AND DIDN’T HE RISE…:NARROWNESS

A Sermon by Bill McDonald from John 3:1-17

February 17, 2008

John 3

¹Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ²He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” ³Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” ⁴Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸The 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.” ⁹Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

¹¹“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹²If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

¹⁶“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.

¹⁷“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.

As I was driving across a bridge, I spied this guy who was about to jump off. I jammed on the brakes and hopped out. “Don’t jump!” I said.

“Why not?” he said, “Nobody loves me.”

“God loves you.” I said, “You believe in God, don’t you?”

“Yes, I believe in God,” he said.

“Good,” I said, “are you a Christian or some other religion?”

“I’m a Christian,” he said.

“Me, too!” I said, “Protestant or Catholic?”

“Protestant,” he said.

“Me, too!” I said, “What denomination?”

“Christian Church,” he said.

“Me, too!” I said, “What branch: Independent, Church of Christ, or Disciples of Christ?” “Disciples of Christ,” he said.

“Me, too!” I said, “Liberal, moderate or conservative Disciples?”

“Moderate,” he said.

“Me, too!” I said, “Moderate Disciples against women in ministry or moderate Disciples for women in ministry?”

“Moderate Disciples for women in ministry,” he said.

“Me, too!” I said, “State subsidized schools moderate Disciples for women in ministry or strict separation of church and state moderate Disciples for women in ministry?”

“Strict separation of church and state moderate Disciples for women in ministry,” he said.

“Me, too!” I said, “Inclusive language modern translations of the Bible strict separation of church and state moderate Disciples for women in ministry or King James Version only strict separation of church and state moderate Disciples for women in ministry?”

“King James Version only,” he replied.

So I pushed him off the bridge and said, “Die, you heretic!”

Ah, we survey each other with microscopes just to find something to divide us. We are narrow in our interpretation of conduct, belief and principle. Our vision is so narrow that we don’t even see people who think differently from us except to recognize them as opponents or enemies. Brother May reported on one Bible College professor who was affiliated with a church that only recognized baptism if it meant that the initiate had been dunked totally under the water. The professor said, “Other churches keep wanting to discuss, ‘What are we going to do with our un-immersed brethren?’ Well, Brother May,” he said, “I don’t have any un-immersed brethren.” Restrictive views that narrow the field of brothers and sisters. And it isn’t just in religion. Narrow-mindedness saturates our entire society. I bought a refrigerator on a 90-day Same As Cash plan, but after the 90 days, they still wanted the cash! A narrow-minded interpretation of the rules! Or think of how restrained flight attendants are as they are required to make the same announcements time after time. But after a real crusher of a landing in Phoenix, one attendant came on with “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Capt. Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we’ll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal.” Just once wouldn’t you like to hear something like that?

But this narrowness is a serious subject for our Lenten musings. How we divide by our requirements and our biases! I give thanks for the creation of the Dora the Explorer doll, even though it has 3,000 accessories that you have to buy to accompany her. For those of you currently out of the child/grandchild toy loop, Dora is Hispanic and in videos and books easily slides back and forth between English and Spanish. Up until this Dora craze I would wager that 99% of all consumers bought dolls that were the same skin color as their daughters. Admit it. If you are Caucasian, have you ever looked twice at a Mother’s Day card for your wife that showed a radiant African-American mother and child? Or have any of us Caucasians or African-Americans ever purchased Christmas cards that portrayed the nativity scene with an Asian Holy Family? It isn’t so much that we are prejudiced; it’s just that it would never occur to us. We can’t see the options. Our minds follow narrow pathways of propriety and protocol. This is how life works. How could it be any way else?

Nicodemus slid up to Jesus at night. It was a solitary conversation because he was breaking several closely held taboos just to have a little talk with Jesus. You see, Nick was not your ordinary Pharisee; he was a member of the Sanhedrin Council, the strictest of the strict. Rabbis like Nicodemus taught that when all Israel kept the law, then and only then would the kingdom of God come. He does do Jesus the honor of calling him Rabbi also but gives him a qualified compliment. “You are a teacher from God…because we saw you work miracles.” And Jesus tells Nick, “You haven’t seen anything.” To this learned teacher, this legal authority, this scriptural scholar, Jesus basically says, “Your sight is so narrow that it will never see the kingdom of God.” John in his gospel records it this way, “Very truly, (that phrase used to be translated as Amen and Amen, which I liked better) I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” The Greek word “anōthen” used there is ambiguous and has been translated as “born again” and “born anew” but can also mean “born from above,” which fits what Jesus is trying to tell Nick. Nicodemus tries to take Jesus literally and begins asking biological questions. “Can someone crawl back into their mother’s womb?” Most mothers everywhere would adamantly answer “NO!” But Nick’s first question actually hints at what Jesus is trying to help him understand. “How can anyone be born after growing old?”

The old codger told the new minister, “I’ve been in this church my whole life. There have been a lot of changes around here in my 85 years. And I’ve been against every one of them!” “How can anyone be born after growing old?” How can we flow with the Spirit of God if we already are locked onto a set path toward what we view as righteousness? How can we meet the needs of a new day if we only use the tools of the past? How can we make room in our society, in our neighborhoods, in our families for people who don’t fit into our plans or our descriptions? How can we be born after growing old in our ways? Jesus gives an answer that confounds the wise and educated Nicodemus. And John’s gospel just leaves the answer hanging out there, unexplained, for us modern-day listeners. Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸The 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.” ⁹Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”

Born of the Spirit. You can’t pin down the spirit; it is like the wind that rips the roof off a house without even tipping over the flower pots on the porch railing. It leaves you asking, “Where did THAT come from?” I had inherited generations of bigotry while growing up in the deep South and I was scared to death of my father whose temper knew no boundaries. So it was almost inconceivable, as he stood there before friends blaring out a racial tirade, that I would speak up and confront him, declaring all humans to be children of God. But I did. And immediately I began to think to myself, “Omigod, where did THAT come from?” I know today where it came from; it came from the Spirit of God who chose that moment and this person to speak the truth. But we will never see the kingdom of God until we are ready to cast off the narrow blinders of custom and tradition and taboo. Until we are ready to float with the spirit.

Let’s not pretend that we are not narrow in our vision. Why else would news of six students being killed on a university campus shock us so, while at the same time we can dismiss without emotion the news of a commuter train wreck in China that killed 160. One group is within our field of vision; the other isn’t. The kingdom of God will open up to us if we will open ourselves to rebirth, to letting God write new principles and procedures on our hearts. A Sunday School teacher was telling her class the story of the Good Samaritan, in which a man was beaten, robbed and left for dead. She described the situation in gory detail so her students would catch the drama. Then she asked the class, “If you saw a person lying on the roadside, all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?” A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence by saying, “I think I’d throw up!” But that is where the kingdom is, not in law books, but on the roadside. Bono, leader of the band U2, said, “God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunities and lives. And God is with us…if we are with them.”

The last time Nicodemus saw Jesus was the evening he took Jesus’ crucified body from the cross and helped bury it in a tomb. Nick’s belief system told him that Jesus was gone, but what had Jesus said about rebirth and being lifted up so the world would believe? “Oh, well,” he probably thought, “so much for the spirit; life must be only a narrow set of rules after all.” So Nick said goodbye and sealed Jesus into the tomb…and didn’t he rise.