Sunday, March 12, 2017

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday in Lent

Happy Lent!

And I am serious about greeting you that way.

I really want to get beyond that first reaction to Lent
            that it is a time for putting on a glum face.
Lent is a tremendous spiritual resource.
            We have in Lent the opportunity to look at many positive possibilities.
The subdued tone of Lent is meant to foster thoughtful personal reflection
            and open a door for more careful examination of what is going on inside us.
We can use Lent to get in touch with our deepest longing,
            what brings the greatest joy, the greatest peace in our lives,
            what it’s like when everything is right.
                        when life seems its fullest.

This is the home grown, organic, natural Lent.
            Everything is provided for the exercise of a holy Lent.
All we really need is there in the daily stream of events,
                        the daily stream of interactions in our relationships,
            as the old hymn, New every morning, puts it,
                        “The trivial round, the common task
                        will furnish all we ought to ask…”

Everything we need for practicing Lent is right there in front of us –
            free of cost.
It’s just a matter of engaging with it.

Good luck on that, you might say,
            given what we are surrounded by in terms of the news,
                        and the unavoidable awareness of human suffering
                                                going on all around us, and in our own lives.

Politically, socially, economically, psychologically, environmentally
            the world looks all screwed up.
But today you are not going to hear a rant from me about that.           
No rant today
            not with a Gospel reading like we just heard.

John, chapter 3 –
                    the story of a Pharisee, community leader and member of the Sanhedrin,
Nicodemus,
            coming for a private conference with Jesus,
            at night when it would be safer for him,                       
                        when this conversation wouldn’t have a lot of people listening in,
                        when Nicodemus didn’t have a religious/political role to play,
                        when he could engage personally with Jesus
                                                            about his own questions and life issues.
And what Jesus says to him
            ends up with the most often quoted Bible verse ever:
                        “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
                        that everyone who believes in him
                        may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Now there are two words that I want to tell you today about this whole passage,
            - out of so much that can be said and that I would love to say -
                        just two words
                        and they are both Greek.

Nicodemus says to Jesus,
            “We know you are a teacher who comes from God.”
            No one can do such signs as you do apart from the presence of God.
And Jesus responds immediately:
            “No one can see the kingdom of God,
            without being born from above.”

My first word is anwqen, from above.
And notice, this translation does not say “born again.”
The Greek says, born from above, anwqen,
            from what preceded, what is before – from the Source.

In reading, if something is referred to “above”
we know that means something preceding in the text.
“From above” is like going upstream to the headwaters.
anwqen refers us to the Source,
to the beginning, to where it all began.

“In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. 
He was in the beginning with God. 
All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being.”

You can’t see, that is to say, you cannot discern, the Kingdom of God
            without being born from the Source.

If one knows one is in the Presence of God,
            then one is knowing from the Source. 
In order to know you must come into new being, be born of water and Spirit,
                                                            from the Source.

You may have noticed the baptismal font has been placed here for Lent,
            right in front of us to walk by as we come up for Communion.
This baptismal font is a wonderful visual representation of the Gospel reading!
            Look at the shape of it.
I hadn’t thought of it this way before,
            but in the light of the words from John, chapter 3,
            I looked at this font differently.

Jesus says to Nicodemus,
            “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God
            without being born of water and Spirit.
and
            ‘You must be born from above.’

This font, its shape            is suggestive            of a uterus                        a womb
                        a place that prepares us for new life.

We began Lent with the ashes of our mortality.
We will end Lent with the Easter Vigil,
            the number one time during the liturgical year for baptisms,
            for being born anew into the eternal Resurrection Life of Jesus.

The font fits beautifully with John, chapter 3.

Jesus continues with Nicodemus:
            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.”
And Nicodemus says to him, “How can these things be?”

There is nothing we can do or understand
to be born from above, from the Source.
This being born is not something we accomplish,
just as physically babies do not accomplish their own birth
            or understand what has happened to them.
When the time is ripe
the mother’s body automatically goes into contranctions
and ejects the baby, pushes it out,
even without the mother’s conscious part in determining when.

When the time is ripe…
The baby that is in the womb
            is not yet ready for the world,
            would not be viable in the world yet. 

But there is one big difference between a baby being born
            and being born of water and the Spirit.
In the case of being born from above, anwqen,
            the umbilical cord is not cut.
We are connected eternally to the Source,
            to God’s Presence,
            to eternal life
                        begun in the waters of baptism
                        and carrying us through the physical death of the body.
The umbilical cord is never cut.
            It is our path back to God when we wander.
            It is a short path, a path of no distance.

Word number two: kosmojœœ, the Greek word that is translated “world.”

In English we associate the word kosmoj with the universe,
            but in Greek it has a more specific meaning.
The kosmoj is an ordering or arranging or adornment
            placed over the natural, naked creation.
                        Hence the word in English, cosmetology.
World in Greek refers therefore to
            the political, cultural, economy, religious composition
                        of human society within our environment.
It is the embellishment of the earth
            with all our human inventions, philosophies, and ideations.

Now the significance of this word becomes clearer
            when we consider again that most famous Bible quotation:
                        “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
                        that everyone who believes in him
                        may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Everything in the world around us,
            everything we have created or invented or altered or ruined,
            every system of knowledge we have come up with,
            every meaning we have applied to life,
            every structure of society,
everything, it all is included in the Love of God.
Not just the created earth and we humans, God’s creatures,
            but all we have done to it and to each other
receives the intervention of God’s love through Jesus Christ
            so that none perish,
            so that world, the kosmoj, will not be condemned.
God so loved the world.

This is the Gospel good news for this morning,
            what touches our deepest long,
            what brings the greatest joy, the greatest peace: God so loved the world.
In the middle of everything that is going on right now,
            we are told that God has infinite love for us
                                    and all we have done to God’s beautiful creation.

Let this inform our praying of the confession,
                        which as you may recall is now right up front for Lent,
            and fill us with profound gratitude
                        as we hear the words of absolution:
Almighty God have mercy on you,
forgive you all your sins through the grace of Jesus Christ,
strengthen you in all goodness,
and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.

The spiritual resources of Lent are right before us.

Oh, happy Lent!

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
            that everyone who places their faith in him
                        may be born into the eternal life that ever flows through Jesus                                                 from the One who is the Source of all that is.