Now there are toys, I suppose, that get their wires crossed and keep repeating the same pattern....boing...boing. But I am hoping that for most of us I don't have to begin there. We all understand, right, that the same action leads to the same result?
So we're up a level, cruising along, trying this, trying that...one direction, then another. For the most part we're operating unconsciously, groping for direction...doing what we do. And we're not surprised that we run into things. At least there is movement. We do keep moving. Yesterday we took a walk with the dog at York Woods. Beautiful place - the snowy landscape, the trees. But wherever you are, you can hear the traffic, from Roosevelt Road, Hwy 88, York too....just a constant humm. We keep moving. So sometimes we go a little further than across the room, but for the most part, wherever we go we just end up, boing...going another direction again.
Sometimes we look up from all this movement. Sometimes it is a tragic event that shakes us...the deaths of young people who ought not to have died. That should give us pause...make us wonder where we're going. And maybe some of you came through the weather of this day just be here, to pause from all the moving about because there is a need for orientation. I have to say, I'm glad I'm here.
And there was something that interrupted Nicodemus from his routines, his movements, his normal circles. For this was no routine visit. It was made secretly, in the night...you know, the kind of night before Thomas Edison, when night was really night. That's when Nicodemus sneaks away to ask Jesus some questions. Maybe he senses that Jesus has something...beyond the walls that he keeps him bound, turning again and again.
And I can't help but have the impression that even then, in the course of the conversation, Jesus is trying to get through now not any physical barriers of routine, but barriers of understanding. And I relate. The other day I was trying find an address. I went by it 3 times before figuring it out. Sometimes you just keep missing.
And that's how it is. Nicodemus asks his questions and each one is a little off, never quite hitting the mark... "How can anyone be born after they are old?" And Jesus gives his explanation: that this has to do with being born from above, that it has to do with spiritual birth. And if we could see Nicodemus as well as hear his next words, I imagine him just kind of throwing up his hands in total frustration, for now he can't even formulate the question anymore. All he can say is, "How can these things be?"
And he doesn't get it. And it doesn't just happen to Nicodemus. It happens to the disciples - a lot. Boing...Like a ball in a pinball game.
And Jesus stays steady, on message. But how to make unconscious people conscious? How do you help them to see what they're not seeing? What language do you use? Like being "born again" he says.
Now many people who use that phrase have boinged the life right out it. They've made it a formula. They've made it an automatic kind of rote thing about something that happened to them once and now they have it.
But I don't think that's what Jesus meant at all. It's about being born every day to a living presence of God at work. It's like Marcus' Borg's book...which actually had a much better title than a book... Meeting Jesus Again...for the First Time. It's being born again, again. Because you can have a moment of God-consciousness, but if God isn't living with you in the next moment, that last moment is over and done with and you're just back to hitting walls again.
You've heard the question, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? I'm convinced the answer is, who cares? In a similar way, if a Christian isn't a conscious Christian...awake, alert, moving with some purpose, then what's the point of calling yourself "Christian."
Last Sunday I suggested to the new leaders that the call to service is grounded in our baptism. I want to leave that little baptismal fount here at Bethel in front of us this Lenten season. We're not going to rebaptize anyone, but we all need to be aware of our baptism, our calling, our naming, our identity in Christ. The season of Lent is about reclaiming that call...making it more conscious.
You know, Jesus doesn't water this down for Nicodemus. Nicodemus is obviously slow. But there's no going slow for this. Jesus pushes him. And if we're aware of Jesus in our own lives, I suspect Jesus is trying to push us too...to make more of us, to enliven us, to let our faith live, to open it up, expand it, deepen it....take our faith out of the customary circles in which it is trapped and let it grow. Make of our expected faith an unexpected faith - like new...newborn!
Fred Craddock tells his story from the south...
"A kid comes to school on Monday morning with a big cast on her leg. What happened? 'I was in an accident and broke my leg, and here's my long cast and crutch." Suddenly here are all the other kids, and they're singing the cast. This girl didn't know she had so many friends; she's got 97 names on the cast before noon. 'Here, let me help you with your crutch,' 'Here, I'll take your books,' 'Here, I'll help you to the cafeteria and get your tray for you.' Yesterday she didn't have any friends and now they're just crawling out from everywhere. Good, right?
"A child is sick. He has a this long sickness that lasts 3 months. Mother is holding him and fretting over her feverish child. There are 3 other children, and they're not getting any attention. 'Peanut butte's on the bottom shelf..." Pretty soon one of the other children comes and says, 'Mama, my stomach hurts.' You know why? She forgot. She forgot that the other children who are well need her too. The children that are happy need her too. The children for whom things are going well need her too.
"I remember on the farm in west Tennessee," continues Craddock, " - ugly recollections in my life - I was born and raised among the black people around there. The white people loved the black people as long as they were dependent. They called them 'Aunt' and 'Uncle.' A black woman would clean your house and take for her pay the leftovers from the evening meal. They were nice people. That was one generation. And then comes this black woman of another generation, down the street. 'Well, what are you doing?'
"She's dressed up. 'Well, it's spring break at the university.'
'You're at the university?'
'Yeah.'
'What are you doing?'
'I'm in law school.'
"Blacks these days!" comes the comment. Do we sometimes do better with people who are dependent, almost to the point where we pounce on the misfortune of others? We show our sympathy and our caring. And that's all right and good, of course. But if our Christian faith only teaches how to be sympathetic to those who are weak and in need...maybe it's also good to recognize that it's a good, Christian thing to respect the strength of others too. (Craddock Stories, p. 72)
And I don't know exactly how God may be at work in your life trying to grow your faith, enlarge it, expand it. But I think that's what Jesus was doing with Nicodemus. And I think that's what God is hoping with us.
Let us pray,
God, sometimes we've taken a lively and energetic faith and watered it down...dumbed it down...calmed it down. Reawaken us. Enliven us. Let the unconscious be conscious. Give us new eyes to see and new ears to hear and new hearts to respond with faith that is alert to your living Spirit. Amen.
Children: Sunglasses were needed these days! We hadn't seen the sun in awhile, but when striking the snow, it did become bright. It's a reflection, like the light of the moon is reflected sunlight. We are meant to reflect God's light.