“Born . . . Again and Again and Again” (John 3:1-17)

Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again.  To be born again is an impossibility in the mind of Nicodemus . . . how can a full-grown man enter climb back into his mother’s womb and be born again . . . and, what woman would ever agree to such silliness.  But, Jesus said, “You must be born again.”  Being a “literalist” sure makes life interesting and difficult . . . ask Nicodemus as he is contemplating how in the world he is going to be born again.

Of course most of us know that Jesus is not talking literally here, he is talking metaphorically.  There is no second physical birth to be had . . . no, Jesus is speaking a spiritual birth.  A second physical birth is impossible, but a second spiritual birth is quite possible . . . in fact, I would venture out and say that it can happen again and again and again.

Nicodemus was not your ordinary Pharisee . . . he had a sense of wonderment and curiosity . . . he had an inquiring mind that was open to possibilities.  When Jesus began making waves across the countryside with his miracles and teaching . . . gaining bigger and bigger crowds of followers, Nicodemus did not jump in step with the other Pharisees declaring Jesus a threat.  No, Nicodemus wondered . . . he wondered what this Jesus guy was all about . . . wondered whether or not there might be something holy happening . . . wondering whether or not, just maybe, this Jesus was the Messiah the prophets had talked about.  He wanted to know, but not enough to put himself in jeopardy with the other Pharisees; so he comes to Jesus directly during the darkness of night.  He wants the scoop straight from Jesus . . . and, Jesus tells him, “You have to be born again.”

    

For literalists and concrete thinkers such statements are crazy . . . but, Jesus is right . . . especially when it comes to the spiritual life . . . you must be born again.  As a young person, I never thought I would ever change . . . I thought I would always stay the same in my actions, thoughts, faith . . . in everything that made me . . . well, me.  Now, getting on up there in age, looking back with perfect 20/20 vision, I am amazed at how much I have changed in the course of my lifetime.  I have been born again and again and again. 

    

For example, let me explain about preaching.  Like a lot of preachers I use the lectionary to do my sermons.  The lectionary is a three-year cycle of scripture readings that cover each Sunday during that time span.  Every three years it repeats itself.  Thus in the length of my time of being a preacher I have gone through this lectionary cycle approximately eleven times.  That means that I have preached on most of these scripture readings at least eleven times.  Being a person who saves things . . . including sermons . . . I can safely tell you that the sermon you are hearing this morning has never been preached before . . . and, that it is a far different approach to this passage than it was ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago.  Why?  Because I am not the person I was then . . . I have grown . . . I have changed . . . I have been born again and again and again.

    

We all have.

   

In speaking with many of you over the years, I have been told repeatedly that none of you are where you were on the day that you made your confession of faith, were baptized, and accepted Jesus to be your Lord and Savior.  And, I have heard many of you also say, “Thank God!”  None of us might have thought of our spiritual growth as being a new birth . . . or being born again; yet, isn’t that exactly what has taken place?  We are a new creation.

    

This is what Jesus is wanting Nicodemus to understand.  Faith is not a stagnant concrete thing that never changes . . . faith is a living, breathing, constantly changing thing . . . constantly being born as a new creation over and over again.  Central to this change is the Spirit . . . the Spirit that moves us, challenges us, prods us, encourages us, and changes us.  God wants us to grow in our faith and in our relationships with God and one another . . . it is the Spirit that helps us do this.  And, Jesus wants this for Nicodemus . . . wants it for everyone.

    

From the individual grows the community.  Individuals drive the community to be what it is . . . and, if the individual changes, grows, and is born again . . . shouldn’t the community also?  This is the underlying factor that Jesus doesn’t speak directly to, but he alludes to when he speaks of being born again.  As much as the individual needs to change, so does the community of faith.  Nicodemus, though an individual in this story, also represents the community of faith as a Pharisee.  Not only does Nicodemus need to be born again, but so does the body of believers—the church—that he represents.

    

I truly believe that this is so.  The church that I was ordained as a minister to serve in is not the church that exists now despite how hard it fights against being born again.  The church is changing and I am not talking about the gimmicky stuff like contemporary worship services and coffee in the pews.  The church is changing from an inward sanctuary for the faithful to a presence in the lives of the community in which it exists.  Instead of waiting for the people to come to the door, the church is going out into the world, standing among the people where they are, and sharing the Good News of Jesus . . . letting people know that they are not alone in their struggles . . . that God is with them where they are.  The church is being born again . . . whether we like it or not.

