A New Way of Thinking - repreach 2/28/99

May 27, 2018 Year B John 3:1-21 Repreach of 2/28/1999 Trinity Sunday – Sunday After Pentecost A New Way of Thinking Children’s Sermon Exegetical Aim: The meaning of the church’s doctrine of the Trinity. Props: Flip cards with math problems and a marker to mark the answers. Two of the flip cards should have the following: 1+1+1= and Father+Son+HolySpirit= Lesson: Good Morning! (response) We are going to do a little math this morning. I am going to show you a math problem and you tell me the answer. Are you ready? Here is the first problem. Show them the first flip card. What is 2+2? (response) Ok, now let’s look at another problem. What is 5+3? (response) That one was a little tougher and now we are going to do a hard one? Are you ready for a hard one? (response) What is 13+12? (response) Let’s take a look at one more and now we are going to add one more number to the problem. This will be the hardest one of them all. Here it is. What is 1+1+1? (response) This one is hard isn’t it? (response) Are you sure? Look at it again. Are you sure you have the right answer? (response) What if told you that the answer is not 3. What if I told you that 1+1+1=1? (response) You don’t believe me? (response) Ok, let me show you another math problem and this one is a little different. This is a church math problem. You might call it holy mathematics. Here is the problem. What does Father+Son+HolySpirit equal? (response) Give them time to assimilate this question. Repeat the question to reinforce the lesson.Does it equal 1 God or 3 Gods? (response) The answer is One God. Use your fingers to count out the Godhead as you explain or use the flash card:You see we as Christians worship God the Father, who is in heaven, and we worship God the Son, who came down to us as Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit, who has come to us and is near us and fills us even now. We worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That’s hold up three fingers three persons right? (response) Here’s the tricky part. Even though God is three persons, he is One: 1+1+1=1 when we speak about God. What do you think about that? (response) Application: This morning we are going to read a story about Nicodemus and how he got a little confused. Jesus told him that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were going to help him be born again. God, all three of them, were going to help Nicodemus start his life all over. He was going to be given the chance to see life in a new way. How can a person start all over again? Just as if he was a little baby starting all over? How can that be? (response) I think it has something to do with this holy mathematics. Hold up the 1+1+1=1 card. If 1+1+1=1 in the church then other things must be afoot here that we don’t understand. Like grown up men and women being born again, and the Holy Spirit filling our hearts with God’s goodness, and the kingdom of God right here all around us making us all one body of Christ. As you continue to grow up remember this holy place and remember that in the church show the card again it is God--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--all One of them, who are at work. Strange things happen here that are too wonderful to describe and too mysterious to understand. Let’s Pray: Lord the wind blows where it wills and so does your Spirit. Blow upon us and give us birth again. Amen. ChristianGlobe Network, Inc, , by Brett Blair John 3:1-21 Common English Bible (CEB) Jesus and Nicodemus 3 There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a Jewish leader. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could do these miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered, “I assure you, unless someone is born anew,[a] it’s not possible to see God’s kingdom.” 4 Nicodemus asked, “How is it possible for an adult to be born? It’s impossible to enter the mother’s womb for a second time and be born, isn’t it?” 5 Jesus answered, “I assure you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. 6 Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Don’t be surprised that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ 8 God’s Spirit[b]blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said, “How are these things possible?” 10 “Jesus answered, “You are a teacher of Israel and you don’t know these things? 11 I assure you that we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you don’t receive our testimony.12 If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Human One.[c]14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Human One[d] be lifted up 15 so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. 16 God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.17 God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him isn’t judged; whoever doesn’t believe in him is already judged, because they don’t believe in the name of God’s only Son. 19 “This is the basis for judgment: The light came into the world, and people loved darkness more than the light, for their actions are evil.20 All who do wicked things hate the light and don’t come to the light for fear that their actions will be exposed to the light. 