“Earth is Full of Glory”

Today’s gospel reading from John is a favorite passage of those brands of Christians most likely to ring your doorbell at dinnertime to ask you, “Are you saved?”  Evangelicals love John 3:16; it’s the verse they always hold up on signs at baseball games: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him may not perish but have eternal life.” As they stand alone, those words are beautiful.  My daughter put them on a placemat in Sunday School when she was little, with a great big red heart on it. The problem is, I think John 3:16 has been used more often as a blunt instrument than as a blessing to the world.  Some will use it as a weapon to instill fear, shame and guilt in the flock, salvation coming in only “one way” through Jesus Christ as THEY understand him, shouting down all other faiths and denominations.

Maybe if you have experience with a church, or a person like that, both of today’s scriptures might make you a little nervous.  Isaiah’s wild vision of the smoke-filled temple filled with 6-winged flying angels – wow!  That’s some weird religious stuff!  And then John’s Jesus sounding not so much like the practical teacher of everyday ethics and morality that we enjoy following in our church – but very woo-woo spiritual, promoting this “born again” faith that has been so abused by fundamentalists. 

So I hope we aren’t too hard on poor Nicodemus the Pharisee, because I think, if we were honest, we’d realize that as literate, observant, but religiously moderate folks, we are an awful lot like him.  Remember that for Nicodemus, like Jesus, the great prophet Isaiah’s miraculous vision was from 700 years in the past.  So like us, Nicodemus might imagine God’s glory as Isaiah experienced it – we know the earth is full of God’s glory – but it’s a little hard to imagine such a power of prophesy or wisdom coming down here to us, right now, in the real struggles that we “modern” people are dealing with – you know real challenges, big current issues, like the Roman Empire, or Verizon Wireless. 

Let’s face it, we feel most comfortable in a religious setting when we get to quietly ponder God’s word in a logical and intellectual way – not when fire and smoke fills the room and people begin to speak in tongues and prophesy, as when the angels descended on Isaiah, or when the Holy Spirit arrived upon the early Christian church in tongues of flame that first Pentecost.  It’s not very organized or logical.  The Holy Spirit doesn’t understand Roberts Rules of Order.  In our church, we don’t do miraculous healings and exorcisms like Jesus, which by the way, clearly had impressed and intrigued Nicodemus enough for him to risk slipping away from his fellow Pharisees in the night to talk with Jesus, who had so passionately preached against him and his friends.

But last Sunday, on Pentecost, Christians all around the world celebrated the arrival of the Holy Spirit – these tongues of flame that rested upon not just Peter and the disciples, important religious leaders like Isaiah so many generations before – but on everyone, thousands of people gathered, old-timers and new converts alike, slave and free, women and men, Jews and Greeks.  And that Holy Spirit gave them this miraculous power to speak to one another and to understand, even when they spoke completely different languages.  Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing, to receive this Holy Spirit – for ALL the world to receive it – like that “universal translator” as they always had on “Star Trek” where the green guy with 5 arms could always speak English?  But beyond its value at the UN, what if everything we said – every request we made, every opinion we expressed, everything we tried to convey with words – what if everything we said or did were perfectly understood and gracefully received?  World peace might break out!

“Son, please do the dishes.” “Oh, yes mother dear.  I’d be delighted.” 

 “Dearest wife, I do not believe that tool should be used in that way – for if you do you may damage the hinges, or my finger.”  “Beloved husband, how kind of you to instruct me so well in the manner of men – now I will execute said action correctly.”

 “Excuse me sir, I am in a slow lane and I am in a hurry.  May I enter the flow of traffic in your lane ahead of your car so that I don’t have to be late to my appointment?”  “Why yes, dear lady, do enter right here. I raise not just my middle finger to you, indeed all five of them, in this gesture Christian fellowship.”

When Jesus speaks to Nicodemus, Jesus says – Jesus promises – that this kind of world is possible. He says we can “enter the [peaceable and perfect] kingdom of God” if we are willing to be born again of “water and Spirit.”  How would it change us to not just believe Jesus, as we believe in the wisdom of many of his teachings, as I’m guessing Nicodemus and many others of his religious colleagues did – because, after all, Jesus was preaching from their Hebrew scriptures – but to really believe IN Jesus, to believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to actually change us and change the world? 

You know it DID change the world once – back when our ancestors in faith believed in the power of the Holy Spirit to guide God’s people.  The Pilgrims believed in a God who still poured out power and prophesy to guide people in their modern-day struggles and decisions – why else would they have gotten on to such small boats to cross the sea to come to the new world?  They were idealists too, like Jesus.  They believed IN Jesus too, that the world might be saved through his Holy Spirit.  The Kingdom of Heaven was not just “in the sky, by and by,” but right here and now, in the times we live in.  “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on EARTH as it is in heaven”!  They taught people to read and to pray – everyone –so that they could place a Bible in each hand and ask people to discern for themselves what the Spirit was guiding the Body of Christ to do.

How might it change our view of ourselves, and our ministry as a church, if we understood that not only is the EARTH full of glory (because any fool can see God in flowers and babies and sunsets), but God’s temple right here in Brookfield is also full of glory (as Isaiah experienced it – full of angels)?  And I don’t mean just during worship, or just during an inspiring bell choir concert, but during a congregational meeting!  If we did believe that, truly believe in the communion of the saints and in the incarnation of Jesus Christ in his living body, the church – how might that change us?  How might that change the way we speak to one another in truth and love?  How might it change the way we listen and make tough decisions together?  How might it change the world around us? 

This is why I am so happy our church makes prayer such an important priority in the life of our church.  This is why I’m so glad we are not just discussing Verizon and their proposed cell tower here, but when we come together for our hearing on June 11 we will live out our Christian covenant and pray together before deciding anything or moving forward. We are not doing just like Nicodemus and studying all the pros and cons of an issue like a legal document that can be fully understood – although that work has its place – we are gathering to listen to one another, to speak the truth as we see it with love and kindness, and to gracefully acknowledge where we differ, or are confused.

This is what it means to submit to being born in water and in the Spirit.  In our baptism into the body of Christ, we admit that we are broken and flawed human creatures – that we need God and one another to be whole.  As we enter into covenant in the church, we acknowledge how none of us achieves perfection or holds the whole truth if we stand alone.  That said, as Isaiah learned when he confessed his sin at the altar of God, it can be a true relief to welcome the Holy Spirit into our lives – and to give us the gifts of new life and hope and peace and wisdom.   Through the power of water and the Spirit, new life can come flowing into us with all the amazing grace of the living God.

Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen.

 

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 Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.

5And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 6Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” 8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

 

John 3:1-17

3Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.²He 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.” ³Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” ⁴Nicodemus 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?” ⁵Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸The 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.” ⁹Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰Jesus 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. ¹²If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴And 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.