John 1:1-14
"God Moved into the Neighborhood"
The first verses of the Gospel of John contain the themes of the entire Book:
"God, the Creator of the universe has come into the world He created in order to save it.
He has been rejected by many, but to all who believe He has given the power to become children of God and to have the gift of eternal life."
This is the summary statement of the Gospel of John, and then one verse--verse 14 is the climax that summarizes the summary: "The Word became flesh and made his home among us.
We have seen his glory, glory like that of a father's only son, full of grace and truth."
Eugene Peterson, in his very contemporary rendering of the Bible, called The Message, put this verse like this:
"The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish."
God became a flesh and blood human being and moved into the neighborhood.
I think that is a really cool way of putting it.
And you'd think that God would have moved into the sweetest neighborhood with the best neighbors!
But look at who Jesus chose to make His neighbors.
He moved in right next door to dirty, desperate, lonely, dark, unfaithful, unbelieving, inadequate and insecure, disappointed, sick irreligious people.
Jesus moved in and Jesus made friends with them.
He sat with them, He touched them.
He walked with them.
He partied with them.
He cried with them.
He talked with them.
He worshiped with them.
He ate with them.
He lived and died for them.
That's Jesus.
That's Who God is.
And that's such Good News for all people!!!
I was having a conversation with a colleague last week about declining church attendance when he said something neat.
He said, "We have the greatest news in the world.
It's the only really good news in a world that is so desperate for good news."
And what is true today was true 2,000 years ago: "The light was in the world, and the world came into being through the light, but the world didn't recognize the light.
The light came to his own people, and his own people didn't welcome him."
A few chapters later in John 3:19 we are told: "The light came into the world, and people loved darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do wicked things hate the light and don't come to the light for fear that their actions will be exposed to the light."
How come we love darkness so much?
What is so good about it?
There is no love in darkness.
There is no future in the darkness.
The darkness is such a sad place to be.
Clair and I drove to Cincinnati a few days ago in order to celebrate my dad's 89th birthday.
On the car ride up, we read a book out loud.
The book was about human sex trafficking, and it was written by a woman who spent two years as a sex-slave from the ages of 15-17.
It is a horrific tale.
It was an incredibly depressing book.
After reading it, Clair and I meditated on how we, as humans, can be so mean, so brutal, so cruel.
We are indeed, all of us, capable of great and terrible evil.
Clair said that this is what bothers her most about life.
Yes, there is a thick, dense darkness which covers our world and seeks to claim God's creatures as its own.
It is easy to lose our way in this thick darkness.
It's easy to lose our soul, our moral compass, our compassion, our humanity.
When the God Who created the world, put on flesh and blood "and moved into the neighborhood" He didn't move into some sweet little "Hollywood Soundstage" that doesn't really exist.
God moved into your neighborhood.
God moved into my neighborhood.
And that is Good News for all people.
God comes to where we are, to where we live and shines His light so that we may see that there is a different way to live.
There is a way that is God's way.
There is a way to have a fulfilling and worthwhile experience during our short stay on this earth.
We don't have to live in the darkness if we don't want to.
Could there possibly be any better news?
According to the latest statistics, the violent crime rate in East Ridge, Tennessee is more than twice the average for the entire United States.
And compared to all our nearest cities: Fort Oglethorpe, Rossville, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, Ringgold, Chickamauga and Red Bank our violent crime rate is second only to Chattanooga.
That's a sad statistic, but it also sheds light on the fact that there are many, many ministry opportunities in our area.
The darkness is very dark right now in East Ridge.
And so, when the Gospel of John opens its pages by telling us that Jesus moved into the neighborhood, I think it means our neighborhood, our houses, our duplexes, our apartments and extended stay-hotels.
It means our bridge underpasses, our parks, our schools.
About five years ago, this church--you all, we--started asking ourselves this question: "If our church were to disappear tomorrow, would our community, our neighborhood miss us or even notice?"
And you folks have been working hard, by allowing the Holy Spirit to work through you, in order for the answer to that question to be a resounding: "Yes!"
You've taken fresh baked bread, cookies, cantaloupes, and church fliers to every home immediately surrounding this church building.
Three years ago, you started a cooperative ministry to the children living in the extended stay hotel down the street.
Many, many lives have been touched through this ministry.
You have started to have Free Community Spaghetti Dinners on the 3rd Wednesday of every month.
And everyone is invited.
