‘For God so loved the world'
A recent Harris Poll reveals that 90 percent of Americans believe in God. That's an impressive and encouraging statistic. But when you dig a bit deeper, the matter seems more complicated: less than half of that 90 percent are in a church or synagogue weekly. A major question for many people is this: "Where is God in my life?" By which people mean things like: Where do I find God in my daily situation? Where does God find me? How do I know I'm finding God and he's finding me? How is God present and active in this economic crisis? In the lives of people with no home, no hope, not even any job or health insurance? Where is God? What is he doing?
Jesus answers these questions, in perhaps the most beloved and famous verse in the entire New Testament, John Chapter 3, verse 16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not die but may have eternal life." I often refer to this verse as the official Scripture verse of the National Football League - John 3:16. During almost every professional football game on television we see someone in the stands unfurl a banner that reads: "John 3: 16." That's this verse!
These 25 words contain the entire truth of the history of our salvation. Most important of all, Jesus teaches that saving all of us from sin and death is the initiative, the plan of a loving God. It's nothing we could ever do for ourselves. "God so loved the world," Jesus says. Notice how that directly contradicts the attitude we sometimes meet in some Christian spiritual advice, namely, that followers of Jesus Christ should hate or despise this world we live in. Jesus did not do that or teach that. He says that his Father in heaven created the world and loves the world he created. In particular, a loving God created us to love him and each other in return.
God our Father created us, his children, and remains faithful to us even when we are unfaithful to him, and to each other. And, God created us free. We can choose to believe in him or not; we can choose to serve him or not. We can choose the light, as Jesus says at the end of this gospel passage; we can act in truth and come into the light of Christ. Or, we can hate the light, choose to do evil, choose the darkness.
Of course, few people choose evil as evil. Instead, when we sin, we pretend that what is evil is actually good for us right here and now. My friends and I choose to behave in a racist way, because we are just defending our rights, or keeping undesirables out of our community. You eat an entire box of chocolates at one sitting, because you deserve it, because you've been so good for so long now, and it will make you feel so much better.
Then God, our loving and forgiving Father, helps us to change, if we will let him. St. Paul tells us in that second reading that God is rich in mercy. Even though we have been dead in sin, the Father brings us to life in Christ, through Christ's suffering, dying and rising. This salvation is God's gift, not our doing, St. Paul tells us. Paul describes it beautifully: "We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to lead the life of good deeds which God prepared for us in advance."
It's a beautiful plan, made and carried out in love. But right in the middle of all this beautiful talk of God's love, Jesus says something that sounds almost sinister: "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. [So far, so good. But then...] Whoever believes in him avoids condemnation, but whoever does not believe is already condemned for not believing in the name of God's only Son." Why this talk of condemnation? Is God taking away with one hand the gift of salvation he just gave us with the other?
Not at all. This truth that Jesus teaches is completely in line with our everyday human experience. Love and judgment, goodness and judgment are often bound up together: life can offer a person an experience that's meant to be nothing but love and goodness, but that person can respond in a way that turns the experience into a judgment. For example, someone loves us and is good to us, but we are free not to respond in love, or even to betray that love. If we do that, judgment follows.
There's a story told of a young man being guided through an art gallery filled with priceless, beautiful paintings. At the end of the tour, the young man said to the guide, "Well, I don't think much of your old paintings." The guide replied: "These pictures are no longer on trial. Those who look at them are." Exactly! Goodness tests those who meet it; the goodness doesn't fail, but sometimes those who meet the goodness do. Occasionally someone is honest enough to admit the test and the judgment: in ancient Greece there was a wealthy, spoiled nobleman named Alcibiades, who said to Socrates one day, "Socrates, I hate you, for every time I meet you, you let me see who I am."
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not die but may have eternal life." For meeting God in his Son, Jesus Christ, tests each of us. We spend this season of Lent in prayer, fasting and generosity, in order to get - and to stay - in spiritual shape. We want to meet Jesus Christ in the Mass, in prayer, in Confession, in the teachings of the Church, in all the people in our lives. We want to believe deeply in the name of Jesus, to live and make our choices out of that faith, and to accept the gift he came to give us: eternal life.
By Archbishop George H. Niederauer
San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer delivered this homily at St. Mary's Cathedral on March 22, 2009, the Fourth Sunday of Lent.
From March 27, 2009 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
