4^th Sunday in Lent (March 30, 2003)

“One Story, Two Sides”        Dr. Julie Adkins

Text:  John 3:14-21 (Ephesians 2:1-10)             

 

SERMON

If you’ve ever in your life

            watched a sporting event on television,

            then I bet you’ve seen the sign.

You know, the one being held up by people

            who sit in the end zone,

                        or behind the basketball hoop,

                                    or in back of the hockey goals,

            and every time the camera comes their direction,

                        they hold up their sign that says “John 3:16.”

As you may know,

            that’s one of those verses we just heard –

                        in the reading and in the anthem! –

            “For God so loved the world

                        that he gave his only Son,” etc.

One of those verses that gets right to

            the heart of the gospel message.

  

And so when I see The Sign,

            there’s a part of me that says,

                        “Wow!  That’s great!”

People who are bold enough

            to witness publicly to their faith.

By which, we know they are probably not Presbyterians.

But another part of me says,

            this is really irritating.

Can’t even watch the Final Four

            without some religious fanatics trying to convert you!

And still another part of me isn’t sure what to think.

Because on the one hand,

            I think it’s very important that we

                        get the message about Christ out to the world …

But on the other hand,

            I think the message of Christ

                        has much more to it than just John 3:16.

The rest of the story,

            we find later in this same passage:

                        “this is the judgment,

                        that the light has come into the world,

                                    and people loved darkness rather than light

                                    because their deeds were evil.”

Somehow, when we talk about Jesus Christ,

            we have to be sure that we include both sides of the story:

                        God’s graciousness in giving,

                        and our unworthiness in receiving.

Several years ago, while I was still living in west Texas,

            I had the privilege of hearing Bill McElvaney preach

                        for a three-night Lenten series.

One of the things he said has stuck with me all this time …

I don’t remember what the sermon itself was about,

            but I remember his saying that preaching is a terribly difficult job,

                        because basically there is only one message.

It’s a real challenge, said McElvaney, every week,

            to come up with a new way of talking about the same old thing:

                        the grace of God.

Now, that’s a rather Methodist way of putting it –

            “grace” is a key word

                        in Methodist tradition and theology.

But it’s a good ward,

            because it encompasses both sides of the story.

One the one side,

            grace is God’s goodness to us.

On the other side,

            it is undeserved goodness of God, toward us.

If we walked in the light,

            and our deeds were always good, or nearly always,

                        then God’s goodness to us

                        would be called justice, or fair play,

                                    or something like that.

But to talk of God’s grace

            is to say that God is good to us

                        even though what we deserve

                                    is something entirely different.

Let’s not speculate about what.

  

Now if you want a more Calvinist way of looking at it,

            you might talk about the doctrine of “election.”

Not election as in, choose between Laura Miller and Mary Poss,

            but as in, God’s choosing us.

Again, we touch on both sides of the story:

            the good news that God has

                        elected us, chosen us, redeemed us;

            and the not-so-good news that

                        our election doesn’t come about

                                    because we are better or smarter than anyone else;

                        it happens despite the fact that

                                    we are no better than anyone else.

 

 But no matter whose words you use –

            John Calvin, John Wesley, John the gospel-writer –

                        the underlying message is the same:

God is good,

            and we … could be improved.

 

But then, it occurs to me,

            maybe those people holding up the “John 3:16” signs

                        have the right idea after all …

            at least, in terms of their theology

                        if not so much in their methods of evangelism.

Because what makes the gospel good news, ultimately …

            what makes it compelling,

                        what keeps us returning to it …

            is the promise that God’s goodness

                        is stronger than our not-so-goodness.

The one side of the story turns out

            to have more weight than the other.

Though there is constant tension between the two,

            and sometimes the outcome seems unclear,

                        the promise is that God is stronger, and will prevail.

Christianity is the only faith in the world

            that proclaims this message, this strongly.

  

But I think there are many Christians

            who aren’t quite convinced,

                        and are a little afraid to trust God entirely in this matter.

