GRUMBLERS, NO MORE

A sermon for the 4th Sunday in Lent (Year B)

Today is already the fourth Sunday in Lent. And it actually has a name. It is called Laetare. This term comes from the Latin word “rejoice.” So we are right smack dab in the middle of the somber season of Lent and yet the word that describes this day is rejoice. Does that make any sense to you?

It may seem a bit odd since this is a season of penitence and sacrifice. It is a season so serious that we don’t even get to sing the Alleluia verses.  Yet in the ancient church, the prayers for this day always began with the word rejoice. Why? Because we have now passed the halfway point. Lent is more than half done and we are well on our way to the great joy of Easter. Today’s scripture lessons are filled with joy as well. 

The first lesson comes from the great Exodus, in which Moses leads the people of God out of slavery and into the freedom of the Promised Land. But as they are going, they to get tired of the road trip. They are like kids in the back seat whining: “Are we there yet?”  I was just introduced to a folk song from the 1920s called “Grumbler.” Since this story reminds me so much of the grumbler song, I’m going to sing you a verse. 

In country, town, or city some people can be found

who spend their lives in grumbling at everything around.

Oh yes, they always grumble no matter what we say.

For these are chronic grumblers, and they grumble night and day.

Oh, they, grumble on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

Grumble on Thursday, too.

Grumble on Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Grumble the whole week through.

Yes, the people of God are, indeed, grumblers. They are on their way to the promised land but do they get excited about this? Do they cheer about the greatness of this destination? No, they grumble the whole week through. They just hate it. They are in the middle of the wilderness and the food stinks. It’s worse than airplane food, which you have to pay extra for these days.  So the grumblers get mad at Moses. Never mind the fact that he led them out of slavery and he has helped them find water, manna and has even argued with God on their behalf. No pity for Moses. The grumblers feel sorry for themselves and he’s the most convenient one to blame. They grumble: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” 

As you might guess, God doesn’t really like their grumbling. So poisonous serpents show up and start biting and killing the Israelites. Um...excuse me? Where is the joy in this story? It sounds like a horror movie with Sam Jackson. In a 1999 poll, 40% of Americans listed snakes as that thing in life that they feared most. Snakes even beat out speaking in public and spiders. Now we have to deal with a snake story in the bible? But why!?

It certainly reflects our human nature to want to grumble about things. In our own “wilderness” experiences, we get impatient with God. We worry things won’t turn out the way wan want and so we get to grumbling. Often, we embrace negativity instead of hope.

But back to the Exodus. Despite the fact that the people brought the snake problem on themselves by their grumbling and ingratitude, God proves to be merciful. The people acknowledge their sin and ask for help. So God instructs Moses to make a bronze sculpture of one of the very serpents that had bitten them and mount it on a pole. Then, whenever someone is bitten, they should simply look up to the serpent and they will be healed. This is a great grace given to the grumpy grumblers.

Then, in the gospel lesson from John, we come in on the middle of a conversation that Jesus is having with a religious leader named Nicodemus. Jesus is trying to get through to this man that God is offering a new covenant through him. He says, “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.” You see he is making reference to the story we just heard. In the same way that God provided healing for the people through the serpent sculpture, God was now providing healing for all through Jesus who would be soon be dying for all on the cross. This cross is not just for the “insiders” who already have a relationship with God, but for all. 

Then, comes John 3:16, the verse that everyone knows. “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.” It is known as the gospel in a nutshell. You see it written on the scoreboard and baseball games, on billboards and bumper stickers. I once saw a man holding a sign with this verse as he was protesting a concert of the Rolling Stones. It made me laugh to see him using it as a condemnation of those awful people going to see a rock band. I laughed because that is exactly the opposite point this scripture passage is making.

Look at the very next verse. Jesus says, “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 message is that the cross is lifted up to liberate people, to draw them to God with the cords not of guilt or condemnation but of love.

For we are the grumblers. We are the ones who chose darkness over light. We are the ones, like the Israelites, who like to complain even while we are on the road to freedom. We tend to do this even when we don’t mean to. 

Saint Paul understood this internal wrestling when he wrote: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want to do is what I do.” (Romans 7:19-21)  This is fondly referred to as the "do do" verse. But it really describes our sinful condition. 

