Ps 121; John 3:1-17
Born Again
This morning I would like to reflect with you on the Gospel lesson from John. I would like for us to consider what it means to be “born again” and how it has implications for our understanding of Christian freedom and human responsibility.
If you were to ask me who was one of the most unforgettable people I have ever met, I would have to say it was a wandering Scotsman who I met as a boy while living in London in the late fifties.
I met the Scot one Saturday afternoon with my friends. We were sitting on a bench when an older gentleman wearing a kilt and a “tam o’ shanter” cap approached us and asked if he could sit down. He told us he was traveling all through the British Isles telling everyone how Jesus Christ had changed his life.
He showed us his Bible where his name was inscribed on it along with some dates underneath it. The Scotsman explained that the first two dates were the date of his birth and the date of his death. Underneath these dates was the same year as his purported death with just a hyphen after it. He said the third and final date was the date when he was born again. Puzzled, we asked him what this second birthday meant; and he replied that he had been “born again” in the Spirit.
I remember thinking at the time “what happened to this man that caused him to change his whole life and begin to wander the globe telling anyone, including a bunch of eleven-year old boys like us, that Jesus saved him?” The longer and lingering question for me was, “How can this be?” From time to time when I read this gospel lesson I remember “The Wandering Scotsman” and his being born again and my question of how can this be? It is the same question that Nicodemus asks of Jesus.
This encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus, Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, calls “The Gospel in Miniature.” It seems to summarize the Gospel of Jesus for Luther because of what Jesus tells Nicodemus about the mysterious movement of the Spirit. Jesus’ words to Nicodemus reveal the truth of faith about how we experience the Triune God if we are open, obedient, and prepared to receive God’s grace and power.
In John’s Gospel we know that Nicodemus is of the Jewish ruling class. He is a member of the seventy man Jewish tribunal called the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of his people. Next to Roman rule, the Sanhedrin was the most powerful governing body in Judea.
This influential ruler comes to the popular rabbi by night not to question Jesus about the desirability to change but whether there is even a possibility for such a man to change. Nicodemus is faced with the perennial existential problem of one who wants to change but who has no power to change himself. Jesus tells him, “Truly, truly, I say to you unless one is born anew, they will not see the Kingdom of God.”
The expression “born again” is not new to us. We hear in certain Christian groups that we must be born again in order to enter the Kingdom of God. I am reminded of the story Bishop Barbara Harris tells of being accosted in an elevator by fundamentalist, charismatic, Christian who asked her if she was born again. Bishop Barbara replied no she wasn’t born again because the first time was hard enough! Yet, behind the grilling and questioning by some of whether we are “born again” to their liking, there is an important gospel truth worth reflection. According to the evangelist, John, who was an eyewitness to this encounter, Jesus is speaking about personal transformation whether it is sudden or gradual.
Being born again, means a person undergoes a powerful spiritual conversion that alters, changes, and transforms him or her to such an extent that they believe they are a new person. Such an experience happened to St. Paul on the road to Damascus and to St. Augustine in the garden. The feeling of conversion is described as a dying and a birthing at the same time. Jesus says to Nicodemus this spiritual transformation is not by human will but by the will of God through the Spirit.
I believe this is what happened to the Scotsman. The Spirit changed him. I am sure each of us knows someone who experienced such religious conversion. But what about the rest of us? Are you and I missing out on something big or does being born again simply imply less about us and be more about the nature and grandeur of God. Should not our focus be away from our own self-diminution and more about how the greatness of the Holy Spirit works in our lives? Jesus’ reply to Nicodemus holds the answer and why Luther believes it to be the Gospel in miniature.
Night covers Nicodemus. Not only is he spiritually blind; but also he is afraid to be seen. The encounter is a perplexing one with back and forth questions and answers. Then Jesus delivers the punch line: “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen; but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”
We know little about Nicodemus after his conversation with Jesus. The evangelist, John, tells us little more about him; except, one more time when he comes with Joseph of Arimithea to claim the crucified body of Jesus. What conversion happened to him that brought him from darkness into the light? Like the journey of any soul, intimacy with God, is as mysterious as it is personal. The Scotsman never told us boys of his conversion experience. The only thing he wanted to share was his transformed life in Jesus Christ.
Another Scotsman, theologian William Barclay, likes to tell the story of a workman who had been a drunken reprobate and was later converted. Barclay writes that the Scotsman’s working colleagues did their best because of his conversion to make him feel like a fool. “Surely,” they said to him, “You can’t believe in miracles and things like that. Surely for instance, you don’t believe that Jesus changed water into wine?” “I don’t know,” the man answered,” “whether he turned water into wine but I do know that in my own home he turned beer into groceries.”
