June 7, 2009
Trinity Sunday

ON BEING CONSCIENTIOUS
John 3:1-17

I read an article recently by a well-known pastoral counselor who spends his days (and some of his nights!) listening to troubled people. In the article, he was reflecting on the possible source of people’s problems.

He remembered that, when he was a boy, he brought home a report card on which his teacher had written, “Johnny is a very conscientious boy.” He wasn’t really sure what the word meant, but it didn’t sound good. What had he done?

When he got home, he thought it might be a good idea to bring the matter up himself, rather that letting his mother read about it cold, and so he said to his mother, “I don’t know why that teacher wrote that about me. I’ve tried to do everything I was supposed to do. I haven’t been misbehaving.”

His mother looked at the report card and said, “Oh, honey, that word is a compliment. To be conscientious is a good thing.” It was many years later that the older (and somewhat wiser) pastoral counselor finally figured out that to say someone is “very conscientious” might not be a good thing.

Sometimes we take too much responsibility for ourselves and for the world. We try too hard to get everything right, to dot all our I’s and cross all our T’s. Do you have this problem? In my experience, many church people are prone to this kind of over-conscientiousness. We are responsible people who sometimes take on too much responsibility.

I remember hearing about 10 years ago about someone who had been given one of those “Millennium Clocks,” that counted down the days, hours, and minutes until the close of the millennium. He would find himself looking at that clock at all times of the day and night, and thinking, “Oh, only 100 days, 10 hours, 6 minutes, and 48 seconds until the Millennium!” His heart would beat faster as he watched the seconds and minutes disappear. He had better get going, if there were things that needed doing before the Millennium came to a close!

Or you turn on the TV and notice that one of your favorite snack foods has been recalled – contamination in another state. What if you had a package of it in your pantry that escaped the recall? Then there are the recent reports on skin cancer. We’re now being told that the sources of skin cancer are in our childhood exposure to the sun. Play baseball for an hour longer than you should without sunscreen when you’re 8, and by the time you’re 60 you’ve got it! Watch out for cholesterol, too, and dairy products. Turn your head the other way when you’re filling up the car, and do you have a carbon monoxide detector in your home? What about ozone? What about the bacon I had for breakfast this morning??

The pastoral counselor concluded, “We live in an age of overwhelming responsibility.” We are conscientious, many of us, and conscientious to a fault.

Is our problem theological? If there is not God who moves, acts, creates, cares, and responds, then it’s all up to us. We have to right or it won’t get done. We have to save the world, or the world won’t get saved. We have to think hard, work hard, and get our lives in order, or we’ll lose our lives. No wonder that so many of us suffer from chronic fatigue! The world is on our shoulders! Nothing is insignificant, nothing is negligible!

I’ve often heard people respond to the question, “Why do you come to church?” “I come to church on Sunday morning to find out how I can lead a better life and to receive the encouragement to live that better life.” Maybe that’s where the trouble starts. Do you notice that there’s no “God” in that response? It’s all up to us. I come to learn how I can live a better life. How can I work out my own salvation?

When the Leader Nicodemus came to see Jesus by night, it’s important to notice what he asked, and how Jesus responded. Nicodemus asked what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Notice, he asked what he had to do. Jesus responded with words about birth and wind, two of the most uncontrollable things we know. What did you have to do order to get born the first time? You can see what the wind is doing, but how do you control it?

Then Jesus says, “God loved,… God gave.” It’s all a gift, and a gift from God, not something we have to earn by what we do. We are saved by God’s gift, God’s grace.

People like us – sometimes overly conscientious people -- need to hear anew this word of grace. Certainly, what we do is important, what we do matters. But we need to be reminded that what we do is in response to a God who has already acted, and who continues to act, in grace and love.

So the good news for today is: our lives are not finally within our hands. We are not actually capable of always behaving responsibly, or conscientiously. But our ability or inability to do the right thing isn’t really the point. The point is God’s amazing grace. Our futures are not totally dependent upon our efforts.

God gave, and God gives. It’s all a gift. Amen.