Tag Archives: Nicodemus

Preaching, Sermons

Holy Friendship – John 15:9-17

**sermon art: Crucifixion in Yellow by Abraham Rattner (1953)

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on May 5, 2024

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

John 15:9-17 [Jesus said to his disciples:] 9“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

[sermon begins]

Friends make life fun, and challenging, and good, and funny, and frustrating, and great. Friends can be around for the long haul or sometimes only for a particular season of life. Some people are inclined to talk about close friends as besties. Others simply let each friend defy description and hierarchy. Most people would say that friends are essential. We could argue that Jesus thought that friends were essential, too. Jesus said to his disciples, “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father; you did not choose me, but I chose you.”[1] No longer servants. Friends. That’s astounding for Jesus to say. And it’s a particular friendship. Jesus defines it. The disciples are Jesus’ friends because they’re in the know about God.

Jesus shared with them what he heard from God the Father. Bam. Friends! Friendship connected with God means something. It means something holy because God is the source of holiness and when we say something is holy, we mean it is something touched by God – whether that’s a person, thing, time, or place.[2] Holiness is not limited to the church. Of course, God is not restricted by such feeble constraints. Bible story after Bible story remind us that God acts where God will and with who God wills, not only in the places or people we think God should be acting. But when Jesus connected friendship and God, he was talking about holy friendship of a particular kind. It’s a good day to talk about what that means for being church because Jesus taught what it means in our reading today.

His teaching is part of what’s called the Farewell Discourse in the Gospel of John, chapters 14-17. Jesus talked about what holy friendship means as he said farewell to his friends. He knew they would need that connection to sustain their witness as their day-to-day world became more challenging after his death. As they longed to have Jesus back with them, they would need to turn towards each other in the love of holy friendship with the deep conviction that their lives belonged first to God and by extension they belonged to each other.

Jesus made holy friendship simple. Not easy. Simple. Lives shared in the witness of Jesus’ good news means the love of God is at its core. Jesus revealed God’s love in his life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Holy friendship includes sharing Jesus’ ways with each other, being Jesus to each other. We preach Christ crucified and we are the resurrected body of Christ in the world. This means that suffering doesn’t have the last word. Love does.

In the simplest of terms, Jesus showed up for milestones like a wedding and a funeral.[3] Pausing to observe life’s moments with holy friends recognizes God’s promise of presence with us in every situation, good or ill. Last Sunday in worship, we celebrated with our young holy friends graduating from high school. Lifting them in prayer during their time of transition. This coming Wednesday, 60+ Ministry will worship together and eat lunch afterwards. In one day last week, I met with three sets of holy friends – parents planning a baptism, another family planning a funeral, and a couple planning their wedding. (My first hat trick as a pastor.[4]) What do these things have in common? God is in the middle of these events with God’s promises of faith, hope, and love through celebration and suffering. Showing up for each other’s milestones builds community through the bonds of holy friendship, belonging to each other in the name of Jesus.

Right after the wedding of Cana in John chapter 2, where Jesus performed his miracle of turning water into wine, we’re invited into a different story. Jesus cleared the temple of bad business practices that hurt people and worked against the community.[5] The story of Jesus’ anger and how we think about the church helps us tend to the business of the church without turning the church solely into a business. Fiscal responsibility and attending to the business of the church is worthy, it’s just not the only or last word. Jesus’ teaching about holy friendship adds to that nuance. Stewarding our resources for both the good of this faith community and the wider community forms a tension from which we witness to Christ’s love for us and for the world. Our holy friendship as stewards isn’t easy. We have different ideas about how best to use the money, time, and talents that God first gave us.

Last week, Pastor Gail preached about Peter’s redemption and transformation after the resurrection in John, chapter 21.[6] In his fear during Jesus’ trial, Peter denied knowing Jesus three times. After the resurrection, Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. Each time, Peter said, “Yes, Lord, I love you.” That scripture, Peter’s longing for Jesus to hear him, wrecks me every time. Three denials. Three affirmations of love and a way to make amends as Jesus told Peter to feed his sheep, to tend to the beloved people who belong to God and each other. Grace upon grace was bestowed on Peter in those moments. If Peter’s example is too lofty, let’s visit the woman caught in adultery in John, chapter 8.[7] She was a dead woman walking, about to be legally executed by stoning.  Jesus wielded reckless grace on her behalf while inviting the men around her into self-examination of their own sin. He said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” With that grace-filled challenge, is any wonder that Jesus ended up executed himself?

