Sermon for 5th Sunday in Lent
God is at work in this world
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
Well intentioned Christians sometimes say terrible things, especially at the time of death or loss. You have probably heard them all: “God needed another angel” at the death of a child, or “She was such a good person, God wanted her to be with him.” How about “It is all part of God’s plan” in the face of any loss or terrible event or “there is a reason for everything,” a variation of the “All part of God’s plan” statement. Well intentioned Christians sometimes say terrible things, especially at the time of death or loss. You have probably heard them all: “God needed another angel” at the death of a child, or “She was such a good person, God wanted her to be with him.” How about “It is all part of God’s plan” in the face of any loss or terrible event or “there is a reason for everything,” a variation of the “All part of God’s plan” statement.
What sort of a God would take the life of a child, or an adult? What sort of a God would have a plan that includes suffering for God’s people? That is not the God we believe in.
Instead, we believe in a God who turns things around in this world, a God who turns our lives around. We believe in a God who continually surprises us and is still at work in this world. And we believe in a God who does not cause us hardship, but stands with us in the terrible times of our lives.
Today’s Gospel lesson from St. John’s Gospel is a complex example of this. It is, as scholar Dr. David Lose notes, this text is a series of interesting inversions. A series of words of Jesus which turn things upside down.
The scene starts with some Greeks wanting to see Jesus. Their request, transmitted through Philip and Andrew, sparks a series of reflections by Jesus, each made as a pronouncement. And in these pronouncements, Jesus inverts things, turns things upside down.
First, Jesus declares that the hour has come, the hour of his glory. Until this text in John’s Gospel Jesus has kept saying that his hour “has not yet come.” But now it has – the hour and time of Jesus’ glory has arrived.
But Jesus’ “glory” is not what we might think, and was not what his disciples had hoped for, which is the first inversion. It is not, that is, Olympic glory, or Super Bowl glory, or promotion glory, or Valedictorian glory. It is cross glory, suffering glory, obedience glory. It is not, in short, glory as the world would define it, which is the heart of these inversions. All of Jesus’ inversions are not as the world would expect.
This pattern continues, as Jesus next pronounces, “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Again, not what we would expect, and certainly not what the world promises. It is worth noting that “hate” in John is not so much the sense of “detesting” someone or something as it is “rejecting” something or someone.
In this sense, this verse represents a summary of the inversions Jesus offers, as he says that those who do not reject the material values and world view of the present age will, like the material things they love, eventually pass away. Those who realize there is more to this life than the trinkets and fading accomplishments the world offers will enjoy eternal rewards.
Jesus then rejects – and thereby inverts – the understandable reaction of most persons facing Jesus’ immediate future: “What should I say – “Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” Jesus rejects fear at losing his mortal, physical life because he knows that God is with him, that, indeed, God sent him for this purpose, to reveal God’s abundant life, a life that is something more than the usual symbols of life – like wealth, youth, power – that the world offers.
In these and other “inversions,” Jesus invites us to consider with care what we have come to value, what we have come to accept as “the way of the world,” what we have come to define as desirable.
Moreover, Jesus promises that God is always at work, drawing life from death, calling what looks shameful something beautiful, turning suffering and desolation into a time and place of revelation. All of which can give us a new perspective on those parts of our lives – and ourselves – that we feel are dying, shameful, or desolate.
Thus, this text is telling us that God is at work even in the darkest, hardest, loneliest parts of our lives. That God can bring something good and beautiful from suffering. That God not only does not abandon us during the painful times of our lives but is at work using those moments for something good.
However, as I stated as I began this sermon, it is important here to be clear that God is not causing the difficult and tragic parts of our lives but is at work in and through them. This is an important clarification. God does not cause terrible things to happen to us, but God works through them to bring about good.
Sometimes John seems so intent on revealing God’s unexpected and surprising presence in suffering that it can seem as if what Jesus undergoes only “looks like” suffering, but is really glory. This, combined with Jesus’ words about “his hour,” can make it feel like suffering, loss, tragedy are all part of God’s plan and truly faithful Christians would realize this and, like Jesus, show no signs of struggle.
John’s desire is to have everything fall together, for everything to make sense, to not only assure us of God’s presence but also lend a divine order to the chaos of our lives. But John is not tempting us to imagine that God causes the pain and suffering and tragedy in our lives as part of some larger plan. That interpretation can lend order and meaning to what may feel chaotic and meaningless, but only at the price of rendering God unsympathetic, indeed rather heartless, and simultaneously silencing our cries of disappointment, hurt, and despair. And that is not our image of God.
With that caution in mind, John’s portrayal of the inversions Jesus offers, the way Jesus turns the things of this world upside down, these can help us understand that amid the material and ever-decaying physical world of our universe there is a God who embraces the God-rejecting world in love, a God who continues to be at work wresting life from death, and a God who surprises us by being able to redeem even the deepest pain, assuring us that while God never desires that we suffer, yet God can work through that suffering for good.
God is here. God is at work. God is not afraid of those parts of our lives that frighten us. God values us so much more than the world does. God will not give up. God is on the side of life and love. And the love, mercy, and life God offers is stronger than the hate, judgment, and death that too often colors this world and our lives.
God’s love and mercy are stronger than the world’s hate, judgment and death. God is here. God is at work. God loves us in all the times, good and bad, in all the times of our lives. Today and always.
Amen
(With thanks to the Rev. Dr. David Lose.)
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
March 17-18, 2018
