Going Someplace New

Written by Ed Kauffman

Going Someplace New

Lent 2 – March 20, 2011

Ed Kauffman

 

Shaped by New Birth – John 3: 1-17

 

Do you know what it’s like to pack up and move to another country?  Do you know what it’s like to head for a new experience not knowing for sure what lies ahead?  Do you know what it’s like to feel totally helpless, faced with a situation that seems out of your control?

 

I’m sure many, if not most of you could answer yes to at least one of those questions.  We have all faced situations like that.  It’s what Abram was called to do, recorded in Genesis 12.  “Leave your father’s house and go to a land I will show you,” says God.  How scary is that?  “Pack up your things and move to Calgary,” says God.  How scary is that?  And sometimes we are forced to make such moves, as we heard in Agatha Koop’s story, and as many of you can relate. 

 

So why is it so hard for Nicodemus to understand when Jesus tells him that entering the Kingdom of God is like being born again?  Perhaps he had forgotten the history of his ancestors.  But I suspect what we have here is not so much a matter of not understanding, as perhaps a case of understanding all too well.  I believe it was Mark Twain who said it wasn’t the parts of the Bible he didn’t understand that troubled him, but rather the parts he understood all too well!

 

Nicodemus was a religious leader, well-schooled in the Law and prophets.  We sometimes forget that when we read this passage, as it has often been used to talk about people moving from unfaith to faith.  But Nicodemus was a Pharisee, he believed in God, he undoubtedly practiced his faith religiously. He had helped make the rules.  He was in control.   He was like- you and me. 

 

And, while I’m sure he was not in on the birth of his children as we are today, he wasn’t totally ignorant of what birth entailed.  He even says, “Can someone go back into their mother’s womb and be reborn?”  So it wasn’t as though he didn’t understand the concept.

 

But being reborn implies entering something new, a new state of being, a new place.  It means entering into some unknowns.  And none of us particularly like to face that prospect.  I recall a forensics, speech, piece that several of our son’s classmates did entitled, “Deliver me Not” in which several fetuses discuss their impending due date and whether there is life after birth.  It was a hilarious piece, yet probed some real questions.  One of them declares that there is nothing out there. “You’re conceived, you live, you’re born, and that’s it!”, he says, “there’s nothing after birth!”  But the overwhelming sense is that they’re comfortable where they are at, and concerned about what lies ahead, thus the title, Deliver Me Not!

 

I’ll be honest.  I don’t particularly like walking into new situations.  That may seem strange given my profession and all the moves I’ve made, but it’s true.  In that sense I suppose I’m like the definition of a conservative I once hear – that’s conservative with a small “c” not the political kind.  “A conservative, “ this person said, “is someone who, all things being equal, never does anything for the first time.” 

 

Yet Jesus says that if you want to enter the Kingdom of God, you have to start over.  It’s like entering a foreign country, being a refugee, being reborn.  It’s facing into an unknown future that is out of your control.  When we registered our children with the US embassy in Toronto we were told that they could maintain dual citizenship because “it wasn’t their fault that they were born in Canada.”  And it’s true, it wasn’t.  We are each born into times and circumstances that are not our choosing, and that then form us for the rest of our lives in some way. 

 

And so, Jesus says, when you enter the Kingdom of God, you also enter into a new set of circumstances that are no longer of your own choosing.  You don’t come in on your terms, but rather on God’s terms.  You give yourself over to the Spirit, which blows where it wills.  Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher/theologian, talked about it as a “leap of faith.”  Just like picking up and heading for a new homeland, not knowing what lies in store.

 

And, yes that can be scary.  Birth is messy, and involves pain.  For the baby being born it involves leaving the safety and comfort of the womb to enter a world of bright lights, noise, and seeming confusion.  A world in which they can’t communicate and are under the control of and at the mercy of others.  If they are lucky, they enter a benevolent world, with loving parents who care for them, look after them and guide them toward what’s best.

 

And that’s also the world we enter as new- borns in the Kingdom of God.  While giving up control may be scary and not knowing what God may call you to do can be a bit daunting, we are assured that we enter a kingdom with a benevolent ruler.  “For God so loved the world that God gave his only son. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:16-17)  Not only that, but we have a model to follow, namely Jesus Christ who was obedient to God, trusting that God would vindicate him, which God did.

 

All too often, we like Nicodemus, want to enter the Kingdom, but hang onto our control, keep everything nice and neat and tidy.  Being called to something new, going into the unknown just isn’t our cup of tea.  All this talk about being led by the Spirit makes us nervous.  What if God calls us like he did Abram?  What if we are asked to do something we’ve never done before? 

 

For us, as for Nicodemus, it’s not a matter of moving from no faith to faith, from unbelief to belief.  Rather it is a matter of moving from a belief in God that has it all figured out and in which we maintain a certain control over the outcome, to a faith modeled for us by Jesus who followed God, even to the point of death.  It is allowing the Spirit to blow where it wills, and being open to being led by that Spirit.  It means making that leap of faith, confident that a God who loves the whole world enough to send his Son, will not condemn us, but give us eternal life.

 

That is the God I serve.  It is that confidence that allows me to pull up stakes and leave for a new place, a new situation, not knowing for sure what all that will mean, but knowing that God’s Spirit is at work within us.  And that is the leap I invite you to take as well.  To enter life in a new way, to enter a new country – the Kingdom of God.  To live in a new way, with a different viewpoint and new ways of relating to each other and to the world around us.

 

As we come to the table of the Lord this morning, I invite you to see this as a renewal of your leap of faith.  In the broken body and shed blood of Jesus we are reminded of the cost that obedience can sometimes take.  Our ancestors in the faith knew well that cost, and yet choose to follow the path of Jesus, for which we can be most grateful.  We are surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses that has gone before us and testifies to the loving God who wants the best for us and guides us in that way.

 

And so I invite you to be reborn, born again, born from above, or however you want to translate those words.  To open yourself to the leading of God’s Spirit, and to trust in where that leading takes you.  I invite you to enter that Kingdom where we are all as infants, learning anew what it means to live following the ways of God shown to us and taught to us by the one who has seen God, namely Jesus Christ.  We have companions on the way, brothers and sisters in Christ to help us.  And so I invite you to come to the table, partake of Christ’s body, broken for us and commit yourselves anew to the way of Christ and to the Kingdom of God.

 

Let us pray:

 

Loving God, as we come to this table which you have set before us, may we open ourselves to your Spirit and be renewed in our whole being so that we may truly see your Kingdom come among us.  Thank you for your love, shown to us in Jesus, and for his willingness to die on our behalf.  Forgive us for our unwillingness to trust in you.  Amen.