JOHN 3:1-17

Jottings on John…Lent 2…Revised 2020

Nicodemus knows in his spiritual bones he doesn’t have the kind of relationship with God he discerns in Jesus. How do we see our own relationship with God? Have we yet reached N’s point of discerning that if anyone can help us, Jesus can?  As a leading Pharisee, N discerns sound doctrine, & obedience to it, isn’t enough by itself. He’s been led - by Holy Spirit - to come to a point, where doctrine isn’t enough. He needs a relationship with God he isn’t yet experiencing. Have we reached that point yet?

There are so many possible approaches to preaching this passage, but I’ll highlight just a couple of possibilities I see. Firstly, the incident of a bronze snake being lifted up on a pole is always stirring in Jesus’ psyche. It ‘burns’ there, & becomes more & more central to His understanding of His Messiahship; to His being a ‘greater than Moses’ & to His own eventual being ‘lifted up’ on the cross. How can we make that same understanding central to our own discipleship? Focussing neither on N, nor on Moses, but on Jesus? Bringing it into today, not leaving it back in the 1st C.? 

Is N’s approaching by night & being enlightened by Jesus, symbolic of one of JN’s great themes; the contrast between Light & Darkness? If so, & I believe it is, where do we see ourselves along the spectrum? If we’re only part way along, we haven’t reached the Light yet, have we? 

If N were to remain where he reaches on that first tentative visit by night, he won’t have reached the Light, either, will he? Yet we know from later in the Gospel, after Jesus has literally been lifted up, N champions His cause. He uses his position in society to go so far as approaching Pilate to seek Jesus’ body &, that being granted, helps inter Him. N is now ‘living in the Light’ & passing that Christ-Light to others. 

If we’re to live in the Christ Light, doesn’t it follow that we, too, will be passing that Light on to those around us living in darkness of all kinds?  

Brian 

Afterthought: Hildegard of Bingen somewhere says, ‘God stirs everything into quickness’. Today we hear Nicodemus being stirred by Holy Spirit into the ‘quick-ness’ of coming to Jesus, God the Son, that night. When the time is ripe God stirs! Have you & I yet reached the point of being so stirred that we come to the Light thrown on everything & everybody by Jesus? 

JOHN 1: 29-42

Jottings on John…Epiphany 2…New 2020

Time is important to JE. It’s also important for JB, Jesus Himself, & those who elect to follow Him, both then & now. Are we as conscious as we might be of God’s timing in our lives? Of whom we’re being called to be? Now! God’s time is always Now! 

As well as Timing, Space is highlighted here too. Our passage moves on not only in Time, but also in Space, from spot to spot. Where we are, & where we’re starting from also has a lot to do with our search. Some time ago, I discover great, great, grandparents of mine had been buried in the old Melbourne General Cemetery. The cemetery authorities kindly provide us with a detailed map, & armed with this, we confidently set out to find their grave as numbered on said map. After an hour or more of fruitless searching, we give up in disappointment. Days later we return, but this time enter by a different gate. In ten minutes, there’s our grave! Today’s passage about people, including Jesus Himself, going out to JB to be baptised reminds me of trying find that grave. What are we looking for? Are we starting from the right ‘gate’ as it were?

That Jesus asks “What are you looking for?” - not, ‘Who are you looking for?” - is another possible starting place for exploring our passage. So, what are we looking for in Jesus? I sometimes wonder whether we ourselves are looking for a great, great, countless greats, kind of grand-parent figure in God. And, by default, Jesus, too!

Highly regarded Benedictine, Sr. Joan Chittister, sums up what she believes we’re looking for, or should be, like this: ‘a way to live calmly in the middle of chaos …a way to live productively in an arena of waste…a way that empowers us to live lovingly in a whirlwind of individualism…a way that empowers us to live gently in a world full of violence’. I’ve mislaid the actual reference, but tracking it down will undoubtedly prove worthwhile! 

Brian

Afterthought: If we’re looking for a way of life in Christ, never mind Jordan’s bank! What better place to start than rediscovering our own Baptism! Grow into it. Let it really happen to us & in us. Check the date of our baptism & begin celebrating that day as never before. If we don’t know that date, set about discovering it by checking likely (& even unlikely) sources.

