The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon from John 3:14-21
at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston on March 22, 2009 (Lent 4B)
There was a man who loved dogs. He served as a speaker in various civic clubs to benefit the humane society. He was known far and wide as a dog lover. One day his neighbor observed as he poured a new sidewalk from his house out to the street. About the time he smoothed out the last square foot of cement a large dog strayed across his sidewalk leaving footprints in his wake. The man muttered something under his breath and smoothed out the footprints. He went inside to get some twine to string up around the sidewalk only to discover dog tracks in two directions on his new sidewalk. He smoothed those out and put up the twine. About five minutes later he looked out and the footprints indicated that the dog had cleared the fence, landed on his sidewalk and proceeded as he desired. The man was mad now. He toweled the wet concrete smooth again. As he got back to the porch he saw the dog come over and sit right in the middle of his sidewalk. He went inside got his gun and came out and threatened to shoot the dog and the dog ran away scared. The neighbor rushed over, "Why did you do that?" he inquired, "I thought you loved dogs." The man responded as he cradled his gun in the crook of his arm. "I do, I do like dogs, in the abstract, not in the concrete.
I wonder if it might not be the same with forgiveness. We love it in the abstract, but when we really have something to forgive, we hate it in the concrete. Looking out through the eyes of God means looking at others with the eyes of forgiveness.
We may think looking out through the eyes of God means looking down on people and that is true but only in one sense. God looks down on people from the perspective of a person who is nailed to a cross. So yes, God looks down, but only from the perspective of a sacrificial love. Jesus himself looked down from the cross not with judgement but with sympathy upon those who crucified him. He said about them, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
Thich Nhat Hahn offers suggests seeing emotions through the eyes of impermanence. When you get caught up in anger at someone, close your eyes and look deeply. Three hundred years from now where will you be and where shall the person making you angry be? Looking at the future, we see that the other person is vey precious to us. When we know we can lose them at any moment we are no longer angry at them. The reason that we are folloish enough to make ourselves suffer and make the other person suffer is that we forget that we and the other person are impermanent. (The Practice of Looking Deeply, 43-44)
Here is a little Zen story that demonstrates how this works.
Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.
"Come on, girl" said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.
Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"
"I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"
(Taken from http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/zenindex.html)
What are you still carrying today? Anger? Resentment? Bitterness? Lay it down at the foot of Christ's cross.
Often the things that really dominate our lives and our churches are trivial things. Pettiness should have no place at all in our lives or in any church for any reason. Petty people have lost their vision. They are people who have turned their eyes away from what matters and focused, instead, on what doesn't matter. This same petty spirit sometimes takes control of churches and renders them ineffective. It is time for the church to get the focus back to seeing the world through God's eyes of loving compassion.
Charles Shulz, creator and author of the Peanuts cartoon characters often conveys a message in his comic strips. In one strip he conveys through Charlie Brown the need we have to be loved and through Lucy our inability to love one another. Charlie Brown and Lucy are leaning over the proverbial fence speaking to one another:
CB: All it would take to make me happy is to have someone say he likes me.
Lucy: Are you sure?
CB: Of course I'm sure!
Lucy: You mean you'd be happy if someone merely said he or she likes you? Do you mean to tell me that someone has it within his or her power to make you happy merely by doing such a simple thing?
CB: Yes! That's exactly what I mean!
Lucy: Well, I don't think that's asking too much. I really don't. [Now standing face to face, Lucy asks one more time] But you're sure now? All you want is to have someone say, "I like you, Charlie Brown," and then you'll be happy?
CB: And then I'll be happy!
Lucy: Lucy looks at Charlie Brown, turns and walks away, saying, I can't do it!
What Lucy cannot do, because of her sin, God does. What Charlie Brown needs, lost and alone as he is, God supplies.
The famous theologian Karl Barth wrote massive volumes of theological reflection about the Christian faith. He was the kind of intellect who understood far more than the average person. A reporter once asked him what was the greatest theological idea. He was expecting something equivalent to Einstein's E=MC2, the theory of relativity, or some other esoteric concept that hardly anyone could understand. But Barth simply replied, "Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so."
As someone once said, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." What is the main thing? Not only did Jesus tell you, but every preacher and Sunday School teacher and Youth leader you ever knew told you: in the language of the old King James Bible that many of us memorized, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
In an old Dennis the Menace cartoon, Dennis and his little friend Joey are leaving Mrs. Wilson's house, their hands full of cookies. Joey says, "I wonder what we did to deserve this." Dennis answers, "Look, Joey. Mrs. Wilson gives us cookies not because we're nice, but because she's nice." (Billy D. Strayhorn, Cross Road: For God So Loved) Even so, God forgives us not because we're nice, but because God is love.
By the grace of God we can use forgiveness as a positive, creative force bringing light into a darkened world. Nobody does that kind of thing better, of course, than God. Who could imagine 2,000 years ago that the symbol of the Christian church would be a hangman's noose, an electric chair, a guillotine? Those analogies may be necessary for us to keep from being too sentimental about "the old, rugged cross." A cross is a terrible thing. It was indeed a symbol of suffering and shame. Humanity nailed God's own Son on a cross. What barbarity! What unspeakable evil! Yet God turned that cross into the means by which you and I may find our salvation. That is what God can do with forgiveness. What can you do? (ChristianGlobe Illustrations, King Duncan, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc.)
God looks at people not with snake eyes of evil intent but with loving eyes brimming with compassion. Looking out through the eyes of God means viewing the world with a compassionate vision. We may do so right now. As the old song says ...
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace. (Helen H. Lemmel, 1922)
