E-mail: lowell“at”revlowell.com

  Date:      Second Sunday in Lent, Year A

Texts: Genesis 12:1-4a

Psalm 33:18-22

Romans 4: 1-8, 13-17

John 3:1-17

  Theme:      Reconception  is Nicodemus’ misconception—and Nicodemus  has a  whole

lot of company.

  Subject:      spiritual rebirth, conversion, born again

Under Cover of Darkness

[Note: This sermon  contains  a short  passage  from Thorton  Wilder’s  classic play,  “Our Town.”  The selection may be read by the preacher or enacted by members of the congregation.]

We  are  conceived in the dark.  For many months, we gestate in the darkness  of  our mother’s  womb.    During all  our  days, the light and  the darkness  provide  the basic rhythm  and  structure for our existence.  When the light of our lives fails,  we return  to the darkness.  That we not remain in the dark all of our lives is the major concern of  the author of the Fourth Gospel.

As I reread and studied our Gospel text for today from the third chapter of John,  two possible sermon titles came to mind: “Lord, You Mix Me Up!” and “How Not to be  Born Again.”   John’s  report  of the nighttime  conversation  between Jesus  and  Nicodemus takes  advantage  of deliberate confusions and ambiguities.  I am  sure that  Nicodemus left his evening meeting with Jesus as confused as he came—just as I am convinced that most  references I  have  heard  in my life to the  oft-quoted words  of  this chapter  are products of systematic misunderstanding of what Jesus was saying.  John  the  beloved disciple  is deliberately  ambiguous.  He  loves  symbolism, puns, double meanings, and irony. John was a theologian and a preacher more than a report-er.   He never  remains  behind the camera as do Matthew,  Mark,  and Luke.   He  is  a character  in his own production.  He is never far from the center of the action.  He  rests on  Jesus’  bosom at the Last Supper.  He stands with Mary at the foot of  the cross.   He and  Peter were the first to hear Mary Magdalene’s report of the empty  tomb.  He  was one of the seven disciples to whom Jesus appeared by the Sea of Tiberius.  John’s interest is the significance more than the facts.  When he tells a story, it is diffi-cult to tell when the tale ends and his sermon on the story begins.  Thus,  commentators and translators  are  hard pressed to know where the  conversation  between  Jesus  and Nicodemus  ends and where John’s interpretation begins.  Could Jesus have  said:  “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,” etc.?  There  is so much interesting and challenging material in these verses, but since  time is limited,  I would like to focus on the words that are usually translated “You must  be born  again” (gennethnai   nothen).   The original Greek is  ambiguous.  The  words  can mean either “You must be born again” or “You must be born from above.”  Or to be  even more  literal, they say, “You must be generated again” or “You must be  generated from above.”

  Jesus  tells  Nicodemus:  “No one  can  see the  kingdom  of God  unless  he is   born  nothen.”  It is clear from the context and from John’s consistent use of the word   nothen throughout the  Gospel that he means “from above”—that unless God acts to open  our eyes  to spiritual  reality,  we will remain blind to his presence in  our lives  and  world. According  to  the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the  kingdom  of God, God’s  just  rule over the affairs of mankind, was a central emphasis of the  teachings  of Jesus—as it had been in the preaching of John the Baptist.  Yet in the Fourth Gospel, the kingdom of God is mentioned only here in John 3. 

John  is  saying something  important  to his readers,  to  the first  century  Christian church, and to us.  The kingdom of God is not a new sociopolitical order like the Roman empire or  the  kingdom of Alexander the Great. As Jesus will later  say  to Pilate,  “My kingship  is not  of  this world”(18: 36 RSV). John is taking  us  beyond this  world  and pointing toward a new dimension or order of existence.  And yet this new dimension  is here at the center of our daily lives. 

If  that sounds confusing, you are getting the point. The demand that Nicodemus  be “born  again”  or  “born from above” is intentionally  confusing.   Nicodemus misunder-stood  Jesus  and so have most translators of this text.  In this case as in so  many others, careless translation has led to sloppy theology.  So-called born-again Christians,  assuming that  the  born-again experience is a “by the numbers,”  routinized  stimulation of  a momentary emotional excitement have appropriated these words for themselves. When  such Christians ask me if I am born-again, I want to tell them that, of course,  I am.   After  all, I have been regenerated from above more times  than  I  can remember.  And  God keeps  planting  his seed in my life, and with or  without my  cooperation,  it keeps growing.   Day by day, I am born from above every time I open my heart  to  the grace of God in my life and respond with thanks and joy.  Being  born from above is not the experience of crisis conversion, the  sense of  relief and  release that follows confessing one’s sins and asking Jesus into one’s  heart.  Being born  from  above is taking one’s place with the people of God as one who  is  open and responsive to God’s Spirit. Being born from above is being committed to walking in the light even as God gives us light within the context of a faithful community. 

Jesus did not say, “Unless a person is born of the right emotional agitation” or “of  the right  beliefs” or “of the right lifestyle.”  He said, “Unless a man is born of water  and  the Spirit, he  cannot  enter the kingdom of God.”  John does not quote  Jesus  as saying  to Nicodemus, “You  must be regenerated” or “You must be reborn.”  He says,  “You must be  born  from above.”   Reconception is Nicodemus’ misconception --  and  Nicodemus has  a whole lot of company.

