“Packets of Light”
March 18, 2012
Light and darkness are as old as time, as the world and even before the world ... they were present when God was laying the foundation for the world as we know it. From the beginning darkness has been the image of emptiness, of an unimaginably deep void...of unknowing.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Light, on the other hand has always been the protagonist...celebrated and alive...radiant, and full of goodness and wisdom; is serves as a metaphor for all things imagineable, The birthing place for new life, growth and renewal.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
As we continue our Lenten journey, exploring the gospel text this morning, it is this light that will illuminate our pathway of understanding, and help us to navigate the journey together.
“For many Christians, Marcus Borg writes in his book Speaking Christian, “[John 3:16] is the most concise summary of the Christian gospel.” In fact, Martin Luther called John 3:16 “The Gospel in Miniature”. It is easy to understand why”, says Borg, “Understood within the framework of Heaven-and-Hell-Christianity; it expresses the Heart of what the Heaven-and-Hell framework affirms: God loves the world, and that if you believe in Jesus, as God’s only son, you will be saved and have eternal life in Heaven because God gave Jesus to die in your place.” What isn’t as obvious is that this kind of conservative theology, “puts a condition on the opening line, “For God so loved the world; namely the love of God is conditional. Though God loves the world, only those who believe in Jesus will be saved. In extreme form, and not so uncommon, the verse means that God loves you, but God will send you straight to Hell and eternal torment if you don’t believe in Jesus. “But all of this,” says Borg, “is a significant misunderstanding of what John 3:16 means in the context of John’s gospel.”
First: the World-
In the NT, as well as in John, the world has two meanings. Borg explains the differences like this: “One meaning is positive: the “world” is the world created by God- the whole of creation. The other meaning is negative: the world is “this world,” meaning the humanly created world of cultures with their domination systems. in John, and in Paul, “this world” rejected Jesus. But God loves the divinely created world- not just you and me, not just Christians, not just people, but the whole of creation.
That he gave his only son: “John’s Gospel does not include the notion of substitutionary sacrifice; indeed none of the gospels do, writes Borg.” The giving of the son in John refers to the incarnation as a whole and not primarily to the death of Jesus. How much does God love the world? So much that God was willing to become incarnate in the world.
So that everyone who believes in him: Belief in the context of John refers to the premodern meaning of believe, “to belove Jesus...to give one’s heart, loyalty, fidelity and commitment to Jesus. Believing did not mean believing theological claims about Jesus...in John.
May not perish but may have eternal life: Eternal life is commonly understood to mean a blessed afterlife beyond death. But in John’s gospel, it is a present experience. The Greek words translated into English as eternal life mean “the life of the age to come.” Within John’s theology, this is still future and to be hoped for. But it is also present. Consider John 17:3 “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Borg notes the present tense, “This is eternal life (the life of the age to come); and it’s content is knowing God. To know God, and Jesus, in the present is to participate already in the life of the age to come.
This well-known passage, this miniature gospel is not about people going to hell, living in darkness, because they don’t ascribe to a particular set of theological beliefs or even about Heaven and the anticipated afterlife... this polarity of light and darkness metaphorically speaks to the experience of those living within the knowledge of God’s love and more specifically to their decision to “come to the light” out of the darkness.
I have a painting hanging in my office, it’s part of the Story People Collection by Brian Andreas.
The painting is abstract and interesting, full of color and movement...and beauty...So, my story is called: Packets of Light
These are little packets of light & you need to plant them early in the year & remember to mark where they were because lots of times they look like weeds in the beginning & it's not until later that you see how beautiful they really are.
Of course, this story & imagery is my inspiration for doing youth ministry... light can often be mistaken for weeds... but as the light grows we will begin to see how beautiful they really are.
There are no guarantees in life that the “weeds” will not seek us out, deceive us, or that the light will be easy to find. Most certainly we have all found ourselves in dark places at times in our lives, and are surprised to find that we may have even chosen the darkness over the light, for personal advantage, financial gain, social recognition, fear. We are living in a time where the darkness seems inviting, more interesting, stimulating, & even safer at times... than what we perceive the light has to offer. The church, for instance, is the manifestation of God’s community of light in the world, and yet fewer and fewer people are choosing the church. It has become one choice in a sea of many, an option, an activity to be added to the schedule of dropping off and picking-up. It remains a social obligation for some, a fiscal responsibility for others, and an avenue whereby to participate in community service for many people. For others the church is simply irrelevant to their lives, and is not life-or-light-giving for them, and so they have chosen something else altogether.
