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A Certain Love A sermon
preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli at Capitol Hill United Methodist
Church June 11, First Sunday after Pentecost, Trinity Sunday-with a focus
on outreach ministries of CHUM. Text: Isaiah 6:1-8, John 3:1-17 --------------- Dr. Nicodemus arrives at the place where Jesus is staying under cover of darkness to protect his reputation. He addresses Jesus with a modicum of respect-but what's the first thing he says? "We know"...we know. After some conversation with this uncredentialed teacher Jesus, from who knows where, the good Doctor of the Law doesn't seem so sure-the last words we hear Nicodemus utter in this story are, "How can these things be?" If we're paying attention, we'll notice that a real encounter with Jesus always challenges what is "known" for certain. Our certitude about ourselves, about others, even about God will be shaken and we can either allow that discombobulation to encourage curiosity and growth or stubborn literalism or despair. It happens time and again in the Biblical stories where people encounter Jesus...
Jesus' response to Nicodemus's questions is not condescension or anger, but an invitation ...an invitation into a new way of seeing and knowing, a new understanding of God's relationship with the world and its people, an invitation to believe not because of signs or miracles, not because of the strength of the argument based on the words of Law, but to believe in a new revelation of the love of God through Jesus. Nicodemus is invited to surrender to the fact that when we truly grasp the certainty (and mystery!) of God's love found in Jesus, our lives are changed forever; it's as if we were seeing the world for the very first time, as if we were children again, experiencing everything as if it were all brand new and rife with possibility... Jesus boils it down for Nicodemus-and for us-when he says, "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." (Have you ever noticed how people tend to focus on the second part of that statement-"believe" (understood as intellectual assent) and "perish" (people really lock on to that word!) and "have" (understood as possession)-instead of the first part-"God loved" and "gave"?...but I digress) It would have been easier for God to abandon us to the darkness...like a parent who doesn't care enough to set curfew or boundaries -tacitly approving our date with self-destruction, God didn't have to get involved...God could have carried on perfectly well, dancing along God's merry way and choosing to start over, to make a new creation, on some other planet that might make saner choices. But God didn't do that. That's not the way the story plays out. Once upon a time, in the very being of God, a great sadness hung in the space between the persons of the Trinity; the sadness was due to the suffering and despair in the world...the Son of God sees people wandering in darkness, sheep without shepherds, not knowing what is good for them, deaf and blind and stubborn as hell...The Son is moved with compassion... And a question once uttered in the halls of heaven echoes through all eternity, finally returning to reverberate in the very heart of God: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And Jesus said, "Here am I; send me!" God's coming into the world in Jesus of Nazareth is a great challenge to our desire for quantifiable, scientific knowledge. But, if we can allow the Holy Spirit to shake us out of our need for certitude and into a more receptive posture, then we will begin to see that in Jesus we have received God's self-sacrifice, the risk and sacrifice of sending the Son into this world to offer light, to be love, to show us what it looks like to be fully human. While "it would have been far less costly for God to ignore the world's sins and to allow people to live in darkness...this would reflect, not love, but apathy." Because God cared enough to send the very best, because of God's amazing love, we Christians believe in the Word made flesh, not the Word made words... We are called to follow the Word made flesh, not the Word made words; this is an invitation-not to assent to intellectual proofs- but to enter a relationship with someone who loves us. And, if we accept the invitation and follow the Word made flesh Jesus, we are called to reflect love, not apathy. This means that we have to do something-because the love of God is active, risky, life-giving, self-giving... It is that kind of love we are called to embody-the saving love that Jesus himself embodied! We are called to take risks in order to bring light into places of suffering and despair. We are called to make sacrifices in order to share love and hope with those most in need. As we look out into the world and see brokenness, injustice, violence, greed, despair....we are called to take up the cry of prophets through the ages, the cry of our savior Jesus Christ: "Here I am! Send me!" Dr. Nicodemus was a great scholar, a lover of texts, a follower-to the letter-of the word of God in the Law-the Word made words. If you're wondering whatever happened to him, the answer, in part, can be found toward the end of John's Gospel. Something changed for Nicodemus that night when he encountered Jesus...it seems that the Word made flesh became Nicodemus' new text...and so in John chapter 19, we find Nicodemus-this man of great consequence, together with Joseph of Arimathea, taking the risk to care for the dead body of a man of very little consequence to those with power...the one who hung on the cross, abandoned, betrayed, poor, wounded, humiliated...the one whose insistence on love, on peace with justice, on a life that touches eternity through relationship with a God of love kept him on the margins and led him to the cross...the one whose humble, simple, human flesh held within it the very heart of God offered to a world that couldn't see... From the other side of suffering and death, Jesus continues to gaze at the world in love; Jesus looks into your life and sees all the pain and brokenness, all the anxiety and fear, all the grief and confusion. And he says to the Father, "Here I am! Send me!" And, if you're willing to open your mind and your heart, the Holy Spirit blows into your life and fills you with the light and life and hope of Jesus Christ. Jesus continues
to gaze at the world in love; Jesus looks into the world again and sees
war and greed and suffering and hunger and disease and indifference and
speaks the ancient words of call "Whom shall I send, and who will
go for us?"-what is your answer?
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Sermons from other years:
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Capitol Hill United Methodist
Church is a Reconciling Congregation. |
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