Rev. Sara E. BaronFirst United Methodist Church of Schenectady603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305Pronouns: she/her/hershttp://fumcschenectady.org/When
I was 7, my friend Becca was in a church that focused on “being
saved.”  As far as I understood it, “being saved” involved
taking a teacher from her Sunday School into the church library,
proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and praying a specific
prayer.  This, apparently, was not to be done too early or one might
not believe it with one’s whole heart, but should be done as soon
as possible so as to ensure eternal salvation.

Becca
was very excited that she had been saved and frequently asked me if I
had been. I always answered no.  This answer always resulted in a
long lecture about why I should “be saved.”  The lecture, in
turn, irritated me.  One day I had a brilliant revelation… although
I had never “been saved” in Becca’s definition, I believed that
Jesus loved me just as I was.  I didn’t think that there were
specific hoops to jump through in order for God to accept me.  So,
the next time Becca asked me if I was saved I said yes!  I wasn’t
saved in her world view, but I was in mine.

Becca’s
understanding of being saved is a part of our Christian tradition.
So was mine.  In the years since, my perspective has gained more
knowledge and nuance. I now know that salvation is about God’s work
towards healing and wholeness in the world.  I’ve come to believe
that God desires “salvation for all of creation” which isn’t
about afterlife at all, but about the kindom coming to earth.  I’ve
also learned a lot more about how things were in Jesus’ day.  Still,
as a whole, I’m at a peace with my 7 year old decision to answer as I
did.

In
the time of Jesus, most people believed that when you died, you
ceased to exist – from dust to dust in those days meant no
afterlife and no eternal soul.  In the Greeco-Roman religion that was
dominate in the lands that surrounded Jesus,  the gods
were immortal – and people became immortal only when they were
promoted to god-status because of an extraordinary life.  The
Sadducees, who were the ruling party in Judaism, utterly denied the
possibility of afterlife.  Neither in Jesus’ immediate community
nor in his world at large was afterlife considered a real
possibility.

Early
Christianity was novel in that its followers believed that they could
become immortal.  Or, to name it in the Greco-Roman context, the
followers of Jesus all became “little gods”. They were immortal,
something true only of gods and goddesses.  This was a very strong
statement – people who followed Jesus became like the gods of the
world that surrounded them!

Today,
many people consider heaven and hell to be contrasting opposites.  At
that time, the alternative to joyful eternal live was not hell.  It
was “perishing.” That is, if you followed Jesus, you gained
eternal life.  If you didn’t follow Jesus, you ceased to exist at
the end of your life.  That’s where this passage ends… with the
well known John 3:16-17.  “‘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.”  

Thus,
the claim is made that those who believe in Jesus will gain eternal
life.  My 7-year old friend Becca believed that there were specific
rules to guide what constituted “belief in Jesus.”
Understandings of afterlife have developed since the time of Jesus,
nothing stays stagnant! Early Christianity opened the door to eternal
life – instead of saying that only “gods” could live forever,
there was an affirmation of common people and our value.  

While
are are thinking about that, let’s look more closely at the beginning
of this text.   Nicodemus is named as a Pharisee, a group that gained
most of its power after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70
BCE, and a group that was open to afterlife in some form or another.
(Not the way people today think of it though.)  Nicodemus, as a
Pharisee, being in power at the time of Jesus is exactly the kind of
historically questionable stuff that reminds us to take John
metaphorically..  Anyway, according to John,  this guy comes to Jesus
… at night.  Why at night?  So he couldn’t be seen!  Its really
kind of a funny story, even to start out… we have one of the
highest ranking officials in Israel sneaking around under the cloak
of darkness in order to meet with Jesus.  

He
gets to Jesus and starts the conversation by complimenting him.
Unfortunately for Nicodemus, he isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.
He doesn’t “get it.”  He ALMOST “gets it.”  He wants to
learn from Jesus, which is why he has come to Jesus.  But he is still
afraid of what others will think of him or do to him, and that’s
why he comes at night.  In addition, he bases his faith on “signs.”
That is, he thinks Jesus is connected to God because Jesus is able
to perform miracles.  Believing in Jesus because of his miracles is a
BIG no-no in the Gospel of John.  The faithful are supposed to
believe because they believe, not because of the powers that Jesus
has to do miracles.  So Nicodemus says, “Teacher, we know that you
come from God because of what you can do…”  And right there, as
John tells it, Jesus knows that Nicodemus wasn’t convinced to
follow him fully, yet.  

Jesus
begins to teach… and he says… LISTEN CAREFULLY!…he says “No
one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
And Nicodemus says, “How can anyone be born again
after having grown old?”  Did you hear that?