We follow the example of Jesus in our life together. In our best moments, we love each other across healthy boundaries for our common good. Do we sometimes hurt each other by the things we do and the things we leave undone? You bet. Directly addressing hurt and shame with the people who hurt us is what holy friendship looks like. We as the church get to practice Jesus’ teaching over and over again. Holy conversations follow the example of Jesus’ conversations with Nicodemus in John chapter 3 and the woman at the well in John chapter 4. Holy conversations that name both how we are hurt and how we hurt others are a call to grace. Grace upon grace to know ourselves, too. To laugh at ourselves, shake our heads at ourselves, and open ourselves to something inside of us shifting by way of that grace so that we can better love each other, including loving our very own selves. That’s holy friendship, figuring out how to extend grace to each other because we are holy friends, yoked to Jesus by Jesus for each other.

We belong to each other through no work of our own as we do the work of belonging to each other. Jesus said, “…you did not choose me, but I chose you.” Through our baptisms by water, into Christ’s death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit works the wonders of transformation, giving us spiritual gifts for building up the body of Christ as a place of reckless belonging, a place of imperfect, holy friendship for God’s sake, for our sake, and for the sake of the world. Amen.

_____________________________________

[1] John 15:15-16a

[2] Frederick Buechner, “Holy” in Wishful Thinking (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1973, 1993), 45.

[3] John 2: Jesus first miracle of turning water into wine at the Wedding of Cana; John 11: The raising of Lazarus.

[4] A hat trick is a sports term that applies to achievements that happen in groups of three like a hockey player who scores three points in one game.

[5] John 2:13-25

[6] John 21:15-19

[7] John 8:1-11

Preaching, Sermons

Who has been Jesus for you? John 3:14-21 [OR Would Someone Please Put John 3:17 on the Poster, Too?]

**sermon art: Jesus Washes the Disciples Feet by Luke Allsbrook, oil on canvas (2018)

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on March 10, 2024

Ugh, you know, the thing I don’t like about Jesus is that he was always telling his followers to get their revenge, to trash talk, to really stick it to people. He was super mean all the time. He didn’t like weddings. And little children really got under his skin. I should probably stop there on the slight chance that anyone thinks I’m serious. Obviously, Jesus was none of those things. The stories we have about Jesus and the things he said reveal an incredible human. Non-Christians say how great life would be if Christians actually lived like Jesus lived. Many people who aren’t Christians try to live their lives as Jesus lived. Just as those of us who say we follow Jesus try to follow his example.

When we welcome new members into Lutheran churches like this one, we call it affirmation of baptism. There are promises we make as part of the affirmation of baptism when we join a church. The last few weeks we’ve covered a few of our promises: to live among God’s faithful people, to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper, and to proclaim God in Christ through word and deed. Today, we’re highlighting our promise, “to serve all people, following the example of Jesus.” Our Bible readings today help us remember a very important part of this promise. Jesus is Jesus and we are not, even if we are called to follow his example.

Verse 17 of the John reading takes that one step further. If Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn the world, then why would any Jesus follower think it’s their job to condemn people? I shared at Evening Prayer last Wednesday that I was raised in two denominations that painted the scariest portrait of God you could imagine, and that God sent Jesus to police the planet for evil deeds of any size. When I left home, I left Jesus behind. Why take him to the party if he was just going to frown away? And then I married a Lutheran Christian. We baptized our babies and made the promises to them that you hear me ask parents or baptized adults to make at our baptismal font. What changed? God didn’t. I did.

John 3:16 and 17 were written as a continuous thought in the original Greek.[1] “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.”

God’s love for the world revealed in Jesus is good news because it reveals God’s goodness and light. Jesus was not sent to condemn the world but to save it. Salvation in John’s gospel is focused on life. Eternal life today because God is eternal, and God abides with us right now as we abide with God right now. How would it change Jesus’ message for you to think about salvation that way rather than a dividing line at death? Why would a God whose love for the world, who draws all people to God, suddenly turn against people when they die? Have we projected our own fear about dying onto God?

These questions are relevant to today’s reading because people have used verse 16 over the centuries to blast people beyond God’s love. It’s what happens when verse 16 is separated from verse 17. It’s what happens when belief is set as the highest power above even God’s grace, as if the power of God’s grace could be limited by our beliefs and doubts which is, of course, ludicrous. In case we think too highly of our own power, hear the reminder from Ephesians – “For by grace you have been saved through faith, this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” Faith as a gift from God, by definition, means that belief cannot be a work. We don’t dredge belief and faith up in ourselves. That’s a real mind bender, isn’t it?

