This sermon was preached at Second Presbyterian Church on January 28, 2018
Read John 3:1-21
We have a lot of new life, a lot of births happening around here lately.
Have you noticed?
For one, we just celebrated two baptisms,
welcoming the Forest twins into our church family.
Baptism is, of course, the sign of birth
that is not of flesh and blood
but that comes as a gift from above,
the sign of God’s new covenant with us through Jesus Christ.
We Presbyterians baptize infants and young children
as a way of celebrating that God cleans us, giving us new birth through the Holy Spirit
long before we have any capacity to understand the power
of that amazing claim in our lives.
Today’s baptisms are not the first ones this year,
and they will not be the last ones for very long,
as we have several more scheduled in February and March.
One church member,
a woman just a tad beyond childbearing years,
informed me that she was refusing to drink the water around here
for fear of joining the joyous trend of new births.
But it is not just the birth of babies that is happening around here.
We are also birthing new ways of being community together.
Immediately after worship this morning,
you will be electing a new board of deacons.
Those 30 beautiful faces in your bulletin today are our nominations.
These folks will help us find fresh ways of being connected
and caring for one another.
You will also be electing a new nominating committee
so that we can continue to birth new lay leaders in 2018.
One could even say at this point in January
that we are eagerly awaiting signs of new birth in our natural world.
February 2 is Groundhog Day,
and while yesterday’s rain and gray skies may have been a bit dreary,
we might hope for the same weather again this coming Friday
so that that little critter in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania,
does not see his shadow and thus beckons an early spring.
A friend of mine said this week,
“I’ve been feeling so discouraged as I think we’ve lost our way as a nation,
but my hopefulness was brought back this week,
remembering that we ask a groundhog for his opinion on the transition of seasons.”
Yes, new life is springing up around us here in lots of ways,
and the messengers sometimes come in surprising forms.
The lead character in our text today, Nicodemus,
often gets a bad rap for being slightly dense.
But he does know well enough to go to a reputable source for some guidance.
I always think of him as coming in the dark of night to Jesus with questions,
which is why it is important to revisit these familiar texts from time to time.
Because when Nicodemus first comes to Jesus, he did not bring a question;
instead he made an announcement,
something you might expect a learned man to do:
“I have seen your miracles, your signs and wonders, and I know that you are from God.
I know who you are.”
Paraphrasing slightly, Jesus answered him,
“No, actually you don’t.
I guess you saw me supply wine for the wedding feast
and cleanse the temple of those making a business there,
but if you think you can use this evidence to draw logical, rational conclusions,
you are wrong.
If this is your profession of faith,
you do not know what faith is.
Faith involves commitments and risks.
Your sneaking over here in the dark of night to tell me who I am is not faith.
You need to start from scratch and be born from above, my friend.”
Now the questions begin to roll.
“What on earth are you talking about, Jesus?
How am I supposed to be born after I’ve grown old?
Surely it’s not possible to be born a second time.”
Jesus’ response is something along the lines of,
“Listen, old dogs can learn new tricks, but you have to be open to the idea, Nicodemus,
and I’m not so sure you are.”
To be fair, Nicodemus has put a lot of effort,
an investment of years, and a lifetime of experience
into becoming an expert as a Pharisee, a Jewish leader.
That’s a lot to let go of,
so it’s not all that hard to understand why he hesitates with a plethora of questions.
I suspect if we’re honest with ourselves, we can relate a bit.
I’m looking at a very educated and talented group of people here.
Being asked to set aside what you know,
what you have nurtured into being,
likely through many years of study and practice,
is no small matter.
Why would we let go of any semblance of control we might have,
or think we have?
As churchgoing folks, we know that our Lord and Savior
allowed himself to be utterly vulnerable,
but that doesn’t mean that we want to exhibit vulnerability ourselves.
It’s hard for most of us to admit we have needs.
Who wants to be seen as weak or incompetent, or lacking in any way?
We want to be self-sufficient!
— But, we need to face reality.
And if we can’t directly, sometimes it catches us by surprise.
A story from my own life might help illuminate this.
