesus.  What does it mean that God “gave his only Son” so that the world might be saved.  Jesus as a sacrifice for us?  And, if we don’t believe in Jesus – whatever does that mean? – that we will perish?  As a mother and a grandmother, I trip over the notion that a loving God – a God who proclaims to love us “no matter what” – would deliberately sacrifice a “beloved” child. 

So this text can be troubling – and it raises the theological issue of atonement.  A common notion is that Christ died as an atonement for our sins, the premise of the Mel Gibson’s film, “The Passion of the Christ,” which startled moviegoers with the stark reality of blood sacrifice, human sacrifice. And we repeat, in the communion service, don’t we, Jesus’ words, “This is my body.”  “This is my blood, given for you.” 

Why?  Why does Jesus have to die for us?  Good question – and one debated by the scholars.  You probably grew up being taught and thinking Jesus’ suffering and death on a cross cancels out our sin, or Jesus died in place of us, as a substitute for us, or Jesus’ death somehow lowers a barrier between God and us.  A well-meaning Sunday School teacher years ago probably taught you that “Christ died for your sins,” and maybe even made you feel guilty and ashamed.      

Though it’s a popular notion of the atonement, I don’t believe it is helpful to our spiritual growth as adults.  Nor is it supported by scholarship.  To think that Jesus died for you and me, as a substitute for you and me, doesn’t make sense.  That would be akin to hiring someone to jog for us and then expecting we could derive any cardio-vascular benefit.  You and I are responsible for our sinful behavior, for behavior that separates us from God.

To make it further complicated – except that maybe this helps – in some scriptures, Jesus is the paschal lamb which God sacrifices for us.  Except that the paschal lamb was not a sacrificial lamb, but the lamb of the Exodus, the lamb of liberation. 

These Gospel lessons, we must remember, were written by those who were familiar with the sacrifice of animals in the temple, with the death of a victim who died so that others might live.  So it is not surprising that a theology would develop that Jesus himselfwas sacrificed for us, as an offering to God. 

The problem for the scholars is how.  In its section of Atonement, TheBible Dictionary concludes,  

It is sin which has created the need for atonement, because sin, besides corrupting the heart and deadening the conscience and making [us] increasingly prone to sin again, causes [us] to be estranged from God, separated from God by an unseen barrier, a “dividing wall of hostility” (Eph.2:14). This barrier of separation God in Christ has broken down. Christ reconciles [us] to God and gives [us] peace with God.  It is one task of theologians to attempt to explain how Christ in his self-giving on the cross has achieved this end.”2

So the question is how.  We are all theologians; each of us has to struggle with this question. 

I resolve it this way:  For me, a healthier understanding of atonement is derived from the English word “atone” which comes from “at one.” So, the original meaning of atonement is to be in a harmonious personal relationship with someone, to be reconciled with someone.  So, for me, Jesus helps me to be in relationship with God, in a state of “at-one-ment” with God, because Jesus shows me what God is like.  But not by his death.  By his life.  Jesus the Christed One, the prototype for how life should be lived and cared for, lived, not died, to save us from our sins. 

This theological talk is so complicated, isn’t it!  But it is important because it forms the framework for living our lives.  For our understanding of who God is.  For our understanding of ourselves in relation to God; for our self-esteem as children of a loving God.

So, back to the snake on the pole – and Jesus on the cross.  Just as the Israelites wandering in the desert saved their lives by looking up, so we save our lives by looking up at Jesus.  But it is not his death that we are looking at, that brings us to God – but his life.  Jesus shows us the way to be one with God, not as sacrifice – but as teacher, healer, servant.  The heart of the gospel is the good news that God already has loved us and forgiven us and calls us to Godself – no matter what!

But to be at-one-ment with God, reconciled with God, requires action on our part – a change of heart, a reaching out to the least of these, a commitment to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Paul writes to his fledging house church at Ephesus, “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before-hand to be our way of life.”

The magazine Homiletics3 this month tells this missionary story: 

When native converts of the island of Madagascar used to present themselves for baptism, it was often asked of them, “What first led you to think of becoming Christians?  Was it a particular sermon or address or the reading of God’s Word?”  The answer usually was that the changed conduct of others who had become Christians was what first arrested their attention.  “I knew this man to be a thief; that one was a drunkard; another was very cruel and unkind to his family. Now they are all changed. The thief is an honest man; the drunkard is sober and respectable; and the other is gentle and kind in his home. There must be something in a religion that can work such changes.”

But it is more urgent than that:  Writing in The Christian Century, John Stendahl urges an even deeper understanding of where God’s love drives us:

We misunderstand the text [about believing in Jesus in order to have eternal life] if we think it only about otherworldly damnation or salvation when we die.  Look, people are sinking under the waters.  Here in this wilderness, people are perishing.  The snakes are biting still, all sorts of venom claiming human lives.  Throw out the lifeline to the drowning.  Lift up the cross, like that serpent in the wilderness, that the snake-bitten may lift their eyes to its hope and healing.  Let them know that there is a rescue, that there is life, abiding and abundant life, and that they can lay hold of it.4

Our scriptures today remind – indeed press us – to ask ourselves, how is God’s grace working here, in us, at Edgewood church?  Surely as we bring a meal to a family, make a phone call or a visit to a lonely shut-in, take time to teach Sunday School, or count the offering, make the hard decisions as a deacon, or sing in the choir.  Surely as we go forward to walk, or pledge to those who walk, for hunger and homeless on Good Friday.  Surely as we begin to build the infrastructure to turn our empty building into the Edgewood Center.  And this is just the beginning.

The God who loves us – no matter what – has hung the greatest example of how life should be lived and cared for on a cross.  W have before us the choice and the challenge to look up and live.  May it be so!

Amen.

1 Op. Cit., p. 34.
2 Page 313.
3 March 2009, p. 35.
4 March 10, 2009, page 21.