Subtract Three

John 3:14-21

My Grandfather Luppens died in 1963, before I turned 7 years old. I don’t have too many direct memories of him, though I heard lots of stories from my mother. I knew he had retired from the Army as a colonel, after serving in World War II and Korea as a neurosurgeon. He had been both a base doctor and a MASH doctor, and that he had a Bronze Star. I later learned that he was the first to write up a condition that is now known as “white coat syndrome,” that people can get nervous when visiting the doctor, which has a temporary effect on their blood pressure and pulse.

In his retirement, my grandfather became a gentleman farmer, with 80 acres just outside of Lee’s Summit. There he grew just enough corn and hay to feed a few cows for butchering. Mainly, I think he just liked driving around on his tractor, when he wasn’t sitting on the porch of his old-fashioned farm house.

One of the things I remember most about my grandfather was his favorite saying, which I and my brother would hear every time we went to visit him at the farm. Some of you may have heard this saying when you were growing up, as well. It is short and to the point: “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”

When I first heard him say that, I was about 4 years old, and I thought he was teasing me. After all, how much work can you expect from a 4 year old? But then he would take me and my 3 year old brother out to the corn crib to shuck corn until we had filled the feeding trough. First, it was by hand, twisting an ear of corn to free the dried kernels. Eventually, we graduated to cranking the handle and then to feeding the ears of corn into the shucker.

“If you don’t work, you don’t eat” is actually a Bible verse. Second Thessalonians, chapter three, verse ten contains Paul’s commandment to those who want to know how to live as Christians. In context, Paul was writing about not being busy bodies who relied on the goodness of others, but instead that we all become reliable bodies busy doing good.

Out of context, however, it was practically the clarion call of a generation that had suffered through the Great Depression, while still believing in rugged individualism and self-reliance. “If you don’t work, you don’t eat” was an all-too-often fact of life. And if that was all the farther the verse was pushed, it might not be so bad.

But that is not where it stopped. As the economy improved and more people had employment, the verse became a moral judgment on people who needed welfare assistance. People were expected to do something to earn their assistance. Popular sermon illustrations from that era included stories of kind-hearted Christians having beggars move a wood pile from one place to another before giving themsomething to eat. In that way, we fed the hungry while also building up their moral fiber by emphasizing the importance of work.

In Paragraph 102 of our Book of Discipline, this tension between caring for others and the need for each person to do their part is stated this way: “Support without accountability promotes moral weakness; accountability without support is a form of cruelty.”

This is a goodstarting point to understand the political wars in our country today. One side argues that government support promotes moral weakness, while the other side argues that government accountabilityis a form of cruelty. Having raised their respective positions to that of absolute good, they are unwilling to acknowledge the truth of the other side.

To put this in theological language, both sides are more interested in building up their own kingdom than in building up the kingdom of God. Jim Wallis, head of Sojourners, wrote a book that deals with this conflict: “God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.”

During Lent, we have been looking at how we become more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. We have identified the problem in that we care more about our self-image than about the image of God. In a world of “if you don’t work, you don’t eat,” that means we are tempted to make self-reliance and rugged individualism an Absolute Good.

During Lent, we have been challenged to chip away, to subtract, any part of our image that does not reveal the image of God in Jesus Christ. And we have been challenged to subtract from the time we spendthinking about earthly things, so that we can focus on heavenly things.

Today’s reading, which contains perhaps the most well-known verse in the Bible, tells us the next thing we have to subtract if we are to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. And it has to do with how we understand “if you don’t work, you don’t eat.”

This verse from Second Thessalonians is helpful when it comes to how we are to love our neighbors. But it is of no use whatsoever when it comes to how we are to understand our relationship with God. We get to eat at the Heavenly Banquet Table simply for believing in Jesus Christ. That’s what it says in this passage: 14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

But what does believing in Jesus Christ mean? It has been said many times before that there are three levels of belief. There is what we say we believe. There is what we think we believe. And there is what we show we believe.

We may talk about being saved by grace. We may think about how God so loves the world that God gave us Jesus. But what too many of us show we believe is that we work our way into heaven, as self-reliant rugged individualists.

We show this when we act as if the only way into heaven is to serve on a church committee. Or, if not a church committee, then teach a Sunday school class. Or you can work your way into heaven as a cook at a church dinner, or as a liturgist in worship, or as a volunteer for one of the church’s ministries. We act as if you are not a real Christian unless you are working your way into heaven.

