Jack McKinney
Pullen Memorial Baptist Church
February 17, 2008 – Second Sunday in Lent
Text: John 3:1-10
Let’s Not Make a Deal
Our minds have a way of making up answers when we are not sure what is going on. And in doing so we often make something that is complex rather simple, perhaps too simple.
For example, one of you recently told me your childhood interpretation of what was happening in church when people would come down the aisle during the final hymn to talk to the pastor. Being at a total loss for what these discussions could be about, this little girl decided that the people going up front were asking the preacher to lunch. The ones who walked up and were invited to sit down on the front pew were the people whose lunch invitation was accepted. Those who talked to the minister for a moment and then returned to their seats were the unfortunate losers in this luncheon deal-making. The child-version of this Pullenite says she was terribly sad for those who got rebuffed by the pastor when all they wanted to do was go out to eat with him.
I love the creative workings of that young mind trying to make sense of something she didn’t understand. However, I must confess, in all my years of receiving people at the front of the church during the closing hymn, I have yet to receive a lunch invitation. I did once have a young woman come to the front and ask me to pray for her identical twin who was in the church, but since I couldn’t tell the two of them apart I just always prayed for both of them to be sure.
When we are confused and faced with a vacuum in our understanding we will rush to fill that vacuum with meaning. But if we rush too fast, and always settle for the Wikipedia explanation of the world, we will end up filling the blanks in our knowledge with something less than truth. In fact, we might end up with the opposite of truth.
All of which leads me to the fascinating conversation Nicodemus and Jesus are having in John 3. Nicodemus was a religious leader who was a member of the powerful religious court known as the Sanhedrin. While it was that same court that would later determine Jesus was guilty of heresy and deserving of death, Nicodemus was a progressive member of the court who was fascinated by Jesus’ teachings. And that fascination led Nicodemus into this famous late-night discussion with the controversial rabbi from Galilee.
Only, the conversation takes on the form of Abbot and Costello’s famous Who’s on First routine. Nicodemus says that he knows Jesus must be from God because no one can do the kinds of things Jesus does apart from God. To which Jesus answers, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” To which, I believe, Nicodemus probably said, “Huh?” Only the scribes left all the “huhs” out of the Bible because it would have really been long if you included them.
But Nicodemus quickly recovers and tries to follow along by asking how someone could be born a second time. After all, getting back in the womb would seem to be an unlikely trick and wholly unwelcome by women everywhere. But Jesus chooses an indirect answer by replying, “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.” To which Nicodemus again must have said, “Huh?”
But now Jesus is on a roll and starts talking about how things born of the flesh are flesh, but things born of the Spirit are spirit; and the Spirit blows wherever it will; and you can’t really see where it comes from or where it goes, but you can only hear it. And finally Nicodemus, God bless him, is so confused that all he can say is “How can these things be?” (Which reminds me of my friend in high school who raised his hand in algebra class to say to the teacher, “Have you ever been so lost you’re not even sure what question to ask?”) Well, that’s how lost Nicodemus was in this conversation.
Scholars will insist that this text in the Gospel of John is the most ambiguous, mind-twisting passage in the whole book. Which is saying something because of the four Gospels John is the most philosophical in nature. If the Gospel of Mark is meat and potatoes, then John is a soufflé requiring more than a hint of culinary expertise.
So, let’s take account of the two assertions I have made in this sermon. First, our minds will fill in gaps in our understanding, often with overly simplistic or completely erroneous notions. Second, the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3 is one of the most complex and difficult to comprehend exchanges in the Bible. So, what do you get when you combine these two assertions? You get Evangelical Christian theology, that’s what you get.
Evangelical theology is rooted in a very simplistic understanding of this spiritually complex passage in John 3. Being “born again,” a phrase taken directly from this text, has come to mean something very specific among Evangelicals. At a certain point in life, anywhere from the age of six on up, individuals will confess their sins, profess they believe in Jesus, and be pronounced born again. And that’s that. You are spiritually good to go from that time forward. All of which reminds me of the conversation between Delmar O’Donnell and Ulysses McGill in the movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, when Delmar gets baptized in a river. He says:
“Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward.”
“Delmar, what are you talking about?”