   

We should not kid ourselves into thinking that this is the first time that the church has been born again.  Was the church not born again with those who followed Jesus in his life time and in the ensuing years?  Was the church not born again when ol’ Martin Luther nailed his demands upon the church’s door?  Even in our own history as a denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has been born again and again and again.  We should not be surprised that the church is in major labor pains today . . . the Spirit is moving, a new birth is coming.

    

As it is with us as individuals, so it is with our churches.  When the Spirit moves us to grow and be born again as individuals, it is also prodding the church to do likewise.  During the journey through the season of Lent, we need to consider this birthing process as individual followers of Jesus and as a church . . . what does it mean to be born again?  And, again?  And, again?  Jesus calls us to life . . . ever-changing life with God.  Every day is a new day . . . may we grow with each gift of new life.  Amen.

"Choices" (Matthew 4:1-11)

One of my favorite Broadway musicals is Stephen Sonheim's Into the Woods.  This musical is a mishmash of children's fairy tales woven together to deal with the choices people make in their lives.  In the stories that are intertwined . . . Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and a childless baker and his wife . . . each makes a decision, but they must go into the woods to realize the magnitude of their decisions upon their lives.  It is "into the woods" that the questions and doubts . . . that the struggles begin.  Though this may seem to be a pretty clever metaphor by the writer . . . it is not new. 

People have been going into the woods for generations as long as there have been people.  These ventures have been called quests . . . vision quests . . . by many cultures, and they always occur in the woods . . . or they occur out on the sea . . . in the desert, but always in the wilderness.  It is in the wilderness that the adventurer is stripped of the familiar and thrust into a strange and foreign landscape . . . it appears dark and foreboding.  Stripped of the familiar one begins to sense that there is a whole lot of stuff in the world that he or she has never encountered.  They are reduced to the bare essence of who they are as the only thing that they can rely upon . . . and, even then, they begin to second guess . . . begin to doubt . . . begin to struggle with their choices in life.

The Christian mystics understood this well . . . this journey into the woods . . . into the wilderness.  They understood the struggle of the spiritual journey of life and how it always has to go through the woods in order to get to the other side.  They often referred to this journey and struggle as the "dark night of the soul".  It is nothing new, but it always seems to catch people's attention when it is mentioned as a normal part of the spiritual journey in life.

This morning we have the story of Jesus' journey through the woods, or as it was in his case . . . the wilderness.  It was into the wilderness that he journeyed after his affirmation and confirmation of his ministry . . . into the wilderness for forty days and for forty nights . . . the biblical term for a long time.  It was there that we learn of his confrontation with the devil who challenges him in his ministry.  Challenges his choice to follow God's will . . . challenges his motivation for wanting to follow God's will . . . challenges him to really look at what he wants to do and to compare it to something that the devil feels is much better. 

In literature and in cartoons this battle of wills is usually portrayed as a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other . . . but that is the role of the devil . . . to raise questions, to stir up doubt, to tempt, to dangle the proverbial carrot before the individual's face.  That has always been the role of the devil . . . to turn people away from Jesus and ultimately away from God.  The devil cannot do it by itself . . . the devil needs assistance . . . assistance by the one who is being lured by temptation.  It is up to the individual to make the choice . . . it is always the individual's choice to decide.  Note that in our story this morning that that is all that the devil does . . . dangles the carrot in front of Jesus' face.  It is up to Jesus to decide.

    

It is no different for any of us . . . it is always our choice . . . and, life is full of choices.

    

Shoot, we are all good at making choices.  From the time that we get out of bed every morning we make all sorts of choices . . . from the clothes that we wear to the food that we eat . . . we make choices.  We make choices about the places we work . . . the people we hang out with . . . to the television shows that we watch.  We make choices all of the time, and a lot of the time we do it without even thinking about the choices we are making . . . we just do it.

    

And, for the most part, I doubt if too many of them are even difficult to make . . . that they are not the sort of things that we struggle in deciding . . . that we are not tip toeing into the woods.  Yet, at the same time, I think we all know that there have been choices that we have made that have dragged us into the woods where we struggled with our decisions and longed to find our way out to the other side.  I think that we have all experienced the "dark night of the soul" that is spoken about by the mystics.  After all, we all know the line in the familiar hymns that proclaims that the darkest hour is just before the dawn.  We have been to the wilderness in our lives and if we are still breathing . . . well, I imagine that we will continue to enter into the woods from time to time.  Making the majority of the choices in our lives is pretty easy, but there are times when they are tough . . . tough, but necessary.

