Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Born Again and Again

Sunday, November 14, 2010 ~ A Meditation on John 3:1-17 ~ Jesus and Nicodemus get into it around living by the spirit, riding with the wind and risking transformation.

1.


So Nicodemus sneaks through the streets, knocks lightly and anxiously at the door where Jesus is staying, and slips into a candlelit room. Night falls fast on the city. And Nicodemus’s hoping that no one’s seen him, at least no one who knows him. Because Jesus has earned a reputation for breaking rules and touching untouchables and shocking honorable teachers. And Nicodemus doesn’t want any trouble. Not now. He cherishes his reputation among the other Pharisees. He’s got a family to feed. But he’s curious, he’s interested; And Nicodemus’s strangely drawn to the freedom he sees in Jesus’ eyes, strangely drawn to the love in Jesus’ expanding circle of friends. So he slips in. Unseen.

And in no time the careful Pharisee and the carefree rabbi get into it. In no time Jesus gets to the point. “Here’s what I’m telling folks,” he says, looking Nicodemus in the eye. “No one can see the kingdom of God…no one can perceive the divinity in things…no one can feel God’s beating heart…without being born from above.” And Nicodemus flinches. The kingdom of God? The divinity in things? God’s beating heart? His mind races to keep up. “How?” he asks. “How can anyone be born a second time? You can’t be saying that I can return to my mother’s womb and do it all over again?” And I have to imagine that Jesus pauses. That he allows Nicodemus’ question to wander the room, bounce off walls, return again. “How can anyone be born a second time?”

This little encounter reverberates throughout history as one of the most familiar and complicated encounters in the gospels. At the heart of it seems to be this idea that you and I are most alive, most human, most christ-like, when we’re open to the spirit’s unexpected and unscripted movement in our lives. You’re late for work but you stop when you see a hard-luck beggar on the median. You’re stuck in a relationship rut and you’re mad; but you read a poem or hear a hymn, and you decide to forgive, you decide to let it go. Grace sends up a shoot in an instant, unannounced. You start over again. You risk the road less traveled. You trust that everything’s going to be OK.


Think about it, Jesus says. “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, the rush of it, but you can never tell where it’s been or where it’s going.” Think about it, he says. You can live that way: in fact, that’s what faith is. Not knowing for sure. Not just going through the motions. Not taking God for granted. Faith means watching, moment by moment, for the dancing christ in your life. Faith means listening, minute by minute, for the singing spirit in the wind. And faith means being born again and again and again into new life, new opportunities, new mysteries. You start over again. You risk the road less traveled. You trust that everything’s going to be OK.

Now being born wasn’t terribly easy the first time around; there’s pushing and pulling, there’s bleeding and cussing, general mayhem to be honest. But that’s so often the spiritual journey. That’s faith. Being born again and again. There are all these contractions, all these gusts of wind and rain, all these shoots of grace. And you and I are most human, most christ-like, when we’re open to it all, open to this unscripted cycle of living, letting go and starting again.

2.

So how is it that church fathers so quickly turned this same text, this same story, into a sharp-edged theological sword, a weapon of mass destruction against any and all comers? How is it that we fall so quickly into the all-too-human trap of dividing up God’s one beautiful connected world into saved and unsaved, blessed and forgotten, worthy and unworthy? I don’t have to remind you that this same story becomes part of a history that makes possible Christian anti-semitism and all kinds of crazy intolerance and violence. Believe in the name of Jesus, and expect blessing here and eternal life hereafter. Refuse to believe, and perish. And all too often the church has used Jesus and Nicodemus to do its spiteful dirty work.

But what if? This morning I want to ask, what if? What if the church fathers had it terribly, terribly wrong? What if Jesus is really saying that the whole world is bathed in light, the whole cosmos, the whole human family too? What if Jesus is imagining all life connected and blessed and dancing together? And what if being born again and again has to do with seeing the connections, perceiving the blessing, joining the dance?

I think that’s what’s going on here. I think Jesus’s inviting Nicodemus to bury the old certainties, the old categories, the old anxieties. I think he’s inviting Nicodemus to be born again into a world of mystery, humility, complexity, serenity. Forget about your neighbor’s bad habits. Resist the urge to point fingers and blame the bad guy. Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Love love and only love. Be born again and again and again – in love.

And what happens, what happens when you choose to read this story, Jesus and Nicodemus, that way? What happens when you join the dance, when you love love and only love? Maybe faith, Christian faith, becomes a dynamic force for reconciliation and peace. Maybe it becomes a journey of constant change, constant expansion, and you’re born again and again and again.

It could work this way. You carry around some stereotypes – maybe even some prejudice, some racism where immigrants and Latinos are concerned. But you make a new friend at a COPA event or you pay close attention to a classmate in school; and you feel something like connection, something like compassion, something like the melting of old certainties, old categories, old fears. You’re born again. You’re joining the dance. And it’s just the beginning.

It could work this way. You’ve been hurt badly, wounded by someone who should have known better. You feel nothing; it doesn’t even hurt anymore. Then someone in church hands you a piece of bread, bread of heaven, body of christ; and it dawns on you. You’re part of the family, caught up in the blessing, bathed in grace just like the rest of us. You’re born again. You’re joining the dance. And it’s just the beginning.

3.

