Sermon for Sunday, March 1, 2026

March 1, 2026

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



John 3: 1-17

When I was much, much younger, there was a bumper sticker that I saw on many a car in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1970’s. It was bright yellow, and black letters simply said, “John 3: 16.” So of course, I looked up the Bible verse: “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.” As a child, I still didn’t understand why it was worthy of a bumper sticker. And as I’ve gotten older, and seen the verse move from bumper stickers to billboards to spray painted graffiti to tattoos on the bodies of sports professionals and others, I’m still perplexed.



Of all the Bible verses that people are likely to know by heart, this is one of them. Consequently, as with many a thing taken out of context, many people think they understand what the verse is saying, that this is all they need to know to be a Christian. However, when we look at the full text, we begin to see the larger implications, something that will never fit on the bumper of a car. But we need to know so much more than this one verse. Luther was not the first or the last to warn us of the folly of choosing just one verse and thinking that we understand the whole Bible based on our understanding of one small piece.


We get this Bible verse in the middle of a teaching. Nicodemus has come to Jesus. He’s a shadowy figure. We see Nicodemus here at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and we’ll see him at the end, when he buys burial spices for Jesus, many more times than is needed and of a very high quality.


I say that Nicodemus is shadowy in part because there’s a whole middle story of conversion that we don’t get, the middle in between today’s Gospel and Nicodemus at the end of the life of Jesus—what happens in the in between time? What happened to transform him from a man of many doubts and questions into that person who will spend a small fortune on burial spices? And does the act of buying burial spices signify that Nicodemus has come to understand what Jesus tries to teach him in today’s Gospel reading? Perhaps he is like Martha, who Christ tries to teach, who also had an in between time that we don’t witness, but we see a profound change from her first experience with Jesus to her later one, a change from someone who doesn’t understand Jesus to someone who is vital to the ministry. Those of us who work in the field of education in any way probably have this same hope for those lives we encounter, that hope for transformation to the better.


I also use the wordy shadowy because his behavior seems suspicious. Why does he come to Jesus at night? Traditionally, many readers, scholars and non-professionals alike, assume that Nicodemus comes at night because he doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s there. But there’s nothing explicit in the text to support that view. Nicodemus doesn’t explain his late appearance, and Jesus doesn’t ask or even seem surprised. Maybe it’s not the issue for them that we have been taught.


We’re told that Nicodemus is “a leader of the Jews.” Maybe he comes at night because he’s busy during the day, busy with leadership duties and commitments. Maybe it’s the only time the crowds go away, and he has his chance to ask his questions and have Jesus answer them without him having to wait his turn.


He asks his questions, and Jesus doesn’t dismiss him with bumper sticker sized slogans—here we see two men with very different life purposes and understandings of the world, but they take each other seriously, not dismissively or combatively. However in this encounter with Nicodemus, Jesus doesn’t explain what he means in a way that Nicodemus understands. He answers the questions of a mystified Nicodemus with more mysteries. (relatable modern example from teaching)


Those people who put John 3:16 on bumper stickers or other places—could they explain this mystical chunk of text that surrounds the verse? I doubt it. We’ve had thousands of years of scholars trying to puzzle out the mystic threads, and we don’t have agreement on what it means. For example, most people hear the term “eternal life,” and their minds leap to an afterlife of some sort, which would have been a fairly new concept at the time of Jesus, afterlife as a place that is pleasant or a reward. Bible scholars can and do spend many pages parsing out all the different ways we could interpret the phrase “eternal life.”


Maybe Jesus is just as confused with Nicodemus as Nicodemus is with Jesus—how can Nicodemus not understand? Isn’t he a leader of the Jews? It may be precisely because he’s a Pharisee that he doesn’t understand. He’s spent a lot of time with texts trying to parse out the answers to these questions, questions about eternal life, questions about signs that signify the presence of God, deep and meaningful questions about how to live a deep and meaningful life. But what he hears from Jesus is completely foreign and contradictory to his beliefs. Rather than dismiss it, Nicodemus continues to reflect on what he has heard.