    

Necessary because that is how we discover more about ourselves . . . discover more about our faith . . . how we grow.  Necessary because it is how we strip ourselves down to the essential understanding of who we are as created by God to discover that we are nothing without God.  Necessary because it makes us have to rely upon God and only God.  It strengthens us . . . and, it strengthens our faith . . . but most of all, it brings us that much closer to God.

    

In the story of Jesus' time in the woods he is down to the brass tacks . . . he has had no food . . . little sleep . . . exhausted and at his lowest physically, and one would think, mentally.  A perfect time to come and mess with a person's mindset . . . and, that is what the devil does.  Three times the devil attempts to lure Jesus with wonderful opportunities . . . opportunities a common person would not think twice about . . . to come on over to the dark side of life.  And, three times Jesus relied upon . . . what?  Well, God.  Using scripture as the basis of his answers to the devil's temptations, Jesus affirms that God is the only thing that matters . . . not power, not prestige, not wealth . . . only God and God's will.  Amazingly Jesus never loses sight of the light on the other end of the woods.

    

Today marks the first Sunday of the season of Lent . . . what I like to refer to as the journey into the woods.  As the followers of Jesus we are called upon to examine our lives . . .examine our faith . . . examine our commitment and relationship with God . . . and to lose ourselves to discover who it is that we are created to be and to discover, once again, the one who calls us by name.  It is a time of examining our choices in life . . . are they the will of God . . . do they help bring about the kingdom of God?  are they loving?  Are they peaceful?  Just?  Through discernment and prayer we journey through these woods known as Lent.  No one enjoys evaluations and Lent is a season of evaluation.  I didn't see Lent listed in the top three choices of favorite seasons of the church year by many of the followers of Jesus.

    

Though Lent might not be the most favorite of the seasons of the church year, it is probably the most important . . . because it is about choices.  It always begins with the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness . . . where he struggled with the choices he had made.  It does so as an invitation for us to journey with him into the wilderness . . . an invitation to struggle with our choices of faith . . . and, to really get down to the important thing like our relationship with God and others.  Thus our reading this morning is an invitation . . .

    

. . . and, it is also another opportunity to make a choice.  God, nor Jesus is going to make the choice for us . . . neither is the devil.  The choice is up to us as individuals.  Do we make the journey into the woods . . . the journey into the season of Lent . . . so that we might make it to the light on the other side?  To the promise of Easter.  The choice is ours . . . always ours.  Choose well.  Amen.

“Listen . . . Do Not Be Afraid” (Matthew 17:1-9)

Fear is “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.”   It was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  I don’t think that FDR ever drove down Highway 212 during a Montana snow storm—especially this weekend!  If he had I doubt if he would be saying such things.  Actually, I think that FDR was using that phrase as rhetoric in hopes of soothing the fears of the American people at the start of his first term as president during the big 1933 bank panic and the Depression.  Americans were scared . . .

. . . and, we still are.

As Bob Dylan said way back there in the early 1960s, the times they are a changing.  We worry and are fearful of what the future holds for us as Americans.  We worry about whether or not we will have enough income and resources to live comfortably in retirement.  We worry about whether or not we will have good health insurance to cover our rising health concerns that come with aging.  We worry about our government and its inability to truly function together and deal with the real people that they are elected to serve.  We worry about the rising costs of living . . . about the economy . . . about a lot of things.  We worry about a future that none of knows what it will carry for each of us as we journey through this life.  The times are changing and hang over us like a cloud that won’t go away.  None of us knows what tomorrow will bring . . . we only know, realistically or imaginatively, that fear is a part of our lives.

And, that is the problem with fear . . . we just don’t know.  If we knew . . . well, if we knew, we would all jump on FDR’s bandwagon about having nothing to fear but fear itself.  But, we don’t know and the unknown is scary.  I know that it effects and affects all of us . . . I know because I have sat down and listened to many of you as you talk about the present and the future . . . there is a tinge of fear in the worlds I hear as I listen to you share your concerns, hopes, and dreams for the future for yourselves and your families . . . you just do not know what tomorrow will bring . . . and, that scares you.  It scares me, too . . . that is fear.

