John 3:16: A theologian called it, “The Gospel in miniature.”
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (KJV).
It’s one of those passages that for many people, it doesn’t matter what translation is being read, we hear it in the King James Version of the Bible. It’s been engrained in our minds and hearts since childhood and Sunday School.
But what does it mean? It means that God loves us: God loves you, and God loves me. God loves us so much that God abandoned the bliss of eternity in order to enter the messiness of history. God loves us so much that God journeys with us through that messiness. God loves us so much that God was willing to take on the suffering of the Cross in order to save us.
But God loves not only us. John 3:16 says that God loves the whole world. God so loved the whole world that God sent the Son into the world. The homeless person who spent Friday night on the floor of the Christian Centre: God loves him. The whole bunch of folks who went to the food bank at ACSA this past week: God loves them. The investors whose greed has put the world’s financial system in such a mess, and those who’ve lost homes and jobs in the midst of that same mess: God loves them all. The soldiers serving in Afghanistan, God loves them. The Taliban cell that killed four Canadian soldiers on Friday: God loves even them. God loves this whole, messing, conflict-ridden world so much that God has come into the very midst of this mess in order to create reconciliation, and establish justice, and bring peace. God so loves the whole world that God in Christ has come into the world to bring life, in all of its abundance, to each of us; and to all of us.
God loves us, and God saves us, by becoming one of us.
A farm family was getting ready for church one stormy Christmas Eve. At least, most of the family was getting ready. Not the husband. When his wife said, “Are you coming?”
He said, “Are you kidding?! Why would I be going to church? To celebrate some story about God coming into the world as a little kid? God becoming a person? It’s absurd. It’s ridiculous! You can believe that foolishness if you want to; I’m staying here where it’s nice and warm.
His family drove off into the storm and he sat down and read a book. After a while he was startled by something that banged against the window. He put on his coat and boots and went outside to investigate. As he looked into the blowing snow he could just barely make out a flock of geese flapping around the barnyard. These poor geese were all confused and looked like they were about to freeze to death, and since the family already had a frozen goose for Christmas dinner, the poor farmer had pity on them. He opened up the barn door and tried to shoo them in. But they wouldn’t go. He tried chasing them, he tried yelling at them, he tried everything he could think of. But they were still flapping around the yard. In desperation he said, “If only I was a goose, then I could save them.”
And then he had an idea. He let one of his own geese out of the pen in the barn, and it went into the barn yard. The goose got the attention of the confused geese, and started waddling back to the barn, and all the other geese followed.
“If only I was a goose, then I could save them.” And then the logic of his own words hit him like a ton of bricks. And that ornery farmer fell to his knees, and thanked God, for coming to save us in the man Jesus.
For God so loved the world, that God became flesh and entered the world, that we might have life.
So, first of all, John 3:16 means that God loves us, and God loves this world. But, secondly, it is a conflicted world which God loves, and which God saves. God came into this conflicted world in order to save it. God didn’t shy away from the conflict; God stepped right into the midst of it. It’s easy to trivialize John 3:16 fit it on a license plate or put it on a sign at a basketball game. And when do trivialize it when we don’t take seriously the conflicted situation in which these famous words are spoken.
When we step back from John 3:16 and look at the whole context in which this verse appears, we see that this whole passage is about conflict. Jesus is in conflict with Nicodemus. Nicodemus is in conflict with his fellow Pharisees. And the Pharisees, we know historically, are in conflict with others in the Jewish community. Everyone is in conflict with someone else, and Jesus is trying to bring some clarity to the situation. I mean, with all this conflict, you’d think it was a church meeting or something.
In fact, the church for which this gospel was written was a very conflicted place. Perhaps one reason why John’s gospel talks so much about love is because there were so many people within John’s faith community that were fighting with each other; and so many groups outside of that faith community with whom that whole community was fighting. Everyone was at somebody else’s throat, and they needed to find some way to resolve their differences and love each other, as God loved all of them.
In fact, you find conflict throughout the pages of scripture. It’s there from Abel’s murder at the hands of his brother Cain in Genesis, to the final battle in Revelation. The pages of scripture are riddled with conflict. We see it in today’s readings. In the Old Testament: conflict within the Israelite community, and between the Israelites and all those tribes whose land they have to cross on their way to the Promise Land. And in the Gospel Lesson: this conflict between almost everyone in sight in terms of who Jesus is and who speaks for the Jewish community and whether or not there should be a complete break between the Jews who follow Jesus and those who don’t.