Sermon #1, of the 44 Standard Sermons of the Methodist Connection, is titled “Salvation by Faith.” After making the Biblical case that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, John Wesley had to deal with the objections of most Christians to this doctrine. I won’t share all that Wesley had to say about this, because he could get a bit wordy, but the highlights show us what we need to subtract to reveal the image of God in Jesus. So imagine for the next few moments Wesley in his powdered wig, raising and answering the objections.

Some will object: Justification by faith is opposed to holiness and good works. But we answer: faith produces holiness and good works. Holiness and good works are no reason for pride or boasting, for it is God at work though us, and not we ourselves.

Some will object: Justification by faith encourages sinning. But we answer: It may, and it will, though the goodness of God will lead us to repentance.

Some will object: Justification by faith leads to despair, since we can do nothing to save ourselves. But we answer: We despair only if we desire to save ourselves by our own good works.

Some will object: Justification by faith is an uncomfortable doctrine of mercy. But we answer: It is uncomfortable only if we forget that we are no more worthy of Christ’s mercy than anyone else.

Some will object: We shouldn’t start our preaching with justification.But we answer: Who would you except from this faith? The poor? The unlearned? The young? The sinners? That leaves only the rich, learned, reputable, moral folks, whom we often already except as not needing the gospel. We are commanded to preach the gospel to all.

Setting aside the powdered wig, Wesley teaches that if we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ – and we are – thenour works do not earn us a place in God’s kingdom. Our works are the humble response we make when God chooses to work through us.

The thief on the cross next to Jesus, who made his confession just moments before his death, was just as welcomein the kingdom of God as was Peter and Paul, who lived and gave their lives for the gospel. To grow as disciples of Jesus Christ, we have to subtract this notion that we work our way into heaven.

There is only one Absolute Good, and his name is Jesus. We may not be able to work our way into heaven, but we are certainly empowered by the sanctifying grace of Jesus Christ to respond to this gift of salvation. That’s what our reading says here, and it certainly is what Jesus taught throughout his ministry. The test of our belief, or to say it the way John’s gospel says it, the judgment on our confession,is based not on our actions but on whether we are drawn to the light or if we prefer the darkness.

Many of you know that we are called Methodists because John and Charles Wesley were methodical in responding to the grace of Jesus Christ. They were methodical in meeting together, serving together, and holding each other accountable in love. Some have argued that this name was a mocking of their method, since it seemed opposed to their claim of being saved by grace.

But both of those answers are wrong, at least according to Wesley. He wrote that they were called Methodists by others on campus because their approach to discipleship was much like the evidence-based practice of the ancient Greek physicians who were called the Methodists. Intentionally responding to grace, seeking to be shaped and empowered by this grace, is the evidence needed that our confession and belief is genuine.

What some of you may not know is that was another name given for the original Holy Club. If this other name had caught on, we might only have to change one letter in our church sign. We would be the United “Mothodists.” They were called the Bible Moths, for they were drawn to the Light of the gospel, like a moth to a candle.

That is what Jesus said is the sign of belief. Verses 19-21: “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

It has been noted that John Wesley didn’t offer altar calls for persons to be saved. If people wanted to confess their sins and be saved, he organized them into small groups that would hold them accountable in love – our earliest version of “support without accountability promotes moral weakness; accountability without support is a form of cruelty.”

Salvation is about what Jesus has done for us. Discipleship is about how we respond to our salvation. Salvation is “God so loved the world that God gave us his only Son.” Discipleship is “if you don’t work, you don’t eat,” for it is by responding to grace that our souls are fed and our faith is nourished. Salvation is amazing grace. Discipleship is wretches like us revealing the image of God to others.

It is an amazing grace that saves us. We are not saved because we are good enough, or because we have done enough, but because Jesus is good enough and because Jesus has done enough. Our part is to be humbled by this gift of grace, and then to respond as those who have received this grace.

We will respond now by singing “Amazing Grace,” but don’t let your response end there. Find a small group to hold you accountable in love. Find a way to serve others in the name of Christ. Find a way to beintentional in your holy habits of prayer, worship, Bible study, and giving. And then you will reveal to the world just how amazing this grace truly is!

UMH 378 “Amazing Grace! How Sweet the Sound”