February 25, 2015
– Wednesday in Lent 1, Year Two
© 2015 Evan D. Garner
Well, it’s been a little
more than three years since I last stood in this pulpit, and it’s good to be
back. It’s been a busy, full three years for both of us. A lot has happened. A
lot has changed. But, for the most part, we’re not too different from the way
we were. I’ve learned a few things. I’ve put back on some of the pounds that I
lost before I left, and I’m a little grayer in some places. But so are you. Still,
it’s nice to be back in Montgomery. It’s nice to be back at St. John’s.
One of the things that I
have learned over the past three years is a whole new kind of worry. My four-year-old
daughter has become a seven-year-old first-grader. Gone are the days of macaroni
art and tea parties. Now we deal with AR tests and science posters and “Are my
jeans cool enough?” and “Why don’t the other girls like me?” When I worked
here, I knew that Mike Jarrell would take care of just about everything, and
that, if he needed to call someone about a leaky roof, it wouldn’t be my cell
phone that rang. Well, we don’t have a Mike Jarrell—nobody else does—and every
time there’s a heavy rain I lie in bed wondering whether there will be a puddle
waiting for me at the church in the morning. I worry about people who are
dealing with huge emotional and spiritual problems that are way beyond anything
I can handle. They are people I love and care for but whom I worry won’t be
able to hang on much longer. And I worry about numbers—everything about
numbers. How much is going out, and how much is coming in? Will next year’s
stewardship campaign be successful? Why aren’t more people coming to church?
Where are all the young families? What will our future look like? And through
it all I worry more than anything else that there might not be a dead-gum thing
I can do about any of it.
I guess you could say
that I don’t sleep as well as I used to. What about you? How are you sleeping
these days? Nighttime is a funny thing. Dim lights help hide some of our
blemishes, but the dead of night always brings out our insecurities. There’s
something about the silent, stifling stillness that awakens within us every
doubt, every fear, every dread. In the dark, when there is nothing else to
occupy our focus, the little nagging worries have nothing to hide behind.
It isn’t an accident that
John tells us that Nicodemus went to see Jesus at night. This wasn’t the kind
of conversation that could happen in the daylight. For some people, there are
certain issues that don’t get discussed during the day. Only the nagging
restlessness of night had brought Nicodemus out of his respectable quarters,
skulking in the shadows until he found Jesus, the one he hoped could put his
worries to rest.
“Rabbi,” he said, using a
term of respect, “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no
one could do the signs that you do unless God were with him...” If he had a
question Nicodemus never really got to it. Maybe he didn’t really know what to
ask. But it didn’t matter. Jesus looked at him and said, “Truly, no one can see
the kingdom of God without being born again.” (The word translated in some
bibles as “above” is a Greek word that also means “again,” and it seems likely
that Jesus meant both at the same time.) For Nicodemus, the thought of being
born again was not good news.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee
and a leader of the Jews, which meant that he commanded the respect of his
people as both a civic figure and a religious expert. If anyone was supposed to
be able to make sense of this upstart Galilean preacher, it was Nicodemus, but,
for the life of him, he just couldn’t figure it out. He had heard reliable
reports that Jesus had performed some impressive miracles—the kind that would prove
that Jesus was a man of God worth listening to—but then Jesus had charged into
the temple right in the middle of the Passover celebration and turned over all
of the tables and chased out all of the moneychangers—the kind of profane act
which no godly person would ever do. Nicodemus couldn’t connect the dots, and
it was killing him.
“If you want to see the
kingdom of God,” Jesus said, “you must be born again.” What do you think of
when you hear that phrase “born again?” It is more than familiar in our Christian
context. It has become overused religious jargon—perhaps even a phrase of
derision used by some mainline Christians to describe their more zealous
religious counterparts. But to Nicodemus, who had never heard that phrase used
to describe a religious conversion, those words were as damning as they were
impossible. “What do you mean, ‘born again?’” the leader asked. “What am I
supposed to do? Crawl back inside my mother’s womb and start all over?” “Yes,”
Jesus said without batting an eye. “That’s exactly what I mean—start all over
from scratch.”
We’ve become so familiar
with the concept of “born again” that we’ve forgotten just how radical that
image really is. Think about it: what would you have to give up to be born
again? Well, everything, of course. Your life, your experiences, your
education, your status, your job, your relationships, your family, your
heritage, your ancestry, even your name. Everything about you would be undone.
Everything you have, everything that you take for granted, everything that
makes you you, would be taken away as you start all over from birth. That’s the
kind of transformation Jesus is asking Nicodemus to undergo. The reason
Nicodemus cannot make sense of who Jesus is and what his teachings represent is
because he’s trying to build upon the lifetime he has already collected. But
the kingdom of God requires a totally fresh perspective. Of course the
religious expert couldn’t figure it out! He’s the last person who would ever be
able to see it. He’s the last person who would ever want to let all of this go
and start all over.
And what does that say
about us?
Christianity has
forgotten what it means to be born again. Being a Christian has become too
easy—especially in a place like this—a place like Montgomery, Alabama—a place
where we’ve been comfortably Christian for so long that we’ve forgotten what it
takes to see the kingdom of God. We are the Pharisees. We are the leaders of
our people. Why would we want to give any of this up? But, if you want to see
the kingdom of God, you must be born again.
Nine years ago, I knelt
right there in that pew next to my wife, Elizabeth, and we prayed silently for
a while. Robert wanted me to work here as the curate, but I didn’t want to come
here. I was still in seminary—even younger and stupider than I am now. So I
knelt there and said to Elizabeth, “I don’t want to work here, do I? Look at
all of this. Look at all of this stuff. This is too easy. Ministry is supposed
to be hard. This isn’t hard enough.” After a moment or two, she said, “Yeah,
maybe you’re right, but you know what? You love telling arrogant rich people
that they need Jesus, too.”
In the years since then,
I’ve forgotten what it means to be born again. It’s easy to do. It happens to
all of us. We get good at what we’re doing, and we start to make a big
difference. Numbers go up. More people come to church. Stewardship starts growing.
Budgets increase. New staff members are hired. Even young families are joining
the church. And then what? We convince ourselves that we are at the center of
it all—that it all depends on us. But how long can we keep it up? How long can
it last? And then the worries start.
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