John 3: 13-17 Lent 2 March 5, 2023
that he sent his only son
so that everyone who believes
in him may not perish but have eternal life.”
This is one of the few lines
from the bible
that all people might be able
to cite
the chapter and verse of: John
3:16.
A lot of people know what
you’re talking
about just by saying that.
I believe that for many of us, that credit is not due
to our Pastors or Sunday
School teachers,
that credit is due to Rainbow
Man.
You remember Rainbow Man?
Rainbow man was at almost
every sporting
event in the late 70’s and
early 80’s.
He would wear a rainbow wig
and
wear a shirt or hold up a
sign that
Just said “John 3:16” on it.
He has found himself in the lexicon
of American pop culture
parodied on the
Simpsons and Saturday Night
Live and others.
Rainbow Man’s real name was Rollen Stewart
Rollen was a devoted
Christian.
Even though he didn’t like
sports,
he found that he could get on
TV at sporting events
and thought that would be a
good way to
get the message of Jesus out
to the public.
and by the time of the 1979 MLB All-Star Game,
he had been at so many major games, that
broadcasters were actively trying to avoid showing him.
He appeared behind NFL goal posts, behind home plate,
near Olympic medal stands, and behind the final putt
at major golf tournaments . . .
he would strategically position himself for key shots of
plays or
athletes, by carrying a portable television with him to games.
Rainbow man made me look up John 3:16
when I was a teenager in our
giant, dusty, not-well-used
family bible.
I had seen him on the news
and I didn’t know
what John 3:16 said.
And I have to say, I was
pleasantly surprised by what I found.
It is a beautiful message,
“God so loved the world.
That he gave is only begotten son,
so that all who believed
should not perish, but have eternal life.”
it is the Gospel in a
nutshell as Luther called it.
The good news for everyone.
What a great message for Rainbow Man to
share over and over again on
TV.
The story of God’s
faithfulness,
God’s ever present love for
this world.
And if the Rainbow Man story
ended there,
it would be a great,
heartwarming story.
But, of course, it doesn’t
end there.
After the 1986
at the World Series, Rainbow Man’s
wife left him, she said,
because he tried to choke her
because she held up one of
the John 3:16
cards wrong at a World Series
Game.
Rainbow man was angry with
what he thought
was the “spreading of a false
gospel message”.
So, he began a string of stink-bomb
attacks.
His targets included Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral,
the Orange County Register,
and the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
Finally, in 1992, he felt like his popularity was waning
and he was not seen on TV as
much and
he was angry about the
country’s
rejection of the message that
he brought,
so Rainbow Man tried to get
his name back in the news.
Posing as a contractor, he
brought two
day-laborers into a vacant
hotel room
and attempted to hold them at
gunpoint.
He surprised a cleaning lady and
he drew the gun on her and she locked herself in the bathroom.
Eventually a SWAT team was called in and there was a standoff.
During the standoff, he
threatened to shoot at airplanes
taking off from the nearby
Los Angeles Airport,
and he covered the hotel room
windows with "John 3:16" placards.
Everyone eventually got out alive, but now Rainbow Man is
serving three consecutive life sentences on
kidnapping charges.
Later, in 2008, still in prison, he said he doesn’t regret
it.
He says it was a crime that
he was called by God to do
to prevent greater harm: The
harm of America rejecting Jesus.
Why am I telling you this story?
It’s true and interesting, that’s for
sure.
But I also want to tell you
this story because
it shows that a person can
vehemently believe
in the doctrine and follow Jesus
and still not understand.
You don’t need a pastor to tell you that something
is wrong with Rollen
Stewart’s interpretation of the message of Jesus.
he got the words right, but
the point was completely wrong.
This has been the problem with the church’s interpretation of
Christianity for
almost the full 2000 years of its existence.
The church has believed that
it’s most important job is conversion.
Believe in things, and
doctrine about Jesus, and call yourself Christian.
Mission accomplished.
The most important part about
Christianity is having more Christians.
The more subtle question of Christianity has been,
“are you on our side or
not?”
Are you now one of us,
or are you still one of them?
And the definition of US
becomes narrower and narrower.
Christianity has become a
religion of “them and us”.
Which is the opposite of what
Jesus intended.
Being “born again” has become only about
Confessing Jesus Christ as
your lord and savior
and going to the right church,
subscribing
to the right doctrine, finding
yourself in the narrow lane
of what the correct church
has defined as acceptable,
and then going out to convert
other people to from being
one of “THEM” to being one of
“US”
If people are rejecting
church, it’s not a rejection of Jesus.
It’s a rejection of this kind
of shenanigans.
With this understanding, of “them and us”
there is not too far you have
to go to get to violence.
We lots of examples. We have the Inquisition,
the Crusades, John Calvin recommending that his
theological opponents be burned at the stake,
Martin Luther recommending the destruction of the
opposition in the Peasants War, The
Holocaust, the war between Northern and Southern Ireland,
And yesterday, this very weekend,
at the Conservative Political
Action Conference,
a main-stream political
conference, Michael Knowles,
“born again Christian” and national talk show host said, and I quote,
that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life
entirely at every level” and this was received with applause.
Them and us.
Rainbow man didn’t have far to go to
be convinced that he had to
set off stink bombs
and kidnap a couple of people
and shoot down planes
to achieve the goals of
Christianity.
As he saw it, he was saving
people’s souls.
Them and us.
Jesus tells Nicodemus that to really understand,
that he must be born again,
of the water and the Spirit.
Nicodemus doesn’t comprehend.
He was trying to understand
Jesus
in a systematic way, a
logical way.
But to be born again is not just a confession,
not just a thing you say or
do, it’s not just a set of facts.
It’s not just subscribing to
moral mandate.
To be born again is to truly
understand God’s love
and have it work through you
and in your life.
To be changed by it.
To be born again is to let
God’s love transform us.
And that doesn’t leave room
for threats or coercion,
or exclusion, or ultimate
solutions.
God’s love doesn’t leave room
for “Them and Us”.
Jesus objective was not to make more
converts to his religion.
Jesus objective was not to
exclude some people from his
table, or eradicate them from public life,
Jesus objective was not to
make more of us so that
we can overpower them.
Jesus objective was to reconcile the world.
To bring “them” and “us”
together so that we can all be “us”.
God so loved the world.
The whole world.
The wind goes where it will.
The Spirit goes where the Spirit
wants to go
and works through whoever the
spirit wants to work through.
Christians and non-Christians,
believers and non-believers.
People
who don’t look like us or act like us.
The Spirit is not contained
by our religion, or our doctrine,
or our rules, or our ideologies.
And to be “born again” is to know that,
to
accept that, and to live in that reality,
and to be united with God’s
unfailing love for this whole world.
To be “born again” is to have every
part of our lives changed by God’s
love.
I believe we are all still on that journey with
Nicodemus,
waiting to be born again,
and to fully live into that love
that Jesus revealed.
“God so loved the world that he gave his
only son,
so that we would not perish, but have eternal life.”
God loves all, and
there is room in that love for everyone,
no matter where we’ve been or
we’ve done.
There’s even room in that love for Rainbow Man.
And for every other soul who
has lost their way,
and broken the law, sinned
and hurt other people.
And there’s room in that love
for everyone who
the world or Christianity has
rejected and called “THEM”.
And there’s room for you and
me.
There is room in that love
for every single one of US
together.
No comments:
Post a Comment