Again Born
Genesis 12:1-4a; John 3:1-17
March 20, 2011
It’s almost like a standard joke routine: there are two kinds of people – those who are born again, and those who are born again and again and again. Well, maybe’s it not actually a joke, but there is a bit of subtle humour in this one.
John 3 has captivated generations of Christians and for many it has functioned as the critical Gospel passage that interprets all the rest. That is, “you must be born again” is where many Christians begin in their faith journey and until you are born again, well, you just haven’t begun as a Christian. Most United Church members have not had a traditional born again experience and often feel inferior in our faith when we encounter others who claim this fundamental event in their lives. We shouldn’t, for there is a better way to hear what the Gospel is saying.
Nicodemus came visiting Jesus under the cover of night and what he seems to ask is a polite and open-ended request for Jesus to explain himself. “Rabbi,” he addresses Jesus with a term of honour most then would not give Jesus. “We know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs unless God is with him.” Come on, tell us who you really are! Jesus’ reply was way off in left field. “Unless you are born anew, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus is thrown completely off and can only hear the simple and confusing words, so his response about reentering his mother’s womb is not as simple-minded as one initially thinks.
Unless you are born anew, you cannot see the kingdom of God – poetic and metaphorical words and expressions, certainly not literal. Most of us prefer to be literal, and sometimes fool ourselves into thinking that only what is physically available to our five senses is real. There is nothing tangible about love or compassion or for that matter beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder we love to say, but the best theologians insist that if want to sense God, we need first to be able to appreciate something beautiful. To be struck by beauty is to see in that struck-down moment the kingdom of God. Remember that book by Malcolm Muggeridge, Something Beautiful for God, about the life and work of Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta? Nothing beautiful could be seen where Mother Teresa walked. Physical eyes only see the pathos and putrid colours. Reborn eyes see something more, and beautiful.
Malcolm Muggeridge, the cynical editor of Punch magazine, came and saw what she was doing and with whom, something his eyes and trained mind were not able to see before. He saw the kingdom of God through the senses of an awakened faith. Was he born again? He used those words, but he had nothing to do with it.
As many have pointed out, you cannot make yourself born again. Just as babies cannot decide to be born, they just get born, so all those personal decisions for Christ that many Christians earnestly talk about do not enable them to be born again. It is an act of God over which we have no control. Many churches never figure that out and Christians who do not possess such an instantaneous experience are typically ostracized, if not actually excluded from the church by those born again who believe the former are simply not Christian.
They should listen to the story of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. The son of an Anglican priest, Wesley went into the Christian ministry with an earnestness seldom matched. In university he and a few others, including brother Charles, formed a Holy Club in which they pledged themselves to all sorts of religious practices and duly recorded their efforts. For their nearly compulsive methodical habits they were labeled “Methodists,” not meant to be complimentary, more like today’s expression “nerds.”
Wesley came into contact with several pietist groups, especially the Moravians, who fostered this interior transformative experience. But Wesley couldn’t make himself have such an experience and as the years went by, he despaired he would ever be an authentic Christian and minister. In May 1738 he heard that his brother Charles had had such an experience three days before he walked into a Moravian prayer meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. They were reading Martin Luther’s commentary on the Letter to the Romans when “his heart felt strangely warmed.” It can be argued that Wesley had already started the Methodist movement before Aldersgate Street, but being strangely warmed gave him the confidence and reassurance to go ahead. He was born anew when God got around to it.
When God around to it, it was Abram. While his family had just moved from Ur to Haran, there was nothing remarkable about them or about Abram in particular. No mention, as in other cases, of his moral uprightness, not that we expect that he was bad. God had it in for him, and told him to depart from his father’s country to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and bless you, and make you famous. All we hear is God’s voice, Abram just went as the Lord had told him, down to the land of Canaan, Israel or Palestine as it came to be known. Was this an Old Testament version of a born again story? You do have to wonder about someone who starts a new life at 75. No children, however, and it is hard to be the patriarch of a great nation without anyone to follow you.
The next 11 chapters in Genesis are all about a man Abram who grows in faith, but one situation after another does not quite have faith in God’s promise to him, and so tries to fix it his own way. Yet each time, there is a moment when Abram encounters the presence of God again and something new comes into play. His wife Sarah bears a child Isaac at the age of 90 and then later is commanded to sacrifice Isaac, but he is spared at the last instant. Abraham is born again and again and again. He loses sight of his rebirth, messes up trying to fix things, then by the grace of God is redeemed and he begins anew again, the Promise still intact. Fortunately in his story, Abraham was not born again with fireworks and technicolour, because his subsequent missteps would have brought the whole practice into disgrace. If being born again is an act of God, and one lives as if it didn’t happen, whose problem is it, God’s or the human being’s?
We are called upon to be born anew, however. As human beings we are constantly changing and is there anyone here who cannot remember wistfully or painfully about one’s naïve and mistaken thoughts and actions as a younger person, and how you came about to shift directions? There’s something arrogant about thinking that once God has given you grace, you are good to go for the duration. As powerful as God’s grace is, you and I need a lot more work. Yes, unless we are born anew we cannot see the kingdom of God, because I am not the same person I was 30 years ago or 20 or even 10 years ago. I hope to see again the kingdom of God, but I need a new pair of eyes, a renewed mind, an encouraged heart, and I can’t just make that happen through my own abilities. I pray for grace that God will make me new again, and probably necessarily again and again. I do believe that God does rebirth some human beings in a moment’s notice, but for most of us it’s a long grace-full and uneven journey, but we’re getting there. We just aren’t there yet, so we still have a chance to see the kingdom.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan