All of Us Together to Build a Better World

Sermon - Year B Fourth Sunday in Lent

John 3:14-21

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

This is one of the most famous scripture passages. We see it on signs at sporting events, on T-shirts, and in many other places.

Have you ever wondered why it appears so often and what it means when it does? I did some digging, and it seems that John 3:16 is sometimes used as a code of us versus them.

That is, Christian believers are in God’s good graces, and everyone else is out!

On the face of it, I guess I sort of see where some folks might get the idea of using John 3:16 to convey this message, but I think in doing so, they seem to be ignoring the verse that comes after it.

As we just heard, John 3:17 says: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

God did not send Jesus, his beloved child, to condemn the world but to save the world.

An “us versus them” theology certainly doesn’t feel welcoming or inclusive. It feels pretty harmful to me.

Of course, we know that humans have a tendency to group things. It seems to be in our nature somehow to categorize people and things. We do it because it makes us feel safe; it gives us a sense of control and understanding of the world around us.

But when we set up these categories in such a way that it creates an in-group that is automatically saved and an out-group that is automatically damned, that is damaging and divisive.

And despite what some Christians might say, there is overwhelming evidence that Christianity isn’t about othering and creating division. We see this directly in scripture, and we see it in the teachings of the Episcopal Church.

So what does our church teach? We have a summary of our church’s teachings, called the catechism, which starts on page 844 in the Book of Common Prayer (which you can find in your pew).

In it, we see that the theology of the Episcopal Church embraces a Creator who loves creation. Our creator loves creation so much that they sent their only son so we might hear the good news.

Our catechism also teaches us that God is love and that all of God’s people are worthy of respect and honor because all are created in God's image.

Therefore, our interpretation of John 3:16 and 17 and the entire Gospel passage should make us heralds of a message of love and inclusion.

We are heralds not of the message ‘us versus them’ but the message ‘It’s all of us together to build a better world.’

What does it mean that God sent his son to save the world and not to condemn it?

Returning to the catechism of the Church, page 849 of the BCP says that redemption, which is a synonym for salvation, is the act of God that sets us free from the power of evil, sin, and death.

Therefore, according to the biblical scholar Jouette Bassler, John 3:16 and 17, and in fact, the whole gospel passage today is about God’s will for salvation.

In an essay about this passage, Bassler writes, “Verses 16-17 repeat the message of eternal life for all who believe,

but now with the added emphasis that this opportunity derives from God’s love for the world and God’s desire that the whole world might be saved.

Bassler continues by saying that in this passage, God means the whole world is the ‘object of God’s love. God’s desire for the salvation of that entire world,’ she says, ‘is thwarted by human failure.’

John 3:19 demonstrates the human failure Bassler is talking about. ' Light has come into the world,’ it says, ‘and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.’

The light of Christ came into this world through God’s only son Jesus, and some chose to ignore that light and continue to choose to ignore it.

Who are these people who ignore the light? I am not talking about our siblings who hold different religious beliefs than we do; rather, I would like to take a look in the mirror. What is it we Christians do to ignore the light of Christ?

We have established that we are interpreting the gospel in a welcoming and inclusive way, and we are living the gospel out in this way at St. Andrew’s.

And we know that we are not perfect because we are human. So, how can we go one step further in living out the Gospel? During Lent, we are called to self-examination.

I would like to suggest that one way we can go further is by examining our unconscious biases. We all have them—I have them, you have them. They are assumptions we hold for any number of reasons, and they impact the way we interact with others.

Because of these biases, we can unwittingly engage in ‘us versus them’ thinking.

I recently finished the book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, it was recommended to me by a congregant, and I commend it to you. It is amazing!

In the book, Wilkerson explores the enduring impact of slavery on the psyche of those living in America, native-born and immigrant alike. Her thesis is that racism still exists, and still harms all of society. She, a Black woman, tells jaw dropping stories of things people say to her, things they assume about her because of the color of her skin.

Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, and other ‘isms’ I can’t even think of right now are harming all of us.

We’d all like to get to the promised land. The land of milk and honey, and full acceptance and affirmation of all people.

And we try our best to make God’s beloved community real. We work to love people who are different from us, but we all fall short sometimes.

Nevertheless, we are called to be Christ-like, to love as Christ loves. John chapter 3 tells us that God loves the whole world, with all its rich diversity, and loves all of us just as we are, flaws and all. And that is how we are called to love, too.

I wonder if in these final weeks of Lent and beyond we can explore our unconscious biases.

Those biases that exist on a continuum in all of us and that prevent us from loving our neighbors and therefore God more fully.

Exploring these biases is a form of self examination and an awareness of them will allow us to let them go. It may take some practice, which is normal, but by doing so we can live more wholly into our baptismal covenant.

And by doing so we can more fully live out the call of our gospel passage today which reminds us, it isn’t ‘us versus them.’ It’s ‘all of us together to build a better world.’