Audacious Love
May 26, 2024 Trinity Sunday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Isaiah 6:1-8John 3:1-17
"Audacious Love"
Courtney M. Chandler
Earlier this week, my daughter finished the 4th grade. She attends a very small private school in North County. A couple weeks ago, I began the process of cleaning out her backpack. As I emptied its contents, I found the form I was to fill out to buy her a yearbook. Of course I missed the deadline. I called the school and they said they had extra yearbooks (they always do), so I went to the school this past week and bought her a yearbook. The school administrative assistant handed me the yearbook, grinned and told me to turn to the staff page. So I did.
I heard the tales of Mr. Dave Goostov, but I was surprised to see his picture in the bottom corner of staff photos in the yearbook. You can imagine the look on my face when I turned the page and found a picture of a goose with his beak open as if he were smiling and under his photo it read, “Mr. Dave Goostov, Head of School Security.” You see, Mr. Goostov is not human, but a wild Goose. According to what I have been told by a 9 year old girl, Mr. Goostov stands guard at the back doors of the building nearest to the playground and yells at everyone who dares to enter the back doors. He redirects strangers and visitors to the proper door in which to enter. He secures the building. He also has been known to keep children in their rightful place on the playground. Apparently a ball bounced away once and the goose refused to let a child go after the ball. Mr. Goostov keeps tabs on the students and makes sure they are safe. His behavior is a bit reckless and can seem to be a bit much at times, but Mr. Goostov is living his calling to keep those children safe and away from harm. It is chaotic and wild and, as I said, a bit reckless, but then we cannot control a wild goose, just as we cannot control God or the Spirit and the seemingly reckless love that comes from God. You see God loves us and is with us and trying to bring hope and light into our world even in the darkest of times. Sometimes we just need to seek out God.
Nicodemus knew this and went to seek out Christ in the darkness of night. Nicodemus knows things don’t seem right in the world, people are not treated lovingly, things feel wrong, politics and religion have become so intertwined it’s hard to separate the two which causes problems for the people, the world feels off and dark and cold. But he has been paying attention to this Jesus of Nazareth. This man is doing something new. The things he says and does seem to bring about a glimmer of hope for the twisted up world. But first, Nicodemus wants to understand. So, he goes and seeks Jesus so he can better understand this glimmer of light and hope that he sees and feels when he is around Jesus. He wants to understand how this happens.
Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born from above. Nicodemus doesn’t fully understand. So Jesus continues to tell him that you must be born of the Spirit. This Spirit which comes from God. It is this spirit that renews us, making us born anew. When we are born in the spirit, a new person emerges as we turn away from the ways in which we have caused harm to the Creator, Christ and Creation itself. This being baptized from above, baptized by the spirit, is how we turn away from our past lives of listening to ourselves and the world’s hate filled rhetoric and acting as tormentor and oppressor in order to turn back to God. This being born again means that a new person emerges as we turn away from the sin of knocking down humanity and instead embrace one another and hold one another in love and compassion. We are born anew and therefore able to become active participants in the kingdom of God. If only, like Isaiah we say yes when God calls.
This is what Jesus is trying to explain to Nicodemus on that dark night. Jesus goes on to speak the most shared verse in the bible, “For God so loved the world that God gave his only son…” We see the words John 3:16 printed on signs at ball games, but what we don’t see is the context or the verse that follows. “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Theologian David Lose tells us it would be helpful for us to look at the Greek word for “World.” He says, “kosmos-designates throughout the rest of John’s Gospel an entity that is hostile to God…”
He goes on to give examples such as John 15:18 where Jesus tells the disciples, “If the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first.” In John 16:33 he says, “in the world you face persecution…” and in John 17 Jesus prays for the disciples and says, “I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world.”
With this in mind Lose says, “that we might actually translate these verses (in 16 and 17) as, ‘For God so loved the God-hating world, that he gave his only Son…” and “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn even this world that despises God but instead so that the world that rejects God might still be saved through him.’ Really-God’s love is just that audacious and unexpected.”
