preaching john 3:1-21

There are three articles on this site written to provide preachers with pastoral reflections for sermons proclaiming the message of John 3:1-21. If you are to preach a sermon on this text ... or listen to one ... where do you think the emphasis should fall? What is the Word from God from these verses for our time and place or for you at this point in your life?

You can find preacher's notes at these three links: John 3:1-8, John 3:9-15 and John 3:16-21.

preaching ephesians on july 15, 22 & 29

Those who are following the Revised Common Lectionary have an opportunity to preach from the Letter to the Ephesians on successive Sundays this month. Here are preacher's notes on the readings from Ephesians this July ...

                July 15 - Ephesians 1:3-14
                July 22 - Ephesians 2:11-22
                July 29 - Ephesians 3:14-21

not to talk about scripture but from it

"Preaching must be exposition of holy scripture. I have not to talk about scripture but from it. I have not to say something, but merely repeat something .... Our task is simply to follow the distinctive movement of thought in the text, to stay with this, and not with a plan that arises out of it." (Karl Barth, Homiletics, p. 49.)

Not long ago a friend made the comment that my last sermon at University Hill Congregation revealed just how much Karl Barth influences my preaching. It surprised me when he said it because I simply thought of that sermon as how the text (Mark 4:35-41) speaks now, how it demands to be proclaimed. I didn't realize how obvious Barth's influence might be.

Reading some of Barth's thoughts on preaching today I was reminded of that sermon - "To the Other Side". Yes, it is fair to say that while my journey as a preacher began with a desire to make the text as relevant as possible it inevitably shifted to listening for the odd Word of God revealed through scripture. I found my way to this mode of preaching through teachers like Walter Brueggemann and Will Willimon who trace their roots directly to Karl Barth. For that I am grateful.

can these bones live

Here are some sermon notes for a sermon I am not preaching this Sunday ... if I was the sermon might go something like this. Ezekiel 37:1-14 is as fresh and new as ever ...

- Ezekiel is set down in a valley full of bones. It is a vision he recognizes. He and his contemporaries have been marched to Babylon and witnessed fields filled with the bones of dead soldiers. They are suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. “There were very many … and they were very dry”. This is a scene of carnage, without hope. The smell of death is everywhere. The LORD asks Ezekiel “Can these bones live?” The obvious answer is ‘No way’. But Ezekiel knows he is dealing with the LORD who has liberated an enslaved people from super-power Egypt. He turns it back to his questioner: “O LORD God, you know.”

preacher's notes on john 3:16-21

The following article was written to provide preachers with pastoral reflections for a sermon that proclaims the message of John 3:16-21. If you were preaching a sermon on this text ... or listening to one ... where would you want the emphasis to fall? What is the Word from God from these verses for our time and place? for you at this point in your life? (see also preacher's notes on John 3:1-8 and preacher's notes on John 3:9-15.)

What an extraordinary announcement: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). We are accustomed to stories of the gods who are, at best, indifferent and, at worst, hostile to the world. We assume that if God loves anyone it will be those who love God. But the text does not read “God so loved the church” or “God so loved the faithful” or “God so loved the pure.” The focus is out beyond the horizon of the church. This story is about God’s deep and abiding love for the world. This is the missional energy, the “missio dei,” that is meant to be the heart and soul of the church’s witness. No wonder so many use the shorthand “Jn 3:16" as a signpost pointing to the new world of the gospel.

preacher's notes on john 3:9-15

The following article was written to provide preachers with pastoral reflections for a sermon that proclaims the message of John 3:9-15. If you were preaching a sermon on this text ... or listening to one ... where would you want the emphasis to fall? What is the Word from God from these verses for our time and place? for you at this point in your life? (see also preacher's notes on John 3:1-8 and preacher's notes on John 3:16-21).