Jesus
says “born from above” and Nicodemus says “born again.”  How
did he confuse that?  Well, he wasn’t that ridiculous actually…
in Greek the word for “again” and “from above” is the same
word.  Jesus is talking about the deep meaning of being born from
above, which is “from God”¹
and Nicodemus is understanding the superficial meaning – born
again.  Nicodemus is being presented as foolish, or at least because
he didn’t have full faith he was too foolish to understand Jesus.
The image of a grown man re-entering the womb is meant to be funny.
It is meant to be as ridiculous as it sounds, because it is making
fun of the misunderstanding.   Being born again is NOT AT ALL what
Jesus is talking about.  Being born again is the MISUNDERSTANDING
that Nicodemus pulls out.

Being
born “from above” is having a spiritual birth.  That could be
seen as something that all people have – as all people ahave
spirits – or as an eye-opening event that occurs when individuals
connect with God.  It would make some sense, given the rest of Jesus’
teaching to think of being born “from above” as being connected
to God and therefore committed to building the kindom.  Being born
from above is to live as God would have a person live, to share love,
to exude compassion, to see a better world.  To be born from above,
then, is to live the prayer, “your kingdom come on earth as it is
in heaven.”

This
is a Gospel reading with many opportunities for misunderstanding.  It
is one I am tempted to avoid, simply to not have to deal with them.
However, being informed about our scriptures and how they has been
used to do harm, and what they actually mean is part of what we need
to know to bring healing.  Luckily, this passage has a lot of gems as
well as a history of being used badly.  Verse 8 reads, 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.
There is a double meaning here – the wind is at once the Wind and
the Spirit of God.  We do not know the beginning of the wind or of
God, but we are able to watch what the Spirit of God does in the
world. This is one of my favorite descriptors of the Spirit.  If the
Spirit is truly the Spirit of Love (I think that’s fair) then it
reminds us that the demands of love can take us in rather unexpected
directions!Some
of the ancients thought of the wind as God’s breath.²
I suspect some of us moderns do too, at least in particular moments.
It has times when it is a potent metaphor.  

The
passage continues though, in a rather weird turn.  As another
commentator puts it, “The overlap of
crucifixion and exaltation conveyed by v. 14 is crucial to Johannine
soteriology because the Fourth Evangelist understands Jesus’s
crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension as one continuous event.”³
So, when the metaphor is drawn to “lifting up” it isn’t just
about Jesus’ death but about the end of his life and the beginning of
the life of the believers as the Body of Christ. (If you don’t know
the Moses reference, I promise, you don’t want to.  It won’t help.)  

Finally,
this text turns to one of the more abused verses in the Bible.  It
is actually good news, no matter how it has been used to abuse others
in Bible bashing.  The
good news is:  “God loves the world SO MUCH that God
seeks to heal it in every way God can.”
In the words of a wise commentator,
“what if we are all called to “join in the creation of a
community in which God’s love was regarded as not being in short
supply, open only to those who have seen and confessed Jesus as the
Christ, but rather as poured out upon the entire world?”⁴

Taken
in continuity with John 3:17, “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,” while remembering
that the first meaning in the Bible of salvation is healing, we get
to:  “God loves the world SO MUCH
that…that God keeps moving creation to wholeness AND  God pushes
and prods us in hope that we’ll learn deeper love.  Nothing can
separate us from the love of God… because God loves the world THAT
much.”

Do
you ever wonder what it means to say that “God loves the world”?
It is startlingly unequivocal.  It isn’t, “God loves the good
people.”  Or, “God loves it when things are going right.”  It
isn’t even, “God loves the world, but hates the brokenness.”
John 3:16 claims God loves the world.  God gives gifts to the world.
God seeks healing and wholeness for the world.  And the world isn’t
just humanity, it is all of creation.

God
LOVES the world.  

For
me, that’s a bit of a relief.  It reminds me that God’s love isn’t
contingent on us getting it right, love is already a part of it all.
It is a reminder that we can’t mess it up.  Love is the starting
point of all creation, it has a power nothing else can match.  For
me, at least, gratitude for this reality is what motivates me to work
with God for the building of the kindom.  But it starts with love.
God loves the world.  Unlike my childhood friend, I think there is a
full stop there, no conditions.

God
loves the world and all the beings in it.  As.  They.  Are.
Salvation is a gift God willingly  offers to us all.

Thanks
be to God.  Amen

1Ernst
Haenchen John 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapters 1-6
(Hermeneia: a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible) (Vol
1) (Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, January 1, 1988).

2
 Raymond E. Brown Gospel According
to John.
Anchor Bible.  (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966-70.)

3
Gail R.O’Day,   “The Gospel of John: Introduction, Comentary,
and Reflections.”  In New
Interpreter’s Bible,
vol. 9.  (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995).

4Ibid.

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/