Barmherzigkeit

Barmherzigkeit

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

May 31, 2015; Trinity Sunday, Year B

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

John 3:1-17 – There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

"Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes 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 saved through him."

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From Thomas Merton: At the center of our being is a point of pure nothingness which is untouched by sin and illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark that belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God written in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.[i]

I love this story of Nicodemus. An important man. A serious man. A successful man. A member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the great national court that legislated all aspects of Jewish religious and political life. He was a scholar and a judge. But he must have had an itch, a dissatisfaction, or maybe a curious wondering. For he finds himself drawn to Jesus, an unconforming Rabbi from the outskirt province of Galilee, who is attracting some uncomfortable attention, mostly from the peasants and rabble. Nicodemus comes to speak to Jesus at night, under the radar. He keeps his distance; he doesn't want to be seen. Like a good politician, he's careful. Testing. But you sense in him a yearning. He is a judge who is not so sure he's got all the answers.

So this important man condescends to come to Jesus, and he pays the young rabbi a generous opening complement. You are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God. You would think Jesus would feel honored. An important man has just recognized him.

But Jesus responds playfully to Nicodemus. Signs of God, you say? Oh! No one can see the signs of God, the kingdom of God, without being born from above, born anew. (The Greek word means both, born from above and born anew.) Ever the serious theologian, Nicodemus answers, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" (A good, serious, literalist answer. He just doesn't get Jesus.)

Now I can just see the twinkle in Jesus' eye. Oh, I think he loves Nicodemus. Serious, ponderous Nicodemus. But Jesus will not be ponderous. In him is a lightheartedness, a warmheartedness, and he responds to Nicodemus with dancing energy. Twinkling, twirling around these serious theological notions of origins and destinies.

Nicodemus, do not be astonished when I say, 'You must be born anew, from above.' The wind, the Spirit blows where it chooses—you hear it but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. That's the way it is. That's the way to be truly alive! Maybe then the evening breeze picked up just a bit, rustling, dancing through their hair.

There is a rich theological tradition that speaks of the Holy Trinity as the Dance of God. We Trinitarians assert that reality is relational to its core. We see it in the dance of an atom, the exchange of energy across a field, creating something from nothing. We see it in the relationship of two persons—Jesus loving, inviting, challenging, opening; Nicodemus cautiously wondering, pondering, protecting. The Spirit dancing between them, lightly breathing over them the warmheartedness of God, creating a new relationship out of nothing, something born anew from above.

I spent much of this week on retreat. And what often happens on retreat is that my heart gets warmed and softened. After considerable time spent in Centering Prayer, and after joining the liturgical prayer and friendship of my companions in the Order of the Ascension and the monastic house of nuns who hosted us, I was open and at peace.

On the way home, I sat down for a bite to eat in Chicago's O'Hare airport. I looked around, and everyone looked radiant. Yes, when everyone in an airport looks radiant, you are in a warmer frame of mind. A woman sat down with her back toward me. Doesn't she look interesting?, I thought. A large man corralled his family. Oh, he loves them so, I thought. I took delight in some family resemblance I thought I picked up from what might have been daughter, mother, grand-mother. A child screamed bloody murder. Poor thing. Bless his heart. He kept screaming, amplifying it a bit. I felt such compassion for the parents. How miserable and helpless it can feel when a little-one is unwilling to be consoled. Next to me, a toddler from India or Pakistan said something I couldn't understand, pointing toward the planes outside. Her mother answered. The child's beauty was just thrilling to me. And as I delighted in her, there was another part of my mind—what can I call it? My dusty mind, my smaller mind, my conditioned mind?—a part of my mind thought, this child is not really very attractive at all. But, oh. She was beautiful to me.

I learned a new word this week. It is a German synonym for "mercy"—barmherzigkeit. (pronounced barhm-heur-seeg-kite). "Mercy." Or better translated warmheartedness. Barmherzigkeit. It is said to be the quality of the Divine Heart of God. Warmheartedness.

Can you feel the warmheartedness of Jesus as he seeks to draw this serious, important man Nicodemus into the dance of God's Spirit, the warmheartedness which blows where it chooses, coming and going, endlessly giving and receiving of itself, the very dynamism of love. The Spirit blowing, breathing, eternally inviting us into the barmherzigkeit dance, the dance of warmheartedness.

Though it seems that Nicodemus left that evening conversation still in the dark, something had happened. Not long afterwards, in Jerusalem during the Festival of the Booths, when the Sanhedrin admonished the temple police for failing to arrest Jesus, Nicodemus courageously asserted Jesus' legal rights to a fair hearing. For his efforts Nicodemus was sternly ridiculed by his colleagues.

After the crucifixion, Nicodemus helped Joseph of Arimathea with the preparation of the body for burial. There, in the brutal presence of death, it is the light of Nicodemus' warmheartedness that shines in the darkness, a gentle act of love and mercy is the prologue to resurrection.

At the center of our being is a point of pure nothingness which is untouched by sin and illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark that belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God written in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.

Merton goes on to say: I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is every-where.

[i] Thomas Merton, "A Member of the Human Race," in A Thomas Merton Reader, pp. 346-347, quoted in Cynthia Bourgeault, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three (Boston & London: Shambala, 2013), p. 150-151

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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at

P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

More sermon texts are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org

Click the “Video Online” button to watch full services and sermons live-streamed or archived.

What a World

What a World

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

May 16, 2015; 7 Easter Sunday, Year B

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

John 17:6-19 – Looking up to heaven, Jesus prayed, "I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth."