Like Sheliaism: In Chapter 9 of their 1985 book Habits of the Heart, Bellah and Madsen discuss how religion in America has moved from being highly public and unified, as it was in colonial New England, to extremely private and diverse. To demonstrate the shift, they quote a young nurse, to whom they gave the name Sheila Larson: "I believe in God. I'm not a religious fanatic. I can't remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It's Sheilaism. Just my own little voice...It's just try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself. You know, I guess, take care of each other. I think He would want us to take care of each other." Bellah and Madsen suggest that Sheilaism creates the logical possibility "of over 220 million American religions, one for each of us," and they see Sheilaism as "a perfectly natural expression of current American religious life".[2]
Diana Butler Bass writes in her newest book, Christianity After Religion, “The economic, social, and political world in which we live has opened up the possibility for eighty-two thousand choices at the coffee shop and probably about ten times that many when it comes to worshiping God and loving your neighbor. Some will choose well, others badly. Some will choose thoughtfully, others not so much. Some choose something new, others choose what they have always known. In the end, however, everybody chooses. Contemporary spirituality is a little like that line at the coffee shop. Everybody makes a selection. Even if you only want black coffee.”
In a spiritual culture that is experiencing a seismic shift from the information age to the inventive age, from an over-complicated customized consumeristic marketing strategy to an inclusive, participatory, collaborative and simplified social ethic the light of Christ found in John’s gospel, as it pertains to our daily choices, has never been so important.
“Americans, says Bass, even those of modest means, exercise more choices in a single day than some of our ancestors did in a month or perhaps even a year. From the moment we awaken, we are bombarded with choices- from caffeinated or decaffeinated, to flipping on any one of a hundred television stations as we ready the children for school, to getting our news in print, online, or via a mobile device, to what sort of spinach to by to go with dinner (local, organic, fresh, frozen, chopped, whole leaf, bagged, or bunched).
Coffee, Spinach, and Methodist/Baptist/Catholic... “Years ago, writes Bass, “we did not choose any of these things. If we had money, if the grocer stocked the vegetable, or if we happened to be baptized in a Methodist family, we were simply obliged in relation to these particular things.
Today, ours is a congregation comprised of Roman Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians, Presbyterians, Disciples, UCC, Secular-Humanists, Buddhists and more... The message of the gospel is clear, “He did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” I think it’s fair to say that in a culture where choice is the new “brand” we aren’t in the business of keeping anybody out, but a fair question for us might be, what are we saying to people who are looking for a way to come in...to find the light, to be “saved”?
It is not always easy to live by the light, to even see the light, especially as weeds entice & threaten us at every turn, however, as a community it is our responsibility to embrace the light that is ours in Christ, and to remind the “world” that they too have been saved, that the light shines in the darkness and that no matter how dark or burdensome the shadows become they will never extinguish the light.
In just over 8 weeks, our state will take a vote on a proposed amendment that has been written in a way that if passed would seek to bottle up that light that exists for all people and shelter it deep within the carriages of the law, protecting those whose lives are threatened by the very nature of love and acceptance of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, of communion through this shared gift of love..., this judgement celebrates the darkness from which it came by employing a discriminatory tactic whose job is to lessen the light, to keep it burning as a tiny flame as it mocks the freedom set-forth by the creator who on that day separated the light from the dark, and called the light good.
Friends, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness.” Even when those charged with bearing the light have forsaken it’s source we cannot lose sight of the message of the gospel, nor let the burden of too many choices paralyze our convictions. Today, it is too risky to remain unchanged, too risky to practice professional consumerism while wanderers of a new age are looking for the light. In the face of “this world”, in the face of discrimination and paralysis by fear, let us say enough is enough, it is time to embrace the light...and let it shine.
May it be so...Amen.