JOHN 1: 1-5, 9-14, 16-18

Jottings on John…Christmas…Revised 2019

Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Scriptures launches with its magnificently imaginative & evocative story of a Creation told into being by YHWH God: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens & the earth..…’ Is it simply a co-incidence that the writer of John also chooses to start with ‘In the beginning…’ & a magnificently & imaginative, evocatively poetic, expression of how the New Creation comes into being? Can any account of Creation improve on that of the Genesis tale-teller? Any account of how the New Creation comes into being improve on JE’s? For me, it’s always JE when it comes to Christmas Gospel & Christmas preaching! 

I omit vv.6-8 because they’re an interruption - who dared to do this we don’t know - to JE’s original hymn. A distraction that destroys its integrity. They belong, with v.15, after the hymn where JB properly makes his entrance after v.18. Let’s not interrupt JE’s mind-blowing, spirit-expanding verses! Interrupting the flow of the Gospel like that might represent our inserting of ourselves between God & God’s purposes.

But has JE’s Hymn to the Word with its deep, meaningful, imaginative, & creative take on the Christmas event become too hard to preach? Compared with stables, mangers, & other MT & LK trimmings? Some Christmases ago, I’m sitting near another priest I know at a Midnight Mass. The ‘sermon’ turns out to be a kind of watered-down ‘kids’ talk’. This at one of the biggest, largely adult, congregations of the year. After the Dismissal, as we’re leaving, my colleague turns & whispers to me, “He sure dumbed that down, didn’t he?!” Christmas is never to be dumbed down!

The Word who speaks Creation into being in the beginning now speaks the possibility of a new & restored us into being in Jesus. God’s Divine Word in the Person of Jesus  is God’s ‘new beginning’ for us. Jesus doesn’t just speak God’s language to us, He is God speaking to us today. In response, are we living lives recognisably ‘speaking’ God’s language, God’s ‘Word’ for others, today?

Brian

Afterthought: However else JE wants us to respond to his magnificent poem, he wants us to glorify God as Jesus does in His Person. If our Christmas worship, including a sermon on this passage, gives glory to God, JE, John the Poet, has achieved what he sets out to do! Not simply back in his day, but now in ours.

JN 16: 12-15 

Jottings on John…Trinity Sunday…Revised 2019 

Despite being the proud wearer of a T shirt emblazoned with ‘Heretic - In Good Company’ (the gift of a theologian son!) I have nothing at all against the Trinity! Can you hear God sighing with relief from wherever you are?! Seriously, though, what-ever we do, let’s not shirk preaching the Trinity today. More, when we preach ‘The Trinity’, let’s preach the Holy Three as a Relationship, not as a Doctrine.

Doctrine, of course, has its place, but rarely, I suggest, from the pulpit. Preach the Holy Three as Doctrine & we lose the Energy inherent in Them & between Them. We’ll also lose the congregation, too, I suspect. As my granddaughter is wont to say when I’m nearing dangerous ground, “Don’t go there Grandad!” (Or you’ll spoil the relationship!)

So, how to preach the Holy Trinity as the the most Lively, Life-giving, Energy-filled- Relationship from before the beginning of time? As relevant & necessary today as ‘It’ has ever been!

I once saw a banner proclaiming what the Trinity is & what ‘It’ isn’t. It consisted of a shield with 'ribbons' linking the Persons of the Trinity (One in each corner) with the words: ‘The Father is not the Son; The Son is not the Spirit; &, The Spirit is not the Father. Then, running from each corner to the word 'GOD' in the centre, other ribbons proclaimed ‘The Father is God; the Son is God; the Spirit is God’.  It represented, or tried to, pictorially, a doctrine of God seemingly flowing between deepest mystery & the obvious.

Today’s Gospel proclaims God’s ‘In-house’ relationships quite clearly if we’ll explore it. There is still, though, much that Jesus would like to share with us: 'I still have a lot to tell you but you can't cope with it yet’ [v.12]. Despite long theological exploration - or, could it be, because of it? - are we still in that 'yet' stage? Do we know the Holy Three as Personally as God knows us? Person to person? What are our own personal Relationships like? Are we at one within ourself, as the Holy Three are One?