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Sometimes when I read John's gospel, my mind just shuts off. It begins to sound a bit like the grownups in a Peanuts cartoon. Wa-wha-wah-waaa. Words, words—nice words. Going around in circles until I've lost track of any linear meaning. I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world… (T)hey do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world… I am not asking you to take them out of the world… As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. It takes some concentration to listen to John's words. Sometime they sing like a symphony for me; sometimes… well, I can be a poor listener or reader.

So I got stuck this week on a What-is-the-world?-merry-go round. In John, Jesus talks repeatedly about the "world." But I'm not sure what he means by that.

Everybody knows John 3:16. That's the verse reference that gets held up on a sign in the endzone during extra points. "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." And it goes on. "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

So God loves the world. The Greek word is cosmos. When you read the word cosmos/world in John's gospel, it often seems to mean "the creation." God loves the cosmos that God created.

In other contexts in John, world seems to mean humankind. As in one of today's verses, when Jesus prays that the disciples may be one with Jesus and the Father, "so that the world may believe that you have sent me." So that humankind may believe that you have sent me.

And in some contexts, it is clear that "the world" is a negative word. "I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world." In his translation, The Message, Eugene Peterson renders these passages with adjectives like God-rejecting world, or godless world. "I gave them your word; The godless world hated them because of it."

Finally, there are places where John's gospel contrasts this world and another world, a godless cosmos and a God-filled cosmos. You get the sense that in Jesus and in the unity of Jesus and the Father and the rest of us, both worlds intersect—the cosmos is one. 

The Greek word cosmos seems to be a pretty flexible word.

God loves the cosmos/the world—the whole creation and all humanity, including godless humanity—and God gives the Son to the world that all might be saved, whole, one. Yet, in this ambiguous world, the results are pretty mixed.

Let's look at some of the characters in John's gospel who enact the drama of Jesus in the world. Some of them get it. Some of them don't. But many of the characters in John's gospel change and grow along the way.

There's Nicodemus. He's a scholar who is well placed politically. He's curious about Jesus, but comes to Jesus by night when no one can see them talking. "Nicky!" says Jesus, "you must be born from above, born again!" "Huh?" asks Nicodemus. "I'm a grown man. How can I re-enter my mother's womb?" Jesus lights up with loving fun, dancing almost teasingly around his friend. "Nicky, you unimaginative literalist. The Spirit blows where it will, you can't see it come or go. You must be born free like that." Nicodemus doesn't get it.

But later, when Jesus is attacked at the Festival of Booths, Nicodemus speaks out to stand up to Jesus' right as a Jew to a fair hearing. The authorities (the world) snap back at him. But when Jesus is dead, Nicodemus helps Joseph of Arimathea with the burial of this capital criminal. Nicodemus has caught on to something.

There's the woman at the well. She's a heretic Samaritan, and an outcast even among the outcasts. She's alone drawing water at noon, the hottest part of the day, when she won't risk an encounter with one of the other women doing their chores. In violation of every social and religious convention, Jesus speaks to her and asks her to draw water for him. They talk, and he offers her living water. She doesn't get it. But she listens long enough to decide he is a prophet. She listens longer, and thinks, maybe he is the Messiah. She went home and talked about it openly, no longer embarrassed or shamed that she was unlawfully living with her fifth husband. She's caught on to something.

There was a sick man who had been living on corporate welfare by the pool of Bethzatha for 38 years. "Do you want to be made well?" Jesus asks him. He doesn't answer the question. Instead he just makes excuses for why he's stuck there. He doesn't get it. Jesus says, "Stand up, take up your mat and walk." He does so at once. But it's a sabbath. Carrying your mat on the sabbath is strictly prohibited. He ignites a firestorm of religious debate. But the next thing you know, Jesus sees him worshipping in the temple. And John closes the passage with Jesus' answer to the sabbath-protectors, "My Father is still working, and I also am working.  The implication, the man who was sick for 38 years also goes out and finds some constructive work to do. Now he begins to get it.

One more character. Peter. Throughout John's gospel, Peter never gets it. And when the chips are down, when Jesus is arrested, he denies Jesus three times—a failure and betrayal not unlike that of Judas. After the resurrection, Jesus appears to Peter and asks him three times, "Peter, do you love me?" And three times Peter answers, "Yes, Lord. You know I love you." Three times Jesus empowers him, "Feed my lambs… Tend my sheep… Feed my sheep." Peter is healed and empowered. Even at that, Peter asks a dumb question about another, "What about him?" referring to the disciple that Jesus loved. "None of your business," Jesus answers. But Peter is beginning to get it.

We see Peter in the first reading today leading the church to pick a successor to Judas. One denier leading the church to replace another denier. Judas could have been there with them, continuing as one of the twelve. He just needed the humility to let Jesus heal and empower him too.

This world, this cosmos, is a messy, ambiguous place. Humanity is a messy, ambiguous mess. But God so loves this cosmos/this world/this humanity so much, that God gives the Son. The Son opens his arms to everything and everyone in this God-rejecting world, and gives us only love and healing. His purpose—that we may be one with the Father and share in their joy.

John's gospel comes down to this from Jesus:  "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love… I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." (15:9, 11-12) Wow! Those are WORDS! For me, they sound with power like a symphony.

And sometimes, I get it; or I get part of it, I, who am in the world.

We're all beginning to get it, aren't we?

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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at

P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

More sermon texts are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org

Click the “Video Online” button to watch full services and sermons live-streamed or archived.