I picture Nicodemus, his brain aching, his spirit weary from interacting with his fellow Pharisees, and he says, “Well, what about this new teacher? Let’s go and see what he says. Maybe he can give me the straight forward answer.” Jesus does not give the understandable answers that Nicodemus must have been hoping for. We, too, have an expectation of the type of explanation that will work with our learning style, whether that be emotional appeal, snarkiness, humor, or a clearly articulated and well reasoned argument.


We are probably more like Nicodemus than most of us want to acknowledge. Like Nicodemus, we have spent a goodly portion of our waking hours trying to figure out what the ancient texts tell us about how to live a good life. We have made some assumptions. We have felt the emotional power. We have appreciated wit and insults. We have drawn some conclusions. We might feel confused when we mix the ancient teaching with more current wisdom which often makes no more sense than the ancient wisdom. How we yearn for Jesus to sum it all up for us!


Many see John 3:16 as that summary, a verse containing the whole Gospel in one simple sentence. But the Bible is too complex to be summed up in one sentence. You may remember that I, too, fell into this trap in a recent children’s sermon when quoting from the famous rabbi who summed up the entire Bible standing on one foot, saying “Love God, Love neighbor.” Many people might tell us that all of Jesus’ ministry can be summed up in this one verse or that other verse. Again, that might be so, but it leaves out so much essential information. Like Nicodemus, we want more and hopefully want a fuller, more complex and meaningful understanding of this verse.


We have many centuries, too many centuries, of people offering this verse as a summary of what Christianity means and how we should respond. Want eternal life? Just believe in Jesus. The shadow side of this approach to this text is how it has often been interpreted: that everyone who doesn’t believe is headed to Hell.


In a text that is so difficult to understand with our heads and not our hearts, it’s fascinating to think about how this one verse, plucked out of context, has become the hammer with which we clobber any questions. No room for doubt here: believe or you don’t get eternal life. Note that this is not what is said here. Believe and receive is NOT equivalent to don’t believe and you won’t receive.


What if this verse is not a command, but an invitation?


In this passage, Jesus does not say that everyone who doesn’t believe in him does not get eternal life. But he does say that opening our hearts and minds to the new possibilities offered by Jesus will leave us open and ready for rebirth. It won’t be like a bumper sticker, all tidy and summed up by the fewest words possible. And it’s not all about what happens to us when we die. It’s not about judgment, but about wind blowing in mysterious ways. It’s about being open to a reconsideration of even the fundamentals of our beliefs with a pure and open curiosity.


The winds of the Spirit clearly blew through Nicodemus. We don’t know what happens in Nicodemus’ in between time, exactly, but by the end of the book of John, Nicodemus has left the shadows and lives in a different light. Jesus invites us, too, to move from the shadows of whatever scares or threatens us, whatever keeps our minds, spirits, and hearts closed to understanding others. Jesus invites us to move out of our heads and to act with our hearts.


When we move away from loyalty to a bumper sticker mentality to an open, genuinely curious desire to understand the hearts of others, and the heart of God, we can, like Martha and Nicodemus, be re-born to a new and more meaningful and more faithful understanding. Let us pray that we can more forward to this understanding in our in between times as well—as individuals, a community of faith, and in our world.

The First Fish Fry of the Season

Yesterday afternoon, I finished teaching, drove from Spartanburg to Arden, where I live, and then, after changing clothes, drove from Arden to Bristol, Tennessee, where I am a part-time minister at Faith Lutheran.  Last night was the first of four spring fish fry events.

People pay $10 for a wonderful plate of food:  fish (fried or baked), mac-and-cheese, pierogies and caramelized onions, cole slaw, green beans, rolls, and an amazing assortment of desserts and drinks.  I use the word amazing because I know how many members we have and how many desserts we offer, and that means people are making a lot of dessert.

All of the money goes to local charities, primarily the local ones that deal with hunger.  But people come for the food.  That's what I thought until last night.

We arrived at 4:45, and the event was supposed to start at 5.  When we got there, people were already there, waiting for food.  Many of the people who came were so excited to be there.  They love the food, but more than that, they love the chance to sit and reconnect with neighbors from across the community (and a few of them are reconnecting with literal neighbors).

