Scripture/Sermon of the Day. May 8, 2022

John 10:22-30

Jesus Is Rejected

At that time the Festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me, 26 but you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, in regard to what he has given me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”

Reflection/Sermon:

I. Maybe the most radical, mind-bowing line here is verse 30 where Jesus says he and God are one. We call this “gospel” or good news, but it’s not good news for many Christians. There are many people who want the more powerful, violent God we see in the Old Testament. Like the story of Noah where God murders almost the whole human race and the animals and plants too. People were so evil God was sorry he made them so he told Noah, “Build a boat, put your family on it and whatever animals you can round up, because I’m going to wipe everything else out.”

II. Or there’s the warrior God of Exodus who forces Moses to fight Pharaoh and the Egyptian army and kills all of them — plus all the firstborn Egyptian infants, and all the fish in the Nile who die when God turns it to blood. The pages of the Old Testament are covered with the corpses of men, women, children and animals whose crime was that they were not the chosen race.

III. Then more than a thousand years after Moses, Jesus of was born a Jew in Bethlehem and grew up in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, in Nazareth, close to the Sea of Galilee. He made the fatal (fatal because it would get him killed) claim that “the Father and I are one.” In other words, he was God. But that’s not who people thought God was. Jesus wasn’t the Terminator god of Noah, and he wasn’t the “Conan the Destroyer” god of Exodus. Jesus blessed the people who tried to kill him. He healed the slave of his enemy. He loved you if you were good or evil.

IV. Many “CHRISTIANS” REJECT THE LOVING IMAGE OF GOD REVEALED IN JESUS. They want the murdering god of Noah, the god-of-mass-destruction of Moses. They want Rambo-Jesus who fires exploding arrows and cuts people down with a huge M 60 machine gun and yells, “I’m coming to get you!” Rambo-Jesus carries a flag that says: “Don’t Tread On Me” — or I’ll blow you to hell!

V. Sadly, for many “Christians,” that’s not the Jesus we meet in the gospels, where Jesus loves and heals and feeds everyone. He doesn’t hurt anyone. Where do people get these crazy ideas of an angry white Jesus, a gun one hand, a flame thrower in the other who will make you toast if you upset him?

VI. Please understand this: The God we meet in Jesus loves everyone and will never throw anyone in hell — he only rescues people from hell. And Jesus doesn’t wear an America First hat. His hat just has one word: LOVE. He teaches us “IT’S BEST TO BE the LAST, the servant of all.”
If Jesus carried a flag it would be a rainbow and it would say on the top “God and I and You are One.” And instead of a coiled rattlesnake, it would have a picture of God-as-Nurturing-Mother who looks like Julia Child, holding a large tray of food, like an invitation to a big party in heaven, where there is a place for every one of us. On the bottom, instead of “Don’t Tread on Me,” the flag says “I love You — Bon Appétit!”