Return to Recent Sermons  or  St. Andrews Home page

Born Again Presbyterians

Delivered By Rev. Shelaine Bird

John 3:1-9

February 17, 2008

 

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.  He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.  For no one can do these signs that you do, apart from the presence of God.  Jesus answered him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can SEE the Kingdom of God without being born from above.”  Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old?  Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born again?”  Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit.  What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’  The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’  Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 

Indeed, this is the Word of the Lord!

 

A Nighttime Visit With Jesus

I want to tell you about a man I know named Nicodemus.  He tried to live each day according to what he understood about God, the Law, his own Jewish tradition.  In all things--what he ate, how he tithed, where he worshipped….he sought to be a man of God. 

 

And Nicodemus was a great Pharisee.  His words carried weight in the community because of who he was and what he knew. How many years he spent studying the Law and the Prophets!  Today I picture Nicodemus as a seminary professor, a teacher of teachers.  He knew a lot, enough to recognize how little any of us can ever know. He never stopped learning, you see, because as a good Jew he knew God never stopped working.  We might say he was “Reformed, and Always Being Reformed.”

 

Well something had caught Nicodemus’ attention, or someone, a small town celebrity who seemed to just pop out of thin air.  People were talking about Jesus: his sermons, his miracles, his rag-tag disciples.  He was just another guy on the street, and then suddenly he was the Word on the street.  Nicodemus for one was curious.  He did a background check, a name search on Google, dug up what details were available.  Even at the ridicule of his peers, Nicodemus went to hear Jesus speak. 

 

For the educated, the elite watching from the outside, Jesus was not particularly unique. There were plenty of raving street preachers, more than enough so-called prophets to go around.  Just take your pick.  But something about Jesus grabbed Nicodemus and wouldn’t let go. Nicodemus would stand anonymously in the crowds and then rush home to study the scriptures by night, comparing Jesus’ words with the prophets, his parables with the Torah, scouring for some proof to pin down this street preacher as a fraud.  But Nicodemus found none. 

 

And that, friends, put him in a precarious position.  To go blabbing about Jesus to the Rabbis would call into question his own good standing to confide in his fellow Pharisees would be like professional suicide. They’d think him a fool, or worse.  Still, Nicodemus followed his instincts. 

 

The Rabbis had taught that the Torah should be studied at night, after the work hours ended, after the baby was asleep and the dishes washed, then open God’s word when your mind can to follow where the spirit blows.  I often heed that advice, and so did Nicodemus. Some scholars argue that Nicodemus met Jesus at night because he was trying to hide.  I for one disagree! I’d argue that he went at night because he was a true Pharisee. He wanted to study God’s Word…not the word written, the Torah, but rather what he suspected could be, might be, God’s word in this man.  With a brave heart and Open mind, Nicodemus set out in the blustery night air to find Jesus.  And he did. 

 

When Nicodemus finally finds himself face to face with Jesus, John reports that the first thing Nicodemus does is to address Jesus in a special way—not just as a friend or fellow Jew—but by the word Rabbi, which means Holy Teacher. 

 

Let me be clear.  If that was all Nicodemus accomplished that night, it would have been a lot.  But he goes on, “Rabbi… you are a teacher who has come from God.”  Woah! Hold on there Nicodemus!  Those are ten dangerous words for a Pharisee.

 

The Patron Saint of Presbyterians

But that’s Nicodemus for you: brave, open-minded, big-hearted leader. Those are words I think describe him and funny enough, those are also words I’d use to describe many Presbyterians!  And also our “alphabet soup” friends: the UCC, RCA, ELCA, UMC, and others too. 

 

For better or worse, I love this Presbyterian Church (USA).  If someone asked me to pick a Patron Saint for us (other than St. Andrew!) I think I’d choose Nicodemus. 

 

See, Nicodemus is on to something.  He’s got a hunch that God is doing something new and he’s following God’s trail through study, research, prayer.  He’s following God’s trail through those breezy nighttime streets in search of that elusive Jesus.

 

Nicodemus never pretends to have God all figured out, but he think he’s got a good clue, and he wants to know more.  Nicodemus wants to meet Jesus face to face, to talk theology a bit over a good beer.  He’s wanting a meeting of the minds to study Torah together, to debate Jewish tradition together.  I’ve got to be honest here.  Something in me resonates with this man who wants to learn, to get his mind around, to understand God!                   

