Fourth Sunday in Lent Year B 2009

04 Lent B 09
March 22, 2009

Numbers 21:4-9
4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5 The 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." 6 Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. 7 The 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. 8 And 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." 9 So 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.

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
those he redeemed from trouble
3 and gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south.
17 Some were sick through their sinful ways,
and because of their iniquities endured affliction;
18 they loathed any kind of food,
and they drew near to the gates of death.
19 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress;
20 he sent out his word and healed them,
and delivered them from destruction.
21 Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
for his wonderful works to humankind.
22 And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices,
and tell of his deeds with songs of joy.

Ephesians 2:1-10
1 You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ --by grace you have been saved-- 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-- 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

John 3:14-21
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. 18 Those 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. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But 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."

The Cost of Leaving Home

It’s a beautiful place we live in isn’t it? Did anyone see the sky these last few nights? You can’t get that sky in the city. I know. That amazing canopy of stars. Someone was saying they could see the space station up there, it’s so clear. And what about those open fields and those proud forests and that gorgeous water?

And it’s a congenial place we live isn’t it? The people are friendly, the taxes are low, the roads are pretty good, some of us can even get high-speed internet.

What would it take for you to walk out of your house here in beautiful Middlesex County, and go to a faraway land full of terrible dangers, where no one speaks English and everyone hates America?

Of course, our armed forces do that all the time, but I’m not talking about going armed. I’m talking about going alone, with nothing, and no one else. No money, no suitcase, just the clothes on your back.

The risks would be very great. Indeed if anyone even found out where you were really from, you might well end up dead. What would it take for you to leave? And why wouldn’t you?

Of course, those are two different questions. What would it take for you to leave? Maybe some big reward might tempt you. How much money, do you think, might tempt you to go to such a place? A million dollars? A billion? Maybe we’d risk it for the money. Or maybe you’d do it for some powerful position. Power over thousands or millions of people, a chance to really change the world.

Another reason you might leave is if Middlesex suddenly changed for the worse. Maybe if the East Coast was invaded by some murderous hoard from some foreign land, maybe then you’d leave. You probably wouldn’t head for another dangerous place, though.

Or maybe you’d leave if your life here would stop working. Maybe you’d do something or be accused of something that made living here unbearable. All your friends turned against you, lawsuits, loneliness, gossip. Maybe then you’d leave, and maybe you’d want to find a place where no one knew you. Still, you probably wouldn’t go to a dangerous place.

A much easier question to answer is “Why wouldn’t you?”

I don’t even need to tell you the answers to this question. A lot of you have worked your whole life for the home you have, the circle of friends, the business you own. Maybe a few of you are just starting out, you’ve got a foothold here, a good job, a nice place to live, family all around you, some savings.

And family would be another reason. Why would you leave your spouse, your children? Why would you deprive them of your income, your support, your love?

But probably the most important reason you wouldn’t want to leave is the loss you’d experience. You’d lose everything you worked for. You’d lose all your familiar friends and family. You’d lose your job or your savings, your means of feeding yourself. And you’d be greeted by a lot of hostile people at the other end, people who either don’t know you at all, or hate you without even knowing you. You’d lose the capacity to even speak to them, since they wouldn’t understand your language. And even if you lived long enough to learn it, you’d have nothing in common with them. We’re talking about a place where murder and corruption and injustice and oppression is the norm, where poor people are enslaved and brutalized, where the bad guys always win.

So if you can, just for a moment, imagine that, you can probably see yourself walking down a street and suddenly being surrounded by a murderous bunch of thugs with knives, with no pity in their hearts, or being kidnapped and videotaped with a bag over your head just before being executed, or just getting shot down by a passing car or blown up in some explosion. You can imagine yourself dying there.

What kind of lunatic would leave a safe and secure home surrounded by familiar friends and family, and go to a hostile, alien place full of madness and violence?

The speech we heard this morning from Jesus was delivered to a man named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a well-to-do member of the Jewish council that ruled over Roman-occupied Israel. The Romans were very well-organized and savvy. They knew that if they set up a privileged class of leaders from among the people they conquered, they were more likely to have a peaceful time of it. The Jewish council didn’t have much real temporal power, but they were delegated to resolve most of the legal issues of their own people.