We haven’t focused on the Hebrew Bible’s stories of the Old Testament much over the last few weeks. Those readings in worship have emphasized the covenants that God makes to God’s people. Each covenant God made is evidence that the promise to some was for the benefit of many. From God’s covenant with Abraham would come blessing for the whole world.[2] From God’s covenant with the Hebrews led by Moses, would come life-giving commandments that brought peace among neighbors.[3] And from God’s covenant with the whole world through Jesus, would come a love so powerful that it transforms hearts and minds.[4]

Which brings us back to the baptismal promise we make “to serve all people, following the example of Jesus.” We don’t make this promise to serve in order to grow the church or to win souls for God or to prove how cool our theology is. We serve following the example of Jesus because as the Ephesians reading tell us, “…we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”

I’d like you think for a minute about the people who have served you like you imagine Jesus served people in the Bible stories. Call to mind names and faces and what happened. It may be someone who prayed for you.[5] It may be someone who healed you like a chiropractor or physician or counselor.[6] It may be someone who didn’t let a past harm define you.[7] It may be someone who has more grace for your flaws than you ever could for yourself and doesn’t condemn you.[8] It may be someone who stayed up with you late at night, talking when you needed it most.[9] It may be someone who fed you when you had no way to pay them back.[10] As I prepared this sermon, so many faces and names swam through my mind.

Most recently, it was my friend, Lee McNeil. Lee and I worked on human dignity policies and legislation with Together Colorado especially related to race and justice. I called her Sister Lee as did many others who knew her. It was an honorary title of respect for a beloved and wise elder. As the great granddaughter of an enslaved person, and the triple-great granddaughter of someone who owned African people, our friendship evolved over the ten years of working together. A few weeks ago, we were asked to write an opinion piece together supporting the Racial Equity Study bill moving through the Colorado legislature that will increase understanding of the generational impact of law and policy on Black Coloradans. Sister Lee and I wrote it in my office here at the church. First we reminisced over people we knew because we hadn’t talked in over a year. Then we kept right on talking while I typed and read out loud and we talked more and edited the letter together.

At the end of our conversation that day, I told her how grateful I am for our friendship and for her grace while I learned things I could never have learned without her loving instruction and willingness to just talk. We hugged. She told me she loved me and I told her back. There were a flurry of emails back and forth with final edits and I submitted our letter to the paper. A week later I found out that Lee died suddenly. A long life well lived. I was stunned and heartbroken and incredibly grateful to know her and unbelievably grateful to have seen her right before she died. Sister Lee was kind and thoughtful and fierce. She loved Jesus and she served people following the example of Jesus.

I’ve watched many of you love each other similarly. Oh sure, there are disappointments, disagreements, and sometimes frayed nerves. We are human after all. But we’re reminded time and again how much God loves us and we’re reminded that Jesus commanded us to love each other and then showed us how to do it. The list of things that Jesus did for people is long. If there’s not someone coming to mind at the moment who has been Jesus to you, take this question out of worship with you today. Who has served you as Jesus served and, in some small way, helped you understand just how much God must love you? Because that’s what our service to other people does, it reminds them that God loves them too. This reminder is no small thing in a world that is in desperately in need of Jesus’ transforming love.

Thanks be to God and amen.

_____________________________________________

[1] Joy J. Moore, Professor of Biblical Preaching, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave podcast for Bible readings on Sunday, March 10, 2024. www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/952-fourth-sunday-in-lent-mar-10-2024

[2] Genesis 12:1-5 The Call of Abram

[3] Exodus 20:1-17 The Ten Commandments

[4] Acts 9:1-22 The Conversation of Saul/Paul

[5] John 17:1-26 Jesus’ Prays for his disciples.

[6] See all of Jesus’ healing stories.

[7] John 8:1-11 Woman caught in adultery.

[8] Luke 22:54-62 Peter denies Jesus.

[9] John 3:1-21 Nicodemus visits Jesus by night.

[10] Mark 6:30-44

Preaching, Sermons

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? [OR Hope Flickering in the Darkness] John 3:14-21 and Numbers 21:4-9

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on March 14, 2021

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Numbers 21:4-9  From Mount Hor [the Israelites] set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” 6Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. 7The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” 9So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

John 3:14-21  [Jesus said:] 14“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16“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.
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. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

[sermon begins]

“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?” “I see a red bird looking at me.”

“Red Bird, Red Bird, what do you see?” “I see a yellow duck looking at me.”[1]

So goes the children’s book that I read infinity times to my children when they were little. It popped into my head as I was thinking about what the Israelites saw in the Bible story from the book of Numbers this morning.

Israelite, Israelite, what do you see? I see a poisonous serpent looking at me.

Poisonous Serpent, Poisonous Serpent, what do you see? I see a Moses man looking at me.

Moses Man, Moses Man, what do you see? I see a bronze serpent looking at me.

Bronze Serpent, Bronze Serpent, what do you see? I see scared Israelites looking at me.

One of the odder and more disturbing stories in the Bible, the Israelites whine and complain against Moses and God after being freed from slavery in Egypt. Their misery about the conditions in the wilderness brings out their smallest selves – impatient and afraid, they question their liberation, and they question God and Moses. Things go quickly from bad to worse with the arrival of the poisonous serpents. The Israelites confess their sin and are freed from death by looking at the bronze serpent on a stick. They look at the very thing that causes pain, making it visible to be able to see life itself.[2] Fighting their fear, the Israelites are saved by focusing on source of their injury. That’s the solution lifted up by God and Moses.

