John 3 The visit of Nicodemus I like clever sayings You know, the ones that make you think twice, puzzle for a moment, before you really get it…. Statements that include a play on words Or are just unique ways of making you think about life. I actually collects sayings like that (I know you are surprised). Let me give you some examples (no booing!) 1.) Save the whales. Collect the whole set. 2.) On the other hand, you have different fingers. 3.) I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory. 3.) 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot. 5.) I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges. 6.) Remember half the people you know are below average. 7.) Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how popular it remains? 8.) He who laughs last thinks slowest. 9.) The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. 10.) Support bacteria - theyre the only culture some people have. 11.) A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking. 12.) Experience is something you dont get until just after you need it. In today’s passage we find a saying, a pretty short, pretty simple saying, that was a play on words, designed to make some think, and move to a new way of thinking about life. Here is how most of us know the phrase. “You must be born again.” The person that the statement was directed at was a man named Nicodemus. The person who made the statement was Jesus. This was a somewhat unusual encounter. First, it was a one on one encounter set in the darkness of night. Second, Nicodemus was not typical of those who came to Jesus. Jesus had a habit of running around with a bit of a rough crowd. Tax collectors, sinners, questionable women. But Nicodemus. He was not one of those on the fringe of society. He was a mover and shaker. He came from a position of inclusion and power. He was a Sadducee, a member of the ruling class. He was a member of the ruling body, the Sanhedrin. So he was part of the inner circle of the inner circle. The Sanhedrin was a political leadership group kind of like our Congress. In short, hes one of the power elite among his own people. An educated man in an age when most folks cant even read. A respected leader. Person of wealth. He is so unlike those needy must up people who constantly gathered around Jesus, needing healing, or food, or forgiveness….. Or is he? I suspect that Nicodemus, for all of his power and prestige, comes to Jesus with a real need – at the very least a need for some answers, perhaps, the need for what we might call a spiritual awakening. He opens the conversation with a statement, which appears at first to be a statement of faith. “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” But I think it was more of a question than a statement. I can almost hear him ending the sentence by saying… “No one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him….. right?” I don’t think Nicodemus was all that sure about Jesus. Perhaps that is why he comes to Jesus at night. Kind of slinking in under the cover of darkness. He wasn’t really sure if Jesus had God with him, or if Jesus were just crazy. But Jesus was not someone he could just “write off”. I think he saw something in Jesus. In his actions. In his words, that made him think that perhaps, perhaps, he didn’t have this spirituality thing all figured out. That perhaps, he was missing something important, spiritually speaking. And insider he might have been. A man of the law. A member of the Jewish nobility. A leader. But something brought him, in the dark, to Jesus. So Jesus answers him with these words. “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. And here we come face to face with a play on words…. at least the way John, writing in Greek, phrases his answer. The word that John uses in Greek for again, anothen, can also mean from above. We have no English equivalent for this rich word, so the translators had to choose between the two meanings. The King James Version, so long the Bible of the English speaking church translated the phrase. Ye must be born again. But the more recent New Revised Standard Version, with the benefit of deeper linguistic research, translates the phrase, You must be born from above. Therein lies a subtle joke. Problem is, it gets lost in translation. Remember the old Abbot and Costello baseball sketch, Whos on First? The premise of Whos on First? is that the name, or perhaps nickname of the first baseman is, literally, Who. When Costello asks Abbott Whos on First? Abbot says Certainly! The whole sketch is based on a double entendre, that is, the question, Whos on First? is also its own answer, because a guy nicknamed Who is the first baseman. In John, we have a first-century Abbott and Costello routine, with Nicodemus playing Costello and Jesus playing Abbott. Jesus says to Nicodemus, Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born “anothen -- born from above, from heaven, But instead of understanding Jesus spiritually, Nicodemus goes the other direction, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again. We see this in his follow up question, How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mothers womb and be born?** (Thanks for this idea to Nathan J. A. Humphrey St. James Episcopal Church, Monkton, Maryland) Jesus tries to clarify, saying, Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit… It is as if Jesus is telling Nicodemus, You are looking for true spirituality. But you are looking in the wrong place. You are looking at rituals, and laws, that must be followed using human power. You are locked into a religious system that is not working for you, or for anyone else. The only way you are going to “see the kingdom. The only way you are going to “get it” spiritually speaking, is by letting the Spirit, capital S Spirit, the spirit of God, awake the spirit, birth the spirit in you. What is born of the Spirit is spirit. In other words, Spirituality is born of the Spirit, which comes from above….God’s Spirit comes and wakes up, the seed of the Sacred, the Spirit, that is in us. But Nicodemus misses the point. He is still being literal and concrete. So he says, How can these things be? In exasperation, Jesus replies, Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? We know that later Nicodemus did get it, he was one of the two men who help bury the crucified Jesus. So there is the lesson for the day Unless you are born of the Spirit You won’t get it All the old ways of trying to know God won’t work All you will have is words, laws, codes But your won’t see the kingdom or understand what it is all about Unless you are blown by the Spirit ( that by the way, is another play on words, for the word for Spirit also means breath, and also means wind… a triple meaning word) Unless you are blown by the Spirit Unless you get the breath of God, get woken up spiritually You will be stuck in the old ways The old rituals The old interpretations The old ideas about God, behind And will be spiritually challenged, spiritually aged, perhaps even spiritually dead. So, if you want to get a vision of the Kingdom, if you want to participate in God’s new way You need to let the Spirit blow, and awaken you to God’s new thinig. This is a very profound idea, to my thinking. I think Richard Rohr is pointing to the same concept, the same truth in his book Immortal Diamond. There he talks about our true self, the new self, dare I say born again self, which has been breathed on, baptized with the Spirit, the breath of God, versus our false self. Which is our earth bound, old self. The False Self, he writes, “is who you think you are. Your thinking does not make it true. Your False Self is almost entirely a social construct to get you started on your life journey. It is a set of agreements between your childhood and your parents, your family, your neighbors, your school chums, your partner or spouse, and your religion. It is your “container” for your separate self. Jesus would call it your “wineskin,” which he points out usually cannot hold any new wine (Mark 2: 21-22). Your False Self is how you define yourself outside of love, relationship, or divine union. After you have spent many years laboriously building this separate self, with all its labels and preoccupations, you are very attached to it. And why wouldn’t you be? It’s what you know and it’s all you know. To move beyond it will always feel like losing or dying… Your False Self is how you define yourself outside of love, relationship, or divine union.” The earth bound self. The self, shaped and defined by so many influences, but often, powerfully, by that reality that entity called “religion.” This self must die We must let it go All of it And be “born from on high” Rohr frequently makes the comment that the goal of faith, the goal of spirituality is not perfection, but divine union. That is the point! Participating in, seeing the kingdom Is not a matter of knowledge It is not a matter of following the rules Singing the right songs Participating in the right rituals It is about letting the Spirit awake the Spirit within It is about letting go of all our old securities And definitions And letting the wind of God blow us where it will Let God re-create us And help us start all over Again.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 20:30:12 +0000
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