Heart of the Rockies Christian Church in Fort Collins, CO

“Born Again”, Rev. Melissa St. Clair, 3/16/14

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“Born Again”

A sermon preached at

Heart of the Rockies Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Fort Collins, CO

by the Rev. Melissa St. Clair

John 3:1-10

March 16, 2014

 There are some weeks when the lectionary just misses the mark ever so slightly.  The Lectionary is the prescribed cycle of readings that the wider church uses to walk us through the major themes of scripture over the course of three years.  This morning, the lectionary supplies John, chapter 3, verses 1-17.  The problem with that is, it cuts Jesus off in the middle of what he is trying to explain to his visitor-by-night, Nicodemus.

Well, sort of.

In the ancient manuscripts, there are no quotation marks after what we now call verse 15.  In other words, from verse 16 on, those familiar words, For God so loved the world… might best be understood as a faithful interpretation of John’s understanding of Jesus’ message and ministry.[1]  Furthermore, the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus draws to a close in verse 10; what follows is more discourse by Jesus.  In light of that knowledge, and in light of the fact that we’ll have quite enough to deal with just Nicodemus himself, let’s read together these first 10 verses from John’s third chapter.

READ JOHN 3:1-10

“You think you know me, but you don’t.” It’s a line from a play I was required to read along with 550 of my closest friends in the Elizabethtown College Class of 2005.  The Wrestling Season was a play that seemed incredibly cheesy at the time – probably because it nailed the stage of our lives we were in so perfectly that it was easier to make fun of it than acknowledge how real it was.  As stereotypes and assumptions were taken to the mat – literally, the play was set on a wrestling mat–the search for identity that is the heart of growing from adolescence into healthy adulthood started beating more strongly.

“You think you know me, but you don’t.”  Nicodemus thinks he knows who Jesus is, but he doesn’t, really.  NIceodemus shows up in the night, which some see as a way for him to hide, to avoid being seen by the religious authorities, ranks of which he is a part.  Others argue that he chose to go at night because that’s when Jesus likely would’ve spoken to the Samaritan community.  After working long hours through the daylight, they only would’ve had time to gather with Jesus at night.[2]  But let’s at least give Nicodemus some credit for showing up at all.  Giving him the benefit of the doubt, let’s see this as a sign that no matter when he showed up, no matter his motivation, he wanted to get to know Jesus more.  We know that Nicodemus’ religious tradition was more threatened by Jesus than interested in who he really was and what he had to say, so it’s pretty safe to say that Nicodemus was taking a big risk just in showing up.

So, he’s there.  With Jesus.  And it’s dark.

Maybe it’s the cloak of darkness or maybe it’s just the privilege and pedigree that was afforded to religious leaders in those days, but Nicodemus seems to feeling a little bold. You might think that someone who wanted to learn more about Jesus would come with questions, not answers.  But Nicodemus didn’t bring a question.  No, he brought his own announcement of who Jesus was: “I have seen your miracles, your signs and wonders, and I know that you are from God. I know who you are.”[3]

Jesus’ response? “You think you know me, but you don’t. [You saw me supply wine for the wedding feast. You saw me cleanse the temple of those who were making a business there, and you think you can use this [as] evidence to draw logical, rational conclusions. If this is your profession of faith, you know nothing of faith.

Faith involves commitment and risks. Your slipping over here in the dark of night in order to tell me who I am is not faith.]”[4]

Maybe Jesus said it just like that, maybe he didn’t.  But the point is, Nicodemus wanted Jesus to fit into a neat box that would help him understand why his ministry had taken on such magnitude for those who followed after him.  And Jesus was bound and determined to help Nicodemus see that that’s not how faith works.  It’s not always logical or rational.  It often contains more questions than answers.  And, in Jesus’ estimation, Nicodemus wasn’t even asking the right questions.

When I was a few years old, I went with my parents to have dinner with some of their friends, a couple who had just adopted their second child, a 3-year-old boy from Hong Kong.  I remember during the car ride home asking my parents how it was possible that some kids were born at age 0 and others were born at age 3.  If it’s any consolation to those of you who help raise up kids, I have no recollection of how my parents actually answered that question.  Five year olds think literally. Decades old religious leaders apparently do too.

“How can anyone be born after having grown old?  Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Nicodemus asks.  In John’s gospel, it isn’t unusual that someone takes something Jesus explains using a common image that would help people understand what he was getting at and then interprets it literally.