We had a steady stream of people coming and going, with almost every place in the smallish fellowship hall occupied for the first 80 minutes of the event.  We ran out of cole slaw, but we didn't run out of desserts.  

I thought about how past Kristin would have viewed this event.  She would have wondered why we were having this event, when so many people who come already have a church home.  She would have looked at the amazing amount of work that it takes to put on this event, and she would have suggested that we donate a chunk of money instead of buying the food and cooking it and selling plates.

But current Kristin has a glimmer of a different way of thinking about this.  People are hungry for community.  They want to have a chance to reconnect with people who live in the same geographical area.  They care less about people's religious or political beliefs.

I realize that what I observed last night may be more true in small towns than in big urban centers.  But I suspect that even in the big cities, people are longing for the kind of connection that a fish fry event can give them.

The Third Testament

I found it interesting that in the same week I wrote about being the fifth Gospel in this blog post, I saw a Facebook post about how we are the third Testament.  I saw it in a post by Wil Gafney, who credits Bishop Yvette Flunder.

As with being the Fifth Gospel, I find the idea that human lives are a walking testimony or history an intriguing one.  I've said/written it before, in many a setting, that for many people, they will learn more about Christianity from watching believers and their behavior than more traditional ways, like growing up in the faith or attending worship and/or classes. Our behavior needs to match what we say we believe, or people simply are not going to ask us to know more.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 1, 2026:

First Reading: Genesis 12:1-4a

Psalm: Psalm 121

Second Reading: Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

Gospel: John 3:1-17

It's always interesting to come across a familiar verse in context. John 3:16 is one of those verses that many people can quote. And yet, we're at the end of centuries of disagreement about what it means. Does it mean that Jesus had to be crucified as a sacrifice for our sins, as many Christians will tell you? Does it mean that Jesus came to show us a different way of life, thus saving us, as many people uncomfortable with a sacrificial Jesus would have us believe? Does it mean that Jesus is the only way to the Divine? What about people who will never hear about Jesus? Will they go to Hell when they die?

John is the most mystical of the Gospels, and not surprisingly, Jesus acts as a mystic in this episode with Nicodemus, who asks Jesus serious questions, as a scholar would, and Jesus seems to give him nonsense answers about being born again.

Read what Jesus says again, and imagine how frustrating it must have been for Nicodemus. It's frustrating for me, and I come from a tradition that would be happy to explain it to me. I can talk about the ideas of Martin Luther with the best of them, the small and large Catechisms, and yet, Jesus seems to be offering mystical babble here.

These are the passages that I hate discussing with the confused and the non-believers. How to explain these mystical concepts?

Maybe we don't have to explain. I take part in all sorts of mysteries that I can't explain. I don't understand internal combustion engines, but I drive my car anyway, and I have faith that it will work. I can't explain how electricity is generated or how it powers all the things that make my life easy, but that doesn't stop me from turning on the lights when it's dark.

Advent and Lent are two times of the liturgical year when I am most conscious that I'm participating in a mystery--and therefore, I can't explain everything, especially not to the satisfaction of non-believers. I can't even explain it to me. As Jesus says, "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit."

I have faith in being born again, although I might define that differently than my fundamentalist friends. Each day is like a new opportunity, a new birth, a new chance to re-align myself towards God. Each day, God wants to come live with me, and each day, I get to decide whether or not that will happen. Even if I go through a period of not living as mindfully as I'd like, I can start again, whenever I choose. Like liturgical season of Advent, Lent reminds us of the need to turn and return to God.

The Feast Day of Saint Matthias

Today is the traditional feast day of St. Matthias. In the 1960's, the Roman Catholic church moved his feast day to May 14, so that we're celebrating his life in a month that makes more chronological sense--Matthias was the apostle chosen to replace Judas Iscariot, who committed suicide after he realized what his betrayal had wrought, so it makes sense to celebrate his life after Easter. Of course, traditionalists will celebrate today. And Eastern Orthodox believers will observe his feast day on August 9.

I've recently become a bit fascinated with this saint. I've done a smidge of research, and I can't tell what, exactly, he's the patron saint of.

