“Beloved Community”

A Lenten Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Jean Niven Lenk

at the

First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

Ernie, let me express again what a joy it is to have you and Diana, Deb, and Priscilla here this morning, and to honor you as Pastor Emeritus.  You touched many lives during your 25-year ministry here, and as you can see, many of those people are here today to extend to you their love and gratitude.  You were their beloved pastor, and I suspect this was – and continues to be – a beloved community to you.

And just as many of the faces sitting here this morning are familiar to you, there are also many people here today you don’t know, who join in celebrating your ministry.  Each Sunday, this congregation is just a little different, because that is the nature of a church.  People we have known and worshiped with move on to a new town and new faith community, and new people come here; just about every week, we welcome at least one new person to this family of faith.

For as long as people have been seeking God, we have been sojourners.  Reading the first stories of the Israelites, we hear of their wandering in the wilderness in search of a place they could live forever.  Wherever they journeyed, they were constantly reminded that their destination was not really the Promised Land, but God.  They were on the road and in this life always seeking God.

Christianity, too, is a faith for sojourners.  Jesus talked about himself as having nowhere to lay his head; he, in a very literal sense, spent his life journeying from one place to another, from one group of people to another.  And yet, he came “home” every day, because his home was with God. 

And during Lent, we, too, are sojourners.  This season is an opportunity for us to renew and strengthen our relationship with God through Christ, to open ourselves up to Christ’s healing love and grace, and to let God do God’s work in us as we walk our Lenten journeys following Jesus to the cross.

And to all of you who gave up chocolate or some other guilty pleasure for Lent, I have good news for you.  We have just passed the halfway point of Lent, and today is known in some Christian traditions as “Refreshment Sunday.”  For about 1,000 years, going back to the Middle Ages, this has been the Sunday on which the disciplines of penitence and denial are relaxed a little.  So it’s the perfect day for us to lighten up from Lent and celebrate with you, Ernie, and to indulge enthusiastically in the celebration brunch immediately following worship!

And in keeping with this little break from Lent, our scripture lessons for today offer us a foretaste, just a glimpse, of what awaits us at the end of our Lenten journey – the resurrection and its meaning for us.

The Exodus story is about a people who knew they were loved by God, and who trusted God enough to follow Moses into the wilderness.  But on their long journey, the Israelites grew tired of wandering, and their irritation quickly dissolved into quarreling and complaining.  In this morning’s Old Testament lesson, God has grown impatient with their whining and sends poisonous snakes to punish them.  Bitten, the Israelites confess their sin, and Moses intercedes with God on their behalf.  God then instructs Moses to put a bronze serpent, or snake, on a pole, which has the power of healing for all who look upon it.

In ancient mythology, the snake symbolized healing and transformation.  Because it sheds its skin, the snake was thought to be a creature that was reborn, and it thus came to represent eternal life.  The medical profession picks up on the healing motif in its emblem, which includes a winged staff surrounded by two entwined snakes.  And in Native American spirituality, the snake god, Feathered Serpent, is symbolic of the power that overcomes death – the power of resurrection. 

The snake that Moses puts on the pole symbolizes the disconnection between God and humanity, and when the Israelites look upon it, God heals them, turning their fear and doubt into faith and assurance.

In this morning’s New Testament lesson, the gospel of John speaks of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection with a reference to Moses and the snake, echoing the themes of healing, eternal life, and the power that overcomes death.  “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.  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.” 

“For God so loved the world…” 

This is perhaps one of the most misused, misunderstood texts in all of Scripture.  Taken literally, it suggests that those who do not believe in Christ will perish, and this one single verse has provided motivation for some decidedly unchristian actions.  The irony is that John is the least literal of the four Gospel writers.  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all take great liberty with the actual events of Jesus’ life and the things he said.  They were not historians; what they were seeking to do in their gospels was to communicate a faith.  And John is the one who exercises the greatest freedom in reworking and retelling the story of Jesus in order to communicate who Jesus was – and continues to be – for all who read his gospel.

“For God so loved the world…” 

Rather than creating a belief system that saves some and rejects others, John is instead expressing the depth of God's love.  God’s ultimate relationship with the world is love, and God comes to this broken world, this beloved community, through Jesus Christ – not to condemn or reject, but to reconcile and heal and to show that love. 

Through all of our journeys – our coming and goings – God loves us.  Even when we wander away from God, God still loves us.  And the ultimate expression of God’s love is sending Godself to us in the form of God’s son. 

“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.”

And what is eternal life?  It is the experience of healing, transformation, and resurrection in each of our lives through the abiding presence and love of the living Christ.  John describes eternal life not as something we will experience in the next life, but as a gift we are offered in the here and now: “Whoever believes in the Son” has – not will have, but “has eternal life” [3:36]. 

The followers Jesus left behind knew about eternal life.  Immediately after his death, they became demoralized and scattered.  But even though the earthly Jesus was gone, the power of his life and teaching, and the power of his abiding presence as the Risen Christ, was sufficient to reconstitute and inspire this beloved community of disciples.  Despite the tragedy of the crucifixion, they knew his death was not the end, because he lived on in their hearts and lives.  He lived on – and he continues to live on – because death could not contain him.  Eternal life is the abiding presence of the risen Christ in each of us, the One who revives our spirits, transforms our lives, and lifts us up when we fall, forgiving, healing, and making all things new.

 And how do we respond to a God who so loves the world?  We are to be the hands and feet and body of Christ, a beloved community of love and healing, touching and changing the lives of others.  We do this in a variety of ways – by worshiping together, singing together, and by praying with and for each other.  We do it by caring for each other in times of need, showing compassion in times of sorrow, and celebrating with each other in our joys.  We do it by giving to Evelyn House and the Stoughton Food Pantry.  And today we do it by giving to One Great Hour of Sharing which reaches people near and far in a variety of ways – equipping the people of Rwanda with hope, knowledge and power to fight AIDS; supporting a children's theater project in Iraq's only institute for the autistic; and rebuilding homes and lives of people in parts of the United States devastated by hurricanes and tornadoes.  In these ways and more, we are to respond to the initiative of the One who first loves us and whose love inspires us to love one other as we have been loved.

Like Jesus and like the ancient Hebrews, we too are sojourners.  We seek to live in and belong to a beloved community where we can replenish our spirits and feed our souls, where we can have companionship through the shadows and the sunlight of our lives, where we can serve each other and the world, and always be on a journey seeking God. 

Ernie, I know you found your home here in the midst of this beloved community, and so have I.  May each of us experience eternal life – the healing, the wholeness, the transformation – offered by Christ, and, journeying together within this beloved community, may each of us find the God who so loves us and the world.  Amen.