“How can these things be?” Nicodemus speaks for a wealth of insiders and outsiders who wonder at the impossible possibility of a new future. How is real newness possible? It is a question that saps the energy of lone souls in despair, of congregations in fatigue, of families in dysfunction, and of peoples in oppression. Nicodemus names Jesus “a teacher who has come from God” (John 3:2) but this teaching is more than he has bargained for. It is one thing to be taught to live a more faithful life. It is another thing to learn that the future calls for re-birth “from above” (John 3:7). Those who know too well what it is to endure cycles of abuse and those who witness the continued degradation of the planet by human consumption wonder with Nicodemus how anything truly new can be.

preacher's notes on john 3:1-8

The following article was written to provide preachers with pastoral reflections for a sermon that proclaims the message of John 3:1-8. If you were preaching a sermon on this text ... or listening to one ... where would you want the emphasis to fall? What is the Word from God from these verses for our time and place? for you at this point in your life? (see also preacher's notes on John 3:9-15 and preacher's notes on John 3:16-21).

Nicodemus comes to Jesus “by night.” When Nicodemus later appears at Jesus’ tomb John makes it a point to remind us of this: “Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came” (John 19:39). Is Nicodemus afraid of the ramifications of being seen with Jesus? Perhaps. Or perhaps the Gospel is providing us with a portrait of what takes place when an insider, a church member, a pastor comes face to face with Jesus, “the light of all people” (John 1:4). When read through this lens the story of Nicodemus’ darkened encounter with Jesus can open the reading community to an as yet unimagined future.

fifteen hundred sundays

I have been preaching most every Sunday for thirty-five years. It means something like fifteen hundred Sundays by now ... and fifteen hundred sermons. Counting the sermons in Holy Week that are coming up I think there are fifteen sermons to be preached before I step out of the weekly rhythm that I have been in for three and a half decades. I find myself thinking back to my first weeks and months as a preacher when this all seemed so strange and new and difficult. Now it feels so familiar and habitual and ... difficult!

manna

Notes for a sermon on Exodus 16 ...

Being in the wilderness after Exodus and before arriving at the promised land as our location ... pilgrim’s progress ... between Good Friday & Easter ... no longer in the land of status quo ... forever changed, freed yes, but also wandering, afraid, living day to day ... often longing for the old days of comfortable boredom enslaved to the routine of achieving, getting ahead, running the rat race ...certainly looks that way for many a congregation and many a minister ... easy to long for the old days when numbers were up and ministry was about managing a modestly successful operation.

 

pharaoh's army

Sometimes sermons do not make it to a full manuscript but are, instead, improvised from a chordal progression of notes. In this case, the sermon plot for young William Bruce's baptismal Sunday worked its way through five moves. Here are the notes I had in front of me as I preached from the font on the texts for the day: Exodus 14:19-31 & Psalm 114 ...

preaching epiphany

Sunday, January 5 is the twelfth day of Christmas. Monday, January 6 is Epiphany. At University Hill we will celebrate Epiphany one day early, as we gather for worship tomorrow. This year I will preach on Psalm 72 - the psalm that is always read on Epiphany. It is particularly relevant to preach on Psalm 72 in Canada for it is from this psalm that our country took its designation not as a republic or as a nation but as a "dominion." It is also Psalm 72 that gave Canada its motto: "Ad mare usque ad mare."  Well, that and more is for tomorrow's sermon. In the meantime, here is the sermon for Epiphany from 2012 - the people of the epiphany.

good shepherd saturday & sunday

This coming Sunday is the fourth Sunday in the fifty day season of Easter. In keeping with the new Catholic liturgical calendar (and the ecumenical common lectionary) is is known each year as Good Shepherd Sunday. This year I'll be preaching on the good shepherd texts twice. On Saturday we will be gathering for a memorial service to grieve the death - and thank God for the life - of our beloved elder Bernice who died on Easter Sunday at the age of ninety. She has been a vital member of our congregation for sixty years. Bernice asked that we be sure to include the 23rd Psalm - the Good Shepherd psalm.