21 Whoever does the truth comes to the light so that it can be seen that their actions were done in God.” Footnotes: a. John 3:3 Or from above b. John 3:8 Or wind c. John 3:13 Or Son of Man d. John 3:14 Or Son of Man Common English Bible (CEB) Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible There are two brothers, the mother gave birth to one at two oclock, and she had to other an hour later, yet they are not twins, how can that be? Today in honor of Trinity Sunday, we are going to deal with riddles, the riddles of life, the riddles of what it means to be a Christian. Those are the riddles that a wealthy, prominent citizen names Nicodemus struggled with. They were so difficult for him that he couldn’t sleep and had to come to Jesus in the middle of the night. The answers that Jesus gave confused him even more. Jesus gave a birth riddle, much like the one that I gave. Jesus told him that in order to have eternal life, you must be born again. But how can someone be born again? Do they have to go back into their mother’s womb a second time? How can two brothers be born at the same time and not be twins? There is an answer to both, but to come up with it – you have to think in a new way. Let us first try and think through Jesus riddle. As you read through the gospel of John, you will notice that Jesus loves to play this trick all of the time. Someone with a question, like Nicodemus will come to Jesus with a question, Jesus will answer with a a saying this is hard to understand. The person will get even more confused and go off on a tangent, and Jesus will answer them again, this time with an even harder saying and the will leave Jesus, more confused than they came – but forced to think in a new way. I don’t know about you but that happens to me a lot, I go through life confused, but trying to stay focused. You see the problem here is that Nicodemus is a left brain thinker. Our left brain loves to process information. Left brain thinkers like clearcut memorized rules. Nicodemus was a pharisee, and a pharisee’s job was to make up thousands of rules for the Jewish people. They determined what the law meant. A pharisee judged their goodness and self worth based on how they were able to go throughout a normal day without breaking one of these laws. The good news for us Christians is that the gospel is a right brain activity. The gospel is more about images, not words. The gospel intentionally breaks all of the rules, and you do not have to follow any prescribed daily ritual in order to be called a Christian. We are saved by grace. So I have another riddle for you- If you can answer this one, then you are truly a Christian. How many animals did Adam and Eve put in the ark. Well if you are awake and paying attention and actively thinking – you will know that it was Adam who filled the Ark, Adam and Eve came much earlier in the story. That is the good thing about our faith, we don’t have to explain it or understand it in terms of laid out rules. Our faith is sort of like to wind blowing, you don’t have to know where it came from in order to feel its presence. All of those left brain activities like using the computer, balancing a check book, or maintaining your care are not thing that will get you into heaven. Thank God, I would not have a chance. But when you think in terms of going to your favorite concert, or taking a walk in the sun, or what you did to enjoy the coming of summer, then you are on the road to understanding the faith of Jesus. If you live life in your right brain, the part that remember feelings and doesnot need concrete answers, then you will understand what Jesus was trying to teach Nicodemus. Here is another riddle, How many birthdays does the average person in America have in a lifetime? Well I guess the answer could be negotiable. If you are only born once, then you can only have one birth day. But Christ says that we must be born again-that means that Christians have two birth days right? Well that depends on what it means to be born again. That debate could go on forever. Jesus says that the first birth is a physical birth, and the second is a spiritual birth. It is sort of like the moment when you have been trying to figure out the answer to a riddle that you have been struggling with for a very long time. It is when all of the solutins that you have been trying to come up with are exhausted, and you get an answer that you know you would not have come up with on your own in a million years. Along with the answer comes a whole new way of seeing the world. In John’s gospel, Jesu loved to speak in riddles. In figuring out those riddles, we come up with the answers to our questions ourself. We think in a new way. To be born again is to undergo such a radical change of thinking that it is like a new birth. To be born again is to have something happen to the soul that makes us a whole new person. It is a point in your conscious existence when you allow the spirit to move within you and you say Yes to God. Our passage contains one of the most familiar bible passages in the world. