SCRIPTURE: 1 John 5:1-6
TEXT: 4afor whatever is born of God conquers the world. THEME: God conquers the world through loving relationships. INTRODUCTION This passage describes how Nicodemus must have felt after his night time visit with Jesus in the Gospel of John. All we can think about is being born again and conquering the world. Oh no, now it sounds like a Zombie Apocalypse. When you Google “Zombie Apocalypse”, a link to the CDC pulls up (Yes, the Center for Disease Control and Preparedness) with a program they developed in 2011 for middle schoolers called. Zombie Preparedness 101. In it are topics such as; Emergency Response, Emergency Kit, Check List, Backpack Plan, Disease Detectives along with school-wide Activities, History, a Graphic Novel and a Poster. The lessons for Educators consist of case scenarios where the students engage in preparedness in the face of a disaster or Pandemic. It’s very clever. This could be how the author of 1 John may have seen Christianity conquering the world for God, because through Jesus’ death and resurrection, aren’t we the rising of the “undead” in the nicest possible way? SCRIPTURE Believe Jesus is the Christ, be Born of God, Love and Conquer the world. This is a simple formula for world domination. It is all based on a compelling relationship with God, redefined through revelations of Jesus, that inform our relationships with God and each other. And if we need help, there is a baptism with water to remind us to turn to God, there is a new covenant in Jesus’ blood that redefines our relationships with love, forgiveness, grace and life, and we have the Holy Spirit to empower to help us to be transformed and transform our relationships with others. APPLICATION The question Nicodemus asks is, “How can I be born again?”. The question we should today is, “What does born of God living look like in our world today?” Our belief in Jesus changes our view of the world, life and death. It shifts our priorities from the amassing of stuff, power and prestige in this life, to a long-range perspective that includes eternal relationships. Love then, is the most valued commodity in this new reality. But love is not exclusive to the afterlife, it is to be put into practice today as the driving force of the world domination of the rising of the nicest possible ‘undead’, aka, Christians. Those who believe are born of God and family to each other. There is a whole lot of transformative work that needs to be dismantle, redefine and reconstruct in our relationships. Many of our habits, practices, traditions, cultural and biases needs to be informed by the love of Christ. The nature of the pandemic, is that it does not discriminate in any way, by race, age, sex, orientation, status, wealth or theology. The love we have in Jesus Christ should not either. And it should be as broad spreading and contagious. How we live the love of Jesus in our lives and practice it, should compel others to copy us and live by the love of Jesus too. The love that God has, is for all people, and challenges our bias and prejudice. We see this in the way law enforcement treat some but not others. We see it in the suppression of voters, we see it in unequal opportunities, pay and advancement. Our nation is slow to change. The Civil Right movement of the 60’s was only living into the realities won by the Civil War. We still persist to hold different standards for those who are privileged, by no other reason than skin color, even though the majority race in the United States today is mixed. Yesterday on NPR, the reported-on algorithms that created job screening applications revealed biases that programmers inadvertently imbedded in the mechanical review process. Our prejudice is so deep seated that even the artificial intelligence we create cannot escape it. Our recognition of our bias is the first step towards making our treatment of each other fair. We can see the colonial, imperialistic influences in the treatment of indigenous people all over the world. Driven by financial gain, they ripped the wealth from nations, enslaved people, force laborers in deplorable conditions that denied them of their human dignity. This attitude is now extended to immigrants on our boarders. Love compels us to speak out. Love is a movement of change for dignity and respect. Love sees every human being as an equal and cannot justify treatment that is less than how we would want to be treated. Love votes because this is how we can have a voice and a representative who echoes our concerns. Love encourages being vaccinated to stop the pandemic and support the rising of Christ’s undead. CONCLUSION As difficult as Nicodemus’ conversation was with Jesus that night, he believed and was born of God. We are Christ’s undead, participating in Christ’s love to conquer the world. It starts by seeing others as our equal, brothers and sisters in the family of God. Loved by God just as much as we are loved. Doing the work of reconciliation through listening, patience, kindness, forgiveness, speaking up, having grace, coming along side, caring and inclusion. Belief, Born, Love, Conquer, is the rising up of Christ’s undead in our world, loving in this world and beyond.
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