On Sunday we will be baptising two year old Luke. A few years ago I began the practice of preaching the sermon on the day of a baptism to the person being baptised. I first thought of this when reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's sermon written from prison on the occasion of his young nephew's baptism. Though I expect that it was not unusual for preachers in other traditions to preach to the person being baptised - especially as this often occurred in the home among family rather than on Sunday in the congregation - I have always associated it with Bonhoeffer and, hence, with Lutherans. It seems most appropriate to me that this Sunday the sermon will be created for the baptism of toddler Luke since he is the inheritor of the Lutheran lineage of his parents and grand-parents (not to mention the rich Lutheran heritage of his birthplace in Camrose).

with unveiled faces

This sermon owes its structure and content to a sermon on the same texts found in "The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann" (pp. 65ff). While I regularly read sermons and commentaries in preparation for preaching I always find them jumping off points not landing places. In this case, though, I could not imagine a better tribute than to simply borrow Walter's riff on the texts and play it as best as I could. Here are the notes I cribbed and then used in my improvisation ... (thanks Walter!)

changed from glory into glory

It is Wednesday. Half-way to Sunday's sermon. At this point in the week I habitually chew on the text for this coming Sunday, meditating on it, fretting, wondering what it is saying to me, to us. This week there is a phrase hidden away in the passage from II Corinthians 3:12-4:2 that intrigues and puzzles me: "And all of us, with unveiled faces, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory into another". I recognize something here. This is the source of an odd phrase in the classic hymn "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling". It is what Charles Wesley alludes to when, in the final verse, he writes "changed from glory into glory". Paul is, speaking of the transformation of the community that focuses its attention on the glory - the energy or presence - of God seen in Jesus. But I am not really sure how to describe these differing degrees of glory. What does a glorious church look like? Are congregations really being transformed - as the King James Version puts it - "from glory to glory"? What evidence is there? Later Paul seems to answer, saying: "So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal" (II Cor. 4:16-18). Paul writes to the pastor in me who is tempted to measure glory by what can be seen on the surface of congregational life. He invites eyes that see beneath the surface. He also writes to all of us who live with chronic incurable illness and others who suffer all manner of pain renaming it a "slight momentary affliction" that it is, somehow, preparation for an experience of God's glory that is "beyond all measure". The text is puzzling to me. I am not sure how to give voice to it on Sunday. I am glad it is Wednesday.

the language of redemption

Yesterday's sermon is .... well, what is happening to it? I was going to say it is dissipating. There is no written record of it. Writing it down gives a feeling of permanence even though what is written down is only a collection of symbols that proximate the experience. Whatever God may be making of the sermon is happening in the congregation that gathered to participate in hosting the Word. That something intriguing occurred was reflected in the number of people who took the time to say something about it, something that indicated it had been a good word, a new word, a surprising word. I think I know the moment when that word found its highest voltage and connected with the soul of the congregation most powerfully.

not my job to defend, explain or comprehend jesus

I know that some people find the lectionary to be a pain. But this Sunday you have to love it. I wonder how many of us preachers would actually choose to preach Mark 9:38-50 if it wasn't set to be read this Sunday in the common lectionary? I think the answer is pretty clear. Not many! On first glance you would think that this is a natural for a Christian preacher. After all, it is among the few passages in Mark that include teachings of Jesus. Most of Mark's gospel is a narrative about Jesus' ministry, healings and encounters with disciples, crowds and opponents. Yes, there are a few parables told. Here in chapters nine and ten we find actual teachings just before he arrives at Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Heaven knows I have run into so many people who tell me that they aren't fans of the God of the Old Testament or of Paul and even that they struggle with Jesus' divinity and with the resurrection. That doesn't leave much but it does leave the teachings of Jesus. And many people tell me that it is Jesus' teachings that they find most powerful in the Bible. hmmm. That brings us to Mark 9:38-50. Teachings of Jesus that are not easy to comprehend. These are the teachings that leave me wondering if the fans of Jesus as a teacher have actually read his teachings. This Sunday we are in the shoes of the disciples who Mark has just said: "did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him" (Mk 9:32). The good news for me is that it is not my job to defend, explain or comprehend Jesus. For so long I felt that I needed to protect him and to make sense of him so that the congregation could be re-assured that this all makes sense, that our minister is doing his job and that all is well. Now I realize that my work is to not hide Jesus from the congregation but to let them be confronted by him just as the disciples were confronted by him. Yes, I may have some insights to offer and some helpful explanations or interpretations. But if I don't understand Jesus I will say so. I am also a disciple struggling to see and to hear. I expect that there may be someone in the congregation who sees and hears in a way that I do not. It isn't my calling to have it all figured out before preaching or to wrap the sermon up in a nice bow with a wonderful ending that resolves all of the problems. Having said that, I am working away on a number of parts of this text that are problematic and that will surely need to be addressed on Sunday ...

