Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 10, 2024:

First Reading: Numbers 21:4-9

Psalm: Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Second Reading: Ephesians 2:1-10

Gospel: John 3:14-21

There are some Bible texts that are so prominent that it's hard to imagine that we could find something new to say about them. This week's Gospel includes one of them, John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

I spent my childhood and adolescent years in a variety of small, Southern towns, and this text was often used as one to exclude people. Most responses to the text that I've seen zero in on the idea that we must believe in Jesus to have eternal life, and I'm certain that I don't want to wander into that theological muck. I used to be able to spend many hours deliberating whether or not a Hindu could go to Heaven, or an atheist or your beloved pet.

Now I'm much more interested in how we live our lives here--not so that we get into Heaven, but so that we participate in God's visions for us and for the larger world.

Today, let us focus on the text that reminds us that God doesn't enter the world to condemn us--many pop culture preachers forget that. But almost every verse of this week's Gospel reminds us that God comes to us out of love, not judgment. God comes, not to cast us away into the shadows. Most of us spend many hours dwelling in murkiness. God comes to lead us into the light.

Many of us have come from Christian traditions which would find this theology strange. Many of us have been scarred by a theology of a divine judge who finds us wanting. Many of us fear hell.

Many of us have been taught that the purpose of religion is to save us so that we get to go to Heaven not Hell. But the message that Jesus delivers again and again is that God is interested in the life we're living right now, not just the life we'll have or not have after we die. Jesus comes to announce to us that the frayed piece of cloth that we clutch is not the quilt of life that God intends for us to have. Jesus comes to show us new fabrics, new patterns, stronger stitches to hold all the pieces together.

Our world is desperately in need of the message that Christians can tell. We live in a world of rampant Capitalism, which is doing a wide range of harm. The world needs our message of something that is more vital, something that is more important than making money and buying more stuff.

We can be the lighthouses that lead people to safer shores--not the shores of Heaven or Hell, but the shore of a transformed life. We can be part of God's quilting team, reminding people that life is more than the threadbare scraps they see before them. We can be the ones who offer new fabrics and the knowledge of how to stitch the small pieces together into glorious new patterns, a quilt that will keep us all.