God’s audacious love is so recklessly fearless that God gamble’s the Son for us. Not to condemn, not to punish, but to save-to protect and to care. No matter how much the people seem to despise God or turn from God, God loves anyway, boldly and without abandon.
Jesus is NOT here to condemn the world, but to save the world. God breathes the breath of life into us on the day we are born, Jesus saves through the action of care and feeding and healing and dying and living and all this is made possible through the Holy Spirit.
We would say it is reckless to keep placing bets on a losing team, but God does it anyway. God wants us to know that no matter how bleak things become, God is there loving us recklessly and what may seem irresponsibly, because God is not giving in or giving up on us. We don’t tend to like reckless behavior, it makes us nervous…uncomfortable…anxious. We tend to shy away from people we see behaving recklessly. Well, some of us do. Others may be drawn to that behavior. God’s audacious love is a love that comes with reckless devotion and saving grace. God takes a chance on humanity time and time again even when we are at our worst and never gives up-constantly inviting us to be part of the kingdom of God-longing for us to let the Spirit in…to move us and to lead us into ways of participating in that kingdom.
I know sometimes it may feel like God has given up. I understand that. Sometimes it feels like the world is dark and dreary, much like this rainy day, and we wonder where God is. But if we pay attention, and we seek out God, we can find reminders that God is with us.
In Harry Potter, Dumbeldore, the head of the Hogwarts School says, “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
I have adopted that quote in my life and try to remember to keep watch and turn on as many lights as it takes when I find myself in dark times and spaces. Sometimes it only takes one light to be turned on, other times it takes a bit more, but I have learned that if I pay attention, seek out God, listen to Christ and let the Spirit lead me, then I usually find a sign that reminds me that God is there and I hold onto that hope.
Today would have been my mother’s birthday. She passed away 12 years ago on May 24, two days before her 63rd birthday. It was a dark time for me, the grief all consuming. One day, shortly after my mother passed, I was sitting on the back deck at the house where we lived, located between Atlanta and Athens Georgia. We were living in a family owned home on several acres of land. It was not unusual to see wildlife in our yard. One day I walked outside to walk to the mailbox and counted 11 deer in my front yard and a few bunnies hopping around. We would sometimes see a family of foxes running in the field and there were lots of birds: woodpeckers, bluejays, cardinals, little finches, a big hawk, some owls, and in the lake on the property we would see geese and herons. On this day I sat on the deck and could see something standing on the dock of the lake. Well, I could see bits of a reflection in the water. All I saw was something really tall and pristine white. At first I thought there must be someone who came onto the property to fish and was scared of a stranger being there, but then I realized that what I was seeing was a large white heron. The other herons who had visited our little lake were all small and gray. This one was new. Then, as it spread its wings and began to fly, I noticed that behind that heron were two other pristine white herons and the three took off in flight over the lake and over the house in perfect v formation. I immediately thought of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and in the darkness of my grief, I felt a glimmer of peace and hope as I remembered who I am and that the Spirit blesses me with gifts and will help me use this grief as a gift so I will know better how to sit with others in their times of grief. Had I not been paying attention, I may have missed the herons that day. Had I not been paying attention, I may not have realized that I was surrounded by love and hope. Had I not been paying attention I may not have sought out the sign from God that said to me, “everything is going to be alright.”
Through death, grief, through political turmoil and upheaval, through wars, through job losses and hardships, through feeling abandoned or lonely, from the loss of a marriage or loved one, through pain and suffering and illness, through broken hearts and broken families, God’s audacious love never ceases and it is there desperately telling us to pay attention, because God is calling us back, saving us, so we can in turn go out and participate in sharing the audacious love of God with those who need to be reminded that God never gives us. We seek out Christ’ command to love-even in the darkness-allowing the Spirit to change us into someone new as we bring light and hope into times of darkness and doubt. It may seem reckless of us to give in and allow ourselves to be used by God in this way, but this is God’s audacious love at work and no amount of darkness can overcome the light of Christ’s love. Let us live with the knowledge that never gives up on us and through the 3-in-1 we have light and hope and courage to serve and love.