“So don’t be shocked,” Jesus says to Nicodemus, “that I’m talking about being born again and again and again. Because the wind blows wherever it wishes; you hear the rush of it, the sound of it. And you’ll never know where it’s been or where it’s going.” See what he’s doing? He’s linking wisdom to rebirth. He’s linking vitality to improvisation. Faith doesn’t pin things down; it lets things go. Faith doesn’t hang on tight; it opens wide. We’ve all watched the bright red kite lifting off at the beach, soaring in the gusty wind, choreographing its own dance. That’s faith. We’ve all seen a puppy chasing its own tail like it’s some kind of carnival prize. That’s faith. “So it is,” Jesus says, “so it is with everyone of you born of the holy, restless, ever-new spirit of God.”

So we’re not talking about the rigid orthodoxy that demands a particular kind of ‘born again’ experience. And we’re not talking about the triumphalism that promises some reward to Christians that others will never see. We’re talking about the kite in the wind and the dog chasing its tail and the heart that dances with the spirit.

So think a little about the two initiatives highlighted in the insert this morning, the insert from church leadership. We’re talking about experimentation and improvisation. We’re talking about risking new visions and riding new gusts of wind. You’ll read about a couple opportunities before us – one being a six-month experiment with Sunday programming and the other being a conversation about language and identity. What ties the two together is our love for one another, our love for this congregation and all it represents, and our deep desire to share this good news widely and generously.

So, in January, we’ll try something; we’ll move this jazz service – which we all love – to Sunday evening for six months. And we’ll see if a Sunday evening service might grow and expand to include all kinds of folks not inclined to worship with us on Sunday morning.

Think about the folks who run Sunday morning road races. Think about the folks who go out on long bike rides with their friends. Or the folks who like to start Sunday slow and get brunch with family. Or the college kids or musicians who sleep in after long Saturday nights. Or the families whose older kids head for Sunday morning soccer leagues or swim meets. We want to test, for ourselves, whether Sunday evening makes it possible for us to include, to welcome, to touch lives we just can’t touch now. So we’ll try. Beginning in January, we’ll try.

The second conversation is just getting started, in its infancy. For some time, it’s struck me that the way we name ourselves, the way our church is known out there, might not reflect the spirit, the innovation, the energy in here. “First Congregational Church” can seem kind of stale and stuffy, kind of stiff and institutional. So many folks are looking for spirit and hope, for flexibility and love. I’m just not sure “First Congregational Church” says that.

So I’m asking the church to talk a little bit about a new name. What would happen if we changed our name to PEACE UNITED CHURCH? What would happen if our new website took its cue from this – and became a kind of peace portal for all kinds of peacemakers and peace seekers and contemplative spirits? Maybe we’d give every visitor who walks through these doors a little book on the Art of Making Peace. Maybe we’d host all kinds of workshops on the art of making peace in our own homes and the art of making peace in the world and the art of making peace through music and poetry and dance. PEACE UNITED CHURCH! And what would happen if we built advertizing campaigns around a new name? At Christmas, for example, we’d say to our neighbors: This Christmas, Give Peace a Chance! We’re not talking about magic. We’re just talking about telling our story, making the invitation as plain and compelling as it possibly can be. This Christmas, Give Peace a Chance!

4.

What I’m guessing is this: There’s a whole wide world of folks out there who need the kind of community we’re building here. There’s a whole wide world of folks – young folks and old folks, gay folks and straight folks, family folks and single folks – who hunger for justice in the world and long for peace in their lives. There’s a whole wide world of folks aching to be born again and again, aching for a glimpse of one big love, aching for a journey as unpredictable and unnamable as the spirit itself.

What we want to do – what I want to do – is share all this. Do everything we can to make space, to open up, to pass the peace of christ around and around and around. I’ve got to think Jesus and Nicodemus are allies in all this. Unexpected allies, but lively allies. Inspiring some poetry. Maybe a little rhythm. Maybe something like this:

Be Nicodemus, born Nicodemus,
again Nicodemus, and again.
The wind Nicodemus, it blows Nicodemus,
you go Nicodemus, like the wind.


Be Nicodemus, born Nicodemus,
again Nicodemus, and again.
The wind Nicodemus, it blows Nicodemus,
you go Nicodemus, like the wind.


Let go of every certainty, let go of all anxiety,
Superficiality, let go.
Shed shed the old skins, shed shed the old sins,
Shed shed the old ways, shed shed the old days,
Hey Nicodemus, live Nicodemus,
You go Nicodemus, like the wind.
Mystery and unity,
Holy choreography,
Unpredictability, that’s life.


World’s waiting, Nicodemus,
World’s hoping, Nicodemus,
World’s weeping, Nicodemus,
Can't you see?
Oceans rising, Nicodemus,
Kids are dying, Nicodemus,
Wars expanding, Nicodemus,
Violently.


So shed shed the old skins, shed shed the old sins,
Shed shed the old ways, shed shed the old days,
Hey Nicodemus, live Nicodemus,
you go Nicodemus, like the wind,
let go of the certainty, let go of all anxiety
Superficiality, let go.
Mystery and unity,
Holy choreography,
Unpredictability, that’s life.
One big love and one big earth
Big enough for your rebirth.
So be Nicodemus, born Nicodemus,
again Nicodemus, and again.


The wind Nicodemus, it blows Nicodemus,
you go Nicodemus, like the wind.
The wind Nicodemus, it blows Nicodemus,
you go Nicodemus, like the wind.