Nicodemus was presumably a very wise and very accomplished member of Jewish society. He was almost certainly rich. He was almost certainly profoundly religious. He had spent his life mastering the scripture, going to temple at all the right times and for all the right reasons, taught in the synagogue every Saturday. We can be certain he was very much at home, very secure in Israel.

He’d heard about Jesus, heard about Jesus’ miracles, heard about Jesus’ brilliant teaching. And in this scene, he had sneaked over to meet Jesus in the middle of the night. He had greeted Jesus by confessing that he believed in him. Jesus apparently took this to mean that Nicodemus wished to enter the kingdom of heaven, which, as we know, was what Jesus was teaching everyone about.

So Jesus told Nicodemus that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, Nicodemus had to be born from above, by water and the Spirit. But Nicodemus didn’t understand. This speech we heard this morning is part of Jesus’ explanation.

Nicodemus was willing to secretly believe in Jesus. But Jesus was inviting Nicodemus to publicly believe in him, by being baptized. When Nicodemus says, “Can one enter into a mother’s womb a second time and be born?” he is really saying, “Are you out of your mind? You’re asking me to publicly turn against my nation, my family, my friends; you’re asking me to get thrown out of the synagogue where all my friends go, you’re asking me to get fired from the Jewish council, you’re asking me to make enemies of the Romans, you’re asking me to risk my life and the lives of my family!”

Jesus told Nicodemus that the Son of Man had left heaven, left the most wonderful and beautiful and perfect place of peace and justice and love, to come to a world of darkness and brutality that wanted no part of heaven or its light, a world that had become alien and strange, a world that would almost certainly kill him.

What kind of lunatic would leave a safe and secure home surrounded by familiar friends and family, and go to a hostile, alien place full of madness and violence?

A lunatic like Jesus.

The most important question I have ever been asked was “Mike, what stands between you and loving God with all your heart and soul and mind and every single human being in the world?” The answers to that question have been the root of whatever growth, wisdom or goodness I have ever been privileged to have. And yet that question is the one question I sometimes think Christians have the hardest time approaching. In my experience, many Christians are so busy justifying their behavior that such a question comes as a profound shock and even sometimes an offense.

For me, the first answers to that question included my desires for things beyond the scope of my true entitlement. I wanted more than my share. I felt entitled to more. And so I did things against God’s will in order to get and keep those things.

As my journey continued I have learned that my desire for security and certainty and safety reaches deep into my soul and often trumps my desire to do God’s will. What would doing God’s will cost me? What will telling the truth cost me? What will confessing Jesus as the Christ do to my position in society? Who will it take me to? What alien world, what hostile people, what terrible losses, what pain?

The execution of Jesus was a public event. He was lifted up for all to see in the plain light of day. But Nicodemus came to him by night, the council arrested Jesus at night, and tried him at night.

Why don’t I want to leave my home and journey to a hostile, murderous land? Why don’t I want to love God with all my heart and all my soul? What stops me from loving every human being in the world as I love myself? The answer is the cross. I don’t want the cross.

But there is one thing that can heal me of my true disease, this disease that bars me from the life that God wants to give me, one thing that enables me to ask that terrible question. The lifting up of Jesus didn’t end with the cross. It continued in the resurrection and came to completion in his glorification at the right hand of God.

You might leave the place you love, and the home that is so safe and familiar, if you knew that God went with you, if you knew that God would never abandon you, if you knew that God would save you, no matter what the world did. You might love a stranger or an enemy and risk the rejection and the grief and the vulnerability that comes with that, if you knew that God would rescue you, even from the very worst the world could dish out. You might tirelessly work for reconciliation and peace if you knew that God was working with you.

God loves the whole world, a world that doesn’t want his light or his peace. Can I let his word take on my flesh? Can I reach out to the alien, the unfamiliar, the cruel, as he did, not secretly, but in the plain light of day? Can I offer love to hatred, forgiveness to injury, heaven to earth, no matter what the cost?

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved though him.

Amen.