For God So Loved the Cosmos
Dear Friends,
This week in our reading from the Gospel of John we will hear Jesus say the words so many of us learned by heart as children in Sunday School, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16, KJV). We called it the “Gold Star Verse.” Unfortunately, this verse has been used over the years to exclude rather than include many in our world who God so loves; to condemn rather than embrace those who aren’t considered “believers.”
Last night during our Lenten Supper Series, we acknowledged the common ground shared by all the spiritual descendants of Abraham, and said a prayer for the people of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim ancestry who have found their way into the congregations of St. Peter’s and St. John’s over the generations. As we reflected on this, one of the participants offered these words by the Prophet Mohomed, “There are as many paths to God as there are human breaths.”
With this in mind, I would like to share with you this prayerful reflection by pastor and poet Steve Garnaas-Holmes.*
“For God so loved the cosmos...”
—John 3.16
The Greek word is kosmon.
Not some, not even just earthlings,
not even just Earth.
The whole cosmos. Everything.
The point is not that certain humans
are rewarded for thinking certain things
about a certain divine-human,
but that the entire universe
be made whole,
by love,
by God being with-and-in every bit of it,
even the ugly, hurting bits.
There's no part of the cosmos God doesn't love.
There's no one who gets anything different.
There's no other tribe to which you belong.
Step over the little lines you've drawn, then,
and belong.
In Christ,
Amelie+