Beneath the surface,

            most of us have a streak of Zoroastrianism in us.

That’s one of my favorite Middle Eastern religions!

            I also just like saying “Zoroastrian”!

In this particular religion, you have not one god but two:

            a good god, and an evil, sneaky god,

                        and they both have wonderful Persian names …

            and they are locked in this cosmic battle

                        for who is going to control the universe.

Earth is, essentially, the battlefield,

            where the forces of good and evil

                        meet one another head-on and clash,

            and the two gods have to sit back and wait

                        to see who wins this round,

                        and who is ahead in the was overall.

And no one knows, ultimately,

            how it’s going to turn out in the end.

Certainly not the earth-people,

            but even the gods themselves don’t know

                        which of them is going to win.

Good and evil have an equal chance.

  

And I suspect that many of us who are Christians

            share that world view,

                        even though we would never call ourselves Zoroastrians!

Not that we believe there are two competing gods,

            but we do often act as if we’re not at all sure

                        how it’s going to come out in the end.

We attribute to evil

            more power than it actually has.

Which isn’t to say that there is no evil; clearly, there is …

            and it’s not to say that evil is weak; it isn’t, sometimes it’s very strong;

But God is stronger.

That is very good news indeed.

It’s good because it means that

            the world is in God’s hands,

                        despite all appearances to the contrary.

It’s also good, because it means that

            the darkness in our own lives,

                        the evil that we sometimes do,

                                    does not have the last word.

Our sins can be forgiven, and we can go on.

We can repent, and turn to God, and try again.

God’s grace saves us, not our works …

            there’s that word grace again.

  

Beware, though, of a sneaking temptation:

Once you’ve gotten beyond the belief

            that good and evil have equal power,

and you’ve come to believe, at least on your better days,

               that God is ultimately in control even though we can’t always see it …

once you’ve struggled to this point

                        it becomes tempting to sit back and do absolutely nothing,

                                    since God is in control anyway.

If it’s already in God’s hands,

            why should we bother with it?

It’s a good question.

I guess the clearest way for me to answer it is this,

            and don’t try to pin me down too closely

                        on any elegant theological concepts behind it,

            but what I would say is,

                   that though the future has been decided in favor of the good news,

                                    the present still hangs in the balance.

 

 Let me see if I can illustrate this:

Imagine a human being,

            we’ll call her Jane Q. Christian.

Now, according to her very name,

            Jane is a Christian,

                        she has been saved by grace through faith, --

and let’s set aside for today the question of non-Christians;

that’s an important issue but it’s another sermon altogether –

anyway, Jane’s future is, that upon her death,

                        she will go to be with God.

The question for the present is,

            how and when will that happen?

The ideal, I suppose,

            would be that Jane lives a long and productive life,

            and dies a peaceful death of natural causes,

                        surrounded by family and friends.

But there are many forces in the world that could prevent that.

Jane could be totaled by a drunk driver.

Maybe she will get sick

            and can’t afford proper medical care.

Maybe stress from her job will kill her.

Maybe she will lose her job and become homeless.

Or maybe North Korea really will go nuclear,

            and she’ll be vaporized along with the rest of us.

All of those are evils that we

            can do something about, here and now,

                        even though we won’t always agree what the “something” is.

But you see, even though Jane Q. Christian’s future is assured,

            her present is up for grabs,

                        as are all of ours.

And we have the choice, here and now,

            whether we will be bearers of the good news,

                        or whether we will sit indifferently by.

Whether we will walk in the darkness,

            or risk coming out into the light.

  

As the letter to the Ephesians says it,

            we are created in Christ Jesus for good works.

We are not saved by those good works;

            we are saved for those good works.

We can tip the scales

            in favor of one side of the story, or the other.

Right here and right now,

            for the people we know and the people we see.

We can tell and demonstrate the good news,

            that God so loved the world

                        that he gave his only Son,

                        that whoever believes in him

                                    shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

  

What a terrible responsibility!

But what a tremendous privilege.

Amen.

 

© 2003 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)