This should tell us something: conflict is normal. You get a bunch of people together in a family or a faith community or an office or whatever, and there’s going to be conflict. It’s normal.
What’s not normal – or, at least, what’s not helpful – is our fear of conflict. We somehow think there’s something wrong with it. We avoid it. We try to cover up our conflicts like the night which concealed Nicodemus’ secret rendezvous with Jesus. We want to just paper over our differences and be nice to each other. Why? Jesus and Nicodemus weren’t being nice to each other. They put their differences right there and the table – boom – and they talked their way through them. God and the Israelites weren’t being nice to each other. The people complained to God and God sent them a bunch of snakes; poisonous snakes that bit the people. However you want to interpret that passage, it certainly doesn’t condone the notion that we just need to be nice to each other.
You know what avoiding conflict does? It gives extraordinary power to the people who don’t mind conflict. Somebody doesn’t like something, so they kick up a fuss at a meeting, and everyone else thinks, “Oh, let’s just be nice and let that person have their way.” So they do. And then everyone goes home resenting the person who made the fuss. The problem isn’t the person who made the fuss; the problem is the folks who were afraid to open their mouths and speak their minds. The problem is with the folk who were afraid to push back. Somebody gets all agitated at a meeting and says something that you disagree with? Stand up and say so. They spoke their mind, so you speak yours. Wisdom emerges not when we shy away from conflict, but when we put all of our different positions and the table and we talk through them; just like Jesus and Nicodemus did. “God so loved the world” isn’t about being all sentimental and nice. It’s about tough love. And entering into conflict with love. And speaking the truth in love.
There’s a theory that says that in the Church, you should never bring a proposal to a vote until you have at least 90% of the people behind you. Otherwise you risk splitting the church. But if a group can’t make a decision until it has at least 90% of the people in favour, that gives incredible power to 10% plus 1 who oppose something. You got an idea? Bring it to the table. We need to take a vote? Only takes a simple majority to pass; 2/3 majority on the most important things. 67%. That’s a long way from 90%. Not everyone is going to agree with you. If you wait until they all do, we’ll never get anything done.
When the majority fears conflict, it’s the bold minority which runs the show. And more power to that minority if no one has the guts to oppose them. If no one has the courage to oppose them. If no one has the faith and the love to oppose them. “Greater love has no one than this; that one would lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). That’s what Jesus said. If you truly love your family, if you truly love your church, if you truly love your community, you’ll stick your neck out for the sake of that family or church or community. Those who love their community but fear conflict will risk conflict for the sake of the community they love.
I was in my 3rd year of seminary before I learned that you can have a serious disagreement with someone and still count that person as a friend. Carol was a dear friend; still is. But somehow in that academic year of 1978-’79 we kept getting on each other’s nerves. I’d get angry at her and I’d just avoid her. She’d get angry at me and she’d challenge me. And the first time that she did that I thought that we couldn’t be friends any longer because everything that I’d ever been taught said that friends are nice to each other. If you can’t be nice then you can’t be friends. Carol taught me about a deeper level of friendship. And it wasn’t fun going to that deeper level. But I learned that it’s okay to be in conflict with the people whom you love. It’s okay to enter into that conflict and resolve it.
So John 3:16 tells us three things: It tells us that God loves this world, and it tells us that God entered this conflicted world, and it tell us that God did so ultimately to bring peace; to bring reconciliation. Jesus and Nicodemus talk through their differences, and Nicodemus ultimately becomes a follower of Jesus (see John 19:39). They had to be in conflict before they could be friends. But in the final analysis, they were reconciled. In the final analysis, Jesus is about reconciliation. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Just as Carol and I ultimately reconciled. She gave me a little butterscotch candy as a peace offering. The Church dares to bring its conflicts out into the open, knowing that it’s the only way for genuine reconciliation to occur.
The martyred archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero, said:
“A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society…what gospel is that? Very nice, pious considerations that don’t bother anyone, that’s the way many would like preaching to be. Those preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they live in.”
Archbishop Romero was not afraid to wield the sword of the Word in order to light up the night of injustice. And for some years the darkness of El Salvador was pierced by the light of burning martyrs, Romero being one of them. And this week, those courageous souls who created conflict with their cries for justice have formed the government of that now peaceful land. Salvation comes into the world like a mighty sword – like a surgeon’s knife - cutting open our festering wounds, and healing them with the salve of God’s love. Amen.
Text: John 3:16
Preached by Bruce D. Ervin
22 March 2009
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