i-church :
Unfurl the sails

A sermon for i-church preached at
St. John’s Episcopal Church
61 Broad Street
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07201
The Second Sunday of Lent (A)
February 17, 2008
The Rev. Joe Parrish
Rector, St. John’s Church, and
Assistant Pastor, i-church
The Holy Gospel according to John 3:1-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He 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.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus 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?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you ‘You must be born from above.’ 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.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 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. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 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. 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.”
Give us that life that never ends, and we will be joyful, Lord. Amen.
William Willimon, a Methodist bishop in northern Alabama wrote 25 years ago, “Go ahead admit it, preacher. You love it. Lent is your favorite season of the church year. Children love Christmas, missionaries love Epiphany, charismatics dote on Pentecost — but for preachers, nothing beats Lent. Here is the homiletical season par excellence, six weeks when we are given license to do what we would do all year if we could: breast-beating, belittling, berating. It’s a time of sackcloth and ashes, the long fast, self-denial, focus upon sin and its consequences. Every preacher gets to play the prophet at Lent. And the beautiful part is, the people love it. ‘You are the overaggressive ones whose culpability made the cross inevitable,’ we preach. ‘All like sheep have gone astray,’ we cry, and the people in unison say, ‘You really stepped on our toes today, preacher. What a wonderful Lenten litany.’ But, Bishop Willimon continued, ‘the prophet is sent not to scold but to save.’”
Jesus was in the saving business. He was not seeking glory for himself, but eternal life for others, no matter how notorious or public their sins. Jesus came to save. Indeed, his very name means, ‘one who saves’.
The Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor tells this story:
“Once upon a time, there was a woman who set out to discover the meaning of life. First she read everything she could get her hands on–history, philosophy, psychology, religion. While she became a very smart person, nothing she read gave her the answer she was looking for. She found other smart people and asked them about the meaning of life, but while their discussions were long and lively, no two of them agreed on the same thing and still she had no answer.
“Finally she put all her belongings in storage and set off in search of the meaning of life. She went to South America. She went to India. Everywhere she went, people told her they did not know the meaning of life, but they had heard of a man who did, only they were not sure where he lived. She asked about him in every country on earth until finally, deep in the Himalayas, someone told her how to reach his house–a tiny little hut perched on the side of a mountain just below the tree line.
“She climbed and climbed to reach his front door. When she finally got there, with knuckles so cold they hardly worked, she knocked.
“‘Yes?’ said the kind-looking old man who opened it. She thought she would die of happiness.
“‘I have come halfway around the world to ask you one question,’ she said, gasping for breath. ‘What is the meaning of life?’
“‘Please come in and have some tea,’ the old man said.
“‘No,’ she said. ‘I mean, no thank you. I didn’t come all this way for tea. I came for an answer. Won’t you tell me, please, what is the meaning of life?’
“‘We shall have tea,’ the old man said, so she gave up and came inside. While he was brewing the tea she caught her breath and began telling him about all the books she had read, all the people she had met, all the places she had been. The old man listened (which was just as well, since his visitor did not leave any room for him to reply), and as she talked he placed a fragile tea cup in her hand. Then he began to pour the tea.
She was so busy talking that she did not notice when the tea cup was full, so the old man just kept pouring until the tea ran over the sides of the cup and spilled to the floor in a steaming waterfall.
“‘What are you doing?!’ she yelled when the tea burned her hand. ‘It’s full, can’t you see that? Stop! There’s no more room!’
“‘Just so,’ the old man said to her. ‘You come here wanting something from me, but what am I to do? There is no more room in your cup. Come back when it is empty and then we will talk.’”
Nicodemus came to Jesus with a full cup, and Jesus tried gently to overflow Nicodemus’ cup so he would finally listen and hear the way to life eternal.
Maybe today we are coming here with our cups overflowing, not really ready to accept what God may be trying to tell us, not ready to have a visitation of the Holy Spirit on this particular Sunday at this particular time. We have so much to do later today that we really don’t need God visiting us and setting us off on a new course that will change our life and our commitment and our direction. No, maybe we are not ready for that kind of wind to blow among us here today.
But Jesus told Nicodemus, we don’t direct the wind; we don’t even know where it comes from nor where it is going after this. What we do know however is that God’s wind is ‘a blowing up a storm’ for those who are ready with their sails unfurled and their rudders ready. God is ready to pull us and push us beyond our safety zone and without our familiar safety net. God has a new plan for our lives if we will only listen.