and even you, our sister death

Image from "The Green Canticle"

I am privy to a wonderful conversation that takes place most Wednesdays at Margaret & Lloyd's home. There Margaret, Gerald and I wrestle out the hymns for Sunday as we also wrestle out the sermon as best we can from the given text. Margaret leads The Singers, who accompany the congregation's singing. Gerald accompanies our song on the piano and organ. Both are keen readers of scripture. I always learn something. This week is no different, though I found it particularly surprising that I have been in ministry this long and have only learned it now. As we were looking for a strong opening hymn we noted that the weather is expected to continue to be glorious. I suggested a favorite of mine - "All Creatures of Our God and King" translated from St. Francis' of Assissi's Canticle of the Sun in 1225 (which given our denomination's apparent current fascination with music - and, I fear, with theology - written after 1990 makes this one of those "classic" hymns that are way out of date and out of step). One is hard pressed to find a more relevant hymn when it comes to concern for the creation as Francis invites all of nature to sing God's praise long before he invites humans to add their voices. In fact, the original begins with four verses of invitation to the natural world to sing the song of praise. In the United / Anglican hymn book of 1971 that section was reduced to three verses, in order to keep things moving along and to fit the hymn onto the page. Then there were (and still are, in our current hymn book Voices United) two other verses. The fourth invites those of "tender heart" to "forgiving others take your part". I have always found this a lovely move - equating praise of God with forgiveness of others; love of God with love of neighbour. We expect Francis to have us sing our praises but the first act of praise is "forgiving others". And then it is the call to those who "long pain and sorrow bear" to sing praise. We imagine that it is those who look outside at a wonderful day, living lives of relative ease, who can name many obvious blessings who would be eagerly singing praise - and they may be. But Francis also invites in particular those with chronic pain and sorrow to join the hallelujahs. Then there is a grand summary verse to close the hymn. Yet that is not all. That is not the surprise. Here is where my learning occurred. Gerald remembered another verse, gone from our hymnody since 1971 when it was dropped. Dropped why? Because of space concerns? Maybe. I will let you decide. You will find the verse below, the fourth verse in the version that we will sing together to open the service on Sunday:

the fulcrum upon which the gospel narrative balances

As I journey to the pulpit this week I am appreciating the accompaniment of Ched Meyers, who writes:

"We have arrived at the midpoint of the story. Once again, Mark's Jesus turns to challenge the disciples/reader. 'Who do you say that I am?' (Mark 8:29a). This question is the fulcrum upon which the gospel narrative balances. Not only that: upon our answer hangs the character of Christianity in the world. Do we know who it is we are following, and what he is about? Mark began the story by telling us who Jesus is (Mark 1:1); the reader, like the Christian church, 'knows the right answer' to this question. Thus we are shocked when Peter's answer, which is 'correct', is rejected by Jesus! With this 'confessional crisis' Mark opens the second half of his Gospel."

- "Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus" by Ched Meyers (p. 235)

a scandal to the natural mind

I have begun the journey to next Sunday's sermon which will host the text found at Mark 8:22-38. On the way to Sunday I received a copy of "Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World" by Lee Camp. The book fell open at a page that quotes Mark 8:34-37 ("If any want to become my followers ...). By way of introduction to the passage the author includes these two provocative quotations:

it takes every word

Well, so much for posting the written text of yesterday's sermon. I had good intentions but just could not get a written draft down on paper before it was time to preach. While I knew that there was a sermon waiting to be born it would not arrive in time to line out before the congregation gathered. In the end it felt as though this was how things were intended. The sermon felt fresh, engaged, connected. And, like manna, it is now gone. No written record. No video. No notes. Just the memory, for now, until it seems forgotten. It leaves me wondering about the impact, over time, of such preaching events in the life and mind of the congregation. There are two things that I do want to remember from yesterday, so I'll post them here.