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that we may have life and have it abundantly. When we are open to a new way of thinking, where the spirit is flowing, then we can understand the love of God. God’s love is unlimited, unconditional, and redemptive. For God so loved the world. Even John is tempted to say that God only loves those who do the will of Jesus. But God’s love is unconditional. God loves the good and the bad. God loves all of creation. God loves political and corrupt powers, God loves corporate structures that pollute and corrupt the world. God loves all people, those we agree with and those we don’t. If God loves all people, even those we don’t agree with, then how should we respond to those people? God’s love is unconditional. For God so loved the world is a statement within itself, but it is easy for us to be tempted to finish the sentence with conditions. God will love you if you are righteous, God will love you if you study, If you don’t do what people expect of your. The good news is the God loves you in this time in history, in this world. In other words, God loves you just the way you are. God is concerned with this world and bringing all of the world in the fullness of creation. We are all a part of creation. God is not through with us yet, we are all still a work in progress. God still loves this world, and is still creating and working to make us complete. Finally the term for God so loved the world is redemptive. God loves us the way that we are, because God is working to redeem us. If we accept Christ into our lives, then our lives are open to saving grace. God so loved the world, that he acted in Christ. Those of us who follow Christ are motivated to the same compassion, hope and love are all of the world, even those things that we do not agree with. As we are a part of the body of Christ, we begin to share his love for creation and bring into the service of that love all of our gifts and talent and desires. I have another riddle for you. Frank is a night watchmen who works seven nights a week at a manufacturing plant. His boss is supposed to fly overseas on a business deal and this really bothers Frank. Frank warns his boss that the previous night he had a dream that his boss would die in a plane crash. The boss ignored Frank’s warning and left for his trip. The boss returned a few days later and was so mad that he fired Frank. The business deal turned out great, so it was not the premonition that made his mad. The key to this riddle is what you think about dreams. A dreamer is someone who is not bond by rules and laws. A dreamer is free to think of life in a new way. When we understand the love of God and how that love works in our lives, then that makes us all dreamers. Have you ever noticed that there is a time, just before you wake up, when you are bound by reality, yet you are still in a dream world, where you are free. This is the time that Nicodemus came to Jesus, in the middle of the night. You can tell from his questions of Jesus that he yearned to be free. He wanted to be free to see the world in a whole new way. He wanted to be free from his own confinement of the rules and laws that controlled his life. Jesus riddles gave him permission to be a dreamer. There is nothing wrong with dreams, unless you are a night watchman, and you are having dreams in the night. That might be grounds for being fired. Okay, I have one last one that I could not resist since today is the 28th of February. Some months have 31 days, some have 30 days. How many months have 28 days? Being that I did not ask how many months have exactly 28 days, one is not right. All months have 28 days in them. 28 days to feel the love of Christ and to spread that love to all of the world. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Jesus came into the world to give us love, a love unlimited, a love conditional, a love redeemed. How to do intend to respond to this love. Oh before I forget, let me tell you the answer to the riddle at the beginning of the sermon. If two brothers are born an hour apart, they are not twins, because they are triplets. God’s love also gives us the opportunity to see life in ways that we would have never thought of before. That is what it means to be born again. Amen. Making the Mystery Work for You - John 3:1-17 It’s Trinity Sunday: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Enough said? Don’t leave me. I promise you, I won’t deliver a lecture expounding on what belongs only in the classroom for theologues. I do want to tell you a brief story. A man in a certain parish was only seen in church one Sunday a year. No, it was not Easter. It was Trinity. One leading lay person had restrained his curiosity year after year. He could not contain it any more. He approached the man and said, “I have noticed that you have selected this particular time for your only visit to church.” “Oh, that’s easy to explain,” the man said. “I like to come on this day so I can hear the preacher get all tangled up trying to explain the Trinity!” St. Augustine came to a similar conclusion in the Fourth Century, after writing 800 pages on the Trinity. He declared that he did not understand it. This is St. Augustine’s story. As he walked along the seashore one day, he saw a small boy playing with a seashell. The boy scooped a hole in the sand, filled his shell with water and poured it into the hole. The great theologian asked the boy, “What are you doing, my son?” The youngster replied, “I am going to pour the sea into that hole.” Then Augustine said to himself, “That is what I have been trying to do. Standing at the ocean of infinity, I have attempted to grasp it with my