Professor Sandra M. Schneiders writes, “The encounter with the Nicodemus text is a perennial challenge to be born again, to enter ever more fully into the mystery of divine revelation and thus to appropriate anew our identity as disciples. The path to this new birth for us, as for Nicodemus, is the doing of the truth insofar as we can grasp it.”
An internet banner reads, “There are no shortcuts to God’s plan for you.” Nicodemus was looking for some quick answer, some insight to have this new knowledge Jesus had. Nicodemus, the teacher, wanted learning from the student. Nicodemus wanted a shortcut to eternal life. But what he heard instead is that the way there was not something he could do or pray or even say. Nicodemus needed the Holy Spirit to come upon him and save him from a life of knowledge without learning. Nicodemus needed to be aware that God was the one who could blow the wind of life in his direction, and indeed Nicodemus was standing directly in Jesus’ presence, looking for the wind when the tornado was just about to touch him.
Rev. Thomas Hall tells the story of “A young man [who] came to the door of a monastery with a big, fat duck in his arms. His uncle, who happened to be one of the monks, answered the door. ‘Here, Uncle Stanislav, is a gift for you and the other monks.’ Well, Uncle Bartholomew took the duck and plucked it, stuffed it, basted and baked it and the brothers lived high on the hog (so to speak) that night.
“Several days later, another knock came on the monastery door. ‘Alo, alo! I am a friend of the nephew who brought you the big, fat duck. I’m a bit down on my luck, and I wonder if I might impose on you for a bite to eat and a place to sleep for the night?’ ‘Of course you can, my son, you are most welcome here.’ So that night, he joined the monks for warm duck soup. A few days later, another knock: ‘Halloooo! I am a friend of the friend of the nephew who brought you the duck. Could I impose on you for a bit of hospitality?’ He too was welcomed . . . more duck soup. A few more days went by. Another knock: ‘Hi, I am a friend of the friend of the friend of the friend of the nephew who brought you the duck.’ That night at dinner he was presented with a steaming hot bowl of water. He tasted it, looked up, perturbed. ‘What’s this?’ ‘This?’ asked Brother Stanislav. ‘Oh this, why this is the soup of the soup of the soup of the duck that my nephew brought.’” Theologically speaking, second-hand, third- or fourth-hand faith can end up being pretty watered down. Living by the faith of the faith of the faith that we once owned in confirmation class or from a Bible study or prayer group can be pretty bland and tasteless over the years. We need to be born over, from above, by the wind of the Holy Spirit if the fire of faith has dwindled or has gone completely out.
Leonard Sweet reports that on Super Tuesday in Lafayette, Tennessee, James Kruger was watching the election results. Suddenly a warning appeared on his television screen: a tornado was headed toward Lafayette, Tennessee, right where he lived. As soon as he read those words, the lights went out. [You can Google an image of James Kruger, who appears disheveled, confused, and with a huge shiner.] He put on sweat pants, grabbed a flashlight, “and then I heard this noise,” Kruger said. He headed for a door, “and all of a sudden I heard the glass breaking and it was sucking,” he said. “When I tried to shut the door, [it] seemed like the door was lifting up. So I just dove, and I lay flat on the floor.” Lying there, time stood still as everything in the house flew over him, scraping and banging his back, Kruger said. Then the chaos stopped. “I was lying in the dirt. There was no floor. No nothing.” The house was gone. But Kruger says he knows why he survived. “I think God
was holding my leg, teaching me that I hadn’t been doing everything he wanted me to do,” he said.
That night Nicodemus maybe didn’t realize it, but God’s son was clinging to him like glue, answering his questions in a way that might just make him think, and thinking might just open his heart to the moving of the Spirit. Then Nicodemus would be in the real fray, he would be a follower on the way of Jesus, he too would have been born from above.
Perhaps we are looking for something dramatic to shake us during Lent, to bring us out of lethargy, to renew our human spirit, to make us truly alive again. The wind is blowing, the sails are unfurled, so join in coming higher, follow Christ with all your being, serve the Lord with everything you have, bring others into Christ’s folk. Then you will know that indeed you have been born from above.
Amen.