 

Boy, wouldn’t he have made a great Presbyterian!  He’d know the Bible and our Book of Confessions cover to cover.  He’d be the one quoting the Book of Order at the congregational meetings.  He’d certainly jump at the chance to serve on Session, at Mackinaw Presbytery, and even at General Assembly because Nicodemus gets it. That when two or more faithful are gathered, even when they don’t agree, they come to a deeper understanding of God.  That’s what this Patron Saint of Presbyterians really wanted.

 

So that’s why Jesus’ response was such a shock for him, and for me.  There he was standing in Jesus’ doorway under the pale moonlight, poor old Nicodemus, confessing that this unheard of, untrained street preacher was really some kind of Rabbi from God!  In my oh-so-Presbyterian heart I wish Jesus would just give him a break.  Just a measly smile, some pat the back.  At least invite him inside for a chat.  Perhaps those two men could have dug some deeper understanding of God.  Surely Jesus sees that Understanding is what he wants.

 

Born Again Presbyterian?

But Jesus doesn’t do any of that.  His words sound utterly unrelated. 

“No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above

…No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit.”

 

Excuse me, Jesus?  Did you even listen to Nicodemus?  Nicodemus was seeking Understanding with all his mind, but all Jesus seem interested in that night is being Born Again! 

 

It probably won’t come as a shock to hear that Presbyterians, as a whole, don’t talk a great deal about being Born Again.  In fact I decided to call today’s sermon “Born Again Presbyterians” just to add a little shock value to the bulletin for many Presbyterians, like other mainline Christians, don’t lay much claim to those words. 

 

And as a church, I think it’s time to begin asking ourselves why.  Off the top of my head I can think of several reasons, but one in particular strikes me.  And that is, I think, that those three words been co-opted. They carry some heavy baggage.

 

But that’s just my opinion.  What’s yours?  Does that phrase “Born Again Christian” in our time and place carry some meaning beyond those three individual words?  For some of us those words have been used perhaps to describe a particular variety of Christian in our contemporary western culture. 

 

And it’s interesting how people describe that group.  Frederick Beuchner, for one, describes Born Again Christians as people who “tend to be a little too friendly, a little too soon…You can’t imagine any of them ever having had a bad moment or a lascivious thought or using a nasty word when they bumped their head getting out of the car.  They speak a great deal about ‘the Lord-the Lord—as if they have him in their hip pocket (Whistling in the Dark, p. 24).

 

I think that today those three words point to some pre-packaged stereotyped spiritual identity, complete with political platforms and a distinct theological language.  I wonder.  If I asked each of us today to predict how a staunch self-proclaimed Born Again Christian would vote on contemporary questions like Home schooling, Gay Marriage, the War in Iraq, the Morning-After Pill, Intelligent Design, I wonder how similar, how stereotyped our predictions would be?  Whatever else they are, the words Born Again Christian are a loaded gun.

 

And please hear me.  I’m not trying to mock our brethren in the faith, or even lob them all together, because we’re not all the same.  I just want to name the tension that many Presbyterians and other mainline Christians have felt.  Many of us have abandoned all hopes of ever being “Born Again” whatever that means. 

 

And as read again about Nicodemus and Jesus this week, I realize what a low-down shame that really is   for us.

 

Being Born Again, Jesus Style

Nicodemus, our Presbyterian Patron Saint, who wanted to understand God, didn’t get what he wanted from Jesus:  no Soup and Scripture, no Lunch Bunch debate.  And who knows?  Maybe Jesus just wanted to get rid of him, after all it was the middle of the night.  Or, maybe these words of Jesus, which seem so unrelated, are just what Nicodemus--and all us Presbyterian types--needed to hear.

 

Understanding God with his mind is what Nicodemus wanted more than anything else.  But Jesus knew a secret: understanding God doesn’t start with the mind. 

 

Augustine said it first: “fides quaerens intellectum” or “Faith Seeking Understanding.”  It doesn’t start with logic, or analysis, or fact.  True understanding of God begins with Faith.  With messy faith, with childlike Faith, with faith which can’t even be proven. 