Scared Israelite, Scared Israelite, what do you see? I see a bronze serpent looking at me.

How many times have we heard the opposite? Someone giving advice to not look at the very thing that is scary, painful, or dangerous because it’s too upsetting. Look on the sunny side of life, they say. There’s truth enough in that encouragement. We can’t continuously indulge in the dark, wrapping our smallest selves around fear and pain, if we have any chance at a balanced life. Joy and hope are lost to us if that’s the plan. Although, taking time to directly assess the cause of our pain may be necessary time in the dark, finding a glimmer of hope flickering in the darkness.

Hope flickering in the darkness brings us to the Gospel of John reading. We are not given all the verses in the story. The verses we hear today are part of a longer speech by Jesus to Nicodemus, a Jewish Pharisee, a religious leader. Nicodemus visits Jesus “by night,” under the cover of darkness. We’re not told exactly why he visits Jesus in the dark of night, but the Gospel of John makes a big deal out of light and dark. The opening verses of the book tell us, “The lights shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”[3]  Later in John, Jesus will say, “I am the light of the world.”[4] Nicodemus, in the dark of night, said to Jesus, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God.”

Nicodemus, Nicodemus, what do you see? I see Rabbi Jesus looking at me.

Rabbi Jesus, Rabbi Jesus, what do you see? I see Nic-at-night looking at me.

Nicodemus knew enough to know that Jesus had something important to say, which is why he called him Rabbi and teacher. Jesus does not disappoint. He teaches his heart out. The verses we hear today are the second half of his teaching to Nicodemus and contain one of the most well-known parts of the Bible beginning with, “For God so loved the world…” It’s obvious why the people putting together the three-year cycle of worship readings paired this passage with the Old Testament reading about Moses and the Israelites. Jesus compared himself being lifted up on the cross with the bronze serpent lifted up on a stick by Moses. And then Jesus talked about God so loving the world, sending the Son not for condemnation but “in order that the world might be saved through him.” The Greek word for “saved” here, sozo [σώζω / sode-zo], can mean to protect someone from danger or to heal and restore.[5]

Beloved World, Beloved World, what do you see? I see Jesus the Light looking at me.

Jesus the Light, lifted up on a cross, shines light in the darkness of man’s inhumanity to man, or Son of Man as the case may be. To look at the cross is to look at the damage we can do in our worst moments when we believe that grace doesn’t belong to anyone else. We look at the darkness within us, and know that by looking at it, by examining the darkness, healing becomes a possibility. We depend on the daily promise of our baptisms for the freedom to live each day by grace through faith. We trust that God loving the world means that God also loves each one of us which means that there is nothing we can do or not do to make God love us any more or any less; that we are children of God.

Child of God, Child of God, what do you see? I see the God of grace looking at me.

Grace is what frees us to look at the causes of our pain and the pain we cause acting out of it. We don’t hurt ourselves or other people from our healed, larger selves. It’s from our smaller selves, wrapped around our pain, cozied up with our fear, that we inflict ourselves on each other. Healing can be a life-long process. As opposed to a self-help project, healing takes community, sometimes including professionals trained to help us work through specific trauma. Jesus shares the space with us when we end up confused in the dark. We call this the Theology of the Cross. Jesus suffers with us when we suffer, shining light on the broken places in need of healing. God’s grace, showing up in the person of Jesus, was so excessive and offensive that the people in power reacted by doing their worst and killing him. Untamed grace is simply that threatening. Untamed grace shines light in the darkness and pulls life out death. Who knows what then becomes possible?!

God of Grace, God of Grace, what do you see? I see the world I so love looking at me.

________________________________________________________

[1] Bill Martin Jr. (author) and Eric Carle (illustrator). Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1967). Listen to the whole book here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTr0eDESN7U

[2] Kari Reiquam, Interim Pastor, Holy Love Lutheran Church, Aurora, CO. Preacher’s Text Study for Metro East Conference of Rocky Mountain Synod, ELCA. March 9, 2021.

[3] John 1:5

[4] John 8:12

[5] Bible Study Tools: Lexicon. “Sozo.” https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/sozo.html

Sermons

Faithful Debate to Challenge Assumptions [OR Rabbinic Machloket L’shem Shemayim/Disagreement for the Sake of Heaven]

**sermon art: Jesus and Nicodemus by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1899), oil on canvas. “The story of Nicodemus visiting Christ at night spoke to African American worship habits that Tanner remembered from his youth: After emancipation, freed slaves continued to meet at night, as they had done when their masters had forbidden them to read the Bible (Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1991).”

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on March 8, 2020

[sermon begins after Bible reading; Romans and Psalm reading at end of sermon]

John 3:1-17  Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 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.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 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 born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.’ 8 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.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 “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. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “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. 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.