Or, are we conflicted within? In which case we’re also more likely to be conflicted without, too, aren’t we? What are Relationships like within our congregation? Those in our wider community? Whatever these relationships are, & in all of these cases, how do we need to act to bring them up to a Godly  standard? A Trinity-like standard? How, & what should we be praying to bring any & all of these relationships up to the standard the Holy Three expect of us & need from us? Dare I ask if we’re bringing our good intentions down to earth? As well as God does - Father, Son, & Spirit?

Brian

Afterthought: God is God, not doctrine about God! God limited to any descriptive terms we've come up with can’t really be God. Even in terms we can 'prove' are Biblical! God always lives outside the Book. Any book! Not least our Bible!

JN 14: 8-17 

Jottings on John…Pentecost…New 2019

At sermon time, why not re-read the opening of the Acts passage, dramatically, as: ‘Suddenly from heaven there comes the sound like the rush of violent wind! It breaks through the roof of the church & fills the entire place! Tongues like fire come down & distribute themselves & sit on each one of us! And we are all filled with Holy Spirit & begin to speak in other languages as the Spirit makes it possible.’

When it comes to the ‘other languages’ I have no problem with re-interpreting the speaking in tongues bit in the light of today’s needs, rather than those of the first spreaders of the Gospel. The language that matters most of all today is that of Love. In short supply in most lands, & in religions of all stripes. Resist any temptation to bog down in fruitless theological dissection of ‘tongues’. To do that would be yet another distraction from that One Language we all need to learn to speak. And we’re all capable of ‘speaking’ when the Spirit empowers us; the language of God’s love. 

Going further, when we reach the Greeting of Peace, & the President says, ‘We are the Body of Christ’ let’s shout back, ‘His Spirit is with us!’ And respond to ‘The Peace of the Lord be always with you’ with an almighty, ‘And also with you!’ Then share that peace with those nearby, looking them straight in the eye with our ‘Peace be with you’ & holding that gaze till they look us straight in the eye, too, with their ‘And also with you!’ A good way to share the Peace, today & every day!

In the Gospel, Philip hovers on the brink of a great discovery: that Jesus really is the human face of God. But he doesn't quite get there. Not even after Jesus explains it to him so simply as to say, "Look at me, Phil; if you see me you see God". Pentecost is our annual celebration of the Spirit of Jesus being God’s Living Reminder that Love is the One Language that speaks across all barriers & boundaries. God’s new creation depends not on speaking in tongues - in any sense - but on people being able to look at us & see God looking back at them in us! As Phil didn’t quite get!

Holy Spirit isn’t a doctrine. Any more than Jesus is. Or the Father! Pentecost is all about God making God-self present & knowable in the Spirit of Jesus the Christ. Putting it another way, Holy Spirit brings us together in ourselves & in each other as God is All Together! All Together One. Pentecost, like Resurrection, needs to be a personal, on-going, & unifying experience if God is to be real for us, & if we're to be real to God & for each other.

 Brian 

Afterthought: In the beginning the Spirit of God sweeps over the waters unifying what God is calling into being step by step, ‘day’ by ‘day’. The Spirit of Love is still at work sweeping over us & unifying us as a New Creation.

JN 17: 20-26 

Jottings on John… Easter 7…Revised 2019

As my late, great, teacher, Leon Morris wrote,¹ ‘The dominant concern in this section is for Unity & for the divine Glory’ (capitals mine). His two points offer us a focus more likely to be helpful than any more complicated theologising on prayer we may be tempted to try. In a passage harder to preach than Jesus’ more concrete teachings, let’s look at the Unity with Him & God & each other that Jesus prays for us to have. In the light of the divine Glory we recognise in Him.

