Tag: John 3:16

The Verse We Turned Upside Down: Recovering the Promise at the Heart of John 3:16

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Lent, Sermons Year ALeave a comment
John 3:16 Christian T-shirt Design

John 3:1-17

John 3:16 was the very first verse many of us memorized as a child, and it’s a verse that has stuck with us. We can hardly watch a ball game without seeing it on posterboard.  We see it on billboards.  And we see it on tracts lying around in public restrooms.

 For some of us, seeing this simple verse reminds us of God’s universal and unconditional love. We receive peace, affirmation, and hope. And yet, for others, including me, just the words “John-three-sixteen” triggers a little religious trauma.

I have suggested that the reason that things seem so upside down in the world these days is because John 3:16 has been turned upside down. Instead of leading with “For God so loved the world,” churches lead with “you are going to perish.” And God’s love for the world becomes a footnote instead of the title of the story. Consequently, some of us have been conditioned, not to hear John 3:16 as love, but as a divine threat or fateful ultimatum with eternal consequences.

Instead of announcing love, churches announce fear.
Instead of proclaiming grace, churches proclaim judgment.
Instead of good news, churches specialize in spiritual anxiety.

One of my favorite preachers, Rev. Karoline Lewis writes: “John 3:16 is used as an assertion of exclusion rather than one of God’s abundant love. A verse that sends people to hell rather than voices God’s extravagant grace.”

Detached from its context, it’s used to draw hard lines between “us” and “them,” and “the saved” and “the lost.” John 3:16 is used to justify a vision of salvation that is far more invested in sorting souls than in loving the world.

But when we put John 3:16 in its context, we see that there’s a seventeenth verse.

  “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Not to condemn. Not to threaten. Not to sort out. Not to shame. But to save.

Here’s where we need to take a moment to address this loaded word, “save.”

Because when many of us hear the word “save,” we hear: “rescue from hell after we die” or “spiritual fire insurance.”

But that’s not how John uses the word. Salvation is not primarily about where we go when we die, but about how we live right now.

To be saved means to be made whole.

To be saved means peace, knowing you are loved.

To be saved means to step out of fear and into trust.

To be saved means to move from despair into hope, from darkness into light.

To be saved means to experience life, fully, and abundantly.

And when John speaks of “perishing,” he is not describing God actively destroying people, but the tragic reality of refusing the nonviolent, abundant life God offers. In a world of war and violence, where people are dying in conflicts like the recent military action between our country and Iran, it’s important to understand that John’s word ‘perish’ is not about divine retribution but about the real human cost of turning away from life-giving peace and love.

And it’s important to remember that eternal life in John’s gospel is not some future reward, but it’s a present participation in the life of God. It’s not about God helping us to escape the world, but about us working with God to heal the world, to make the world more peaceful, equitable and just.

And if salvation means wholeness, peace, and liberation from fear and shame, and if eternal life sounds like God’s active participation in the world, then suddenly John 3:16 begins to sound like good news and less like spiritual trauma.

Some of us, including me, were taught that God’s love came with a catch— that one wrong belief, one wrong doubt, one wrong question, one wrong action or thought, combined with one wrong prayer asking for forgiveness, could be damning.

Some of us were told that our sexuality, our identity, our mental health, our honest wrestling with questions, disqualified us from God’s love. We were taught to fear hell after death more than to trust love in life.

After our recent baptismal service, as I was driving Christopher Lilley home, Chris expressed his desire to be baptized. When I asked if he’d ever been baptized, he told me that he had (I believe he said “more than once”), but he had been told so often that he was going to hell because of who he was, he just felt like he needed some more assurance that he was going to be okay.

Parked in front of his apartment, before he got out of my car, I did my best to assure him that God’s love for him was unconditional. I said a little prayer that he would know deep in his bones that there was nothing in heaven or on earth, no person, no power, not even death could ever separate him from the love of God. I prayed that he would somehow know the height, breadth, depth, and length of God’s love for him.