I remember once listening to a woman who is in religious orders. She told me that she was asked about a friend what it the one attribute that lies above all others in the heart of Jesus. I thought to myself maybe it is compassion or loyalty or courage. She said what lies in the heart of Jesus is freedom. Freedom.
The more I have pondered the sister’s answer about freedom the more I believe Jesus is calling us to freedom this Lent. If we believe that the world is in God and not the other way around (of God in the world) then everything is susceptible to the power of the Spirit: life and death, sin and forgiveness, doubt and faith. All is in God. In other words, God is with us, in us and around us. What Jesus told Nicodemus is ‘there is more to God’s world than Rome, the Sanhedrin, Jerusalem or even himself.’ Once, Nicodemus became open to the Spirit, God guided him and gave him true freedom; and the gift of this lesson is that the Nicodemus’ promise is our promise, too.
For many years, I actually thought the wandering Scotsman was slightly crazed; but, as I have grown older, I think of him more and more because I believe he is one of the freest men I have ever met. He was a ‘born again Nicodemus.’ Although, many of us may not claim to be born again like the wandering Scot, I think conversion takes place progressively in God’s good time and not our own. Our sole response to God’s call is to be open. By lifting eyes up to God and knowing God is the keeper of our lives, we find new life and are born again. Therein lies our true freedom. Amen.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Ash Wednesday - Skip Windsor
“The Sent Ones”
Ash Wednesday is more about subtraction than about addition.
The Imposition of ashes reminds us that what remains when everything else in our lives is taken away is our mortal bodies. And Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality.
In the burial service at the Committal, it begins with the words, “earth to earth, dust to dust…” What you and I think is permanent is really provisional and impermanent. In the little known and little used liturgy in the prayer book, The Rite of Reconciliation, a portion of the confession reads, “We are formed of dust in the image and likeness of God, and redeemed by God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
The epistle lesson today from the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians begins with the words, “Be reconciled with God.” These words, I believe, ought to be our watchwords for us this Lent. We should be about the enterprise of reconciliation.
This work of reconciliation requires the stripping away of the false self, the petty insecurities that haunt us everyday. It means being open and vulnerable to God’s mercy and forgiveness. To be reconciled with God is to be redeemed, restored, and renewed in the likeness of Christ. In Christ, we are to be reconcilers with God. To be reconciled with and in God is to become, as the apostle Paul writes, “friends of God.”
Reconciliation is something we do – something that shapes and forms us through God’s grace and mercy. In the process of being reconciled in God through Christ’s example, you and I become “a new creation.”
The way to journey this Lent is through reconciliation. The cross of ashes on our foreheads reminds us that all things are possible through God in Christ. Through Christ, we become a new creation to be ambassadors and witnesses of God’s reconciling power and love with others. As reconcilers, we do not sit still, but go forth as representatives of Christ into the world.
As Paul writes, as ambassadors of God’s reconciling love and mercy, we are “the sent ones.”
The truth of these words became most clear to me while I was in Haiti last week. We baptized a one-year old girl named Lovemica. She was born in Leogane after last year’s earthquake and was not expected to live. But she did. This year we baptized Lovemica; and the words in baptism took on new meaning as we consider being made “a new creation” in Christ as the sign of the cross was made on her forehead, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.”
Marked and sealed. Being Christ’s own forever. As marked and sealed in Christ in baptism, we are not only one in Christ, and together, part of Christ’s body in Haiti, in Needham, in the world, but are to be the sent ones to be instruments of God’s reconciling power in the world.
This Lent, consider what “subtraction” is happening in your life and how it adds to your spiritual life as a reconciler, a friend of God, in the world. Paul says that as new creations in God, we are the sent ones to do God’s holy will. How will God be using you this Lent? Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of reconciliation. Now is the day to become a new creation in God in Christ. Amen.
Ash Wednesday is more about subtraction than about addition.
The Imposition of ashes reminds us that what remains when everything else in our lives is taken away is our mortal bodies. And Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality.
In the burial service at the Committal, it begins with the words, “earth to earth, dust to dust…” What you and I think is permanent is really provisional and impermanent. In the little known and little used liturgy in the prayer book, The Rite of Reconciliation, a portion of the confession reads, “We are formed of dust in the image and likeness of God, and redeemed by God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
The epistle lesson today from the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians begins with the words, “Be reconciled with God.” These words, I believe, ought to be our watchwords for us this Lent. We should be about the enterprise of reconciliation.
This work of reconciliation requires the stripping away of the false self, the petty insecurities that haunt us everyday. It means being open and vulnerable to God’s mercy and forgiveness. To be reconciled with God is to be redeemed, restored, and renewed in the likeness of Christ. In Christ, we are to be reconcilers with God. To be reconciled with and in God is to become, as the apostle Paul writes, “friends of God.”