[sermon begins]

Very few of us are gifted the amount of faith we wish we had. So much so that I wonder if that’s simply a normal part of faith – wishing we had more of it. It can be high praise to be described as having a strong faith. Not many people easily admit when their faith is flimsy or freshie or completely fails them – especially after reading the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans that makes a big deal out of the righteousness of faith. Nicodemus has often been considered a role model of flimsy faith. “Nicodemus just doesn’t get it,” the preachers gonna preach. Well to that, I say, shake it off.[1]

Look at what Nicodemus does and doesn’t do. He does seek Jesus out. He doesn’t shame Jesus in the temple with other religious leaders. He does acknowledge that Jesus is from God and that Jesus’ signs reveal the presence of God. He doesn’t try to give a negative explanation for Jesus’ signs. He does call him a teacher. He doesn’t succumb to name calling. Respect is evident even in Nicodemus’ approach. In Rabbinic tradition, debate and questioning are a sign of respect. 2,000 years ago in Jewish Mishnah, the House of Hillel and the House of Shimmai were engaged in “Machloket L’shem Shemayim,” meaning “Disagreement for the sake of heaven.”[2] Nicodemus and Jesus are participating in the kind of faithful exchange that continues to thrive today between our Jewish cousins in the faith. We’d do well to follow their example and reject the idol we make of unanimous agreement. Disagreement for the sake of heaven preserves the minority report along with the prevailing one because both bear fruit for ongoing learning over time.[3]

Jesus and Nicodemus give us their example as two teachers questioning and debating each other. Jesus’ words are more like Wisdom teaching that doesn’t give exact answers but leads to more questions, to deeper and deeper layers of understanding.  The opening words of the Gospel of John tell us that God’s love for the world brings life and light in the Word made flesh in Jesus. Here in his story with Nicodemus, we’re also reminded in verse 17 that Jesus came not to condemn the world. Oddly enough though, Jesus followers can turn to judgment just as quickly as anyone else. I don’t know if it makes us feel smarter or more in control but judging each other seems to be a go-to move for most humans. Christians often take the good Lord’s name in vain by judging and condemning people who disagree with them in the name of God. But Jesus’ posture towards Nicodemus in this story is one that I wish the church catholic, God’s whole universal church, would embody in our posture towards each other in the faith and towards people of other faiths or non-faiths.  An audacious goal for the church and certainly not one that can simply be announced and made so as if we were Captain Picard on the Star Ship Enterprise.[4] What, then, are well-meaning church folk to do to adopt Jesus’ posture of compassionate teaching and not condemnation?  You didn’t think I’d come without an idea, did you?

The Jesus Prayer dates back to at least the 5th century in Egypt. It goes like this…

“Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”[5]

The Jesus Prayer can be used in a daily practice of contemplative prayer like the one recommended by Richard Carter in his book, The City is My Monastery. [6] Breathe in to the first part “Lord Jesus Christ…”, hold your breath for “Son of God…” and breath out on the last part “have mercy on me, a sinner.” This is not a prayer I’ve prayed as any kind of regular spiritual practice prior to this Lenten season. I now pray it regularly along with the breathing. This is true especially when I’m awake in the middle of the night or find myself overthinking politics, or viruses,  or kids in cages, or tornadoes in Tennessee, or my own young adult children. I pray it because it reminds me that God is present in Jesus and that God shows me mercy first.

Reflecting on that prayer, I’ve wondered about our own experience of God’s mercy allowing us to be merciful with ourselves and with other people. And that perhaps in this small individual practice and others like it along with our worship together we could actually be a church whose posture towards other folks mimics Jesus’ posture towards the people he encountered in his ministry.

Nicodemus turns up again, you know. Twice more in the Gospel of John.  In Chapter 7, he speaks up for Jesus when other religious leaders were trying to have him arrested without a just hearing.[7] Then again in Chapter 19, Nicodemus appears with 100 pounds of spices to prepare Jesus’ body for burial.  We don’t hear a confession of faith from Nicodemus but we do witness these additional two moments after he and Jesus had their faithful debate. I like to think Nicodemus heard things that made him question his own motives and shook his assumptions about faith. He is a bit of a hero for those of us who are drawn slowly into faith through ordinary days and dark nights of the soul. There is no single grand epiphany for Nicodemus or for many of us. Just a gradual journey that winds and meanders while pointing us in the direction of Jesus one shaken assumption at a time.

There are many things that happen in the world that shake our assumptions. You name the change, a good change or a bad change, and there are faithful people struggling to understand their faith in the midst of it. Being called to faith doesn’t mean we’re immune to change or our reactions to change. Oh, how I wish it did. A few years ago, I was sitting in my counselor’s office and, in all earnestness, told him that I just wanted a couple of months where things didn’t change. I don’t remember exactly when, but it wasn’t the first time I’d been worn out by a series of rapid-fire changes. He did what he often does and asked me whether or not I’d like to hear what he thought about my comment. To which I usually say “yes.” He leaned forward in his chair and said, “Life IS change.” Which, of course, I know but apparently had to hear again.