About 15 years ago, I had a hernia surgery and spent 24 hours in a recovery room
with a 90-plus-year-old fellow patient.
She was agitated, calling out to a son I suspected was no longer of this earth.
At one point, she began to cry for a blanket.
The nurses must have been busy, because no one came.
Without thinking, I hopped out of bed to get one for her
and promptly crumped to the floor.
Being in my early thirties,
physically fit and never having undergone a surgery before,
it didn’t occur to me that I might be slightly incapacitated at the moment.
The IV pole I was hooked up to didn’t even clue me in.
I laughed at myself, I think, or rather I may have done my best
to spring back into bed before a nurse came and saw how foolish I had been.
Being vulnerable is not for the weak of heart.
And yet, it is what our faith calls of us.
One could say that a spiritual journey invites us to continually fall on our faces,
and then get up, brush ourselves off, look sheepishly at God,
and take another step.
This is not a particularly pleasant process;
it’s humbling.
Barbara Brown Taylor, a renowned preacher and Episcopalian priest,
speaks for many of us, I think, when she says,
“If I had to name my disability, I would call it an unwillingness to fall.
This reluctance signals mistrust of the central truth of the Christian gospel—
that life springs from death,
not only at the last but also in the many little deaths along the way.”
If we live long enough,
or really live fully at all,
there are countless experiences
that call us to let go of the old and embrace the new.
There are big things, like coming to terms with the actual death of a loved one.
Or “adjusting to a new normal” as we used to call it in hospital chaplaincy,
when one has been diagnosed with a chronic illness.
Or weathering a divorce.
Or even welcoming a new baby into our family.
There are also little deaths,
ones that are really quite trivial in the grand scheme of things
but which can disrupt us just the same.
For example, I got up one day this week
and traveled through the damp darkness of predawn city streets
for a 6:00 a.m. yoga class,
only to find that it had been cancelled when I got there.
It’s crazy how much that situation threw me.
I had so perfectly envisioned the way my day was going to go,
and I was thrown for a loop, out in the dark, cold, early morning,
unable to start the day as I had planned and completely at a loss
for what useful thing I could do at 5:45 a.m.
And so, I invite each of you to consider what might need to die in your life right now.
Not a very pleasant question to consider or ask,
but it is relevant nonetheless.
A friend recently reminded me that everything we say “yes” to,
or allow to be born,
requires saying “no” to something else, allowing it to die.
So what needs to go in your life?
Are you willing to step into God’s light where these things can be revealed?
This requires considerable courage,
as seeing what needs to change is generally pretty uncomfortable.
It might help to hear a new beatitude, thanks to Dr. Michael McGriffy:
“Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.”
If we consider all the small gyrations we must do on a daily basis,
much less in the larger seasons of life,
we could say that life is just one adjustment after another.
Flexibility, or being attentive to where the wind blows,
is pretty important and seldom easy.
It might help to recall verse 3:16 in our reading today,
arguably the most well-known verse in the Bible,
the one Martin Luther said was the gospel in a nutshell—
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life.”
Jesus.
That is the One who holds us in the midst of our many necessary deaths
and continual rebirths.
We are in good hands.
There is a canvas out in the narthex,
which I invite you to look at as you leave today.
I find that sometimes images speak louder than words.
It’s a photo I took several years ago —
or maybe I should say the Holy Spirit captured it through me
(as I was utterly shocked at the powerful image I saw on my camera screen upon first viewing it).
It’s an image of a man and a little boy holding hands
and walking through a dark tunnel into a blinding light.
For me, it is a reminder that God invites us throughout our life journey to step out in faith — into what sometimes is a blinding, disorienting light —
and grow into the new person God is manifesting in us.
Will you pray with me?
Gracious God, guide us in the midst of life’s many twists and turns.
Help us trust you as we embrace life,
as we are called to lose certain aspects of our lives,
and invited to step into new resurrected life.
Strengthen us so that we may bravely step out of the shadows into your light,
where we are shown the need to be remade continually in you.
We give thanks for your choice to enter our world,
taking on the limitations of being human and thus being a companion like no other.
In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.