Abraham, about  whom  today’s Old  Testament  and Epistle  readings  speak,  was called  to  leave his  home and go where God  commanded.  Likewise  Nicodemus  was called to  leave his prejudices, his presuppositions, and his position in society.  He  was called  to join those who have been born of water and of spirit.  Both men  were  sum-moned to strike out in ways they could scarcely have imagined.  When  I drive home the same way day after day, I scarcely see  the passing  scenery.  When I  take  a new way home, I am aware of my surroundings—as  though they  had just  been created  for  my benefit.  To be born from below is  to drive  on  through life without  stopping  to live. To be born from below is to be a spectator to  one’s  own  life rather than  a participant in it.  To be born from above is truly to live.  To be born  from above is have one’s eyes open to the presence and grace of God in our lives as individu-als and in our midst as a church.

The  call  to Abraham was heard and obeyed.  We are not told  what  Abraham said.  But we know what he did.  He lived life fully.  He saw the presence and grace of God  at work in  his life.  He was awestruck and appreciative.  He was open to  the  possibilities of his life.  He was alert and aware.  Through him all the nations of the world have truly been blessed.  From the faithfulness of Abraham springs the great monotheistic faiths of mankind—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Nicodemus’ response to his calling was to discuss it, object to it, think it  over, medi-tate  upon it, and seriously consider it.  As John describes him, Nicodemus was a  victim of  “the paralysis of analysis.”  Nicodemus came in the dark and left the same  way.   His life  remained  two-dimensional.   He  was too busy attending  to  his  responsibilities  to have time to open himself to the spontaneity, to the excitement, to the danger  of  really living. 

To  be  fair, Jesus’ late night conversation with Nicodemus was not  entirely in  vain.  Nicodemus would later defend Jesus before the Sanhedrin (7:50), insisting on a fair trial, and,  when  his words were ignored and Jesus was juridically lynched, he   would  have the courage  to  come openly by day with Joseph of Arimathea to  help  prepare Jesus’ body  for  burial (19:39).  The disciples loved by Jesus fled like  roaches  exposed to  the light, but  this  man who had so much to lose—his status and standing  as  one of  the highest officials  of  his people—risked it all to give the strange teacher  from  Galilee  a

decent burial.

Nicodemus never understood Jesus.  He never came out and publicly  acknowledged him  to  be the Messiah.  He never joined the church of his day.  Yet he had  the  courage to live—to risk his life for the sake of the wonder-worker he never comprehended.The choice between living one’s life and merely existing finds eloquent expression  in Thornton Wilder’s ageless play, Our Town. The concluding act is set in a New England cemetery.   The townspeople who have died sit facing the audience in a dozen  ordinary chairs  in  three openly spaced rows.  The chairs represent their graves.  Emily Gibbs,  a young woman, enters their ranks.  She has just died in childbirth and misses her family. 

She greets  her  new companions  but tells them her greatest  wish  is  to  return to  her family.  They  strongly  advise against  it.   Simon Stimson,  the  bitterest of  the  dead, reminds her of the ignorance and blindness of the living.  He tells her that being alive is:

To  move  about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling  on  the feel-ings  of those. . . of those about you.  To spend and waste time as though you  had  a million years.  To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another.

Emily tries  to  go back as a witness to one of the happiest days in  her  life,  her  twelfth birthday  party,  but  she discovers that the living don’t appreciate  life.   They  take too much for granted.  Finally she cries out:

I can’t.  I can’t go one.  It goes so fast.  We don’t have time to look at one another.  I  didn’t realize.  So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back  -- up the hill—to my grave.  But first: Wait!  One more look.

Good-by, Good-by,  world.   Good-by, Grover’s Corners. .  .    Mama and  Papa. 

Good-by to  clocks ticking. . . and Mama’s sunflowers.  And food and  coffee.  And

new-ironed dresses  and  hot baths.  .  . and sleeping  and  waking up.   Oh,  earth,

you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

And  then  she turns toward the stage manager, who rules over this play  like  God, and asks:

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? -- every, every minute?

And he replies:

No. (Pause.) The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.  All God’s gifts are undervalued—sunsets, music, food, nature, friendships.  Must we die before we can see life for the gift it really is? 

In  a  way, we must.  We must die to our self-centered, me-first,  self-justifying  existence.   We  must die to “I’m too busy to live now, I’ll start living as soon as the I  get  my promotion, or  get the children through college, or retire, or. . . .”  We must  stop  pursuing  the  cheap counterfeit versions of life.  God so loved the world that he gave  his one and  only  son  that  we might have real life, the life of the  ages.   When John  speaks  of eternal life,  he is not talking about life after death.  He was not looking  forward  to reclining on a cloud while playing a harp.  He is talking about life that is lived in the  light --not under cover of darkness. “Eternal life” is the “life of the eternal.”  It is  God’s  life, offered to us, lived through us, realized in our midst.

Do  any  human beings  ever realize how precious life is while  they  live it  --  every, every  minute?   No. There is too much darkness in us, too many bad habits,  too much sadness  and  pain, too many excuses, too much anger.  We spend so much  time  under cover of darkness that it is a wonder that we see anything at all.  It is a miracle  that  the light can break through at all.  But now and then it does.  God speaks and we hear.  God calls and  we  respond.  God changes the itinerary and we are alert  and  aware, all  the way home.  We are born from above.

Amen.

--LDS

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