God so loved the world. God so loved the world. This is one of those verses that is engraved into my soul, into my heart. It must have been one of the first verses that I memorized. One of my favorite anthems from years of singing in choirs allowed me to memorize the verse and I always sing it in my head when I read the words.
This is one of those verses that is hard to hear in the inclusive version. They did a good job with it, but it rolls off of my tongue in the King James version: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” I have heard it said that Martin Luther claimed this one verse summed up the whole of the Gospel, the Good News. It has formed the bedrock of my faith, for most of my life, I believe.
Imagine my shock a few years ago, when I sat in a Communion service led by one of our partner communions, and heard a good friend and fellow student state with confidence “I’m sure that you all hear the condemnation in this verse.” That statement grabbed my attention. Condemnation? How could this verse be read as condemnation? It says “God so LOVED the world, not God so condemned the world. How could the sending of Jesus be viewed as condemnation?
Ah, the dangers of reading scripture verses out of context. I don’t think I’d ever considered the following verses closely, I only memorized John 3:16, not John 3:16 and following. “Whoever believes in the Only Begotten avoids judgment, but whoever doesn’t believe is judged already for not believing in the name of the Only Begotten of God,” or “on these grounds is sentence pronounced,” these are certainly harsh sounding words, they speak of judgment, something we do not like to hear. So my friend talked about this verse as an excluding passage, as one that defined who was out, while I have always heard it as inclusive, claiming who is in.
Today is the last day before the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins. It is the day before the observance of the Confession of Peter, how does this reading fit into that context for us, here at STM? Hear the final verses of this reading: “but people who live by the truth come out into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what they do is done in God.” People who live by the truth come out into the light. Isn’t that what Peter does when he confesses Jesus as Messiah? Isn’t he claiming that he recognizes Jesus as the one sent by God, as the promised Savior. When Peter claims that truth for Jesus, he isn’t thinking about the consequences for him, he isn’t thinking about who is in and who is out, he is claiming the promise of God made to the Hebrews generations before him; he is naming aloud, bringing into the light, the truth that lives within him.
Here at STM we are gifted with the incredible opportunity to learn deeply the gifts of our various ecclesial communities. We sit in classes with people from other faith traditions and we are gifted with this chance to truly see the faithfulness and depth of commitment that resides within each person and each denomination. While the world tries to tell us that we need to take care of ourselves first, that it is important to keep “the other” out of our workplaces, our schools, our country, STM gives us a chance to deny that claim.
The election cycle has already begun in this country. We are already hearing the rhetoric that aims to divide us, to ask us to define ourselves in terms of political persuasion, liberal, conservative, progressive, tea party, republican, democrat, libertarian. The labels are already coming out, the accusations are already flying. It looks to be an ugly, divisive period of time. People are scared, they are out of work, they have no health care, they fear for their way of life if not their very existence. The idea of being one with “those people” seems like a fairy tale, like some great joke.
Tomorrow we begin our observance of the Week of Prayer. In doing so we are claiming the truth within us, bringing it out into the light so that we can see it and act upon it. This truth that we claim with this annual observance is that we ARE one body, that our baptism and our faith claims we are one, that God has already created this oneness and gifted us with it. We take time each year, an entire octave of days, to think about that unity, to help us to live more fully into what we are already created to be. We are living into the reality of John 3:16. God so loved the world as to give the only Begotten One, love incarnate to this world. When we claim this truth, when we seek to live out this already created unity, this is the gift we bring to the world, that God so loved. Luther had it right, this is the gospel encapsulated. May we live in the truth and in the light so that the world may see it and know what God has done. Thanks be to God.
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