Chris’ response was classic Chris. I would like to say there were tears and a great big hug, a verbal acknowledgment from Chris that he was unconditionally loved, blessed, and affirmed by God. But Chris just smiled, giggled the way Chris did, and said, “Okay then. Do you think you could give me a ride to church this Wednesday?”

The truth is: when “God so loves the world” becomes conditional, it ceases to be about love and becomes all about control. And control masquerading as gospel, doesn’t save anyone. It wounds people, and it wounds people deeply.

So, before we can turn John 3:16 right-side up for the world, we may need to first turn it right-side up for ourselves.

Because we cannot lead with love if we have never accepted it

And this is where the season of Lent meets us.

Lent has often been preached as forty days of intensified guilt, forty days of reflecting on how broken and sinful we are. But what if Lent is not a season of self-loathing, but a season of returning to our true origin? What if, to use the language of Jesus in his conversation with Nicodemus, Lent is a season of being “born from above?”

What if repentance this Lent is not confessing how sinful we are, but it’s confessing how loved we are, and how resistant we are to being loved, fully, unconditionally? What if Lent is a season of accepting that we were born in love, from love, for love?

But hear this clearly in this season of Lent: if trusting in God’s universal, unconditional, and never-ending love feels hard for you right now, that does not mean you are faithless. It may just mean you were hurt, perhaps even in God’s name. And it may take some time for you to accept God’s love. The good news is that the God who meets us in the wilderness does not rush our healing. Love is patient and long suffering. And love will not leave us just because we are struggling to trust it.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. He’s curious, but he’s cautious. He’s religious leader fluent in certainty, and he has some questions for Jesus. And how does Jesus answer?

“You must be born again.”

No, Jesus never said that. Jesus said, “you must be born from above.” Sometimes the language of being ‘born again’ sounds as if it’s been shaped more by fear than by love. You could say it sounds more like “being born from below” instead of “being born from above.”

And we know what being “born from below” sounds like, don’t we?
It sounds like this: You are depraved. You are defective. You are suspect. You are one wrong belief away from eternal fire.

But Jesus says we must be “born from above.” And that sounds like this: You are loved well before you loved. You are loved before you believe correctly. You are loved before you get your life together. You are loved because God is love.

Being “born from above” has nothing to do with accepting the right doctrine or saying the right prayer. It’s simply allowing love, not fear, to name us, to identify us, and to call and commission us.

Jesus says we must be born from above, because we cannot share the good news that “God so loved the world” if we secretly believe God barely tolerates us.

We cannot love our neighbor as our self, if we believe our self is despised.

We cannot lead with love if our inner life is still afraid of condemnation.

Some of the most judgmental forms of Christianity today are not rooted in conviction, but are rooted in unhealed shame. People terrified of their own damnation often become the loudest proclaimers of someone else’s. Because when we are afraid for ourselves, it becomes easier to focus on the fear of others. And more difficult to see others as beloved.

To know we are loved is so important that “For God so loved the world” in John’s gospel is not a theory for salvation. It is embodied.

God loves Nicodemus, who comes at night because faith feels risky in the daylight.

God loves a Samaritan woman with a complicated story.

God loves a man born blind.

God loves a paralyzed man waiting by a pool.

God loves a woman nearly stoned by men certain of their righteousness.

God loves Lazarus, four days dead.

God loves disciples who argue about power while he kneels to wash their feet.

God loves friends who fall asleep when he asks them to stay awake.

God loves Peter, who will deny him over and over.

God loves Thomas, who cannot believe without touching the wounds.

God loves people who doubt.

God loves people who fail.

God loves people who hide.

God loves people who are afraid.

God loves the ones the system ignores.

God loves the ones religion shames.

God loves the ones the empire crucifies.

And (and this is a big “and”), “God loves the world” means God loves a fragmented world, a doubting world, even a world that turns the gospel upside down, using faith as a weapon, blessing bombs, mocking mercy, demonizing empathy, and crucifying love.

