How many times on your television screens, as the camera pans across a sports stadium, have you noticed a large placard with the words written on it, “John 3:16”? Or sometimes you just see “3:16”. It’s good in a way to see that at in the midst of an important football match or an Olympic Games, at least somebody else has their real focus on something else.

It is the verse that seems to unite the whole of Christendom, for it seems to sum up the whole of the gospel, “For God so loved the world...”. And, just as importantly, the verse that follows it, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

It’s interesting that the verse that ends our New Testament reading this morning has such a uniting quality about it, whereas the event that begins our reading, not only splits our church, but splinters it into little pieces. It’s the famous visit of Nicodemus when Jesus says to him, “I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again”. Now, how many times have you’ve seen and heard that?

Before a funeral I was about to take many years ago, the son of the deceased brought me in to the kitchen and said to me, “Paul, I have to ask you before we do the service. Are you saved?”

And I wish I could claim this as original, but I answered him in the words, I think of Archbishop Simms who would reply to such a question, “Well, I’m damned if I’m not!”

How can we have such a unifying verse at one end of the reading, and yet a verse that has cause such division at the other end? In fact, it is a verse that has been used as an instrument of division. It is a verse used for condemnation.

Our church has suffered fragmentation all through its history. With The Lambeth Conference coming up this summer, the Anglican Church is on the verge of splitting up. In a way, it already has in the reasoning why some bishops in the Anglican Communion have been invited and why some haven’t. And this is all prior to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comment about Sharia law. As Jeremy Paxman said on Newsnight recently, “How do you solve a problem like Sharia?” How anybody can try and hold such tensions together is beyond me.

Last autumn, when the Church of Ireland Gazette asked our own Bishop, he had not decided whether he would go to Lambeth or not because he was waiting for the response of The Episcopal Church to the requests of the Primates’ Meeting for clarification. This morning I was keen to relay to you the views of Bishop Harold, but in his recent ‘Ad Clerum’ he asks that, for the time being, his thoughts should remain private with his clergy, and I must respect that.

Bishop Harold has put a great deal of thought in to this whole situation and I commend him for it. But it simply makes me worry even more for the entire Communion.

The world has become such a small place. Cultures and societies which used to be ‘far away’ are now right next door, and so-called ‘Western Christianity’ is just one of them, and it no longer enjoys the kind of monopoly it once assumed.

What we have to remember is that Jesus did not come to create division nor to dish out condemnation. That was not the purpose of his ministry. John chapter 3 has to be seen in that context. Jesus’ ‘chat’ with Nicodemus was under the cover of night. He didn’t want to be spotted visiting Jesus by fellow members of the ruling council. So this was a private lesson with Nicodemus! Jesus began with the whole idea of rebirth; it was an idea that would have been familiar to the ancient Jew (and, indeed, to the Greek). But he ended with the apparent paradox of love and judgement.

A visitor was being shown round an art gallery by one of the attendants. In that gallery there were certain masterpieces beyond all price, possessions of eternal beauty and unquestioned genius. At the end of the tour the visitor said, “Well, I don’t think much of your old paintings!” The attendant replied quietly, “Sir, I would remind you that these pictures are no longer on trial, but those who look at them are.”

It isn’t God who has condemned a person. for God only loved the person. The person can only condemn himself.

If we use scripture to separate those who are deemed to be lost from those who aren’t, we create further division and hurt and I am sure we do God a disservice. It’s not our job!

If we show little of God’s love and forgiveness in our lives and in this Church, then we do more than just a disservice. In the words of St. Paul, “Because of you, the gospel is made of none effect”.

I’m going to stop now, but I just want to say that over the years and my experiences in this Diocese and others, I have become acutely aware of the damage that certain individuals can cause in a parish situation. All of us, myself included, have the potential to do so much good and yet, at the same time, can do so much harm and create so much hurt.

I think we all need to be very careful in what we say and how we treat others as church people. Our words and our behaviour are what others use to judge the church. Without saying any more, we might be the only Jesus a person ever sees.