Yet Paul also understands that while our nature is sinful, God’s nature is one of love and grace. “Where sin increased,” he writes in Romans 5:20, “grace overflowed all the more.”

Out of God's unsurpassing love for us, Christ is lifted up on the cross. And this love is for the whole cosmos. The author of John’s gospel wants to make this clear. Love is the theme that dominates the whole book. We hear that God is love (1 Jn. 4:8), that the relationship between Jesus and his Father is love (Jn. 15:9-10; 17:23), and that the nature of discipleship is love (Jn. 13:34-35; 15:12-14). 

This love of God is all in all. That is why they call John 3:16 the gospel in a nutshell: 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. This is the reason we can rejoice today, even as our Lenten journey continues.

God woos us into a relationship through love and grace. In the book Surprised by Joy, the author C.S. Lewis claims that he came into Christianity kicking and screaming. He says that as a young man he was “very angry with God for not existing.” He had no intention of embracing faith in an unseen God. But the love of God drew him in against his own will and he became one of the greatest Christian writers.

As God offered healing to the Isrealites, God offers healing to all in Christ. The word “healing” comes from the same root as “wholeness” and “wellness” and they all refer to being “full” or “complete.” When we look at our own lives, we know that we are broken. Yet, Jesus comes to us in our broken state and offers healing and wholeness because of God’s great love for us. We are called to faith in Christ who heals us.

The theologian Paul Tillich wrote: “Faith is being seized by a power that is greater than we are...one that transforms us and heals us...Surrender to that power is called faith.” We are not required to heal ourselves, but simply to surrender to the Savior who can. Surrender to that power.

And so today, we hear again that powerful message of grace. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are saved by grace through faith in him and set free to do the good things God has planned for our lives. That is why it is Laetare—a day of rejoicing. We rejoice in God's love. Let us stop being grumblers and surrender to this power called faith that we may be healed and know the joy of eternal life. 

Now, for the thrilling conclusion to this sermon, I’ve written new lyrics to the Grumbler song to remind us that by grace, we can be grumblers no more.

So stop your chronic grumbling and take a look around.

For you have got a Savior who’s waiting to be found.

Oh yes, He is ‘a callin; just listen for his voice.

Then you won’t be a grumbler, and he’ll make us all rejoice!  

Oh, we’ll, laugh on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

Laugh on Thursday, too.

Laugh on Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Laughing the whole week through!

© 2012  Laura E. Gentry

LET THE SPIRIT BLOW WHERE IT CHOOSES

A Sermon for Second Sunday in Lent

March 20, 2011

Pastor Laura Gentry

John 3:1-17

In our Gospel text for today, we get to overhear a conversation between Jesus and a rabbi called Nicodemus. It’s not a very long conversation, but like everything in John’s gospel, it is layered with meaning. So let’s dive in and see what we can find that will nourish us on our 40 day Lenten journey.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus as night. Why at night? Theologians like to puzzle over details like this. Maybe he was afraid his fellow rabbis would see him so he wanted to sneak to Jesus under the cover of darkness. Or perhaps he was a really studious man who studied all the time—you know, like a college student who stays up all night reading. Then again, John’s gospel has a lot of symbolism with light and dark so this may be a way of illustrating that Jesus’ teachings are the light that illuminates the darkness of the religious establishment. He offers them enlightenment.

In any case, Nicodemus shows up and tells Jesus that he knows he’s from God because of all the signs he’s been performing. Nicodemus is not very humble but he’s at least recognizing Jesus as a teacher on par with himself.

Then Jesus then offers him the vision of God's kingdom. He says “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."

Now this is a powerful statement, but it confuses Nicodemus. He takes it quite literally. He wonders how in the world a person could enter his mother’s womb to be born again. We don’t even want to consider the logistics of that! But before we go thinking Nicodemus is a dense character, we have to realize that he’s a Jewish teacher and this whole idea of being “born from above” or “born again,” which is another way to translate it, is a foreign concept. This rebirth idea is a Greek, not a Jewish one.

Yet, Jesus, this young Jewish teacher from Nazareth—the one whom they believe had come from God—tells him he must be born again, born from above, born anew. Of course, this kind of language isn’t about literally redoing natural childbirth, but it is about God literally redoing our lives, literally transforming us.

