Note: The substitute first reading was 2 Samuel 7:1-14 and the Gospel text was expanded to John 3:1-21.
In the name of God, who
creates, redeems, and sustains. Amen.
When you study a foreign language, one of the exercises
that you often do is conjugating verbs- I run, you run, she runs. But when you
do this, sometimes you’ll run into verb forms that you can’t really think of a
situation in which you’d need to use it, such as the first person perfect tense
of “to die”- I have died. Another conjugation that you’ll probably never hear
is the first person future of “to be born”- I will be born. And yet, Jesus says
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born
from above.” So that we’re all on the same page, the Greek of that sentence can
be translated either as “being born from above” or “being born again.” But
either way, it seems that Jesus might indeed have a use for that verbal form- I
will be born.
Nicodemus has difficulty with this concept. “What do you
mean that I have to be born again? Don’t you see that I’m a grown man? How in
the world would I get back into my mother’s womb? Could you just draw me a
diagram of how this would work?” Though Mike Mills has delivered a lot of
babies, I doubt that he’s ever seen an adult come out of the womb.
Nicodemus
is thinking in terms of physics and biology, while Jesus is speaking about
spiritual matters, hence the double meaning of both “born again” and “born from
above.” And I’m assuming that for many of us, the phrase “born again” is
problematic. When that phrase is used, it often has nothing to do with
transformation or discipleship, but rather a specific political agenda that
tends not to mesh with the political and religious views of many Episcopalians.
But we would do well to remember that when Jesus said “you must be born again,”
he was not attaching any agendas to it other than the transformation of our
hearts to be more loving. What ends up happening when we focus on being “born
again,” is that we focus too much on our personal experience. We focus not on
Jesus, ministry, loving our neighbor, or even prayer, but our own personal
experience on one day in the past and our own certainty of having an entry
ticket to heaven. And so I understand our uneasiness around claiming to be
“born again,” but it is part of the Gospel, and as such, is a part of the
salvation that we have in Jesus.
Perhaps
you have heard of the allegory of the cave in Plato’s The Republic. In this work, Plato writes of a group of prisoners
whose entire existence is lived in a dark cave. They sit facing a wall, with a
fire behind them, and as their captors move around the cave, they see their
shadows on the wall. This is all they know of the world. One person in the cave
though starts a journey toward the opening of the cave, and as they do, their
eyes are both literally and metaphorically opened. As they move closer to the
opening of the cave, being blinded by the sunlight, they are overwhelmed by
learning that the shadows were not “real” in any sense of the word. And when
they come out of the cave, they will be overcome with sensory experiences as
they struggle to understand this new world in which they find themselves. This
is a good metaphor for what Jesus speaks of when he says “you must be born
again.” Both being born again and coming out of the cave involve relearning
what we thought about the world.
The journey
out of the cave mimics that of birth, coming out of darkness into light, from
the familiar to the unknown. And this particular allegory takes on deeper
meaning for us Christians because in a few weeks, we will celebrate that Jesus
has come out of the cave of death. But this process of being born again, or moving
out of the dark cave into the light of glory does not happen in one move, it is
a journey that often takes years, if not an entire lifetime.
You’ll
recall that over the past several Sundays, we’ve been focusing on the idea of
covenant and what it means for our lives and our faith. The covenant defines us
as the beloved children of a steadfast God. The covenant is also the expression
of the true reality of the world, though it can be easy to live life unaware of
it. The covenant provides a path out of the darkness of the cave into the light
of new birth.
As we journey further out of the cave and move closer to
being born again, the light begins to overtake the darkness. From the natural
world in the covenant with Noah, to a family in Abraham and Sarah, to giving
identity to a nation in the Ten Commandments, to the Davidic Covenant that is
found in our reading from 2 Samuel, each time the covenant comes up in
Scripture, its sphere of influence grows.
Here,
the covenant takes on a public nature to it, as its circle has expanded to
encompass our social and political lives. There is some interesting word play
going on in the Hebrew of this passage. David plans to build a house for God,
in Hebrew, a bayit. But God, as God
often does, turns the tables and God says, you might be offering to build me a
house, a bayit, but I will make you a
bayit, this time meaning a dynasty. To
repurpose a phrase from President Kennedy, the question is not” what can you do
for God”, but rather “what can God do through you?” The covenant not only bonds
us to God and each other, but becomes the means through which God’s grace and
salvation come into the world.
Jesus, of course, is the fullest expression of that
salvation. Next Sunday we will consider the next and definitive expression of
the covenant as we focus on Jesus’ blood of the New Covenant. But today, we have a glimpse of it when Jesus
says “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone
who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” John 3:16 is
probably a verse that most everyone at least knows of, even if they aren’t able
to quote it. But the point of emphasis flows from “for God so loved the world.”
Our reading from Ephesians says that “God is full of mercy.” But the way John
3:16 is often heard is not merciful, as it is used as a litmus test and a means
of excluding people from the love of God.
Too often this passage comes down to “those that believe
in God will be saved and everyone will be condemned.” But we misunderstand what
“believe” means. Here, a word study really is helpful, as the word “believe”
doesn’t mean for us what it did for Jesus. In Greek, this word meant trust,
loyalty, obedience, or commitment. But then, in the Scientific Revolution,
belief took on a new meaning of “that which is not able to be proven by
scientific observation.” Jesus never meant “think these things about me,” he
meant “trust me, follow me.” Jesus did not come to present us with facts, but
instead a path. And the covenant becomes our guiding light as we journey out of
the darkness into the light of salvation.
And this is a really important point- salvation is God’s,
not ours. It is not our task to define what salvation is or who it extends to.
Now, this doesn’t mean we don’t consider the question, as theology does bring
us closer to God and shapes our actions, but we are not the stewards of
salvation. We don’t need to understand salvation as much as we need to embrace
it. It is ours to put our whole trust in Jesus and follow him out of the dark
cave and into the light of his Resurrection. One theologian has remarked that
“we made Jesus into a mere religion instead of a journey toward union with God
and all of Creation.” If the fullness of life is to be found through coming out
of the cave and being born again into light, then disciples of Jesus shouldn’t be
so focused on deciding who is in the light and who is in darkness; after all,
it isn’t our decision anyway. As Christians, we point to that light, we do our
best to be mirrors which reflect the divine light that is shining all around
us, we can guide people out of the darkness out of the cave.
The problem with identifying ourselves a “born-again
Christians” is that it misses the point. Life does not conclude at birth, but it’s
just the start. When that person emerged from the cave, their story was just beginning.
As expressed in today’s reading, being born again is an important part of our
faith journey. And though that phrase might have a lot of baggage, it is still
a crucial phase of discipleship, just not the end of it. When we are born
again, we begin the process of being transformed, and not just as individuals,
but as a part of the transformation of the whole world so that it might be as
it is in heaven.
What
becomes important in the covenant is that it unites us to God, but in that
union, we are able to come out of the dark caves of fear, injustice,
selfishness, and death and into the glorious light of God’s love and salvation.
You’ve noticed that anytime we have a cross in the church, whether it is in a
procession or on the altar, there are always candles nearby to give light. As a
part of the covenant, we become acolytes. The light means that we no longer
live in darkness, and it allows others to see the cross and know its salvation.
So let the light of God shine through you. Though it is a phrase we don’t often
use, maybe the first person plural of “to be born” actually is a good one to
know. Through the grace of God, we can proclaim “we will be born again.” Thanks
be to God.