John 3:16 has been turned upside down, and now it’s past time for us to turn it right-side up again: by leading with love; by reading verse 17 alongside verse 16; by refusing to preach hell more passionately than we preach hope.

And by believing in our hearts, “For God so loved the world.”

Not parts of it. Not the easy parts. Not the familiar parts.

The world.

So, receive that love.

Let it name you. Let it free you. Let it heal you.

And then go love this world, turn the world right-side up!

Not with fear, not with control, but with the same unconditional, universal love of God. Amen.

Flip-Flopping the Message

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Farmville EnterpriseLeave a comment

flip flop

The following is an excerpt from:  Let the Children Come

Although our intentions were to share the love and grace of Christ with others, I believe the church has actually been guilty of doing the exact opposite. Simply put, with our words and our actions, we have oftentimes preached the gospel backwards, and in doing so, we have shared hate and judgment.

To share Christ with others, we often start with what is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin. Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe that all people are born into this world as sinners. I just don’t believe that is where we should begin the conversation or the sermon.

Our sermon usually has three points: 1) All people are sinners; 2) God sent Jesus to die for us; 3) If we believe this, then God will forgive us and love us as God’s children forever.

I think we should preach the same sermon, only flip-flop it and proclaim it the other way around.

I believe we should always begin with God’s love for all people. We should make our number one point that God loves us as God’s children and wants nothing more than to love us forever. The second point should be that God came through Jesus and loved us so radically, showered us with grace so extravagantly, so offensively, that people, most of them religious, nailed him to a tree. And we should make our third and final point that God did this while we were yet sinners.

Do you see the difference? Instead of preaching that all people are born on the outside of the love of God until they do something, say something, or pray something to earn forgiveness, we should preach that all people are actually born inside the love of God without doing, saying or praying a thing to earn it. Our words and actions only help them to believe this and to accept it.

Jesus put it this way: 1) For God so loved the world; 2) God gave God’s only son; 3) So that all whosoever believes may not perish by their sins but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

If we keep teaching this, continue preaching this with our words and deeds, if we keep making the church a place of extravagant grace and radical love, then, before you know it, we will start seeing the entire world differently. We will start seeing people differently. Instead of seeing people first as sinners who deserve hell, fire, and eternal damnation, we will begin to see all people first as God sees them: God’s beloved children.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Advent and Christmas, Sermons Year BLeave a comment

Mark 1:1-8 NRSV

There is a Grinch lurking and working in our world seeking to steal Christmas. This Grinch is alive and real and every bit as mean and vile as that outcast of Whoville whose soul was an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of rubbish imaginable mangled up in tangled up knots. This Grinch can be found in every city, in every town, and in every rural community throughout our land. However, this Grinch is not among the usual suspects of the annually accused.

This Grinch is not Political Correctness. This Grinch is not the liberal sales clerk at Target greeting people on Christmas Eve with “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” After all, wouldn’t the God who humbly came down to be born in the unpretentiousness of a stable want us to show a little humility to a devout Jew on that holy night, which, this year, also happens to be the last night of Chanukah?

Nor do I believe this Grinch is Secularism. Santa Claus, tiny little elves, flying reindeer, Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman are a magical, wonderful part of this season that makes the eyes of children aglow. Again, I cannot imagine the Christ, Christmas Himself, calling things that bring such joy to children anything but holy and sacred.

But what about the Grinches of Consumerism, Greed and Materialism? What about the Grinch of Black Friday which is now taking over Thursday? What about the monsters of big business forcing people like my nineteen year-old son to work on Thanksgiving, preventing him from sharing a meal with his grandparents? Surely their hearts’ are nothing more than empty holes. Their brains are full of spiders, and they’ve got garlic in their souls.

