St. John’s United Church of Christ
February 17, 2008
A Sermon by the Rev. John Krueger
Born Again, and Again, and Again John 3:1-17
It doesn’t take great insight to notice that the Gospel of John is quite different from Mark, and Matthew and Luke. One of the chief differences is the remembered teachings of Jesus. In the first three Gospels, Jesus often teaches with parables, short little stories or similes that talk about the Realm of God. “The realm of God is like a man who went out to sow…,” or “The realm of God is like a mustard seed…” There are other blocks of teaching, like the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 that are collections of teachings gathered together around themes.
Jesus was a traveling teacher, going from town to town and place to place, every day speaking to a different audience, often repeating portions of his teachings to new people. This is a little like our politicians, speaking many of the same themes to different audiences as they travel from state to state.
But in John’s Gospel, there are no parables, none. Instead, we have some long discourses, long conversations, back and forth talking as Jesus opens new insights and new truths. So the next three Sundays the sermon texts will be three of these long conversations and my take on what Jesus was trying to say to those disciples and to the crowds and to us.
The main character with Jesus in today’s story is Nicodemus. He was a well respected Pharisee, a highly trained Jewish layman who is intrigued by the new traveling rabbi. Not wanting his friends to make fun of him and his curiosity, Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, hoping the neighbors would not notice.
The conversation starts innocently enough, with Nicodemus asking about Jesus’ credentials, “…no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” The reply Jesus gives has perplexed us ever since. “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” or “born again” in some translations, or “born anew.”
What follows is a long discussion about the meaning of “born again,” with Nicodemus stuck on a literal meaning and Jesus seeking to go beyond such a literal meaning. This conversation includes the most memorable verse of scripture, John 3:16, which I believe must be firmly connected to John 3:17: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
This conversation with Nicodemus has troubled the Christian Church ever since, for it opens the question of the legitimacy of Christian experience and personal conversion. What does it mean to be Born Again? Is some sort of dramatic experience necessary to be a true Christian?
There was a time when membership in a Christian church was dependent on convincing the church Elders about having some significant religious experience. It had to be dramatic. It had to be convincing. It had to be emotionally moving. If the elders were not convinced, they would ask the person to try again, and again, and again. (So much for attending a new member orientation session or enduring the minister’s confirmation class to become a member!)
Well, if we were to return to “The Good Old Days,” how many of us would have a moving story to tell to the Elders, or in our case, the members of the Church Council? How many would pass this entrance exam and how many of us would be told to try again? How many members of the Church Council could pass?
I would be hard-pressed to come up with a singular experience that would be likely to pass muster. I think that is one of the drawbacks of growing up in a Christian home. I don’t ever remember needing to memorize the Lord’s Prayer, or John 3:16, or the words to the Doxology or Gloria Patri, or the table prayer, “God is great and God is good…” The question on a Sunday morning in our family was never one of whether or not we would be going to church for Sunday School and worship but rather what time would we leave home.
It seems as if I have always known of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son and Palm Sunday and shepherds and wise men and twelve disciples. God was a power for good I have always known, and Jesus was the Good Shepherd who was crucified and risen from the dead. I was surprised to learn that not everyone has had the same experience.
So when exactly was I Born Again? When I was confirmed? When I became a father? When I was touched by a Maundy Thursday service? When the Christmas Eve candlelight service moved me? When the music of Easter warmed me as never before? If the street evangelist presses me to testify about the date and circumstances of my being Born Again, I will probably fail his test.
The truth for me is that for many of us, we may be privileged to be Born Again, and Again, and Again. When Don or I or any other minister plans a service of worship, we do so with the intention of making that experience one that may transform someone’s life. It may be a hymn we select, or a prayer that we pray, or a sermon that we preach, or a presence we embody, that someone may be awakened by God’s Spirit in a new way. We ministers don’t do it, we don’t manipulate it, you understand. We are just a sort of mid-wife to a birth we do not control.
Every day God is seeking to renew us in God’s image, to recast us as one of God’s special children. You may indeed have a particular time when God claimed you in some dramatic way, and you can recite time and place and feeling. But what has happened to you lately, if that was something that happened years ago?
Can you rest on that past experience or do you need to be renewed by a new encounter, something that refreshes whatever happened then?
So how open are we to something new and enticing that God is seeking to do in our overly-organized lives? “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.” Does God’s wind, God’s Spirit, have the chance to surprise us with some new understanding, some new opening into God’s truth that is always beyond us, but enticing?
Can we open a new chapter in our lives that will give us some new insights into the God who so loves us that God gave us Jesus Christ, that believing in him we may have eternal life? Is God a benevolent God who loves all of God’s children, a God who seeks to save all of those children through the gift of love and grace?
In a very real sense, every day to which we awaken is a new birth. Every breath we take is a new lease on life. Every daily event is a new experience, rich with promise.
We are destined to be Born Again, and Again, and Again. That is our birthright, to be privileged to enjoy a world of beauty and majesty, to understand a bit better God’s ways, and to know that God loves us, even us.
Nicodemus was first born a Jew. He was born again as a Pharisee as he sought to follow God. Tradition has it that Nicodemus was born again as a Christian, a follower of Christ, for he cares for the body of Jesus after the crucifixion. Obviously that began a new faith journey for him.
Born Again, and Again, and Again. God is not finished with us yet, for we continue to enjoy the gift of life. God is still seeking to speak to us God’s truths, fostering within us new understandings of God’s ways. Have the courage to leave the safety of your present womb and stretch out into God’s world of love and grace. Look around with wonder at the new family you have inherited. And may your new life be a blessing to you, and a blessing to those around you.