Image by Stefano Ferrario
Lent 4B
14 Mar 2021
John 3:16. Perhaps the verse in the entire Bible I dislike the most. It elicits a Pavlovian response and reminds me of ginger ale. When I was young and had an upset stomach, my mother would, when it was clear I could keep something down, give me ginger ale. I suspect that is what her mother gave her and so forth and so on. I got to the point that ginger ale immediately caused me to feel sick in my stomach.
Sadly this one verse from John became just like ginger ale for me. I heard it over and over, and still hear it over and over, as a mantra for believe in Jesus as personal lord and savior being the only ticket that will save you from going to hell when you die.
Give me a break. I have grown very tired of the holier than thou Christians who see one very narrow path to salvation and that path is accepting Jesus as personal Lord, with a capitol L, and savior and if you don’t you will burn in the fires of hell after you die.
How did this come to be? (Now I sound a bit like Nicodemus, to whom all of this was directed.)
I tried to trace the 3:16 movement in sports, particularly football. Apparently is started with publicity stunts by evangelicals in the 1970’s and includes tales of murder and suicide. But what it seems to have come to mean is an extreme exclusionism. That is: my way or the highway.
I neither think nor believe that our reading from John was meant to eliminate, exclude, or marginalize. I refuse to believe that Muslims or Jews or Buddhists or Bahai’s or even secular humanists are excluded from the world that Jesus was initiating.
We have no clue who composed the Gospel of John, nor exactly when it was written. If you think about it, the only books of the Bible that we know with certainty who authored them are the epistles of Paul, and even some of them are debated. We have no clue about any of the other books.
In short, we base our faith on faith, the faith that whoever wrote, re-wrote, edited, etc. all those books were inspired by God, but we have no idea who they were nor what was their agenda.
Maybe that is why we use the word “faith” so often.
So let me tell you about my recovery story.
I really need to recover the entire Gospel of John. When I learned of the history of the anti-Semitism it has inspired and of the Christian exclusionism, I was ready to reject the whole thing, despite everything good it has given to me.
OK. Big mistake.
Like my story of learning to paddle a canoe: you don’t look at the side of the canoe or the front or you go in circles, or at least I did; you must have a bigger vision and look far ahead to the place you want to paddle. Otherwise you veer way off course. And if we look at a narrow view of John, we do the same thing, we veer way off course.
So I began my recovery journey.
The people to which the Gospel was addressed were a people who were likely Jewish and who were being marginalized as Christian Jews in the Jewish community and persecuted Christians in the Roman world. They were a people hurting. John spoke to their deep hurt, as John should speak to ours.
God so love the world. Agape, that self-giving love of God is the word that is used. When we love selflessly it is agape.
God gave; Jesus is a gift to the world, not just a few select people who say the right words, but to all.
To all who believe; belief is not a state of your mind, but a state of how you act in the world; faith is not a creed but a deed. And it is in the present tense; it is currently active.
Will not perish; you will not be lost, ever, if you have faith. You have, not will have but have NOW eternal life, or literally EONS OF THE ZOO!!
This was written for a community that was hurting, rejected, marginalized on all fronts.
Is this not a statement for those in all generations who have been this marginalized? It is a statement of inclusion and compassion. If we use it to exclude and marginalize, how can we in any way call ourselves Christians? As a Christian I want to be known for my love and caring for all humanity and all of creation, not for the recitation of a creed that is not a creed at all.
I have reclaimed, or at least started to reclaim, John from its antisemitism and Christian exclusionism.
But merely reclaiming versus or books from the Bible is not enough. John should be speaking to me and to you. It does not need to be the same way for any of us. Today you may need John to affirm your personal faith.
As for myself, I often need scripture to call me back to the center. In recent weeks I have been saddened and disheartened by much of what I have seen happening politically in this state. I believe that faith calls us to reach out and make the biggest tent we can so that the most people can be sheltered. It is not what I am seeing and in my eyes the Gospel is being perverted and subsumed to racism and xenophobia. The miracle of the loaves and the fishes should tell us that there is plenty to go around; we do not need to operate from the premise that we do not have plenty for everyone; it is a matter of distribution.
As I see the snake lifted up, I see an antidote to the self-centeredness of not only the Israelites but of all of us. Look up at the snake and the poison that is filling your veins will be lifted. Look up at the cross and see the Son of God, or as John would say the Word made flesh, there out of love for our very selves. All we need to do is believe in that love, that love that was given for all of humanity.
I have explored and discovered much of my family history in recent years and some of it I would rather not own but own it I must. I now know I had ancestors who owned other human beings.
Here is the will of my 7th great grandfather, a man who lived in British Colonial Virginia:
WILL OF CORNELIUS DABNEY
In the name of God Amen I Cornelius Dabney of St. Paul's Parish in the county of Hanover Being weak in body but sound and disposing mind, as usual thanks be to Almighty God for the Some Considering the uncertainty of this mortal life and to prevent dispute about such worldly Estate as I Shall leave at my death do think it proper to make and ordain this my last will and Testament in manner and form following Imprimus Recommend my Soul into the hands of my great Creator from whom I received it and my body to be buried in humble hopes of a resurrection into eternal life through the merits and mediations of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and as to what worldly goods and Estate I am _____ of after my debts are paid, I give and bequeath the same as follows.
Item: To my wife Sarah "my featherbed and furniture, two trunks, the black walnut chest, one looking glass, one horse and saddle, two cows and calves, house safe at her disposal; to wife for life, 2 negroes, Jane & Bob, and my river dwelling plantation; after the death of my wife, my son John Dabney may have the land and Bob if pays 45 pounds to my daughters, Elizabeth Maupin, Frances Maupin and Anne Thompson, for said Bob and 45 pounds for my land.
Item: I give to my son William Dabney one hundred and fifty acres of land with the Plantation whereon he now lives and four negroes to wit - Judy, Venus, Christopher and Moses, and all my wearing apparel to him and his heirs forever.
Item: I give to my son John Dabney one negro man named Will, my Saddle and my Guns to him and his heirs forever.
Item: My will and my desire is that the hundred and fifty acres of land and one Negro wench Amany That I intended for my Son Cornelius Dabney, deceased, may be sold and the money arising from Such Sale may be equally divided among all my deceased son's children .
My daughters, to equally divide the residue of my estate.
My son John Dabney and friend Harry Terrell, executors.
October 22, 1764
(signed) Cornelius Dabney
Witnesses: John Wingfield, Thomas Wingfield, Cornelius Dabney, Harry Terrell.
November 5, 1764 Codicil; 1 shilling to each of my sons-in-law, Christopher Harris, Matthew Brown and William Johnson.
When I hear that folks do not want to hear about that part of our nation’s past and want to continue to pretend slavery was a benign institution and that indigenous Americans just gracefully sold their land and kept moving on, my blood comes as close to a boil as it can.
We are in Lent; this is the time of year, of all times, when we need to face all the wrongs that were, that are, and that will be. This is the time to lament, to mourn, to be sorrowful, to repent and to repair. None of us can undo the past nor does God expect that; we live in the present and we look to the future, but all we can control, if that, is the present.
So I give to you a new charge: if you have faith, if you really accept Jesus as your lord and savior, you will confront anyone who wants to deny the past and to denounce all attempts to perpetuate the inequality that makes a mockery of the Kingdom of God.
We are called upon in the Episcopal Church to work for the Beloved Community and I plead with you this Lent to make it part of your work.
It has been a long and difficult year for all of us in so many ways. Coming together should mean celebration, but the cross is still there, and it is ours to carry.
Amen
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