Reconciliation is something we do – something that shapes and forms us through God’s grace and mercy. In the process of being reconciled in God through Christ’s example, you and I become “a new creation.”
The way to journey this Lent is through reconciliation. The cross of ashes on our foreheads reminds us that all things are possible through God in Christ. Through Christ, we become a new creation to be ambassadors and witnesses of God’s reconciling power and love with others. As reconcilers, we do not sit still, but go forth as representatives of Christ into the world.
As Paul writes, as ambassadors of God’s reconciling love and mercy, we are “the sent ones.”
The truth of these words became most clear to me while I was in Haiti last week. We baptized a one-year old girl named Lovemica. She was born in Leogane after last year’s earthquake and was not expected to live. But she did. This year we baptized Lovemica; and the words in baptism took on new meaning as we consider being made “a new creation” in Christ as the sign of the cross was made on her forehead, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.”
Marked and sealed. Being Christ’s own forever. As marked and sealed in Christ in baptism, we are not only one in Christ, and together, part of Christ’s body in Haiti, in Needham, in the world, but are to be the sent ones to be instruments of God’s reconciling power in the world.
This Lent, consider what “subtraction” is happening in your life and how it adds to your spiritual life as a reconciler, a friend of God, in the world. Paul says that as new creations in God, we are the sent ones to do God’s holy will. How will God be using you this Lent? Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of reconciliation. Now is the day to become a new creation in God in Christ. Amen.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Last Sunday After Epiphany - Myra Anderson
Take my lips and speak through them. Take our minds and think with them. Take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.
“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased…”
We end the season of Epiphany where we began it back at Jesus’ baptism. All the same elements: big cloud, booming voice; all the same words: my Son, beloved, well pleased. It’s like bookends to the miracles, stories and revelations that happened in between these two episodes.
“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased…”
We end the season of Epiphany where we began it back at Jesus’ baptism. All the same elements: big cloud, booming voice; all the same words: my Son, beloved, well pleased. It’s like bookends to the miracles, stories and revelations that happened in between these two episodes.
But this time, you’ll notice, there’s more. God follows up this time with a command: “Listen to him!”
Listen to him.
In today’s Gospel passage, Matthew takes us up the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James and John. Jesus is transfigured into this dazzling epiphanic vision. Also making a brief but critical appearance are Moses and Elijah, the lawgiver and the prophet from the Old Testament. Moses and Elijah have been the main players in the Jewish religion up to this point. They appear with Jesus, and Peter is basically convinced, and who can blame him, that this is the “Son of Man coming into his kingdom.” Jesus had told the disciples about this, and here it was. Peter wants to preserve it forever.
Enter the bright cloud and booming voice, and the big pronouncement: “This is my Son, the Beloved.” This is the Messiah, this is me, God, in human form, just like was foretold.
And then the Voice includes a kind of passing of the torch: “Listen to him.”
Actually, given what happens next in the narrative, the emphasis was probably more like this: listen to HIM. When Peter, James and John stop trembling in fear and finally look up, there is no one standing there but Jesus. Moses and Elijah are gone. We’re left with one authority, and this one comes directly from God. Jesus is the way now, listen to HIM.
I would be dishonest if I did not confess to you today that I have struggled with this Gospel and with this sermon. I am looking forward to the rest of you entering into the wilderness journey next week, because I’ve been here for a while.
My first reaction to this narrative was, “Really? Did this really happen? And does it matter?”
All of the theological commentary I came across is emphatic: this happened, and it is critical to the Christian faith. It is in all three synoptic Gospels. The transfiguration establishes the divinity of Jesus, establishes his authority, and points the way to his death and resurrection: it ends with Jesus saying (in his usual style), “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
But there’s a rational side of me that can’t help but view this with a bit of skepticism. Peter was obviously dealing with this same skepticism in his letter to early followers that we read from today. He is adamant that he and others were there to see Jesus in all his glory on that mountain and to hear the affirming words from the bright cloud. He says to them, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
It was also obvious in my research that this was one of the stories, along with the Virgin Birth, the miracles and the Resurrection, that provides the most fodder for atheists and skeptics – Christianity’s detractors. It is the kind of fantastic supernatural tale that makes non-believers roll their eyes, or even sympathetic people dismiss as mere theological metaphor. That’s a very comfortable take on it for many of us. Yet Peter wants us to believe him that this really happened.
So where do we sympathetic skeptics go from here? What do we need to believe, and does it matter? I fear it matters immensely. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
And Peter warns us, “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts
Those words: “be attentive to this”. In other words, “listen.”