Nicodemus had already been born once.  Physically, yes, as have we all.  But spiritually, also.   “He’s been born into the traditions of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.  He has been born into the concerns for holiness and ritual purity of their interpretation of their religious tradition.”[5]

I haven’t physically given birth to a baby, but from what I understand, it’s pretty difficult.  Physically and emotionally.  For those who have been unable to give birth, and have deeply desired to do so – also physically and emotionally painful.  In seminary, we were required to read a book for my preaching class called Birthing the Sermon.  I can’t tell you how many weeks this task, this privilege, this call to preach has felt so very challenging, and yes, sometimes even painful; laborious at the least.

All of that to say – birth, rebirth, in whatever form–is not easy stuff.

Nicodemus knew that.  Jesus knew that.

So why do we have to do it?  Why does Jesus tell Nicodemus that he has to be born from above, which is often translated as “born again”?

Does God want us to struggle, to be in pain?  No.  Not ever.  And I can’t imagine preaching otherwise.  And yet in our human complexity and brokenness, is there struggling and pain?  Yes.  All too often.  And I can’t imagine preaching otherwise.  But can God, and does God, work even through painful situations?  I couldn’t preach the gospel if I didn’t believe it was so.

Think back to our reading from Genesis, the story of Abraham and Sarah.  Another preacher says it this way: “God called Abraham and Sarah from barrenness to birth, calling into existence things in their life that did not yet exist.”  Abraham and Sarah had struggled mightily.  Their story is so amazing to me because even still, “they were willing to trust God, moving from despair to hope, from old securities to new gifts, from death to life.” It had to have been painful, “leaving what they knew to be true,” going to a place “where they had never been, away from [everything] familiar, allowing their life to be reshaped by the One who came to them in a birth story. [They]…were blessed.”[6]   What a beautiful, powerful story of rebirth.

And yet even so, being “born again” still sounds either really painful or uncomfortably evangelical.

Bruce Bawer, in his book Stealing Jesus, recounts a trip on the subway in New York City in which in a fellow passenger asks him if he is a Christian.  Yes, he replies, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Are you born again?” the man asks.  Bruce isn’t sure what to say, but he rehearses the birth story of his faith in his head for a moment – the one where after a decade of feeling that you couldn’t be both homosexual and Christian, he finally heard Christianity explained in a way that made sense and was baptized at Saint Thomas Episcopal Church in New York.  Am I born again?, he wonders.  He looks into the man’s eyes. “I think so,” Bruce says.

“Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior?” the man asks.

Another pause from Bruce. “Yes …”

“Then you’re born again!” the man declares conclusively. “Next time someone asks, answer with confidence that you are!”

Bruce explains, “If I sounded hesitant, it’s because I consider myself `born again,’ but by some people’s definition I’m not.”

Are you a Christian?  It’s not as easy a question as it may sound, because that word means so many different things to so many different people.[7]

Some Jesus-followers seem most concerned with the law.  That’s the kind of faith we can guess Nicodemus had – married to the law; what was right and what was wrong. Who was clean and who was unclean.  We need not count that as a strike against Nicodemus; it’s the way he was raised.  But Jesus knows that there is a different way.  The way of love.

The way of the law, while stringent, is also somewhat easy.  It’s black and white with no room for shades of gray.  It doesn’t require much critical thought.  You either obey or you don’t.  It’s linear.  It’s inside the box.

The way of love, on the other hand, can be sort of scary.  It requires us to do and feel things that might not come naturally – loving those who challenge us, loving those who are different than us, loving those who persecute us.  It can be messy.  It requires us to think outside the box.  It calls us to break free from restricted, judgmental life into abundant life.  It requires that we trust the Holy Spirit, who “blows where it chooses.”  It demands that we look and work for God’s kingdom coming, where love and mercy and justice and forgiveness are at the center of all life.

The way of love sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?  It’s labor that’s never in vain.


 

[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 9, p. 548.

[2] Nancy Rockwell, A Bite in the Apple | Nicodemus.  Posted March 9, 2014. www. biteintheapple.com.

[3] The Rev. Dr. Laura Mendenhall, Born of the Wind, June 18, 2000.  www.day1.org.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Alyce M. McKenzie, Edgy Exegesis | The New Birth: Nicodemus’ and Ours: Reflections on John 3:1-17.  Posted March 7, 2014.  www.patheos.com.

[6] Mendenhall.

[7] Bruce Bawer, Stealing Jesus: 
How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity, Crown Publishers.  From chapter 1.  As reprinted at www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/bawer-jesus.html.