Sunday Sermon - Rev. Adelyn Tyler-Williams

[00:01:12] Speaker A: The Holy Gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ according to John. Glory to you, Lord Christ. Now, there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God. Jesus answered him, very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said to him, how can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be bor. Jesus answered, very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, you must be born from above. 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. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? Jesus answered him, are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 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. The Gospel of the Lord. [00:03:56] Speaker B: Praise to you, Lord. It's Ram. Children in three through 10 are invited now to go with Katie to the music room for a story and singing and prayers. They'll join us again at the feast. Through the written word and the spoken word, God help us to hear your living word, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. I had rare occasion this week to finish my sermon on Thursday. And yet much has happened in the world since then. So I want to pause a moment and offer a prayer before I start my sermon in earnest. This is a prayer for peace from the Book of Common Prayer. Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love, so mightily spread abroad your spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father, to whom be dominion and glory now and forever. Amen. I have been called an unbeliever and a lukewarm Christian on many occasions. I have been called a wolf in sheep's clothing, a fake Christian and a fake pastor. All sorts of things, really. In the height of the pandemic, my wife Angela and I had a fairly active TikTok ministry. We are two women serving God in her church, and we were sharing publicly about our journeys, our theology, our ministries, and our lives. That made a whole lot of people pretty mad. Hence the name calling. Now what I think is odd is that plenty of those commenters had Bible verse citations in their bios. What scripture do you think is most common in a social media bio? John 3:16 a favorite, a classic, probably the most frequently memorized verse from Christian scripture. It's on T shirts, it's on bracelets, it's tattooed on a great many people, and it graces many a TikTok and Instagram bio. It's a great sentence of scripture. It says a lot about our faith in relatively few words. I'll say more about it as we go along this morning, but to start, I will simply note that it is curious to me how this passage has been used in our culture, and not always to open the gospel to new followers. Social media ministry allows followers to be relatively anonymous, or completely anonymous if they so choose. That impersonal piece of the online world can lead to some hurtful comments, and the same set of circumstances can lead to many Nicodemus sort of moments. Let me be clear that I am no prophet and I am certainly no Savior. I am simply a person who openly shares my faith and the fullness of who I am. I love talking about God. Making myself available in those ways has meant that people who were questioning their faith or dabbling in Christianity or otherwise had questions they didn't know who to ask have come to Angela and I and many others doing online ministry in the darkness of night. Folks who were not ready to step foot in a church or to publicly proclaim their faith found a place to go with their questions. Sometimes it truly was people messaging in the wee hours of night, and sometimes it was people using the relative anonymity of the Internet to access information in a protected way. Many people can relate to Nicodemus because of his place in society, he had some trepidation about following Jesus and yet had great curiosity about Jesus ministry and teaching. Many of us, because of our upbringing, because of our identity, because of our reputation or social location, want to know more about God and about the gospel, but feel nervous to do so. That's normal. While I wish that Nicodemus had felt able to go to Jesus in the brightness of day, in a public place that was not accessible to him in that moment, and while I wish people curious about Christianity or curious to deconstruct and reconstruct their faith felt able to join us in the pews on Sundays, that can be a deeply scary thing to do. It can be vulnerable to show up to church. Maybe because you don't know what the service will look like or what you're supposed to do during the service. Maybe because you have religious trauma that makes a physical space that looks like this one hard to be in. Maybe because you have tried to ask questions and have been shut down by a religious leader or teacher. Many have Nicodemus moments or seasons in life. Alternative ways of accessing the gospel are important. I think the progressive church has a lot of room to grow in this area. Both our Catholic and our fundamentalist siblings are pretty prolific on the Internet. The online real estate that we Episcopalians and other mainline Protestants fill is relatively small. Yet I think it's deeply needed in our current world. We won't fix that today, but I offer it as something for us to consider. And then when we are faced with a brief opportunity to invite someone into the Jesus movement, what do we say? What is the most important point to get across in that moment of curiosity? The elevator pitch, if you will. Jesus offers us one guide. First, Jesus notes the need to be born from above, which Nicodemus reasonably struggles to make sense of. Perhaps a literal interpretation of symbolic images from God isn't always helpful here. Jesus is talking about spiritual birth and rebirth, something that we understand to be part of our baptism. We are born of the Spirit in this way. Then Jesus next move is to allude to Moses and the Israelites wandering in the desert, a story which a Jewish leader like Nicodemus would surely have been well studied on. In this story from Numbers 5, Moses is leading the people of Israel in the wilderness, and the people complained to God and Moses, why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and water, and we detest this miserable food. God then sends venomous snakes among the people and these followers of God then confess to sinning against God. God tells Moses to lift up a bronze snake and all who are bit by the venomous snakes can look into the eyes of this bronze snake and be healed. Sin caused separation between God and her people and God devised a means of healing the people and returning to right relationship. God gives the people life and so too will the Son of God. And finally, Jesus arrives at our famous piece of scripture. 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. The King James Version of the Bible has had a disproportionate impact on the way that this passage has been passed through recent generations. It seems small, but I'll explain why it matters. The Greek word that is translated so as in for God so loved might more directly be translated as in this way. In 17th century English, King James so would have meant in this way or in this manner. The translation makes good sense. Today most of us use the word so to describe the degree of something so hungry, so beautiful, et cetera. This is a little in the weeds, but I offer it as a reminder that this is not a statement about the degree to which God loves us, but rather about the way that God loves. This is about the manner of love, not about the magnitude. Of course God's love for us is infinite, but that gains color and specificity when we also understand the way that God loves us. God loved us in this way that God would send her only Son for our sake. Also note the use of everyone who believes or in the King James Version, whosoever believes. This is not only a message for the Jews or for the Gentiles. It is not salvation only for the perfect people among us. It is not for one particular race or class. It is not only for straight people and able bodied people. God loves us in this way. God includes everyone. God includes the people who believe in the secrecy of their hearts. God includes people of every identity, every nation and language, of every place in society. And we are not the deciders of that guest list, nor are we the arbitrators of belief. We simply get to receive this grace and we get to share it widely. Let us not forget John 3:17 as well. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. God came to dwell among us because it is in God's character to love in that way, in a relational, proximate and embodied way. It is in God's character to come for the sake of love and salvation, not for condemnation. It is in God's way of being to open the path of eternal life to everyone, while God's love is indeed infinite. I also hope we might ponder the way that God loves the way that God loves each and every one of us as individuals who are worthy of grace and love and salvation. God loved the world in this way that she gave her only Son, and so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn us, but that we might be saved. That is God's expansive and glorious love for us. That is God's way. Amen.