In the old days, people didn’t really choose their religion. When I was growing up you were born Roman Catholic or Presbyterian or Methodist or Lutheran. You only changed because of marriage or some sort of scandal. The church I grew up in was established about 10 years before I was born, and the founders of the church were, for the most part converts, They hadn’t been raised as Episcopalians. I know many of you weren’t raised as Episcopalians, but something changed and you found yourself, one day, an Episcopalian—or at least regularly attending an Episcopal church. You choose to be here. Something attracted you and here you are.
In Jesus’ culture people didn’t choose a religion, you were born a Jew or you were born a Gentile. There wasn’t any crossover. And there wasn’t any such thing as conversion. You were either in or you were out.
Within Judaism there wasn’t much crossover either. The Pharisees ruled the temple and all other Jews were subject to their decisions. That’s just the way it was. The Pharisees, as we all know, were threatened by Jesus . At first, they considered his message harmless, just another crazy man, making noise out on the fringes of civilized society. But the closer he got to Jerusalem, the more serious he was taken and the bigger threat he became.
So when Nicodemus arrives, under the dark of night to visit Jesus, it would have been easy to assume, if you were Jesus, that this was the beginning of the end. That Nicodemus was a threat, a force to be reckoned with, a danger from which he should run and hide. But instead, Jesus assumes that Nicodemus has come of his own free will, attracted by Jesus’ message. And there is nothing in our reading to suggest that this wasn’t the case. As a matter of fact, this encounter is the first of three encounters between the men, the final being when Nicodemus openly assists Joseph of Arimaethea in readying Jesus’ body for burial. From a stealth visit under the shroud of darkness, to an open defiance of Temple politics, Nicodemus evolves from curious questioner, to bereaved believer. But unaware (or unconcerned with what will happen in the future) Jesus, never one to shy away from a teachable moment, commences with Nicodemus’ lesson, telling him that all he knows, all he believes, means nothing until he is born again—born from above.
I don’t know about you, but the whole notion of being born again, startles me. Extremist Fundamentalist groups who employ reactionary, exclusionary and myopic theologies of hate use being born again as a litmus test for whether one is with them or against them. For them it’s a one-time event of conversion, which makes one Saved or Not. But that’s NOT what Jesus is telling Nicodemus. He doesn’t say, “Turn your back on all you know and follow me.” He says, “turn your heart over to God and let the spirit of God guide you into a new way of living.” For Jesus, being born from above isn’t a one-time event which stamps your “get into heaven free” card. To be born again, according to Jesus, is to work with our Creator God, opening ourselves up to the wind of spirit and truth, a wind that will carry us to places we never imagined.
We are born again when we choose to live as God’s instruments in the world, working with creation instead of against. We are born again when we treat one another and the earth we share, with respect and compassion and honor. We spiritually live when we work with God, we spiritually die when we resist the ebb and flow of God’s creation, when we deny the presence of grace in our lives.
To be born again is to accept that life changes all the time, that we are part of that great unfolding, which began at the creation of first light and will end on the last day.
For the evangelist John, the author of today’s gospel, faith isn’t a noun, it’s a verb . In his Gospel, one’s belief in Christ isn’t something we are born into once and for all, it is something we are born into through our own decisive action, day in and day out. Belief and Faith are not destinations, they are vehicles.
In John’s Gospel faith moves, belief grows and choices are made. In John’s view, the fundamental component of faith is living it. Just like the world wasn’t created in 7 days but is, instead, in a continual process of creating, our faith unfolds each and every day, growing in different ways, changing, enhancing, renewing.
Jesus tells Nicodemus that the only way we can become one with God is to act in tandem with God, to move with God; for God is never stagnant, God is never regulated, God cannot be codified, God cannot be catalogued.
Nicodemus, by approaching Jesus in the first place, is being born again. Because, as a Pharisee, Nicodemus had nothing to gain by visiting Jesus. He could have gone along with the others, assuming that any teaching which was outside the strict code of Pharisaic law, was wrong and that anyone professing such a school of thought should be silenced. But instead Nicodemus in approaching Jesus, in choosing to hear what Jesus had to say, to listening to his words decided for himself. Nicodemus’ faith wasn’t stagnant, his belief wasn’t static. Nicodemus’ faith was dynamic, his belief active.
The fundamental message of John’s Gospel is that God is Love and that God’s Love is poured out upon creation without discrimination and without reserve. That God will pour out this spirit of love, whether we think we deserve it or not and---more importantly---whether we think anyone else deserves it or not.
Our decision isn’t whether or not to believe that God is love. Our decision is whether or not we will accept that this love is moving through all of us, right now. And whether or not we have the energy, the stamina and the resolve to keep up with it. You see, God’s love moves like the wind, blowing where it chooses—our choice is whether we’ll allow ourselves to be taken up by it, for if we do, we’ll travel to places unreachable to those who refuse to move. By choosing to live faithfully and to let our belief unfold we are indeed born again, and again and again. +
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