That we can have any kind of One-ness with God is mind-boggling in itself. A One-ness literally brought down to earth in a new kind, a Personal kind, of One-ness we can enjoy with God & others. Jesus isn’t praying two things here, just the One. Being at One with God & each other is product of, & inseparable from, giving God that Glory that’s His due. Jesus shares His praying with us to encourage us to focus on that One-ness He’s praying for. Encourages us to become as One with God as He is. As One with our fellow human beings as He is through giving God the Glory. Does this mean many of us will need to re-focus our praying to the Jesus Way? Can we illustrate this in our congregation’s situation? 

Jesus’ praying focuses on His Servanthood among us, & the Self-Sacrifice He is about to accomplish on the Cross. (JN sees the Cross as Jesus’ Glory, rather than His Resurrection as others do, & we may be inclined to preach.) Jesus expects us not only to pray about changing ourselves & the world, but to go out & do it! Be that change for a world that doesn’t see itself belonging to anyone but itself! Cost what that may!  

I don’t believe Jesus is praying for what we refer to as 'Christian Unity' here. That kind of 'Unity' will be unachievable till we’re forced into it as a last ditch survival attempt! Too late! Jesus is praying here, for us to follow, in Unity with the ‘Mind of God’.Can we practise & preach a One-ness stemming solely from Glorifying God?

Jesus prays here that those God has ‘given Him’ will be with Him where His Glory is; i.e. wherever He sacrifices Himself & we identify ourselves with Him. He still prays we'll stay the distance, though His kind of Unity & giving Glory, is costly! ‘But, lo there breaks…..’ As the old hymn put it. 

Brian

Afterthought:  Can we be One with anyone, let alone whole in ourselves, until we are restored to the Oneness & Glory built into the Creation? Restored to Grace by Jesus the New Adam (in whom we can recognise the New Eve too.) 

¹ Gospel According to John, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1971, p. 733

JN 14: 23-29 

Jottings on John…Easter 6…Revised 2019

That magnificently & imaginatively evoking of how everything came into being in the first Creation story in Gn1 has YHWH-God saying again & again, “Let there be…..” God tells everything into being. Telling can be so Creative! From that point, ‘Word’ becomes a key word in the Scriptures as they develop. Just for fun I did a rough count of how many words Jesus speaks in our passage in the NRSV. About 238 in English by my count. (These weekly blogs are normally c. 500 words!) How many words are we going to speak in this sermon we’re about to preach? What new life are we going to tell into being?

In that Gn1 account we’re not told God gets as far as ‘loving’ what He’s bringing into being. Though again & again as Creation comes into being, ‘day’ after ‘day’, the ancient story-teller has God seeing everything is ‘good’. ‘Good’ is a starting place for the Love God will later tell into the story in the Person of, & earthly presence of, Jesus. Now it’s our turn to go on beyond merely ‘good’ to tell of, tell on, that love. More than by preaching about it; by living lives that tell it out loud & clear. How can we best share this with our congregation?

Love is always as self-giving as YHWH God is in Jesus & by His Spirit. Self-giving tells God’s love into being in us, over & over again, as we Love as God-in-Jesus loves.  

Nor is ‘Word’ shorthand for 'wordiness', a trap it’s all too easy to fall into! Being ‘wordy’, rather than ‘of the Word’, can too easily be ‘telling’ in another, wrong sense; can put at risk our being productive for God. 

The Paraclete, God's 'Living Reminder' (who first used that expression?) is called by God to our side to make Jesus, God’s Love in us & for others, possible.

Do you & I, & our congregation & the peoples of the world, need more than anything else for God’s ‘peace that passes all understanding’ to break out, rather than wars? 

What is it that troubles us? Or should that be ‘who’ is it who troubles us? Is the true answer more often than not, “I am!”? Where to from here in our story telling? 

Do we experience much rejoicing when & where we worship? If not, should we leave & go somewhere else? Surely God’s Word tells us to stay & play our part in making rejoicing happen? Might voting with our feet, & going off to another congregation, mean transferring our problem with us? How telling would that be?!

Brian

Afterthought: No matter how well we preach Christ’s ‘coming again’ at ground level, the Creeds' often appear to ‘futurise’ it, &, therefore Him, in people's hearts & minds. The Spirit is our Present, Living Reminder that there’s no future Jesus without a Present One.