If I was in charge, I'd make him the patron saint of people who must wait for recognition. Would I make him the patron saint of people who must wait for recognition in the workplace only, or in any situation? Is that process of waiting so different?

I have this on the brain because I have worked in places where the local job ladder is very short with lots of folks who have been working for the organization for ten years or more--when there's a job opening, they couldn't all be promoted. And if they wanted further promotions, again, long wait times.

I imagine that the circle of Jesus was similar. There's the inner circle, the twelve, chosen early. Then there's a massive outer circle. Who would have dreamed of the incidents that led to a job opening in the inner circle?

Of course, as a woman, I will always wonder at what Gospel revisions went on in the early church. Was the inner circle really that tight? Was it really only twelve? Was it really only men? We know that Jesus had a sympathy towards women that was uncommon for his time period. Would he really have excluded them from the inner circle?

Then I think of the logistics of being one of the twelve--all that travel, all those difficult circumstances. Maybe it was kinder of Jesus not to call women to be part of the inner circle. If you go back to the sayings of Jesus, it's clear that he doesn't see hierarchy in the same way that humans do--he clearly mocked the idea that some disciples are more chosen than other.

So, would Matthias have even seen his appointment as a promotion? Maybe it's just our later proclivity to make lists that sees this development as a promotion. Of course, there is that passage in Acts that seems to show that the disciples shared our proclivities toward hierarchy and list making.

I think of Matthias, patiently waiting, following Christ, never knowing the outcome. In that way, he's the patron saint of us all. We follow Christ, not knowing whether we'll be chosen for some superhuman greatness, or whether we'll be called to stay put, quietly ministering the people around us. Some of us believe that God has a plan for us, while others believe that God will use us where we are, like a master weaver. Some of us believe that the universe is essentially chaotic, but we are not excused from God's mission of Kingdom building. Some of us know that we cannot possibly comprehend any of this, and we know that we are lucky that God does not depend on our puny imaginations.

The Fifth Gospel

A seminary classmate/friend posted an idea that a spiritual mentor passed to her:  "You are the fifth gospel."  It was such an interesting idea that I wanted to post it here.

Many of us know something about the 4 gospels.  We may not realize how long after the life of Christ they were written; Paul's letters were written before the gospels.  The gospels were written when the first believers realized that Christ would not be coming back quite as quickly as they had thought and maybe they should start to preserve the teachings/wisdom/insight of the disciples before the last ones died and/or before the ones who learned directly from those disciples died.

So what does it mean to be the fifth gospel?  It can mean so many things.  Like a gospel, we bring good news.  People might turn to us to learn something about what it means to be a believer and/or to learn about Jesus, another purpose of a gospel.

I've said/written it before, in many a setting, that for many people, they will learn more about Christianity from watching believers and their behavior than more traditional ways, like growing up in the faith or attending worship and/or classes.  Our behavior needs to match what we say we believe, or people simply are not going to ask us to know more.

Sermon for Sunday, February 22, 2026

February 22, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 4:1-11


The story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness always comes to us for the first Sunday in Lent, the Sunday right after Transfiguration Sunday and then Ash Wednesday. It’s important to remember where we are in the story of the life of Jesus. Last week, Transfiguration Sunday, Jesus was midway through his ministry. For today’s Gospel, we go back to the beginning, to the time just after his baptism, just before his ministry starts.


In today’s Gospel reading, we find Jesus in the wilderness, the place of prophets, the place of preparation. We might associate the word “wilderness” as a time where bad things befall us and our faith is tested. The first Christians, hearing or reading the Gospel of Matthew, would have had different associations, and the number 40 gives us insight into a different relevance of this text.


Think about the meaning of 40 in the Old Testament: Noah is on the ark for 40 days and 40 nights, Moses fasted on Mount Sinai for 40 days and nights as he wrote down the words of the new covenant that God offered, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and for 40 days and nights Elijah fasted in the desert before getting a new mission from God. The number 40 is a sign of preparation and waiting for the next thing that God will be doing, not a sign of being punished by God.


