Sermon, Sun 27 May: The God who is more...

READINGS: Isaiah 6:1-8; John 3:1-17

SERMON
Let’s pray:
May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen...

About a century or two ago, in a small European mountain village, the local minister decided that all the people who had green eyes should leave.
Only the villagers with blue eyes were direct descendants of the original settlers.
To have green eyes meant that, at some point, they, or an ancestor, had come from somewhere else.
The green-eyed villagers had different values,
different customs and traditions:
they saw things differently, and sometimes this created tension in the village.
Green eyes meant that they didn’t truly belong.
Surely, life would be simpler if the differences disappeared and everyone was the same?
Surely, life would be simpler without having to live alongside, and work with, these others?
Naturally, there was a big uproar from the green-eyed villagers.
Some of them had lived all their lives in the village – had settled, married, raised children.
This was their home.
And, where else could they possibly go?

Being, as he thought, a reasonable man, the minister made a deal.
He would have a religious debate with a member of the green-eyed community.
If their champion won, they could stay.
If the minister won, the green-eyed villagers would have to leave.
Realising that they had no choice, the green-eyed villagers picked a
bright young girl named Myra to represent them.
Now, Myra was the top of the class at school, and, thinking she could do
a fairly decent job of it, agreed.
However, she asked for one addition to the debate.
To make it more interesting, neither side would be allowed to talk.
The minister agreed.

The day of the great debate came.
Myra and the minister sat opposite each other for a full minute before the
minister raised his hand and showed three fingers.
Myra looked back at him and raised one finger.

The minister waved his fingers in a circle around his head.
Myra pointed to the ground where she sat.

The minister pulled out a loaf of bread and a chalice of wine.
Myra pulled out an apple.

Shaking his head, the minister stood up and said,
"I give up. This lass is too good. You win: you can all stay."

An hour later, the kirk session and some members from the congregation had
gathered ‘round the minister asking him what happened.
The minister said,
"First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity.
She responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still
one God common to both our communities.
Then I waved my fingers around me to show her that God was all around us.
She responded by pointing to the ground and showing that God was also right here with us.
I pulled out the bread and the wine to show that God nourishes us, and takes away our sins.
She pulled out an apple to remind me of the Garden of Eden and original sin.
She had an answer for everything.
What could I do?"

Meanwhile, the green-eyed villagers had crowded around Myra
"What happened?" they asked.
"Well," said Myra,
"First he said to me that we had three days to get out of here.
I told him that not one of us was leaving.
Then he decided to play hardball and told me that this whole village would be cleared of our kind.
I let him know that we were staying right here."
"And then?" asked a woman.
"I don't know," said Myra.
"He took out his lunch and I took out mine."
----------------------------------
Two very different ways of seeing something.
And that’s exactly what we find here, in both of our readings this morning.
Our first reading, from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, recounts a vision that Isaiah has.
It’s mysterious, awe-inspiring.
It’s shown in grand scale:
the great heavenly temple, where the Lord sits upon a high throne –
majestic, exalted.
The train of his robe is so large that it fills the temple.
Surrounding God, are seraphs:
heavenly creatures, the highest in the hierarchy of the angelic host.
Their sole purpose is to proclaim God’s holiness:
‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’
The sound of their voices, as they sing God’s praises, is so powerful,
that the very doorposts, the thresholds, shake
and the temple itself fills with smoke –
possibly a reference to prayer and the incense used when making a sacrifice to God.
The whole scene  is wondrous...
and terrifying.
A display of God’s utter might and power:
hard to imagine,
harder to understand...
and the prophet,
seeing the most high,
seeing the One whose imagination and love brought the world into being,
seeing a glimpse of the immensity and greatness of God...
is overwhelmed.

