for the 2nd Sunday in Lent, 20th March 2011
text: John 3:1-17
During this season of Lent, the Revised Common Lectionary, which is the list of scriptures used by many churches, assigns passages from the gospel of John. Now John’s gospel is, to put it in polite Minnesotan, “different.” I remember reading the gospels in canonical order for the first time, staring with Matthew, then Mark and Luke, chapter one verse one until the end. [This was when I was in high school. I used to read the Bible before I went to bed at night. Because I didn’t want my parents to worry that I was turning into some religious freak, I hid the bible in a shoebox under my bed.] When I got to John, I thought, “Is this the same Jesus?” John’s Jesus talks differently, thinks differently, relates to people differently than the Jesus of the other gospels. There are stories and characters in John’s gospel that appear nowhere else. It really bothered me. For a long time it has bothered me.
But, [as I wrote previously in my blog] perhaps the gospel of John is to the other gospels as a poetic ballad is to a historical novel. Perhaps the gospel of John is an attempt to convey the experience of Jesus. John’s gospel was compiled as many as 40 years after Mark, decades after Matthew and Luke. It is different. The gospel according to John is not another collection of the sayings of Jesus, not another collection of the letters of apostles-- the church already had those by the time the gospel of John was created. So the gospel of John had another mission. I think this gospel was an attempt to convey the experience of Jesus to people who had never met him in the flesh. It was an attempt to explain to new Christians “This is what it is like to meet Jesus.”
The people we meet in the gospel of John-- Nicodemus, the Samaritan Woman, the man born blind, and Lazarus—each one is, in a sense, an "Everyman," or "Everywoman." Their stories are examples of how we might experience the Christ in our lives.
This week, we will consider how the Jesus Experience is like “being born again.” Next week we will consider how the Jesus experience is like drinking water so pure and refreshing that you are never thirsty again. The following week, how the Jesus Experience is like seeing the world clearly for the first time ever, and finally, like coming back from the dead. “The Jesus Experience” is an invitation to contemplate the presence of Jesus, the Christ, in our lives.
So, meet Nicodemus. A Pharisee. One of THOSE people who were always critical of Jesus. And yet, Nicodemus is drawn to Jesus. This is Nicodemus’s first appearance in the gospel, but we will meet him again, as we read along. At this point, in the third chapter of John’s gospel, Nic’s relationship with Jesus is just beginning. In the beginning, Nicodemus seems to be suffering from a divided self. Nicodemus follows Jesus in secret, because he is firmly entrenched in his family and community as a leader of the conservative movement, the movement that views strict adherence to the law, or to a particular interpretation of the law of Moses, as Israel’s only salvation. He continues to live as a Pharisee, but follows Jesus in secret, and that’s what I mean by a divided self, he is trying to live in two worlds. So the story goes that he comes to Jesus in secret, to say (in paraphrase), Hey, I’m on your side. I know you are from God, because no one could do what you do apart from God.
Jesus called him out. You can’t follow me half-way.
Jesus said, you must be born again, born anew, born from above. (All acceptable translations.)
“Born again” is one of those terms that people in my tradition say with at least a hint of derision. My tradition is “cradle Christianity.” It was the goal of 19th century Congregationalists and Presbyterians and others in the mainstream Protestant tradition, who invented the “Sunday School,” that a child born into the church should never know what it is NOT to be Christian. I think they did their job well, so well in fact that it is hard for us “cradle Christians” to understand just how difficult it is to make a change from being “not particularly religious” to claiming the name of Christian. It is like being born again. Because a person who leaves one identity, one community, one family for another is completely vulnerable, naked and scared, and in need of special care and protection. Like a newborn infant.
The image of being born again of water and the Spirit is a reference to baptism; that reference would have been clear to the first Christians reading John’s gospel. In the early church, adult converts were baptized during the great Easter vigil. In the pre-dawn darkness, catechumens were led to the baptistery, a circular building outside of a church, often a womb-like structure, where they undressed, immersed themselves in the water, and emerged cold and wet as a new born babe. They were then received by their new family, their Christian family, toweled off and anointed with oil, and dressed in a new white robe. Just like a newborn baby.
If you are, like me, a cradle Christian, if you have a hard time imagining what it would be like to embrace a life that is wholly foreign to your family and your community, then perhaps you can think of a different sort of change in your life that has been like being born again. Your coming out, your leaving home, your return from battle. Think of a welcome change, which made you tremble in anticipation of – you knew not what.
That is what it is like having Christ in your life, it is like being born again, naked and screaming.
Now, in the past, if a church like ours has grown, it has grown because people who were raised in a tradition like ours moved to our town and transferred their membership from their church in Anoka or Wadena or Zumbrota to became a member of our church. That was then, this is now.
Now, the fastest growing religious demographic in America is that group that checks the box “no religious preference.” Now, when a young couple comes to me for a wedding, and I ask them if they are affiliated with a local church (because, I believe being a professional means I shouldn’t steal some other pastor’s wedding!), usually they have to go back two generations to identify a religious affliliation. The bride and groom didn’t go to church, their parents didn’t go to church, but they seem to remember that Grandma used to go to St. Something or Other until she moved to Florida. So now, if the church is going to grow, it is going to have to be ready to care for infant Christians. We as a church have to be born again, we have to change our way of thinking and relating to the world. The old assumptions no longer apply.
We now need to be ready to care for those who are completely new to the faith. Those who, because of their decision to follow Christ, might need a new family. Our newest members will need us to be their family. We will need to think like a nursery, if we are to help other people have the Jesus experience that we cradle Christians have taken for granted. The Jesus experience is too good to keep to ourselves. It is an experience that we want to share with others.
But, I don’t want you to get the idea that it’s all work, work, work. Just as a new baby brings joy to a family, newborn Christians infuse the church with new joy. New and newly born folks tend to have the energy and stamina and enthusiasm to bring new life to an old congregation. If we let them.
We have watch ourselves, lest we be tempted to say those killer words, “We’ve never done it that way before.” We ought to be ready to say, “We’ve never done it that way before. Let’s try it!”
We may even find ourselves being born anew, to a new understanding of our faith. Being born again doesn’t necessarily happen only once. As one of my favorite musicians named after two apostles, Paul Simon, sang:
I was born before my father and my children before meBorn and born again. That’s the way it’s always been, and God willing, that’s how it will be. Thanks Be to God. Amen!
And we are born and born again like the waves of the sea.
That’s the way it’s always been. That’s how I want it to be.
(Senorita with a Necklace of Tears, 2000)
