I HAVE NOT LOVED THE WORLD; NOR THE WORLD, ME

There is a term that comes up a lot in John’s Gospel.

It’s the world.

In John, the world doesn’t mean the planet earth.

It means the way things are – the system           

     -- the way of the world.

It mostly means the way human society works, how people are.

The world doesn’t come off too well in John.

When John talks about the world 

           he doesn’t have much good to say.

The world hates Jesus. The world hates the disciples. 

The world is a fallen place, a realm of darkness.

Disciples unfortunately have to live in the world, 

but they don’t belong to it.

Jesus takes us out of world.  

We find John’s basic attitude in the hymn 

This world is not my home. 

I’m just a-passin’ through; or

I am a poor wayfaring stranger 

while traveling through this world below; or

      I have decided to follow Jesus;

      The world behind me; the cross before me.

      I'll follow him. 

Simple summary: Jesus good. World bad.

But in today’s lesson, right smack dab in the heart of John,

     we find a most peculiar

      --  a downright amazing -- verse.

It may be the most famous verse in the New Testament.

But when John saw what he had written, 

      he shook his head and muttered,

     Where did that come from?

We usually miss what a shocker it is

     in the context of a book about 

     how the world is a den of iniquity.

John 3: 16 – For God so loved the world . . . .

      God so loved the world so much 

      that he gave his only begotten son

       that whoever believes in him 

       might not perish but have eternal life.

And it goes on. Next verse:

     God did not send his son into the world 

      to condemn the world

     but that the world might be saved through him.

It had to be hard for John to write that because 

        John and the world were clearly not on good terms.

He felt hated by the world. He says that straight out.

And he hated the world right back. 

That isn’t an unusual attitude.

Lord Byron wrote:

     I have not loved the world; nor the world me.

     But let us part fair foes. I do believe, 

     though I have found them not, there may be 

     . . . hopes which will not deceive,  . . . 

      I would also deem

     O’er others griefs that some sincerely grieve,

     That two, or one, are almost what they seem – . . . . 

     I have not loved the world; nor the world me.

Byron didn’t much like the world because it didn’t like him.

John was the same way.

He was obviously an odd character. 

You had to be pretty off beat to write 

     such a strange, mystical book as the 4^th Gospel.

John felt rejected by the world, judged by it.

He wasn’t what the world thought he ought to be.

So he responded in kind.

The world wasn’t what he thought it ought to be either.

I don’t know how that strikes you,

     but sign me up with Byron and John.

The world hasn’t always judged me kindly

     and I am perfectly ready to return the favor.

I had unkind psychological assessments 

     for every woman in college

     who declined to go out with me.

Nowadays, whenever someone honks their opinion 

     of my driving,

     I have to fight a reflex to express my opinion 

     of their honking.

The world is addicted to judging, condemning, 

        guilting, and shaming.

So I judge the world back, condemn it, guilt it, shame it 

     – and in judging the world, I join it.

That elaborate network of mutual condemnation 

           is one way I can fit in.

Then John 3: 16  jerks me up short: 

         For God so loved the world . . . .

The good news is that I’m part of the world God loves.

The bad news is that God loves the rest of the world too,

all those people who hurt me.

What could God be thinking?

God’s love for the world runs right through Scripture

     starting with Genesis Chapter 1 verse 31:

     God saw all that he had made 

      and indeed it was very good.

It wasn’t perfect but it was very good.

Sociologist James Davison Hunter’s book, 

      To Change The World,

calls Christians to make a positive difference 

      in American culture.

The first step he says is appreciation. Hunter writes,

Goodness, beauty, and truth remain 

in this fallen creation . . .  (P)eople of every creed 

and no creed have talents and abilities, possess

knowledge, wisdom, and beauty that are .  . . in 

harmony  with God’s will and purposes. . . .

     These things . . . , Hunter says, Christians should 

     neither dismiss nor disparag but rather be grateful for      

     and be delighted by because they are gifts of God’s  

     grace . . . .

There really is something good about the world, 

         even people.

They may be wrongheaded, neurotic, and dysfunctional.

But there’s still something in them to enjoy,

     something to shake our heads and laugh about.

So here’s a suggestion for Lent this year.

Suppose we ease up on the world a little.

It’s easy to get stuck in an attitude

     -- easy to get grouchy and grumbly  

seeing everything and everybody  through a negative lens.

Suppose this Lent we keep eating chocolate 

     and checking our Face Book pages,      

     but we take a break from focusing on people’s faults.

We start with a 3 step process of garbage removal.

The first step is knowing that the world’s judgments 

         of us are rubbish.

The second step is forgiving the world for being too broken

     to see us as we really are.

The third step is admitting that our judgments of others

     are every bit as twisted as their judgments of us.

That frees us up to enjoy them. 

Our appreciation and delight muscles may be 

         out of shape.

This may be a strain at first. It takes practice.

I have suggested this practice before. 

But it’s especially helpful in Lent. 

Sit still for 5 minutes each day

     and let people come randomly to mind.