Our food pantry offers emergency food for a number of families.
In his book, The Church of Irresistible Influence, Robert Lewis states: "The church, we now firmly believe, is to be in the bridge-building business, according to the design of Jesus Christ.
Over this bridge the church must travel and prove its reality to a disbelieving world.
Only then will the world reconsider its skepticism, hostility, and lost-ness."
It's been said that the reality is that Jesus most often shows up when we--His Church--show up.
We are, after all, called to be Christ's Body on this earth--Christ's Resurrected Body--brought to new life by grace through faith in Him.
And the Bible says that we have been called into this Resurrected life "so that they might believe."
Well, who are "they?"
They are broken souls, people like you and me who wake up wondering how to make it through another day.
They are people like us, struggling to pay the bills, obsessing over their next purchase, consumed with protecting their reputation, and enthralled by their reflection in a mirror.
They are our immediate neighbors: the ones we wave to at when we open and close our garage doors or take out the garbage.
They are the people we see walking up and down the busy streets.
Edward and Libby were rather clean-cut, middle-class, suburban folks who lived in the same neighborhood their entire lives.
When Darcy, a woman living down the street, lost her husband to cancer, Edward and Libby were at her door with food and comfort.
Edward would stop by some evenings to throw a baseball with Darcy's boys.
At Christmastime, Libby would bring presents and baked goods to everyone on the block.
She volunteered as a tutor in a local elementary school.
When their much older neighbor became ill, the 67-year-old Edward mowed her lawn, and Libby checked on her each day.
The kids in the neighborhood would gather on Edward and Libby's front porch on warm summer afternoons for cookies and lemonade.
They were counselors and decided to begin a meeting each week in their living room for people who were hurting.
The get-together began with a few neighbors, but word spread.
It grew until it was nearly impossible to find a parking place near their house on meeting nights.
On Sundays they would drop by a retirement home to drive elderly folks to church.
You could say that they brightened the very landscapes of their street with joy.
Libby and Edward were killed in a car crash.
When that happened, the entire community came out to mourn the loss of this Christian couple.
Edward and Libby left a gaping hole in the heart of their community, an immeasurable vacancy of joy in the life of their street.
They illuminated their neighbor's lives with God's light.
They didn't retreat and hide in the confines of the four walls of their church.
They went outside those four walls and passed on light, person to person, one neighbor at a time.
Our mission is clear.
Jesus announced the greatest commandment in Mark 12:30-31: "you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, You will love your neighbor as yourself."
When we think about our call to love others--to love our neighbors--we begin to understand that Jesus-Followers can't be hidden behind closed doors.
Instead, the Christian life is to be an open invitation to others.
Jesus tells us, "You are the light of the world.
A city on top of a hill can't be hidden.
Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket.
Instead, they put it on top of a lampstand, and it shines on all who are in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven."
As Christ's Church, we are called to be God's little franchise right here on our street.
We are God's Golden Arches or Starbucks Coffee House.
Our gatherings should be as welcoming and open as a neighborhood coffee joint...
...the place where everyone knows your name...
...the place where the vacancy sign is always on...
...and the welcome mat is always in place.
We are to be God's Kingdom on this earth, and Jesus makes it clear that everyone is invited.
In Matthew Chapter 22 Jesus says, "Go out into the busiest intersections in town and invite anyone you find to the banquet.'"
And so it says that "The servants went out on the streets and rounded up everyone they laid eyes on, good and bad, regardless.
And so the banquet was on--every place filled."
Jesus turned water into wine, He didn't discriminate about his dinner companions, and He rarely turned down an invitation to hang out.
Jesus provided us with the Perfect Model of how to live out the call to be light in our neighborhood, our community: Be a gracious host. Live a life of open hospitality and kindness.
"The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory..."
When the folks who live closest to us do not have their fundamental needs met, we are simply not living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Remember, we journey with Jesus "so that they might believe."
A dense cloud of darkness is bearing down and threatening to steal the souls of the people living in East Ridge.
We often choose to stay in the darkness rather than come to the light.
But as we are told in the Gospel of John: "But those who did welcome [the light], those who believed in his name, he authorized to become God's children, born not from blood nor from human desire or passion, but born from God."
Now that is GOOD NEWS!!!
IT's THE BEST NEWS IN TOWN!!!
AND ITS THE NEWS WE ARE TO TELL AND SPREAD!!!
Praise God.
Amen.