Today is the last Sunday of the season of Epiphany . . . the season of revelation of the Holy to all of God’s children.  It is the end of the season in which we celebrate God’s presence being revealed to all people in all places . . . that God desires a relationship with all of God’s creation . . . that Jesus did not come for a select group of people, but all people . . . that God’s love and grace is for everyone.  And, to cap off the season of Epiphany we have heard the story of the Transfiguration.

The Transfiguration takes places on a mountain top that Jesus has retreated to in order to pray.  With him are three of his disciples who witness quite a scene.  In their presence Jesus is transfigured in dazzling light and whiteness . . . then he is joined by Moses and Elijah much to the astonishment of the three disciples.  One of the disciples, Peter—always wanting to please Jesus—offers to build shelter for the three dignitaries, but is stopped short as a booming voice proclaims, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.  Listen to him!”  Which, if we are speaking plainly, scared the bejeebers out of them . . . so scared were they that they fell face down on the ground terrified.

    

I think that most of us would have probably been lying on the ground with them if we had just experienced the same thing.  We would have been fearful of what we were witnessing, what we were experiencing . . . why?  Because it is unknown.  And, because it is unknown to us, we really don’t know what is going to happen . . . and, we cannot control it.  In our helplessness we experience fear.

But the story did not end there . . . Jesus came and touched them.  “Get up,” he said.  “Don’t be afraid.”  Little did the disciples realize that this was the prelude of Jesus’ message to them . . . do not be afraid . . . of, as FDR put it, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”  I say that this is the prelude because I do not think that at this point the disciples realized the magnitude of the journey ahead of them as Jesus’ disciples and the carriers of the Good News of God’s desires for creation.  If they had, I doubt if they would have gotten up off of the ground.  Over two thousand years of Christian history can attest to the scary magnitude of the mission to bring all people to a relationship with God . . . and, it continues today as we read our daily newspapers, watch our televisions, and listen to the radio.  These are scary times to be a follower of Jesus . . . why?  Because we do not know.

When I shared this sense of unknowing with another once, I was confronted with a statement that I lacked faith.  “Well,” said this astute individual, “You just don’t have enough faith.”  That individual’s statement made me feel guilty that I did not have enough faith and here I was a preacher!  Not a good combination for one who wants to exhort others to be faithful.  But, I have gotten over it . . . and, I still have this sense of unknowing about what the future is going to bring on many levels of my life—including my faith.  And, I truly think that that is okay with God . . . that God can handle my fear.

Despite having the divine revealed to them with heavenly extras and booming sound effects, the disciples were not without their fears when it came to their faith.  They believed, but never did they know what the results of their words or actions would bring.  In the beginning, their words and actions brought disastrous results . . . many were martyred through gruesome deaths.  Even the Apostle Paul admitted that he did not what the results of his words or actions would be, only that they would get reactions.  Yet, as faithful people they all stepped out in faith . . . in the hope that all things would turn out for God’s will . . . and did what they had to do. 

They did so because they knew that they were not alone.  They did not know what tomorrow held, even though they knew what they hoped for, but they knew that they were not alone.  Jesus would be with them.  God would be with them.  Jesus touched them . . . assured them . . . and, told them to not be afraid . . . to not be afraid to live life in love and grace whether they knew what the results would be.  This did not mean that they would be without fear . . . it meant that the one they loved would be with them no matter what happened.

FDR spoke his famous words about fear to a nation that was becoming immobilized with the fear of doing anything in a time of great national and international crisis.  He encouraged the nation to step up and do something . . . anything . . . before all was lost . . . and, to do it together.  That no one was alone in this journey.

I think that the greatest fear of all is the fear to be alone . . . to be all alone without anyone else there.  It does not matter the situation, but to have to face and endure life by one’s self is a scary thought . . . and, I think that it is our greatest fear.  But, as the followers of Jesus, we are not alone.  Jesus is with us in the journey . . . through thick and thin, good and bad . . . Jesus is with us.  Yet, this does not mean we are without fear . . . to admit we have no fear; well, I think that practically makes us deny our creation of God’s children.  Fear is a part of life, especially when it comes to living the radical lifestyle of grace and love spoken and lived by Jesus.  It is not of this world and because it is not of this world we never know what sort of reaction we will get . . . and, as we have seen throughout the history of the movement of Jesus, death has been the reaction to those who are scared of such radical love and grace.

But, we are not to be afraid.  We are to listen to Jesus who repeatedly tells us that we are not alone . . . that he is with us.  With such knowledge let us step out into the unknown and live lives that share the Good News to all people in all places.  Amen.