As each person’s image pops up,   

     we hold onto the thought of them

     just long enough to think these words:

     Equally a child of God.

    Equally destined for likeness with Christ.

We cannot make a positive difference in this world

until we have first looked at it with kindly eyes.

That’s how we bless the world.

We please God by loving what God loves,

by cultivating our appreciation of God’s children.

So this Lent, I urge you to take on this arduous discipline.

Cheer up. Lighten up. Be kinder.

Take a second look at someone each day

            to find a spark of goodness to enjoy. 

PLAGUE, PESTILENCE, & PESISTENCE

[Excerpt from Epiphany 3 sermon in light of present Christian response to the Coronavirus]

1^st Corinthians is pretty straight forward, 

     but the Epistle to the Romans gets misunderstood

     and misused most of the time.

It isn’t the theological treatise people think it is.

Just like Corinthians, 

           it’s an effort to smooth out a church fight.

In Rome the Jewish Christians and the gentile Christians

     were going at it. 

It got so bad the Emperor Claudius threw the whole lot         

     of them out of town kit and caboodle.

Paul wrote Romans to show them that it is better 

    to be kind than to be right.

The Romans may not have gotten it right away.

But the point eventually sank in.

Here’s how we know.

Between 165 and 180, a plague swept through

     the urban centers of the Empire,

     killing one-third to one-half of city populations.

The city of Rome was particularly hard hit.

The disease is named Galen’s plague after Galen, 

the Emperor’s personal physician.

Galen is famous because he figured out 

     that people were catching the plague from each other.

He connected plague with contagion.

So Galen told everyone, who had the wealth and ability,

     to get out of town.

Well, that was fine for the people who had country estates.

But it left the poor, the sick and the dying to their own devices.

It wasn’t pretty. 

Rome was a city of the sick, the dying, 

         and the dead lying in the streets.

And everyone ran away – except the Christians.

The Christians had an odd notion that the love of God,

     that is God’s love living in their own hearts, 

      would protect them.

If it didn’t, then they’d just die in God’s service 

          and go to heaven.

So the Christians stayed and nursed the sick, 

     prayed with the dying and buried the dead.

The pagans looked on in wonder.

They said, See how these Christians love one another.

     They have come to love to even love us.

Christianity remained illegal for another century.

But, in spite of being illegal, 

 by the end of that century, 

fully one third of the Empire

     had converted to Christianity.

It wasn’t because of our aggressive marketing campaign.

It was largely because  of the love Christians displayed

            during Galen’s plague.

Tertullian, the Father of Western theology, 

            came of age during Galen’s plague.

He watched it play out 

         and he watched the Pagan response. 

Tertullian summed up the basic strategy 

      – actually it was the only strategy –

of evangelism in the Early Church. He wrote:

      See how these Christians love one another, 

      'the pagans say,

     for (the pagans) themselves hate one another,

‘and how (Christians) are ready to die for each other,’ 

for the pagans are ready to kill each other.’

Have you watched the news recently?

Have you been on social media?

Have you driven in traffic?

This increasingly secular world 

          has some increasingly serious heartburn.

We could follow their way and fit right in.

Or we could show them Jesus’ way 

         and see what they think.

That second option wouldn’t be easy. 

For us human beings, love don’t come easy.

As G. K. Chesterton said,

     Christianity has not been tried and found wanting.

     It has been found difficult and not tried.

Nothing good comes easy. 

What is best may be hardest of all.

But the reward is to live in God and have God living in us.

That might be worth it. 

THE CARE AND MAINTENANCE OF DEER WHISTLES

When Jesus wanted to get his heart straight 
       with the Father,

the place he went to do it was the desert.

Back in Nevada, people had several names for me

     -- most of which I can’t repeat here.

But one that stuck was Bishop Desert Rat. 

In younger days, I’d been on some long desert retreats,

     but in Nevada, I just drove through the desert 

      week in, week out,  on my way from church to church.

The office staff felt sorry for me because of all the hours

                 of driving alone out there.

They didn’t believe me when I told them that I liked it.

There’s a lot of geology in the desert 

           – and more biology than you’d expect.

And the light falls at different angles 

      in the different seasons.

It was a spiritual retreat for me to drive all day

     in solitude, where we are least alone 

      as Lord Byron said.

I found God out there.

My family worried about me though.

That was partly my fault.

I told them the stories of terrorist attacks on my car 

     by kamikaze deer,

     aerial assaults by suicidal hawks,

     and once a bovine roadblock by three cows 

standing stolidly broadside across both lanes.

Like Jesus I was with the wild beasts. 

I never had a serious mishap.

The only wild beast that ever damaged my car

     enough to go to the shop wasn’t a deer, cow, 

     elk, or bear.

An enormous mutant jack rabbit 

       tore out my undercarriage. 

Still the family worried.

So my elder daughter sent me a set of deer whistles

     to scare the wild beasts out of my path. 

The premise of the deer whistle is that, as you drive,

     the wind blows through it

     to make a sound that scares the animals.

