A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent
First preached at First Congregational Church of Saugatuck on March 20, 2011.
Texts: Genesis 12:1-9 and John 3:1-21
By show of hands, who has seen the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy
First, recognize that we’re in good company. Bill Cosby has an amazing sketch about Noah…
Noah wasn’t the only Biblical character to wonder if God was nuts. How about Hosea? God told him to marry an unfaithful woman. Mr. Prophet of God had to go down to the hooker store and pick out a wife. And I can’t even tell you what he named the kids. I’m not allowed to use that kind of language in church.
How about Jeremiah? His country is about to fall, the enemy is at the gate and God says, “Go buy some land. This is a great investment. Get the notary. Sign the deed. This land is going to be worth something someday.”
How about Gideon? He’s about to fight a battle, and God says, “Your army is too big. Send some of them home. Nope, still too many. Send more home. Are any scared? Got kids at home? Send them home too. How many are left? 300? Perfect.”
How about Moses? He needs a sign, a miracle he can do to prove God is real. So God teaches him how to turn his staff into a snake. But when he gets there and does the miracle, no one is impressed. Turns out magicians in Egypt have been doing that trick for years.
Person after person in the Bible meets God and walks away shaking their head. “This doesn’t make sense. How can God ask me to do this? Is God nuts?” Then we look up from our Bibles and look around at the world. A kid from Fennville puts up the winning shot and then dies. Katrina, Haiti, Christchurch, Japan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. What’s going on here?
Photo by Oddharmonic
C.S. Lewis wrote a little book called A Grief Observed
Why does it seem sometimes like God doesn’t make sense? I’ll give you three reasons. 1. Because he’s about to do something impossible. Can you imagine the conversations that took place after Abram met with God?
Abram walks in, “Honey, we need to talk. God spoke to me today, and God says we need to pack up our entire house, and move.” And she says, “Right. Where are we going?” “I don’t know. God said he’d tell us when we got there.” He’s 75 when they leave, he’s 100 when the get there. And when they get there the land is full of big people with armies. Sarah says, “Why are we doing this again?” “Because God says he’s going to give us all this land.” “Right. And how exactly is that going to happen?” “You’re going to have a son and I’m going to be the father of a great nation, more descendants than you can count.” “Let me get this straight. We pack up everything to move somewhere, it takes 25 years to get here because you won’t ask for directions, and now we’re supposed to do the wild thing? Am I on Candid Camera?”
God’s not nuts. He’s just about to do something that’s impossible. You could never do it. And until God tells you, you could never imagine it. So it’s completely normal that it would seem insane. From your perspective, it is. But you’re not God. That’s option 1.
Option 2. Why doesn’t God make sense? Because God makes perfect sense; you just don’t want to know. Let’s look at our text from John chapter 3. Nikodemus is a Pharisee, a preacher. But not just a Pharisee. He’s a member of the ruling council, the Sanhedrin. He’s a big shot. So answer me something. Why is Mr. Big shot sneaking around at night? And look what he says. “We know you’re from God…” We. He doesn’t even speak for himself. He lacks the courage of his own convictions. He want to follow Jesus from the sidelines, at night, in secret. But Jesus doesn’t play that game. He says you have to be born again.
Now this is an interpretation, so you don’t have to believe me, but my read on this is that Nikodemus is playing dumb. “Surely, an old man can’t climb back into his mother’s womb.” First off, eww. And second, what kind of stupid question is that?
So Jesus unloads a mini-sermon on him, including the most popular verse of all time, John 3:16. But for our purposes today, I’d rather you focus on verse 19 and following.
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.”
Remember, he’s preaching this to a leader who approached him in the middle of the night. “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
Sometimes we know exactly what God wants to do. We just don’t want to do it. As C.S. Lewis said in his Chronicles of Narnia
Option 3. Why doesn’t God make sense? Because you’re in the middle of a story that you didn’t write. History only looks tidy and predictable 500 years out. Up close, it’s a mess. We look at the American Revolution and think, wow those Brits were out of touch. Did they seriously believe they could own the intire world and no one would say no? But up close it wasn’t obvious at all. When they signed the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin said that now, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” They had no clue how it would all turn out? What does that mean for us?
For starter it means don’t be surprised. Look at the heroes of faith. Look at the life of Jesus. If that’s how the world treats the prophets and the saints, if that’s how the world treats the Son of God, why act surprised? Expect it and accept it, and you’ll be moving forward while everyone else is still in shock wondering how this could happen.
On the other hand, don’t pretend like it’s ok. The saints complained. Jesus wept. The Psalms contain every human emotion from joy to black rage. We have an entire book in the Old Testament called Lamentations. By pretending everything is fine, all we do is cut ourselves off from the people who want to help us. This is your family. They want to laugh and cry and dance with you, and help you up when life knocks you down, but they can’t when you pretend it’s all fine.
But what if the problem isn’t in your life? Maybe it’s someone else’s life that exploded. When you step into that situation from the outside, don’t act like you know how their story goes. As a pastor, I’ve been part of a lot of funerals, and I’ve heard some doozies.
“God just needed another angel in heaven.” Really? I need my angel too. “God has a plan, you know.” Really? That plan sucks. “He’s in a better place.” Really? You know what a better place would be? Right here!
If they want to claim that story by faith, that’s their choice, but don’t push it on them. Your job is not to tell them what to think or how feel. Your job is sympathize. Sym-pathos – to suffer with them. You don’t have to have the answers. You be there. That means something.
If you’re the kind that needs to do something, or if you’re not able to be with them, then offer something specific and tangible that you can do that will make their life easier. “I can take the kids to a movie next Friday, take their minds off things for a bit, if that would be helpful.” A specific and tangible offer.
Lastly, don’t give up. You are in the middle of a journey. You are surrounded by good travel companions. And you have enough light to take the next step. So keep moving forward.
Noah floated. Hosea raised family. The kids had weird names, but he loved them. Jeremiah never redeemed his property, but his people sure did. Gideon won the battle. Moses set his people free. Sarah had a son, and she named him Laughter. Abraham became the father of a nation. And despite the scorn, the abuse, and the attacks of enemy after enemy, generation after generation, they are still here. Your story is just beginning, and even if this part doesn’t make sense, the author still holds the pen, and he’s already told us how the story ends.
Is it just me, or is God nuts is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Link to revsmilez.com.