Amen.
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Isaiah 6:1-8John 3:1-17
"Audacious Love"
Courtney M. Chandler
Earlier this week, my daughter finished the 4th grade. She attends a very small private school in North County. A couple weeks ago, I began the process of cleaning out her backpack. As I emptied its contents, I found the form I was to fill out to buy her a yearbook. Of course I missed the deadline. I called the school and they said they had extra yearbooks (they always do), so I went to the school this past week and bought her a yearbook. The school administrative assistant handed me the yearbook, grinned and told me to turn to the staff page. So I did.
I heard the tales of Mr. Dave Goostov, but I was surprised to see his picture in the bottom corner of staff photos in the yearbook. You can imagine the look on my face when I turned the page and found a picture of a goose with his beak open as if he were smiling and under his photo it read, “Mr. Dave Goostov, Head of School Security.” You see, Mr. Goostov is not human, but a wild Goose. According to what I have been told by a 9 year old girl, Mr. Goostov stands guard at the back doors of the building nearest to the playground and yells at everyone who dares to enter the back doors. He redirects strangers and visitors to the proper door in which to enter. He secures the building. He also has been known to keep children in their rightful place on the playground. Apparently a ball bounced away once and the goose refused to let a child go after the ball. Mr. Goostov keeps tabs on the students and makes sure they are safe. His behavior is a bit reckless and can seem to be a bit much at times, but Mr. Goostov is living his calling to keep those children safe and away from harm. It is chaotic and wild and, as I said, a bit reckless, but then we cannot control a wild goose, just as we cannot control God or the Spirit and the seemingly reckless love that comes from God. You see God loves us and is with us and trying to bring hope and light into our world even in the darkest of times. Sometimes we just need to seek out God.
Nicodemus knew this and went to seek out Christ in the darkness of night. Nicodemus knows things don’t seem right in the world, people are not treated lovingly, things feel wrong, politics and religion have become so intertwined it’s hard to separate the two which causes problems for the people, the world feels off and dark and cold. But he has been paying attention to this Jesus of Nazareth. This man is doing something new. The things he says and does seem to bring about a glimmer of hope for the twisted up world. But first, Nicodemus wants to understand. So, he goes and seeks Jesus so he can better understand this glimmer of light and hope that he sees and feels when he is around Jesus. He wants to understand how this happens.
Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born from above. Nicodemus doesn’t fully understand. So Jesus continues to tell him that you must be born of the Spirit. This Spirit which comes from God. It is this spirit that renews us, making us born anew. When we are born in the spirit, a new person emerges as we turn away from the ways in which we have caused harm to the Creator, Christ and Creation itself. This being baptized from above, baptized by the spirit, is how we turn away from our past lives of listening to ourselves and the world’s hate filled rhetoric and acting as tormentor and oppressor in order to turn back to God. This being born again means that a new person emerges as we turn away from the sin of knocking down humanity and instead embrace one another and hold one another in love and compassion. We are born anew and therefore able to become active participants in the kingdom of God. If only, like Isaiah we say yes when God calls.
This is what Jesus is trying to explain to Nicodemus on that dark night. Jesus goes on to speak the most shared verse in the bible, “For God so loved the world that God gave his only son…” We see the words John 3:16 printed on signs at ball games, but what we don’t see is the context or the verse that follows. “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Theologian David Lose tells us it would be helpful for us to look at the Greek word for “World.” He says, “kosmos-designates throughout the rest of John’s Gospel an entity that is hostile to God…”
He goes on to give examples such as John 15:18 where Jesus tells the disciples, “If the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first.” In John 16:33 he says, “in the world you face persecution…” and in John 17 Jesus prays for the disciples and says, “I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world.”
With this in mind Lose says, “that we might actually translate these verses (in 16 and 17) as, ‘For God so loved the God-hating world, that he gave his only Son…” and “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn even this world that despises God but instead so that the world that rejects God might still be saved through him.’ Really-God’s love is just that audacious and unexpected.”