To that, we can add that Christian life IS change. What else would we expect?! It’s what God does. That much seems clear from Jesus’ teaching to Nicodemus as we are to be born from above. Another translation of the Greek is to be born anew. Transformation is a churchy word but it’s really just a fancy word for change, for being born anew. In that Spirit, receiving this blessing:

As you are born anew each day through the daily promise of your baptism, may you be given the grace, strength, and wisdom as your assumptions are challenged, and may you encounter the wideness of God’s mercy over your going out and coming in from this time onward and forevermore.[8] Amen.

 

hymn song after the sermon:

ELW 588 There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there’s a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good;
there is mercy with the Savior;
there is healing in his blood.

There is no place where earth’s sorrows
are more felt than in heaven;
there is no place where earth’s failings
have such kind judgment given.

There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of man’s mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful,
we should take him at his word;
and our life would be thanksgiving
for the goodness of the Lord.

____________________________________________________

[1] Taylor Swift. Shake It Off. Album: 1989 (2014). Written by Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback.

[2] Daniel Roth. A short, animated video that explains: “Machloket L’shem Shemayim” – the power of constructive conflict. https://www.bimbam.com/machloket-lshem-shemayim/

[3] Leon Wieseltier. The Argumentative Jew. Winter 2015. https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1491/the-argumentative-jew/

[4] Star Trek, The Next Generation, “Make It So” Compilation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaLyasJPyUU

[5] Read more about The Jesus Prayer here: https://www.orthodoxprayer.org/Jesus%20Prayer.html

[6] Richard Carter. The City is My Monastery (London: Canterbury Press Norwich, 2019), 11.

[7] John 7:37-52

[8] Psalm 121:8 and ELW hymn #588 There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2006).

__________________________________________________

 

Sermons

Called Good (Friday) for a Reason [OR Radical Inclusion is the Religious Freedom of the Cross] – John 18-19

Called Good (Friday) for a Reason – John 18-19

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church for Good Friday on April 3, 2015

 

[sermon begins after the two Bible readings excerpted from John 18-19]

John 18:15-18, 25b-27   Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, 16 but Peter was standing outside at the gate. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in. 17 The woman said to Peter, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.” 18 Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and warming himself.

25 Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.” 26 One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” 27 Again Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed.

John 19:16-18, 25b-30, 40-42 Then [Pontius Pilate] handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; 17 and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.

25b Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. 28 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” 29 A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

40 [Joseph of Arimathea] took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. 42 And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

 

[sermon begins]

 

We began Lent on Ash Wednesday confronted with our own mortality.  Ashes are smeared on our foreheads in the sign of the cross and we are told, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  A glaring reminder that life on the planet, our baptismal journey, ends in death.

Death leaves us longing for the spiritual. But in the meantime, we are stunned by its lack.  There is no heartbeat, no breath.  All is quiet.  From where we sit on this side of death there is no dressing it up.  At the bedside or roadside or war-side, wherever we encounter death, it is stark, austere, and unnerving in its lack of immediate meaning.  Death is simply absence.  Gone.  On this side of death, it is nothing more.

We begin Lent faced with our own mortality and a sign of the cross.  At the end of Lent this Good Friday, we are confronted by the cross itself.  Longing for the spiritual, we are stunned by its lack.  There is no heartbeat, no breath.  All is quiet after the betrayal, denial, ridicule, and execution.  The adrenalin fades.  The frantic hype is gone.  “It is finished.”  Jesus’ last words.  Finished.  All that’s left is to put him in a tomb and leave him there.

But the quiet of death breeds disquiet. Unnerved by the immediate lack of meaning the attempts to make meaning begin immediately.  Centuries of Christian thought have produced atonement theory after atonement theory.  Some more satisfactory than others.  Regardless, Gerhard Forde argues that all of these theories hold us “in a false relation to God,” most often reducing Jesus’ death to an unsatisfactory commercial transaction.[1]

Time and again in the New Testament, Jesus’ death is explained simply as “for us”.[2]  That is all.  “For us.”  Which necessarily means that Jesus died “for you.”  Jesus died for you.

Jesus died for you for the forgiveness of sins.  Because isn’t that what Jesus did in his life here on earth?  With the authority of God, he announced forgiveness time and again, and time and again, until finally he was killed for it.  Forgiveness, already available, already announced by Jesus, was that for which Jesus was killed.  He spoke a word of forgiveness until he hung on a cross for it.  For you.

The hands of the betrayer, the hands of the denier, the hands of the ridiculer, the hands of the executioner.  Those hands are ours hands in all the ways we take things into our own hands.  Determined to put conditions on what God’s gives to us unconditionally, we cannot hear this word of forgiveness.  We can’t hear it for other people.  And we can’t hear it for ourselves.