“The preacher says all my sins is warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.”
“I thought you said you was innocent of those charges?”
“Well I was lyin'. And the preacher says that that sin's been warshed away too. Neither God nor man's got nothin' on me now. C'mon in boys, the water is fine.”
So, Delmar O’Donnell is the spiritual progeny of the complex conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus found in John 3. Nicodemus, one of the leading religious scholars of his day is completely baffled by what Jesus is saying, but Delmar’s got it. Get dunked in the river and everything is okay, including previous Piggly Wiggly heists. Color me skeptical.
Now I know I’m on slippery ground right now. After all, I’m standing in a Baptist church in the south taking exception with the theology that has long characterized our tradition. But what if Jesus was talking about something other than a transactional encounter in John 3? What if this is a lot more than “say a prayer and get to heaven” theology? If it is not about being born again in that respect, what could Jesus possibly be getting at?
The metaphor of rebirth is a beautiful spiritual notion as long as we don’t pollute it with our cheap, western understandings. When Jesus says we must be born of the Spirit, he speaks to the necessity of renewal in our lives. But rebirth also suggests that death must be experienced first. So, where in our lives do we experience this pattern of dying and renewal in a way that looks like we are being born again?
Well, the first time this cycle hits us comes in our teenage years. As we gradually shed our childhood and move through the sexual awakening of puberty, there is definitely a death and rebirth taking place. And make no mistake about it, the slow death of childhood is painful. When you reach the age of 13 or 14 you find yourself wanting to scream at your parents and crawl in their laps all at the same time. Why? Because part of the teenager is clinging to childhood and the other part is running away from it as fast as possible. And as the child in us dies, and we suddenly find our emotions and senses on fire, it can be scary and disorienting. It can also be wonderful and exhilarating. In the midst of these powerful changes we do well to open ourselves to the Spirit’s movement. Who are we and how do we understand God’s role in our lives? What is it our faith calls us to believe and do? As we move through this first major transition of life, and our egos emerge running full speed ahead, we risk becoming narcissistic jerks if we don’t also find ways for our souls to awaken at the same time.
The next death and rebirth comes in the middle of life, and this can also be a terrifying experience. As we lose some of our youthful vigor, and realize our dreams may never come true, or already have come true, we are filled with questions about meaning. Has my life been what it should have been up to now? Is my job really what I want to be doing? How would I look in a convertible? The beautiful part of the mid-life transition, if we can see it, is that our egos tend to recede a bit and our souls long to be in the spotlight. The Spirit that blows where it will can awaken us in mid-life to a new appreciation for the wisdom and compassion deep inside of us. We might actually start caring more about the state of the world than the state of our libido. And in this time of transition we can be born again to a fresh understanding of who we are and can be with the Spirit’s guidance.
The final death and renewal experience comes about in our elder years. It is dangerous for a preacher in the throes of the mid-life transition to say too much about this subject, so I will simply note what some of my friends in their sixties and seventies have told me about these years. They hate what is happening to their bodies and memories, but many of them love that they no longer feel like they must compete to prove themselves. The move into retirement years can be terrifying for those who have no identity outside of work, but some find their greatest contributions in these years as they combine their experience and wisdom with the time to dedicate to chosen passions. Being born again at seventy or eighty might seem like a silly notion, but it is absolutely necessary if our final years are to be something more than playing out the clock.
In each of the transition periods of life some part of us is dying and another is seeking to be reborn. If we cling to the part that is dying and refuse to move on, we will end up stuck and miserable. But if we nurture our souls during these scary changes, and open ourselves to the meaning God wants to show us in the next stage of living, then we are prepared for deeper experiences than we could have imagined before.
John 3 is a beautiful and difficult passage of sacred scripture that some in the church have reduced to a simple deal with God: say a prayer and you’ll be born again and get to heaven. I encourage us not to make that deal because I don’t think that has much to do with what Jesus was teaching Nicodemus. Let’s recognize that all of life is filled with opportunities for renewal and if we are to reach the depths God intends for us we will have to experience multiple deaths and rebirths. So, indeed, we must be born again and again and again. But if you think you can experience that simply by walking down the aisle in church, you might as well be coming down to ask me to lunch.