02 Lent 08
February 17, 2008
Psalms 121:1-8 (NRSV)
John 3:1-17 (NRSV)

Spring Training Two

I was born in West Virginia, but I don’t think of myself as being from West Virginia. If anything I am from Baltimore, though my mother’s ancestors are from here.

Where I was born, who I was born from, is that important? Tell me what you think. Does it make a difference that you were born of Europeans or Africans or Asians? Does it make a difference if you were born into a happy family or a broken one? Does it make a difference that you were born in the USA or in some other country?

I think it does. Every movie I’ve seen, every book I’ve read, every friend I’ve made, every relative who has hugged me, every television news show I’ve seen, a million little facts, have all given birth to me.

I don’t even know how most of these things have contributed to my pre-conceived ideas, my ways of relating to others, my opinions about politics or religion or family. In most situations, I simply react and go with what I think I know, what I feel certain I can assume. I rarely think carefully about anything I do, except if I have some idea it might be dangerous. Otherwise, there is little conscious thought that inspires most of my actions.

Liz and I have been watching a series of documentaries from England called “7-Up.” The basic theme is that people are largely formed in the first seven years of their lives. Where we are born and who we know and what happens in those first seven years largely determines everything about us.

Where we are born, therefore, has a lot to do with who we are.

Jesus tells Nicodemus that he himself has been born from above. Jesus invites Nicodemus also to be born from above. Nicodemus had difficulty understanding this and Jesus tries to make it clearer.

Nicodemus believes in Jesus because of the signs Jesus has done, but he nevertheless has difficulty accepting what Jesus is teaching. Jesus uses the wind as a metaphor.

I’ve been serving on the fire department and I am learning to be wary of dry windy days. The wind is a powerful force. I’ve now been to three fires that were caused by the wind knocking down branches that then knocked down power lines and started brush fires.

Of course we didn’t see the wind, but it was there, and we knew it was there because of what it did. Nevertheless, what it did was not what it was.

All us blow-boaters depend on the wind, and when the wind blows, our boats glide gracefully through the seas. But of course, if the wind blows too hard, our boats are tossed to and fro like toys in mountainous seas. We never see the wind. We see the sails filling. We see the seas building. But this is what the wind does, not what it is.

And this is what Nicodemus sees. He sees Jesus doing various deeds of power. But he is unable to accept what Jesus says. He sees the effects of the wind, and he acknowledges the wind is there, but he doesn’t know where it comes from.

I think a lot of us, myself included, gather around Jesus because we sense the power of God in him, but then a strange thing occurs. We are attracted to the power of God in Jesus, we acknowledge Jesus comes from God, but then we reject what Jesus teaches us.

We believe in the miracles, but we don’t believe we are supposed to help the poor, even the ones we don’t know, even the ones far away. Today’s offering is for people we don’t personally know, people who are suffering in various kinds of disasters. Jesus commands us to offer our lives for others, even those we don’t know, maybe even particularly for the ones we don’t know.

We believe in miracles, but we don’t believe we ourselves are meant to change. We believe in miracles, but we don’t accept that we are to give ourselves to being transformed by God.

What if someone came and laid a whole new history over all these things that have shaped me. What if suddenly, the most important things about my background no longer to do with where I was born or what family I came from or what my citizenship is? What if, instead of being born of this or that family, I was born of God? What if, instead of having this or that life history, my history was the old and new testaments? What if, instead of being a citizen of this or that country, I was a citizen of the kingdom of God?

What if my story begins with Genesis, and ends with Revelation?

This is the mystification of Nicodemus, and it is ours as well.

And yet, this is precisely what our religion is all about. Any realistic and down-to-earth reading of the history of Judaism and the life of Jesus would lead us to understand that the people of God are the children of God, not just created by him but also raised and educated and clothed and fed by him, and if we want to be a part of that people, we are invited to adopt that whole history as our own.

Part of our Spring Training, then, is to review that history, and how we have or have not made it our own. Is this our history? Is this our identity? Are we born from it? Where were you born?
Of course, I continue to be the person who was born in West Virginia. I continue to be the person who came from a certain family, and speaks a certain language, and lives in a certain country. But laid over that, like a new set of clothes, is this new history, this new language, this new nation.

All of us who are coming to believe in Jesus have a Nicodemus within, a voice who says, “How can these things be?” The gospels are full of people who cannot understand what Jesus is teaching.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that all who believe in him may not perish but have eternal life.

To believe in Jesus is to do as he does, follow as he goes, and trust in his way. His way is to offer his life to God so that God can use him to announce his love for the whole world.

Another quote from Mother Theresa: “I dreamed I was in heaven. God said, ‘God back to earth; there are no slums here.’”

We believe that Jesus comes from God. He invites us to be reborn as children of God like him, but this is a teaching we find very hard to accept, because it means that we must let go of all that the world has made us, in order to let God make us anew.

This morning, Christ again encourages and invites us. God wants to use us to announce his love to all the world.

Amen.