finite mind.” Mystery! Mystery is at the heart of the universe. Why am I here? Why are you here. Why have I spent over thirty years in the Christian ministry? Why am I a husband, parent, grandfather of eight? Why are you who you are? Why have you spent your life, or why are you planning to spend, your life pursuing a certain career? There are times when it seems so natural to ask, why? in an effort to explore the deeper resources of our inner selves. When I watch the Memorial Day parades, celebrating those who gave their lives for our freedom, I can’t help asking, why? Why can’t we find a solution for war? On those occasions when I feel down or feel distressed by the turmoils of the world, I ask, Why? Why? Why? The late Cardinal Cushing tells of an occasion when he was administering last rites to a man who had collapsed in a general store. Following his usual custom, he knelt by the man and asked, “Do you believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?” The Cardinal said the man roused a little bit, opened an eye, looked at him and said, “Here I am, dying, and you ask me a riddle.” Call them riddles. Call them mysteries. There are things about life and faith we do not understand…. Why Isn't the Holy Spirit Included? A woman wrote to Reader's Digest. She wanted to tell about an experience that she had when she took a young girl from India to church with her. It was the eleven-year-old girl's first exposure to a Christian worship service. The young lady's parents were traveling on business and left her in the care of their American friends. The little Hindu girl decided on her own to go with the family to church one Sunday. After the service was over, they went out to lunch. The little girl had some questions. She wondered, "I don't understand why the West Coast isn't included, too?" Her Christian friends were puzzled and asked, "What do you mean?" She responded, "You know. I kept hearing the people say, ‘In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the whole East Coast.'" Traditional Illustration, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc Life Is Unpredictable Life is unpredictable. Full of surprises. Often enjoyable. Usually endurable. Most all of them accidental. But here and there, providential. That's because God, too, is full of surprises. Ellsworth Kalas (one of the geniuses behind the Disciple Bible Study movement), writes: "I have lived in the world of religion since before I was born, and in this long period of observation (seventy years and counting), I have learned two things for sure. First, you can't box God in. And second, we are always trying to do so." William A. Ritter, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com Making the Mystery Work for You - John 3:1-17 It’s Trinity Sunday: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Enough said? Don’t leave me. I promise you, I won’t deliver a lecture expounding on what belongs only in the classroom for theologues. I do want to tell you a brief story. A man in a certain parish was only seen in church one Sunday a year. No, it was not Easter. It was Trinity. One leading lay person had restrained his curiosity year after year. He could not contain it any more. He approached the man and said, “I have noticed that you have selected this particular time for your only visit to church.” “Oh, that’s easy to explain,” the man said. “I like to come on this day so I can hear the preacher get all tangled up trying to explain the Trinity!” St. Augustine came to a similar conclusion in the Fourth Century, after writing 800 pages on the Trinity. He declared that he did not understand it. This is St. Augustine’s story. As he walked along the seashore one day, he saw a small boy playing with a seashell. The boy scooped a hole in the sand, filled his shell with water and poured it into the hole. The great theologian asked the boy, “What are you doing, my son?” The youngster replied, “I am going to pour the sea into that hole.” Then Augustine said to himself, “That is what I have been trying to do. Standing at the ocean of infinity, I have attempted to grasp it with my finite mind.” Mystery! Mystery is at the heart of the universe. Why am I here? Why are you here. Why have I spent over thirty years in the Christian ministry? Why am I a husband, parent, grandfather of eight? Why are you who you are? Why have you spent your life, or why are you planning to spend, your life pursuing a certain career? There are times when it seems so natural to ask, why? in an effort to explore the deeper resources of our inner selves. When I watch the Memorial Day parades, celebrating those who gave their lives for our freedom, I can’t help asking, why? Why can’t we find a solution for war? On those occasions when I feel down or feel distressed by the turmoils of the world, I ask, Why? Why? Why? The late Cardinal Cushing tells of an occasion when he was administering last rites to a man who had collapsed in a general store. Following his usual custom, he knelt by the man and asked, “Do you believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?” The Cardinal said the man roused a little bit, opened an eye, looked at him and said, “Here I am, dying, and you ask me a riddle.” Call them riddles. Call them mysteries. There are things about life and faith we do not understand….