February 17, 2008
Rev. Patricia L. Liberty
After the Scary Stuff
Born Again; just the words are enough to get people’s attention. I can see I have yours. If you feel the need to fidget or squirm, it’s okay, that’s a common response to the phrase Born Again, especially when preceded by the words, “are you?” So if you are feeling a little nervous, remember to breathe.
If you are concerned that you have inadvertently walked into the wrong church, let me assure that you are in the First Congregational Church, an Open and Affirming Congregation of the United Church of Christ. Yes, this is still the radically inclusive community that gives hands and feet and voice to God’s grace.
If you feel the need to run out the door, you are free to do so, but I hope you’ll stick around and see how this sermon turns out. I think you’ll be surprised.
And yes, we are still going to talk about being born again, but mostly we are going look at how this familiar, complicated and gracious text is mostly misunderstood and badly misused.
What makes us uncomfortable with this text is that two little words are used by Christians of all persuasions to judge one another. Whether on the left or the right, judgment is passed about what those words mean in relationship to someone who either is or isn’t someone’s definition of “born again”. It’s is a litmus test used to judge authentic Christianity. By claming the born again language and then narrowly defining what it means, it becomes a vehicle for judging any expression of Christian faith that doesn’t look like theirs.
In my years as a hospital chaplain visiting people of all faiths and no particular faith I would often hear people speak of being born again as a way of defining their Christianity.
I visited a patient who said “I got saved on July whatever the day was at 2:30 in the afternoon”. And in her church if you didn’t have that kind of knock you over experience you weren’t really a Christian.
Another patient asked one of our student chaplains if he was born again and when he went into a long explanation of why he didn’t use that language to describe his own faith journey she tossed him out and said she wanted a real Chaplain to pray for her. Imagine her surprise when I showed up….
The religious culture that has sprung up around being born again reflects a divisive understanding of what it means to be a person of faith and how that faith comes to manifest itself in our lives. It causes great discomfort and division in the community of believers.
The tendency to wrench a part of the language and meaning from this text and make it into something else is a familiar problem in the Christian Church. Verses are taken out of context left and right, and this one is a perennial favorite.
But we are not people of the verse, we are people of the story and this is a story about a man named Nicodemus. And it is as much our story as all the other stories we claim in sacred scripture.
Right off the bat we are told that Nicodemus is a Pharisee. If you’re religious training was anything like mine, the message about the Pharisees is that they were pompous, hypocritical religious blowhards. Especially at this time of the year, it’s common to hear all kinds of stuff about how awful they were.
And it’s just not true.
Sarah Dylan Breuer writes, “The bottom line…is that we see Pharisees so often in conflict with Jesus in the canonical gospels NOT because the Pharisees' ideas and way of life were antithetical to Jesus', but because they had so very much in common. They (unlike most other Jews in the first century) read prophetic texts like Isaiah as scripture. They (unlike the Sadducees) thought that scripture and its injunctions must be interpreted using our reason in light of changing circumstances. Both the Pharisees and Jesus believed that the sacrifices of prayer and holy living where people were day by day were at least as important as anything that went on in the Temple. Both the Pharisees' movement and Jesus' were known for reaching out to others, and both were known for their enthusiastic welcome to Gentiles who wanted to join up.”
So whatever notion you have of Nicodemus as some hypocritical faithless wretch who sneaks to Jesus in the middle of the night out of shame and utter devastation. Let it go.
Truth is Nicodemus already has faith in Jesus; he gets it. As the story unfolds the first words out of Nicodemus’ mouth….Rabbi we know you are a teacher who has come from God….
If Nicodemus was walking around today he would be a member of a main line church, probably serve on a couple committees. He would be seen as a leader, a wise person whose counsel is valued. He would be an active and important part of the church’s life and ministry. And he is just as likely to be a she.
Nicodemus was an upstanding leader with more than a little faith. And he goes to Jesus with the faith that he has and the dream of faith for which he hopes. Nicodemus is no hypocrite he is a seeker.
He is the poster child for taking the next step in the journey.
For Nicodemus it meant trying to get beyond the signs and wonders. Lots of people followed Jesus because of his miracles, they were wowed by the things he did and the stories that circulated about the things he did. Nicodemus sensed there was more to Jesus, wanted to believe there was more to Jesus but he had to scope it out first. His was a look before you leap kind of faith. Sound familiar?
If that’s not your next step….that’s okay, there are as many different steps in the journey of faith as there are people of faith.
And the rest of the story carries the promise for him and for us. God’s spirit is always in our midst to unfold the next place of faith. Like the wind we don’t know when or how, but there is always the promise and possibility of renewal.
This isn’t a story about being blown off the road by the hurricane of God’s spirit, it’s about the promise and possibility of renewal that we all need to keep our faith vital and alive.
And such moments of insight into god’s purpose and presence in our lives are not destination moments but beginning points and they happen again and again throughout our lives.
As I reflect on the seasons of my own life and faith, there isn’t a single burning bush that changed everything but rather a series of glowing twigs that continue to change things within and around me as continue to grow.
And the text has a final gift for us….hidden in the strange grammatical constructs of the Greek text that change the focus from Nicodemus as one person to Nicodemus as representative for a whole group. Yes, the greek word for you changes from you in the singular to you in the plural.
Hopeful promise of renewal of taking the next step is not just for individual Nicodemus types but the groups we are part of…like the church. And for us at this moment in time up to our ears in transition looking back over our shoulder and missing what and who is gone and looking ahead with that always mixture of excitement and uncertainty. This promise is for us…the wind blows where it will….and you can’t see it coming you only know its been there….
At this moment and every moment of our lives, for us as individuals and for us as a church,
And all that is true because of who God so loved the world….so loved you and me and all the other yous that are beyond this door.
That wind is coming to us and for us and through us in these days. Meeting us where we are as wonder and worry, as we test the waters with one another and seek away forward together, taking that next step of faithfulness together as a community called by Christ, claimed by Christ and sent forth into the world for the sake of Christ and the realm he began and continues to through us.