Seems to me that in today’s lessons we’re continuing a theme from the past several weeks – transformation, temptation, and trust. Or, formation, fidelity, and faith.
We’re hearing of how faithful people face the challenge of God’s call to step out of comfort zones and lead with a wider mind about the expansiveness of God’s grace and plan for redemption and deliverance of us all.
In the case of Abraham…
As Paul is suggesting in the excerpt from his letter to the Romans that we’ve heard this morning, faith and trust are fundamental to our covenant with God well before the establishment of particular laws and traditions meant to support and encourage our faith.
Before the call of Moses and his delivering of commandments, we have this story of the call of Abraham and God’s promise to redeem us all through his legacy. We’re told that before Abraham, God tried many things to get us to turn from our selfish ways and return to divine righteousness as a family. God even attempted a re-boot through the great flood and the call of Noah to restore better order. Alas, even Noah falls off the wagon.
Along comes Abraham. We’re not really clear why Abraham, a decedent of Noah, is chosen, but perhaps there’s a lesson in that. God seems to be less interested in his past story and more concerned about the strength of Abraham’s faith and what that can mean for the future the people he will lead.
God calls Abraham to leave behind the life that he knows – to uproot his current identity; to surrender his sense of safety, security, protection, and prosperity - and to venture forth into something new – a new place that will be blessed and greater than where he’s been.
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| "Abraham Sarah and Yitzhak" by Yorah Raanan |
Abraham, following God’s call, arrives the city of Haran (charan; Strongs 2771: חָרָן ), which can mean ‘crossroads’ (it’s a city is located a crossroads of some main highways/routes). Indeed, in following God’s call, Abraham will face choices that impact his future, the future of his family, and a nation. It’s his fidelity of faith and trust in God’s gracious intentions and promises that will drive his choices.
Do you find yourself at any crossroads this Lenten season? Are there choices that you’re facing that have significant implications for you, your family, and your community? Does it feel like you’re being asked to leave what is familiar and venture into unknown territory with God? Do you ultimately trust God’s intentions?
In the case of Nicodemus…
If you’re like me, you might be hesitant to let go of what is known in order to follow where God is leading you. And, frankly, what’s being asked of you might seem unrealistic.
We might imagine that Nicodemus struggled with this as well. Here we have a respected Pharisee who is part of an esteemed group of community leaders who is not quite ready to trust in what God is revealing to him. Quietly, under the cover/protection of darkness, he comes to Jesus acknowledging that he believes God must be up to something, but clearly he’s not quite ready to publicly acknowledge this. Because of later references to his challenging his peers about their hasty condemnations of Jesus (John 7:50), and his bringing of valuable spices for Jesus’ burial (John 19:39), we know that Nicodemus, while conflicted, is sincerely struggling to trust in Christ. It’s just that in this moment of very personal questioning, he’s not quite ready to go public with his faith in God’s intentions through this messiah.
Jesus essentially tells Nicodemus that you can’t see what’s God’s up to if you stay put in your current state of mind and heart. He says that you have to be born anew – through baptism with the Spirit – in order to see clearly.
Nicodemus is obviously troubled by this; perhaps he’s contemplating the profound implications of being born into a new way of understanding God’s kingdom and all that might mean for the changes that need to take place in his life and in the world around him. As with any transformation, this means that some things will need to cease to be in order for new things to be.
Jesus addresses the potential fear about such changes – he says that those who believe in him don’t need to fear death, for they will actually find eternal life in this faith. He makes this even more explicit in his reference to being lifted up (possible allusion to his own death on the cross) like the snake on a pole that Moses lifted up during the plague of the poisonous serpents (Num 21:6-9)… all who look up to this sign might have life rather than death. He proclaims that God’s call to us and covenant intention for us through Christ is not condemnation, but salvation. We simply must have faith and believe in this intention as we follow Christ out of our status quo into a new way living.
Can’t we relate? How often do we, in the privacy of our hearts, know that God is calling us to step out in trust toward something transformative in our lives? And, how often do we choose to talk to God about these things in private, so as not to reveal to others our own potentially naïve beliefs about God or our fears about what must die in our lives in order for us to fully live? This sort of private faith can be good inasmuch as it moves us toward righteous action eventually… but God through Christ is calling us to live our faith more out loud and in public. If we keep reading the next verses after today’s Gospel lesson, we hear Jesus go on to say, “those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” (John 3:21).
We’re being called to leave the presumed safety of the shadows – to put our fears to rest - and to live fully in the light of Christ, trusting that God is leading us toward deliverance from all that tries to kill us.
ANECDOTE: Each year, thousands of visitors make their way to a little town in northwest Kansas named Nicodemus. There they find a national historical site in honor of the black ‘Exodusters’ from Kentucky / freed slaves who settled in this town during the Reconstruction Period following the Civil War. We’re told the town is named for the legendary first slave to purchase his own freedom in the U.S. – essentially being ‘born anew.’ Today, the Kansas Black Farmers Association still promotes “promised land flour” from the Nicodemus co-op and you can buy their pancake mix at nicodemuswheat.com. In this local Nicodemus story, we find another example of people called to something beyond what they had known who courageously followed-through toward freedom and new life in faith.
In conclusion…
This week, following our themes of formation, fidelity, and faith, in our church calendar, we’re called to remember a number of saintly people who we honor for their steadfast trust and faith in God’s call, even when such fidelity cost some of them their lives: Bishop Thomas Ken (willingness to speak truth to power/the king), Archbishop of Canterbury [and martyr] Thomas Cranmer (early architect of our Book of Common Prayer), The Rev. James De Koven (advocate for ritualism as adoration of Christ), and Archbishop [and contemporary martyr] Oscar Romero (for his consistent protesting of corruption and injustices).
And, on Friday, many Episcopalians will commemorate the blessed Mary with the Feast of the Annunciation. As it states in Holy Women, Holy Men, “Mary’s self-offering in response to God’s call has been compared to that of Abraham, the father of believers. Just as Abraham was called to be the father of the chosen people, and accepted this call, so Mary was called to be the mother of the faithful, the new Israel…. Her response to the angel, ‘Let it be to me according to your word,’ is identical with the faith expressed in the prayer that Jesus taught, ‘Your will be done on earth as in heaven.’” (Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints. NY: Church Publishing, 2010)
I close with a call to reconsider what it means to be born again / anew / from above. Rather than this being a single event that proceeds from an intellectual understanding or verbal utterance of certain words about beliefs, I propose that this is an emotional and spiritual birthing process that comes only after a period of spiritual gestation and through physical labor/actions. It’s less about what you do with your mind or mouth one time, and more about what you choose to do each and every day fueled by trust and faith in your heart.
I invite you to consider the remainder of Lent as a period of gestation for your own formation of greater fidelity and deeper faith that moves you to take action. You don’t have nine months… or even 40 days left at this point. You have about a month left to seek counsel with Jesus before he his handed over to be crucified.
What do you most need to talk to Jesus about?
What might Jesus tell you to let go of in your life in order that you might better see the kingdom?
Will you dare to leave your current circumstances this Lent to follow Jesus into a resurrected reality?
What might be born anew/again at Easter if you do?
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