They are certainly Grinchy, but as Grinchy as capitalism can be, I believe there is even a greater Grinch in our midst today, a Grinch even more nauseating and foul. There is a more crooked Grinch lurking and working in our world threatening to keep Christmas from coming.

To prepare the world for Christmas, for the coming of Christ into the world, John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. We are told that people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him to be baptized, confessing their sins.

John the Baptizer was proclaiming a baptism of repentance. The Greek word translated repent, literally means to think differently, to see things differently. It means to see the world, ourselves, and God differently. John was proclaiming the good news of Christmas. He was trying to get the people to understand and to see that God is not far away from us but is very much with us. God is not against us, but is very much for us, and God is more alive and more at work in this world than we can sometimes believe. The message of Christmas can be summed up in two beloved verses of scripture:

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. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him (John 3:16-17 NRSV).

And when people heard this message, they came from all over and did something that is a very difficult thing to do if you think God is against you, or you see that all of your sin and mess have separated you from God. They came from all over confessing their sins.

They came just as they were. They came openly, honestly, and transparently. They came freely, fearlessly and audaciously laying bare their imperfect souls before John, others and God. They came knowing that they would not be judged. They came seeing that they would not be condemned. They came with a new understanding that they would be accepted, a new vision that they would be forgiven. They came to be immersed in the unconditional love of God, to be enveloped by the unreserved grace of God. They came in the same spirit that lowly, sinful, shepherds came to kneel and worship before the manger. They came to the muddy banks of the Jordan River to join hands with fellow sinners and celebrate the good news of Christmas.

And ever since that Christmas was celebrated on that day through the honest confession of sin, there have been Grinches in every time in every land determined to stop it.

How does the Grinch steal Christmas? By simply deterring the confession of sins. By inhibiting such open honesty by proclaiming a message that is the exact opposite of the Christmas message.

The Christmas message is: “For God so loved the world…”

“God doesn’t love this world,” says the Grinch with a sour Grinchy frown. “God despises this world. Thus God wants people to separate themselves from this world, retreat into safe sanctuaries with the pure who don’t sin to smugly wait to one day escape to glory with kith and kin.”

“…that he gave his only Son…” says Christmas.

“God didn’t really give his Son,” the old Grinchy Claus hisses. “If God gave his Son, that would infer that salvation is free, no strings attached, no restrictions at all. “Surely,” says the Grinch “God wants people to earn this gift with right lifestyles, right beliefs, and right deeds after all.”

Christmas says: “…so that everyone who believes may not perish but have eternal life…”

The Grinch thinks up a lie and thinks it up quick: “Well, not everyone. Not the entitled. Not the undeserving. Not those who drink, party and cuss. God only helps and gives eternity to those who are willing to help themselves, those who think, look, believe and worship like us.”

The Christmas message is: “…God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world…”

“Of course God did,” the Grinch counters with a smile most unpleasant, “And God wants us to look down our noses and judge others as if they smell, point our fingers at their sins and preach about Hell.”

“….but in order that the world might be saved through him,” says Christmas.

“Not saved but destroyed,” the Grinch laughs in his throat. “Haven’t you heard of Armageddon, the Apocalypse and the Judgment Day? Why else would there be hurricanes, earthquakes, and so much AIDS and Ebola today?”

John, the one preparing the world for Christmas reveals that Christmas begins with the confessing of sin, and infers that if any Grinch wants to steal Christmas, if any Grinch wants to keep Christmas from coming, they need to merely discourage such confession.

So who is this Grinch that wants to steal Christmas?

