4 Lent, Yr B (2024) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
4 Lent, Yr B (2024) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Numbers 21:4-9 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifying Spirit. Amen.
The word “believe” occurs in today’s gospel passage 5 times….
So, I’m thinking it must be important!
When I hear the word “believe” I think of a mental activity…
belonging in the cognitive realm alone.
If I believe something,
do I think it is true?
Matthew Skinner, Chair of New Testament at Luther Seminary,
suggests that a better rendering for the word “believe” in this text is “trust.”
(https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/love-among-the-ruins)
Trust, it seems, gets at something deeper than belief…
trust engages heart and even body,
not just mind.
Skinner says,
“Believing in love is comfortable.
Trust is riskier.
Trusting in another’s love entails surrender.”
I suggest that trusting
– really trusting –
in God’s love
is challenging.
The Israelites wandering out in the wilderness certainly found trusting God to be challenging!
Today we hear of the Israelites once again grumbling in the wilderness:
Moses, this journey is too long!
Speaking against God and Moses, the people said,
“Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?”
There is no food and no water…
we detest this miserable food.”
In other words:
Come on, God…
you made us a promise,
and you haven’t come through…we’re still wandering in the wilderness!
Believing in love is comfortable.
Trust is riskier.
Trusting in another’s love entails surrender.
Trusting in another’s love involves vulnerability
and a relinquishing of one’s own power and control.
The Israelites wanted God to enact God’s promises the way they wanted.
Maintaining their surrender to God was too difficult
when they weren’t seeing God’s promises fulfilled in the ways they expected.
Now, let’s return to today’s gospel
and substitute the word “trust” for “believe” and see what happens…
“Jesus said, ‘Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whoever trusts in him
may have eternal life.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who trusts in him
may not perish
but may have eternal life.
“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be healed [saved] through him.
“Those who trust in him are not condemned;
but those who do not trust in him are condemned already,
because they have not trusted in the name of the only Son of God.”
Believing in love is comfortable…
we can simply make a statement: I believe.
Trust is riskier.
Trusting in another’s love
entails surrender.
Remember these words?.... Not my will but thine be done.
In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus asked his Father three times:
“Let this cup pass from me,
but thy will, not mine be done.”
Jesus had a lot of work left to do:
preaching, teaching, healing…it was not yet time to die.
And yet he surrendered his life to God.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who trusts in him
may not perish
but may have eternal life.”
If we are able to trust in God’s goodness, mercy, and loving kindness,
then we will discover eternal life.
I want to share a story about a Masai community in Africa.
This story was told by Vincent Donovan.
(taken from “Christianity Rediscovered” in Living Water: Baptism as a Way of Life.)
“As I was nearing the end of the evangelization of the first six Masai communities,
I began looking towards baptism.
“So I went to the old man Ndangoya’s community to prepare them for the final step.
“I told them I had finished the imparting of the Christian message inasmuch as I could.
“I had taught them everything I knew about Christianity.
Now it was up to them.
They could reject it or accept it.
I could do no more.
“If they did accept it, of course, it required public baptism.
“So I would go away for a week or so and give them the opportunity to make their judgment on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“If they did accept it, then there would be baptism.
However, baptism wasn’t automatic.
“Over the course of the year it had taken me to instruct them,
I had gotten to know them very well indeed.
“So I stood in front of the assembled community and began:
‘This old man sitting here has missed too many of our instruction meetings.
He was always out herding cattle.
He will not be baptized with the rest.
“These two on the side will be baptized because they always attended,
and understood very well what we talked about.
“So did this young mother.
She will be baptized.
“But that man there has obviously not understood the instructions.
“And that lady there has scarcely believed the gospel message.
“They cannot be baptized.
“And this warrior has not shown enough effort….’
“The old man, Ndangoya, stopped me politely but firmly,
‘Padri, why are you trying to break us up and separate us?
“During this whole year that you have been teaching us,
we have talked about these things when you were not here,
at night around the fire.
“Yes, there have been lazy ones in this community,
but they have been helped by those with much energy.
“There are [ignorant] ones in the community,
but they have been helped by those who are intelligent.
“Yes, there are ones with little faith in this village,
but they have been helped by those with much faith.
“Would you turn out and drive off the lazy ones
and the ones with little faith and the [ignorant] ones?
“From the first day I have spoken for these people.
And I speak for them now.
“Now, on this day one year later,
I can declare for them and for all this community,
that we have reached the step in our lives where we can say, ‘We believe.’”
Upon hearing this story, I, Karen, wonder: might he just as well have said,
“We trust,
and we surrender our lives to God’s love and goodness.
We commit ourselves to baptism into eternal life.”
Today’s Scripture stories invite us to ask the question:
Do we really believe/trust that God’s love will make a difference?
That God’s love can and will heal us?
That surrendering to God’s love will bring us into eternal life?
Trusting in God’s love for us fosters courage and encourages self-giving…
being attentive to the “other” in our community…
inviting us to share our gifts and strengths with one another…
even sharing our weaknesses and vulnerability.
Trusting in God’s love carves out sanctuary
in the midst of distress.
The love of God means blessing and belonging…
even when the world may choose self-interest and death.
Paul tells us in his letter to the Church at Ephesus:
“God, who is rich in mercy,
out of the great love with which [God] loved us
even when we were dead through our trespasses
made us alive together with Christ.
By Grace you have been healed.
By Grace you have been healed through faith,
and this is not your own doing;
it is the gift of God!”
God’s will and gift for us is eternal life
if we will but surrender ourselves into God’s loving embrace.
It is risky.
But…if we are willing to take the risk,
we, too, may find rising up from deep within our souls the utterance of the words:
We believe…
We trust in God’s loving mercy and goodness.
And then we may have the courage to follow wherever God may lead,
knowing that God leads us into eternal life.
Amen.
