Today we have the Call of Abram and Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus, two seemingly unrelated stories.
The Call of Abram is pretty straightforward in the text we have, but there's a depth to it that you might miss, so I want to touch on this pivotal story.
Genesis 1 – 11 is what scholars refer to as pre-history. It involves stories of creation, separation, genealogies, a flood, and worldwide dispersion. In short, stories of how we came to be. At the end of Chapter 11 we are told that Abram's family settles in Haran and we learn that Sarai, his wife, is barren.
But at Chapter 12, though, there's a major shift. It's here that we get God's call and promise to Abram. God calls a barren family into something new. He calls them to leave behind old and safe ways into a new way of being, into a new way of fruitfulness and blessing. And as we heard, Abram trusted and believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
This break between Chapters 1-11 and Chapter 12 forward isn't just a break between stories of how we got here and stories of our faith. Well, there is that . . . but this break is also giving us a theological framework for understanding that staying in old, comfortable, and safe ways is to remain unfruitful and barren; while being willing to listen to God and move into uncharted territories, although risky, is to live into the promise of God's blessing. Stay inwardly focused, safe, and barren, or become outwardly focused, willing to take risks for God, and be fruitful.
This move from inwardly focused and barren to outwardly focused and fruitful also shows up in today's gospel.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus to, I'm guessing, get more information from him. He has heard, either firsthand or through others, that Jesus is a “teacher who comes from God.” Whereupon Jesus begins his discussion about being born from above and eternal life, thoroughly confusing Nicodemus.
It's in today's gospel that we get one of the most oft-quoted passages of scripture. In fact, today's gospel passage, John 3:1-17, is often whittled down to this one verse: John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.
This verse has been used in a variety of ways – everything from signs behind goalposts to telling people if they don't believe in Jesus they'll spend eternity in hell. And everyone seems to be concerned with eternal life.
But what if our idea of eternal life is wrong? What if, by focusing on the sweet by-and-by pie-in-the-sky, we're missing what Jesus was trying to get across?
One interpreter says that “eternal life” isn't about immortality or a future in heaven, but is a metaphor for living NOW in the unending presence of God. They go on to tie eternal life to the cross.
Jesus equated his own crucifixion (being lifted up) with Moses lifting up the bronze serpent. If you recall, the wandering Israelites were being afflicted with poisonous snakes, so God gave an unlikely cure: Put a bronze serpent on a stick and anyone who looks at it in faith would be healed of their deadly bite and live.
Jesus offered his own life for the world. Through his death on the cross he has destroyed death. Through his sacrifice he opens the way to eternal life. As John wrote earlier, “For those who believe in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”
If God is love and life, then as God's children we participate in that same love and life. As another commentator says, “Eternal life isn't about an unending life in heaven – it's about a new life in Christ free of death's destructive powers where love reigns.” In other words, it's not about later, it's about a certain kind of life in Christ that we can begin living now.
It is through Jesus' willing sacrifice of everything, including life itself, that makes God's love accessible to all people. It is this self-sacrifice and his everlasting love that is the way, the truth, and the life. And it is that life in and through Christ that is eternal life.
This is where these two readings tie together. God promised Abram a new life if he trusted in the promise. God promised a new life filled with descendants if he risked leaving his old life behind. Through God's promise, Abram and Sarai left the old, safe, but barren, life for a new, riskier, and fruitful life. In other words, Abram was given eternal life through his willingness to risk.
And in the gospel, the eternal life Jesus promises is also predicated on moving on from our old, safe, but barren life into a new, riskier, and fruitful life.
New because in Christ we find new life. Riskier because living fully into God's eternal love, and reflecting that love in our world, is risky behavior. Fruitful because when we live and proclaim Christ's love, it will produce fruit worthy of the kingdom. And that ever-flowing love leads to an abundant, eternal life in Christ.
If we see eternal life in this way, we might just be one step closer to seeing God's kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.
Amen.
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