The cross is God’s answer to the re-imagining of God that we do. That re-imagining that leaves us separate from God.  Oh, so you think you know who God is?  Well, what about a God who hangs dead on a cross and gets buried in a tomb rather than use divine power over and against the very creatures whom God loves. Jesus said, “When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.”  Jesus on the cross simultaneously reveals the scope of divine power poured out to reveal the depth of divine love as we are drawn toward God.  When the self-sacrificing love of God, given fully, is made known to you, when this message of divine love gets through to you, you are drawn by God back into relationship. [3]

With great intention, Jesus hangs on the cross.  And, in one of his final acts while still breathing, does something radical.  Jesus turns to his own mother and then to the beloved disciple and redefines their relationship with the cross in between them.  “‘Woman, here is your son…then he says to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’”

Not only does Jesus draw us into relationship with God through the cross but Jesus redefines our relationship with each other at the foot of the cross – standing with the cross between us, Jesus intervenes.  Drawn back into the relationship with God our Father, Jesus the Christ turns us towards each other in a new way.  And God knows the world needs us to be with each other differently than we are at the moment.  Look as close as the cranky person next door or exclusion laws masquerading as religious freedom in several of these United States.  And look as far away as murder by plane crash in the French Alps or execution across religious differences at the Garissa University in Kenya.  We need every bit of help we can get to stand down and stand with each other.  As Anne Lamott writes, “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”[4]

At the cross, love is freely taken up for us and for the sake of the people next to us.  In the same moment, we have everything to do with what happened at the cross and we have nothing to do with it.  We are culpable AND we are passive spectators who are being handed a stark realization of our common powerlessness.  In this way, the cross cannot be used as a method to live life.  The cross is the way we experience life.  Longing for the spiritual, we are often stunned by its lack.  Yes, the cross is the way we experience life.  Humbled by our participation in a death on a cross, made confident through the self-sacrificing love of God.  The cross is radically inclusive of all people which necessarily includes you.

Jesus says, “It is finished.”  Can you hear the whisper?  Finished.  His final moment. All that’s left is to put him in a tomb and leave him there.[5]

 


[1] Gerhard O. Forde.  A More Radical Gospel: Essays on Eschatology, Authority, Atonement, and Ecumenism (Eerdmans Publishing: Grand Rapids, 2004), 221.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Koester, course notes, 12/1/2010.  For further study see: Craig R. Koester, The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008).

[4] Anne Lamott.  Traveling Mercies (New York: Pantheon Books, 1999).

[5] On Good Friday, cross and tomb are the focal point so that hope is reflected out of suffering that is real rather than as false optimism denying painful realities.

Sermons

John 3:1-17 “Honest Questions”

17,062 Comments

John 3:1-17 “Honest Questions”

June 3, 2012 – Caitlin Trussell

St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Greenwood Village, CO

 

John 3:1-17 1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 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.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 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 born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.’ 8 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.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 “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. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “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. 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.”

 

 

I went to a Memorial Day barbeque last Monday.  You may know the kind. We are long time friends of the people who gave the party but don’t really know the other guests as well, maybe only met some of them once or twice before in the last decade.  I found myself standing next to a new acquaintance, chit-chatting with him about the town I grew up in because he had lived there briefly after college. I was enjoying the connection of someone simply knowing background without needing to share it all.

From a few feet away came a voice, “I like your leg.”  The man looked over to the boy, around 9 years old, and said, “Thanks.”  The boy said, “It’s the color of skin.”  I looked down and for the first time noticed his prosthetic leg and looked up to the man looking at me, and he smiled and winked at me.  Then the boy said, “How’d you lose your leg?”  “Hunting accident.”  The man looks at me and smiles and winks again.  The boy continues, “What kind of accident?”  “I was shot.”  “Oh, and they had to cut off your leg?”  “Yes.”  And then, as suddenly as the conversation began, the boy was done with it.

At home, this scene played in bits and pieces in my head as I sat down to read my book of the moment.  So much so that I finally had to put my book down, pull out my laptop and sit down and write it out because I couldn’t stop the chatter in head between this boy’s straight questions in the daylight of high noon and Nicodemus’ questions of Jesus in the dark of night.   Boy…honest questions… and Nicodemus…honest questions…

When I picture Nicodemus, I see him in firstly in the dark of night, well, mostly because that’s what the story says.  And then I see him doing that tip-toeing and sneaking around that we get to see in episodes of Scooby Doo.  You know the kind – dink…dink…dink… with lots of looking this way and that way to make sure no one is onto him.  He has some questions and he thinks that maybe Jesus has the answers.  But he is also an educated man and a religious leader in a group that doesn’t really know what to make of Jesus except they know enough that they’re uncomfortable about him.  It is out of this discomfort that Nicodemus tip-toes over to Jesus and asks questions.   Nicodemus has big questions and Jesus has big answers about being born from above by water and the Spirit and being sent from God into the world not to condemn it but to save it.  All very clear and easily explained answers to Nicodemus’ questions – or maybe not.