As we enter into the Lenten season, we should be praying for the day to dawn and the morning star to rise in our hearts as Peter promises it will. And I think what today’s readings are telling us is that to have a prayer of that happening, we must acknowledge, as Peter did, that Jesus is who he says he is, who God told us he is. We must choose to believe. At the beginning of the Gospel reading today, we are told that the events on the mountain took place six days AFTER Peter acknowledged Jesus as Christ. The revelations on that mountain top were not news, you see, they were a confirmation of what the disciples already believed or thought they believed, and of course, so much more. But they started with that acknowledgement that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Belief, or faith, first – revelation followed.
I will tell you what I believe this day. I believe with all my heart that the grace of God and the peace that we all seek is there for us. I have witnessed it in the lives of many people, many of you, and in the good works and faithful service of the people in this congregation and others. We just have to be open to receiving it. We have to believe it is there for us.
We have to be attentive. We have to listen. As we enter our Lenten wilderness journey together this week, may we heed the first imperative the newly transfigured Christ gives to his disciples on the mountain:
Get up and do not be afraid.
Listen to him.
In today’s Gospel passage, Matthew takes us up the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James and John. Jesus is transfigured into this dazzling epiphanic vision. Also making a brief but critical appearance are Moses and Elijah, the lawgiver and the prophet from the Old Testament. Moses and Elijah have been the main players in the Jewish religion up to this point. They appear with Jesus, and Peter is basically convinced, and who can blame him, that this is the “Son of Man coming into his kingdom.” Jesus had told the disciples about this, and here it was. Peter wants to preserve it forever.
Enter the bright cloud and booming voice, and the big pronouncement: “This is my Son, the Beloved.” This is the Messiah, this is me, God, in human form, just like was foretold.
And then the Voice includes a kind of passing of the torch: “Listen to him.”
Actually, given what happens next in the narrative, the emphasis was probably more like this: listen to HIM. When Peter, James and John stop trembling in fear and finally look up, there is no one standing there but Jesus. Moses and Elijah are gone. We’re left with one authority, and this one comes directly from God. Jesus is the way now, listen to HIM.
I would be dishonest if I did not confess to you today that I have struggled with this Gospel and with this sermon. I am looking forward to the rest of you entering into the wilderness journey next week, because I’ve been here for a while.
My first reaction to this narrative was, “Really? Did this really happen? And does it matter?”
All of the theological commentary I came across is emphatic: this happened, and it is critical to the Christian faith. It is in all three synoptic Gospels. The transfiguration establishes the divinity of Jesus, establishes his authority, and points the way to his death and resurrection: it ends with Jesus saying (in his usual style), “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
But there’s a rational side of me that can’t help but view this with a bit of skepticism. Peter was obviously dealing with this same skepticism in his letter to early followers that we read from today. He is adamant that he and others were there to see Jesus in all his glory on that mountain and to hear the affirming words from the bright cloud. He says to them, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
It was also obvious in my research that this was one of the stories, along with the Virgin Birth, the miracles and the Resurrection, that provides the most fodder for atheists and skeptics – Christianity’s detractors. It is the kind of fantastic supernatural tale that makes non-believers roll their eyes, or even sympathetic people dismiss as mere theological metaphor. That’s a very comfortable take on it for many of us. Yet Peter wants us to believe him that this really happened.
So where do we sympathetic skeptics go from here? What do we need to believe, and does it matter? I fear it matters immensely. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
And Peter warns us, “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts
Those words: “be attentive to this”. In other words, “listen.”
As we enter into the Lenten season, we should be praying for the day to dawn and the morning star to rise in our hearts as Peter promises it will. And I think what today’s readings are telling us is that to have a prayer of that happening, we must acknowledge, as Peter did, that Jesus is who he says he is, who God told us he is. We must choose to believe. At the beginning of the Gospel reading today, we are told that the events on the mountain took place six days AFTER Peter acknowledged Jesus as Christ. The revelations on that mountain top were not news, you see, they were a confirmation of what the disciples already believed or thought they believed, and of course, so much more. But they started with that acknowledgement that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Belief, or faith, first – revelation followed.
I will tell you what I believe this day. I believe with all my heart that the grace of God and the peace that we all seek is there for us. I have witnessed it in the lives of many people, many of you, and in the good works and faithful service of the people in this congregation and others. We just have to be open to receiving it. We have to believe it is there for us.
We have to be attentive. We have to listen. As we enter our Lenten wilderness journey together this week, may we heed the first imperative the newly transfigured Christ gives to his disciples on the mountain:
Get up and do not be afraid.
May we all be eyewitnesses to his glory.
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