Why, just ask yourself: Where is the one place in the world where the confession of sin is most difficult? In a bar with a total stranger? At a coffee shop with a close friend?  In the work place with a co-worker? No, sadly, it can be right here, right now, in this place that claims to proclaim the true reason for the season, in this place that claims to prepare the hearts of all to receive Christmas. The place that claims to be the most Grinchless place in the world, if we are not careful, can sometimes the most Grinchy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote about this Grinch:

Pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everyone must conceal their sin from themselves and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.[i]

And Quaker Theologian Richard Foster made the following observation about this Grinch:

Confession is so difficult a discipline for us partly because we view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We come to feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. We could not bear to reveal our failures and shortcomings to others. We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped onto the high road to heaven. . . . But if we know that the people of God are first a fellowship of sinners we are freed to hear the unconditional call of God’s love and to confess our need openly before our brothers and sisters. We know that we are not alone in our sin. The fear and pride which cling to us like barnacles cling to others also. In acts of mutual confession we release the power that heals. Our humanity is no longer denied but transformed.[ii]

I have often said that of any place on this fragmented planet, the church should be a place where all people are welcomed to join a community of grace, love and forgiveness. Without fear of being judged, condemned and ridiculed, all people should feel welcomed to come as they are and honestly and openly confess their sinfulness and brokenness. And receive grace. Receive love. Receive salvation.[iii] Receive Christmas.

So, whenever the church creates an environment that prohibits honesty, openness, and transparency; encourages people to be fake, conceal their pain, pretend to be good, upright and holy, their lives devoid of any real sin, mess or gunk; well, the three words that best describe it are as follows, and I quote, “Stink, stank, stunk.”

[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community, 1939.

[ii] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, 1978

[iii] Jarrett Banks, Issues of Homosexuality and the Church 

World-Affirming Christmas

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Advent and Christmas, Short ArticlesLeave a comment

star-of-bethlehemExcerpt from  Heaven Can Wait

British scholar Lesslie Newbigin once looked at our dark world and the state of the Church and made the following assessment: “In an age of impending ecological crises,” with the “threat of nuclear war and a biological holocaust” many Christians have retreated into a “privatized eschatology.”  That means, that the only hope many Christians possess is “their vision of personal blessedness for the soul after death.”

Christians everywhere, in the words of Newbigin, have “sounded the trumpet of retreat.” They have thrown their hands in the air and have given up on the world. Their faith in Jesus has become solely and merely a private matter. Faith is only something they possess, something they hold on to, that they can someday use as their ticket out this God-forsaken place. In the meantime, they withdraw into safe sanctuaries and look forward to that day “the roll is called up yonder.”  And they listen to angry sermons by angry preachers condemning the world to Hell in a hand basket.

Giving up on the world is really nothing new.  At the turn of the first century, Jews called Gnostics had a similar view of the world.  Everything worldly, even the human body itself, was regarded as evil.  And maybe, they too, had some pretty good reasons to believe that way, because regardless of what some may believe, the world did not start growing dark when Kennedy was assassinated or when the Trade Center Towers fell. The truth is: This world has been dark ever since that serpent showed up in the garden.

At the turn of the first century, Jews were a conquered, depressed people, occupied the Romans.  They were terrorized daily by a ruthless, pro-Roman King named Herod—a king who would murder innocent children to have his way.  The Gnostics looked at the world and their situation and came to the conclusion that they were divine souls trapped in evil bodies living in a very dark, God-forsaken, God-despised world.

In this season of Advent, we remember that it was into a very dark world that something mysterious happened that we call Christmas. A light shone in that darkness proving in the most incredible and inexplicable way that this world is anything but God-forsaken or God-despised!

God loves this world so much that God emptied God’s self and poured God’s self into the world. God came and affirmed, even our fleshly existence as God, God’s self, became flesh. And God came into the world not to condemn the world, but to save the world. For so God loved the world that God came into the world and died for the world.

Thus, the message that we all need to hear today and hear often is NOT that God believes the world is worth forsaking, but God believes this world is worth saving! God believes the world is still worth fighting for! God still believes that this world is worth dying for!

As the body of Christ in this world, we as the church are not called to retreat or withdraw from the world and its troubles, but are called to love this world, to do battle for this world, to even die for this world.  We are called to be a selfless community of faith in this broken world. And, no matter the cost, we are called to share this good news of Christmas all year long!