There’s controversy about whether they work or not.

I don’t know, but my daughter gave them to me 

so I installed them as directed in the instructions.

The interesting part was the maintenance instructions.

The maintenance issue is about smaller wild beasts, 

     to wit: bugs 

     – the same ones that splatter our windshields and grills

                 are apt to die in the deer whistle and clog it up,

                             blocking the wind tunnel.

No wind – no whistle.

So it’s necessary, from time to time, to clean the bugs

     out of the whistle.

And that brings us to Lent.

The Persian poet Rumi said the human being is a flute

     which makes music when the breath of God 

      blows through.

God breathes through us so that we speak, act, and move

     with a grace like music – music that attracts people,

     that draws them – not to our personalities – but to God.

 Spirit means breath or wind.

Spirit isn’t a feeling we have or something we hold onto.

Spirit is God blowing through our hearts

--  which brings us back to deer whistles, bugs, 

and Lent.

Like the deer whistle, our spiritual passageway 

        can get blocked.

We call the bugs that choke off 

         our spiritual air passage sin.

Sins are not just bad decisions.

Sin is anything that blocks God out of our souls

     and keeps us from sharing God out into our world.

Sin blocks the flow of God’s spirit through us

     like bugs block the wind from a deer whistle.

Sin is any pattern or habit of feeling, thinking, or acting

     that keeps us from attuning our lives to God.

Each new situation is a fresh encounter with God.

But fixed habits of feeling, thinking, and acting             

     make us oblivious to the wonder of God new 

     in each moment.

Every feeling, thought, and action happens in the brain

     when an electrical impulse fires 

      from one nerve cell to the next.

Neuro-scientists have a saying. It goes:

     What fires together wires together.

That means repeating the same patterns over and over

     can trap us in a rat maze inside our own heads.

We get patterns of feeling, thinking, and acting

     hardwired into our very bodies.

New things are happening all the time,

     but we keep having the same old experiences.

We are deaf, numb, and blind to anything new.

We are deaf, numb, and blind to God.

These habits that shut God out are the bugs.

Lent is the time for a spring cleaning of our hearts,

     to open up a passageway for God.

Now there are as many kinds of sin as there are bugs

     along the highway.

But you can group them in categories.

Evagrius of Pontus became something of an expert on sin

     the same way Jesus did.

He spent years as a hermit in the desert

     and found every sin imaginable right inside himself.

He grouped the sins into three categories

     corresponding to Jesus’ 3 temptations in the desert.

Turning stones into bread he called appetitive sin.

There are several in that file. One of them is gluttony.

 But gluttony isn’t just about food.

Its’ the anxious craving to have more and more 

        – of anything.

It’s the fear that we can never have enough.

Do you see how the mindset of constant craving 

     could keep us from seeing what we’ve got

     because our eyes are scanning the horizon?

Psalm 78 tells how the people complained of hunger 

      in the desert and blamed God for their trouble,

     so God miraculously fed them with meat 

      and the bread of angels. 

The Psalmist then writes this brilliant line,

     But they did not stop their craving

      though the food was still in their mouths.

The richest man on earth in his day 

           was an oil tycoon, J. Paul Getty.

A journalist asked him, 

      Mr. Getty, when will you be satisfied?

     How much money is enough?”

J. Paul Getty answered, A little more. A little more.

The habit of craving denies us the peace of ever saying,

     This is enough. Thank you.

Evagrius said the temptation to rule the world 

     represents the category of relational sins.

These are habits of feeling about others 

        like sadness or anger.

Having the feelings is natural.

Getting stuck in them is the danger.

In three decades of ministry, I’ve known countless

     good church folks who are still furious 

     with other good church folks

                 over things from years and years ago 

They haven’t even seen each other for 20  years 

        – but they’re still mad.

Having feelings is human and good.

But when the feelings have us, they turn into bugs.

The temptation to work impressive miracles

     Evagrius said represents the sins he called athletic.

He meant they had to do with achievements.

My personal favorite in this category is called vainglory.

Dr. Samuel Johnson defined vainglory as

     the vain attempt to fill the minds of others with oneself.

It is an extremely frustrating sin,

     because no matter what we do

     we can never occupy as much space 

                 in someone else’s mind

                 as they occupy in it themselves.

We will always be playing second fiddle.

Those may or may not be your demons, your deadly sins,

     your habits of thought and being.

 So I invite you this season to reflect on what it is in you 

     that keeps God’s breath from blowing through you

                 the way it blew through Jesus.

Is it a grudge, an addiction, a fear, or a shame?

Lent is the time to find it, name it, hold it compassionately,

and offer it to God for healing.

This calls for a shift in our prayer.

Many of us usually pray that God 

     will change our outer circumstances

     or that God will change other people.

In Lent, we ask God to change us.

Invite Jesus to cast out whatever is in you 

     that is less than your true heart, less than your soul.

Invite Jesus to set you free to be 

      who God made you to be,

     a perfect flute playing a divine melody for the world.