It shouldn’t surprise us that the devil takes advantage of this time out of time, this space between what has happened and what has yet to come. The temptations are familiar, because they are still what the devil uses to tempt us today: the seduction of knowing that we will have enough for our physical needs still has power, and we only need to watch a news program, from any end of the political spectrum, to see how many ways humans lust for power: power over people and power over nations, power over the whole world. The middle temptation might seem strangest, but if we put it in other terms, we see that it, too, can wreck our best laid spiritual plans. I can almost hear the devil whispering it now: “Aren’t you tired of waiting for God to act? Aren’t you tired of waiting to find out what’s next? Don’t you want to claim God’s powers for yourself?” Our first reading for today gives us one of the more well known versions of this temptation: “Go ahead and eat the fruit—claim that knowledge for yourself. Why should God have all the power?”


Jesus responds to the devil as we would expect. He resists temptation, but not only that: he offers well-reasoned responses as to why he rejects the devil. In the reading from Genesis, we see the devil’s reasoning; here in the Gospel of Matthew, we see Divine reasoning.


Jesus will go on to do the things that the devil suggests: feeding multitudes, enduring the suffering of the body, and ultimately possessing the nations. What the devil offers to Jesus are powers that he already possesses. But the reasons that Jesus has for these displays of Divine power will be very different than the ones that the devil offers.


In these early days of Lent, we, too, might find ourselves in an in between time, like the one where we find Jesus in today’s reading for the first Sunday of Lent. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has just been baptized, just experienced the heavens open and the spirit come down on him. Jesus has heard that God is pleased with him. But what now? The wilderness becomes a time of discernment. The devil’s temptations give Jesus several possible road maps and force Jesus to wrestle with important questions: what will Jesus do with his life? How can he best serve God and serve as the bridge to reunite the people to God? How can he be a beacon to show the ways that God is already at work in the world? The devil offers a warped version of the mission, but Jesus shows that he understands that he serves a very different purpose.


We, too, serve a different purpose. We, too, are called to serve God by showing the ways that God is already at work in the world. We, too, are living in this in between time, where it may seem that the devil is in charge. In our current time, the devil offers us gifts and powers that we already collectively possess.


Lent is a time that offers space to wrestle with the question of who we are serving and how we will use our power. When we’re assembled here in this building on Sundays, the answer seems so clear. Of course we serve God. We’re not off in a fancy restaurant having a champagne brunch—although the idea of combining the worship service with a champagne brunch is one we might find tempting: mimosa mass for the masses!


Isn’t it amazing how many ways that Satan has to tempt us? A wilderness time can be a time of temptation, when the devil tries to move us from service to God’s vision to service of our own vision of what the world should be. It’s especially hard to resist the devil’s temptation if we’ve grown impatient with God’s timeline. It’s so intoxicating when we first grasp the message of Jesus, about the inbreaking Kingdom of God, which is already here and not yet fulfilled. As the time drags on and fulfillment seems further away, it’s tempting to take matters into our own hands. We might even tell ourselves that we’re serving God in any number of ways. For example, by making lots of money which we’ll use to feed the poor. By getting political power so that we can change policies to be more Bible based. But once we’ve had a taste of the power of money and being in charge of policies, we might see their spiritual danger as more temptations come our way. It can be hard to remember who we are and who we serve, and it’s so easy to get pulled away by the glittering attractions of the world.


These ideas aren’t necessarily bad ideas, but in today’s Gospel of Jesus in the wilderness, we see how easy it is for the devil to take ideas for serving God and warp them into ideas that will disrupt God’s timeline. The time of temptation in the wilderness shows that the devil has a sense of where Jesus’ mission will take him. The difference is that Jesus will do these things in a different spirit.


Jesus knows that he already has the gifts that the devil offers him. We, too, have gifts given to us by God, although we may have felt that we’ve been in the wilderness so long that we’ve lost sight of those gifts. Lent offers us a time of discipline and enrichment, so that we can rediscover those gifts and strengthen ourselves to withstand the devil’s temptations.


Rest assured, the devil is always around the corner, always ready to tempt us. Don’t fall for those empty promises. Remember that God has already given you everything you need and more. Renounce the devil and all those empty promises. Serve God, who has promised us everything and who will deliver.