 

Understanding God starts with Faith that encompasses our whole selves: from body to soul, heart to brain, all wrapped up together  Faith that comes from giving up control.  Faith that turns our whole world on its head! Faith that means somehow becoming alive again, like being born again!  Faith seeking Understanding, not the other way around.  And perhaps that’s the piece Nicodemus was missing. 

 

Our Nicodemus was a brave, brilliant Pharisee.  His radar picked up on Jesus. Oh yes, Nicodemus was on to God.  Buy what his mind couldn’t fathom is that God was on to him too!  Nicodemus was following God all night, but God had been following Nicodemus all along.  Blowing that ancient breeze ahead of him, wrapping that mighty wind ‘round him, even as he trudged through the gusty dusty streets.  

 

“Jesus says, “Do not be astonished that I say, ‘You must be born from above.’ 

The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it,

but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. 

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’”

 

Did you catch that?  After all the wondering and worrying that people like me—and maybe you--have done over those three loaded words, how does Jesus finally describe it!  Standing in the wind.  That’s Jesus’ best shot at defining what it means to be Born Again? Standing in the Wind. 

 

Standing in the Wind?  Not able to tell what direction God is moving in, or when, or why, or how.  Just standing there, standing in the wind.  That’s the best Jesus can give Nicodemus that windy night, as he stands sleepy eyed in the doorway.:  “Being born again is like…it’s like…standing in the wind, Nicodemus.”

 

Hmmm.  I wonder about that wind, as I’m know Nicodemus did.  When we stand in this wind, as Jesus talks about, how can we ever be sure, even prove, that’s it’s really God blowing around us?  How can we be prepared for it?  Protect ourselves from it?  How do we study it, analyze it?  How can we control it?  Jesus’ answer: We can’t.

 

Dictating, controlling this breath of God, is as impossible as dictating when or how someone could be Born Again.  We don’t really know.  The wind picks up.  The gales howl around the corners of our soul.  And suddenly, when we least expect it, it just happens: New Life.

 

Life, based not just on knowing things: not doctrines, traditions, creeds.  Rather, new life based on being known inside and out, as God’s wind blows right through us. 

 

Standing in the Wind.  Humbled and vulnerable.  Caught up in wonder.  That’s where Faith lives, in the wind.  That’s where Understanding begins.

 

Born from above.  Born of water and spirit.  Born in the rushing of wind.  According to Jesus, that’s what it means to be a real Born Again Christian.  How different from the stories I always heard as a child.

 

Born Again Nicodemus

I’ve been thinking about Nicodemus this week, because as you can tell, I’m really rather fond of him.   And I started wondering about what happened to Nicodemus next.  Did that wonderful man who sought understanding ever get caught up in the wind himself?  Did God’s breath find him one day, rush around a corner and blow him off his feet?  Did Nicodemus become a Born Again Christian? 

 

Well, I don’t know all of that, but I do know this.  I know that the next time we find Nicodemus in the Bible he is quite a changed man.

 

It’s still him, good ole Nic, the Patron Saint of the Presbyterians.  He’s still the night owl.  He’s still wandering the windy streets in the shadows of dusk.  But this time, there’s something different.

 

When we find Nicodemus again, he’s not quite so sure of himself.  Nicodemus’ eyes are the same eyes we see here today, but it’s like they’ve been windblown you see.  And when he opens them he seem not bits of fact and proof, not right and wrong, but little glimpses of Kingdom all around him now. 

 

The next time we find Nicodemus he is walking beside Joseph not to Jesus’ home this time, but to Jesus’ tomb.  Carrying in his arms not the student’s textbooks nor the priests’ scrolls, but ointments and aloes and myrrh to rub onto Jesus’ body.

 

The next time we find Nicodemus, he’s not searching for something called Truth.  He’s searching for someone he now understands is Truth, someone dead in the dark still Tomb. 

 

Faith seeking Understanding.  Faith that comes not from inside us: our minds, our hearts, our hopes.  But Faith that comes from being swept up off our feet by God’s breath, by a wind we never saw coming.  Faith that turns our whole world upside down.

 

As we continue down this path of Lent, may God’s wind knock us off our feet, friends.  May we Presbyterians and Congregationalists and Lutherans and Reformed Church folks be born again, and again and again, and again in the wild windy grace of our God.  Amen.

 

 Copyright 2008 Rev. Shelaine R. Bird

Return to Recent Sermons  or  St. Andrews Home page