You see, Jesus was telling Nicodemus that just being religious wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to for him just study and follow the law—though he was probably a great leader. The Kingdom of God is not attainable on our human terms. It is God’s grace through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not our good behavior, that makes entering the Kingdom possible. Being “born again” is not amending of a part of our lives, but renewal of the whole nature, a total renewing that only God can initiate.

But how does the Spirit do so? Jesus explained this to Nicodemus by saying, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” This metaphor of wind is a powerful one. Consider the power of strong winds: windmills move, cars swerve on the road, huge trees can be uprooted, power lines thrown downed, rain gutters bent out of shape or in the case of a tornado, whole towns leveled—winds can suddenly reshape the whole landscape. You cannot see the wind, but you can feel it, and you can see all the powerful changes that the force of the wind brings. To everyone but meteorologists, the wind seems very mysterious—the way it erratically comes and goes with great force, blowing as it chooses. You just can’t control it. And Jesus says, “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

The author Annie Dillard thinks that churches should be required to issue worshippers with crash helmets, life preservers and seat belts, just in case God shows up. God’s that powerful, you know. That’s what Jesus is saying here. The Spirit blows where it pleases and it whisks you off on it’s wings even if you’re not ready.

How does that happen for you and me? We can get pretty discouraged with ourselves. It reminds me of a Peanuts cartoon in which Charlie Brown shows up at Lucy’s therapy booth and she says: “Discouraged again, eh, Charlie Brown? You know what your whole trouble is? The whole trouble with you is that you're you!"

Charlie looks at her in great earnest and asks, "Well, what in the world can I do about that?"

Lucy answers, "I don't pretend to be able to give advice...I merely point out the trouble!"

Yes, we can feel Charlie Brown, tired of being ourselves. We may be life-long church-goers and yet we’re still not where we want to be spiritually. We’re still not loving or patient enough. We know that our sins encumber us in so many ways.

Nevertheless, Jesus' revelation is clear. We are transformed by God's spirit. We are transformed and given the gift of a new life. We have the opportunity to start again—to be different, act different, live in community in a different manner.

When Nicodemus began to allow himself to be born of the wind, things changed for him, too. In the chapters which follow, we read that Nicodemus, later spoke up for Jesus, publicly questioning those in authority who would judge Jesus. Then after Jesus' death on the cross when all the disciples had fled, Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus came forward to prepare Jesus' body for burial. Nicodemus was no longer intimidated or afraid. Nicodemus had come to realize that he was born from above not by his own doing but by the love of God who birthed him anew and gave him a life of boldness.

The theologian Bruce Epperly states that “if we affirm that God is moving through our lives, filling us with the divine presence even when we are least aware of it, then we can learn to open our lives to be more open to these moments of divine inspiration.”

Are we open to God’s inspiration? It’s like the little fish who asked his mother "Where is the ocean?" She laughed and said "It's all around you!" So it is with the Spirit of God. It’s all around you! Do you notice? Do you let it transform you? Because the Spirit blows where it pleases and it wants to change you.

We always want to place limitations on God, though. In his autobiography Saint Augustine explained how in his early life, he really didn’t want God transforming him. He prayed to God: "Give me chastity and continence, but not just now." Not just now. Have we been saying that to God?

Paul Tillich once wrote: "Only the fulfillment of what we really are can give us joy.” The fulfillment of what we really are. That’s where true joy is to be found. And that’s exactly what the Spirit aims to do.

The prophet Ezekiel spoke God’s word to the people in ancient times. He said: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27)

Yes, that is what God has always been doing. Our salvation is not about our action, but about God’s. We have been given a savior and we’ve even been given the faith with which to believe him. God’s Spirit is constantly working to put a new heart in us, to put a new spirit in us, so we can be the fulfillment of who we really are. That’s what it means to be born again.

As we proceed on our Lenten journey, may we intentionally open ourselves to God’s all-powerful Spirit. Let the wind of the Spirit blow where it pleases and transform us entirely. We need a new heart. So let’s fling open our hearts so the spirit may blow where it chooses.

As Dag Hammarskjold said, "For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes."

© 2011 Laura E. Gentry