I was 17 when I left the fundamentalist church in which I was raised.  God was scary, big and unpredictable, and Jesus was someone who made me very, very uncomfortable.  So, I left the church and ran away from Jesus.  In the years followed, I met two women – Moni when I was about 20 and Lisa when I was about 26.  These women were church-goers, Christians.  I was mystified by their faith and connection to the church.  But I began to suspect, perhaps a little like Nicodemus, that there might be something to this Jesus thing.  I asked each of them at some point in our friendships why they went to church and what was up with that Jesus anyway.  Both of them replied, “It just works for me.”  No big speech, no stumbling around and handing over John 3:16 to me, only their simple evangelical message, “It just works for me.”

As providence would have it, I also married a Lutheran.  I always say you have to watch out for those Lutherans with all the unconditional grace zinging around.  15 years ago we had the first of our two children.  My husband seemed unscarred from his Lutheran upbringing so our children were baptized and we began to raise them in the church.  And slowly, oh so slowly, the message of grace, the good news about God not condemning the world but saving it through Jesus, captured me.  What we don’t see on those John 3:16 signs at football games is the juicy news in 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.”

We also don’t get to see to see to the end of the Gospel of John in our passage today so I’m going to jump ahead and give you a glimpse into the last tidbit we are offered about Nicodemus in John 19:39.  Jesus had just been executed on the cross and it was time to bury him.  Verse 39 reads, “Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.”

What happened to Nicodemus?  In chapter 3 today we read that he’s tiptoeing around at night and in chapter 19 we read that he turns up in the light of day, thudding along with 100 pounds of spices, risking his own life to bury Jesus’ body.  We get one other brief verse about him in chapter 7.  While we could have a ton of fun wondering and guessing about what happened to Nicodemus, one thing we do know about the in-between time is that Jesus was hung on a cross and died.

Nicodemus was not privy to the resurrection at the time of burial.  The hinge point for him, indeed for the Gospel of John, is the cross.  All the God, Son and Spirit talk in the Gospel of John points us there and draws us, like Nicodemus, to faith through it.

But for us, as 21st century evangelists, as bearers of the good news of Jesus, the cross is a tricky place to start.  There is the reality of Jesus’ execution on a cross recorded by the Romans as a historical event.  And there is the swirling mystery of the Trinity – of Father, Son and Spirit – active on and through that same cross and drawing us to faith through it.  But how many of us, and I include myself in this, are prepared to give a neat and tidy speech about why the cross stuff is a good thing to someone who has never heard a good word about Jesus and perhaps is tip-toeing towards Jesus with some questions of their own about him and his church?

This week, as the season of Pentecost, the season of the Spirit working through the church begins to heat up, I invite you to think about the words you would use as people of the good news of Jesus Christ.  What might you say?  Where might you begin?  My two friends, my two evangelists, started something with a very simple piece of good news.  “It just works me,” they said.  And this gave me something to think about all by itself.  They kept it simple much like the man at the party kept it simple about how he lost his leg.  Obviously, in both scenarios, there is much more that could have been said.  Once back in church, while I was nervously tip-toeing about the edges as others seemed to get it, there was one verse that spoke to me – one verse in the whole Bible that made any kinds of sense.  20 years ago, one friend; 17 years ago, one husband; 16 years ago another friend; 15 years ago, one verse!  That’s a lot of tip-toeing.

Nicodemus went from tip-toeing toward Jesus in the night to lugging 100 pounds of spices for Jesus’ burial in the daylight.  There is a lot that happens during the in-between time that is difficult to fully explain.  Being born from above is just the kind of thing that is difficult to fully explain.  As talked about by Jesus to Nicodemus, the Spirit is involved along with water which for church has meant baptism.

One thing I’m clear about is that all the action belongs to the Spirit who, through the cross of Christ, through the waters of baptism, draws us to faith daily.  And, in drawing us to faith, the Spirit draws a confession of good news out of us.  This is not to be confused with confession of having done something hurtful to ourselves or our neighbor – although the Spirit does that too.  The kind of confession I’m talking about is the kind that the Spirit draws out of us the about who God is and the good news that comes with God.  The Apostle’s Creed is one such confession as we join our voices with our ancestors of the faith and speak it together.  My friends offered me a very different but also powerful confession.  I’m certain that their longer confession would blow me out of the water as they bore witness to Christ by the power of the Spirit.  And it is these confessions, and others like them, confessions born from above that are the good news shared through us to people like Nicodemus.

May the Spirit of God ignite your confession of this good news that is for the world as it is also for you.

For, “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.”