God’s audacious love is so recklessly fearless that God gamble’s the Son for us. Not to condemn, not to punish, but to save-to protect and to care. No matter how much the people seem to despise God or turn from God, God loves anyway, boldly and without abandon.
Jesus is NOT here to condemn the world, but to save the world. God breathes the breath of life into us on the day we are born, Jesus saves through the action of care and feeding and healing and dying and living and all this is made possible through the Holy Spirit.
We would say it is reckless to keep placing bets on a losing team, but God does it anyway. God wants us to know that no matter how bleak things become, God is there loving us recklessly and what may seem irresponsibly, because God is not giving in or giving up on us. We don’t tend to like reckless behavior, it makes us nervous…uncomfortable…anxious. We tend to shy away from people we see behaving recklessly. Well, some of us do. Others may be drawn to that behavior. God’s audacious love is a love that comes with reckless devotion and saving grace. God takes a chance on humanity time and time again even when we are at our worst and never gives up-constantly inviting us to be part of the kingdom of God-longing for us to let the Spirit in…to move us and to lead us into ways of participating in that kingdom.
I know sometimes it may feel like God has given up. I understand that. Sometimes it feels like the world is dark and dreary, much like this rainy day, and we wonder where God is. But if we pay attention, and we seek out God, we can find reminders that God is with us.
In Harry Potter, Dumbeldore, the head of the Hogwarts School says, “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
I have adopted that quote in my life and try to remember to keep watch and turn on as many lights as it takes when I find myself in dark times and spaces. Sometimes it only takes one light to be turned on, other times it takes a bit more, but I have learned that if I pay attention, seek out God, listen to Christ and let the Spirit lead me, then I usually find a sign that reminds me that God is there and I hold onto that hope.
Today would have been my mother’s birthday. She passed away 12 years ago on May 24, two days before her 63rd birthday. It was a dark time for me, the grief all consuming. One day, shortly after my mother passed, I was sitting on the back deck at the house where we lived, located between Atlanta and Athens Georgia. We were living in a family owned home on several acres of land. It was not unusual to see wildlife in our yard. One day I walked outside to walk to the mailbox and counted 11 deer in my front yard and a few bunnies hopping around. We would sometimes see a family of foxes running in the field and there were lots of birds: woodpeckers, bluejays, cardinals, little finches, a big hawk, some owls, and in the lake on the property we would see geese and herons. On this day I sat on the deck and could see something standing on the dock of the lake. Well, I could see bits of a reflection in the water. All I saw was something really tall and pristine white. At first I thought there must be someone who came onto the property to fish and was scared of a stranger being there, but then I realized that what I was seeing was a large white heron. The other herons who had visited our little lake were all small and gray. This one was new. Then, as it spread its wings and began to fly, I noticed that behind that heron were two other pristine white herons and the three took off in flight over the lake and over the house in perfect v formation. I immediately thought of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and in the darkness of my grief, I felt a glimmer of peace and hope as I remembered who I am and that the Spirit blesses me with gifts and will help me use this grief as a gift so I will know better how to sit with others in their times of grief. Had I not been paying attention, I may have missed the herons that day. Had I not been paying attention, I may not have realized that I was surrounded by love and hope. Had I not been paying attention I may not have sought out the sign from God that said to me, “everything is going to be alright.”
Through death, grief, through political turmoil and upheaval, through wars, through job losses and hardships, through feeling abandoned or lonely, from the loss of a marriage or loved one, through pain and suffering and illness, through broken hearts and broken families, God’s audacious love never ceases and it is there desperately telling us to pay attention, because God is calling us back, saving us, so we can in turn go out and participate in sharing the audacious love of God with those who need to be reminded that God never gives us. We seek out Christ’ command to love-even in the darkness-allowing the Spirit to change us into someone new as we bring light and hope into times of darkness and doubt. It may seem reckless of us to give in and allow ourselves to be used by God in this way, but this is God’s audacious love at work and no amount of darkness can overcome the light of Christ’s love. Let us live with the knowledge that never gives up on us and through the 3-in-1 we have light and hope and courage to serve and love.
Amen.
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