No one can see God, and live.
It’s just too much to bear.
No one can see God, and not be aware of just how small they are:
God is so all; and we are so small.
No one can see God, and cope with the pure love and goodness that they see
and in the seeing, sense their own lack of love and goodness.
‘Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among
a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King:
the Lord Almighty.’
Isaiah is amazed, and terrified, and completely undone by this encounter with God.
And yet, all is not lost.
In the midst of the majesty... is mercy.
The offences that Isaiah beholds within himself, when beholding the wonder of God,
are taken away –
he is made whole and the pure fire of God’s love burns within him.
When God asks ‘Whom shall I send?’
Isaiah says: ‘Here I am. Send me.’
In the end, he becomes one of the greatest of the prophets,
touched by the love of God
to touch the lives of others for God
and to be God’s messenger in the world.

Isaiah’s vision of God, of God’s calling,
of God’s love, is one way of seeing God:
an ‘oh’ moment that is as beautiful as it is breath-taking.
A moment where every hair stands on end:
electrifying.
A moment that can do nothing other than bring a response:
love is met ...with love.

In contrast, our second reading of an encounter with God is far less grand.
Having met the prophet Isaiah, our gospel reading introduces us to the Pharisee, Nicodemus.
He’s a teacher of the Law, a member of the Jewish Council:
he’s part of the religious establishment of his time.
And, he’s curious, as well as cautious.
He’s heard of this rabbi, Jesus;
knows he’s done miraculous things.
He wants to know –
wants to see Jesus –
wants to understand.
Under the cover of darkness, he skulks through the streets of Jerusalem,
and finds himself at the place where Jesus is staying.
He’s full of questions, and yet, Jesus remains an enigma.
Each question is answered in a completely unexpected way:
he’s particularly flummoxed by all this ‘being reborn’ stuff that Jesus is talking about –
but it’s about spiritual life, not that journey from the womb.
Jesus talks of ‘water and the Spirit,’
and to help Nicodemus better understand,  widens the conversation out:
essentially, it’s all about
God’s love,
God’s mercy,
God’s desire to be in relationship,
to be involved,
to be at the centre of our lives.

To be reborn is to see anew,
is to understand that there is more to God
than just following a bunch of rules;
to be reborn is to see that there is more to God:
God is Father,
and God is Son,
and God is Spirit –
different and yet one.
Mysterious, and yet made known in Jesus,
and giving life to all through the Spirit –
the Spirit that unites all to God,
and brings us into God’s family:
as God’s children,
and as brothers and sisters to one another.
To be reborn is to recognise that we belong to a community gathered to love God –
not just individually but together,
just as God in Trinity, is in community.
Each one of us makes the whole community,
just as Father, Son, and Spirit, make up the fullness that is God.

As Jesus talks to Nicodemus, he reminds him that God cannot be put in a box:
‘the wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot 
tell where it comes from or where it is going.’
Nicodemus, the teacher, the religious official, is basically told:
‘you can’t control God, but you can trust him.’

This last week, at the General Assembly,
hard questions were asked about the future of the church.
For some, the future was bleak.
There was the language of control,
the language of ‘managing decline.’
There was corporate language and number crunching and ‘hard facts.’
And there was a report called ‘the strategic plan’ which seemed to be written
far from the reality that many parishes, and indeed, presbyteries were facing.
And, it was thrown out:
the Assembly found its voice.
The time to act was seen to be now, not looking 10 years down the track.
From that debate, connections and conversations were had over lunch, or a cuppa:
the beginnings, perhaps, of seeing that to be church is not
so much a matter of the survival of the fittest,
and the forgone conclusion that the biggest and wealthiest win –
but rather, that we’re all in this together:
rural and town, priority areas and leafy suburbs.
Rather than seeing ourselves as a people ‘managing decline’
perhaps last week, we began to see
like Isaiah, like Nicodemus,
the God who is more...
and the God who connects us to him,
and to each other...
the God who calls us
to serve him,
to serve one another,
and to serve the world,
in love –
and in all our diversity:
whether our eyes are green, or blue, or something else entirely.

It’s Trinity Sunday.
And the Father, Son, and Spirit dance together:
each playing a part...
Perhaps, we, who are created in God’s image are called to the great work of dancing together –
and as we do, we play our part in being God’s good news in a world that’s starving for more:
for the God, who is more than we could ever hope for or imagine,
and in whom we find life, now, and forever. Amen.