BELIEVING IN
February 17, 2008
sermon given at St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
Medina, Washington
Well, we're really in the thick of Lent now, as evidenced by the frenzy of opportunities we're giving you to really observe the season. Read a recommended book! Come to the Sunday forum! Attend a Thursday night potluck supper and class! Sit in a different pew! All these are good spiritual practices, but of course, you don't have to do them all.
You see, it's not up to us to get right with God. God already loves us. The best we can do is believe, trust, and go along for the ride. That's what Abram did.
We heard three and a half little verses about Abram today. If you want the rest of the story, go home and read Genesis, chapters 12 through 25 – it really is a great, action-packed story. But today in church, we just get three and a half verses in which God promises Abram many descendants, many blessings, and even the opportunity to be a blessing to others for generations to come. And what is Abram's end of the bargain? He just has to trust God.
That's it. That's all God asks of Abram, and it's all God asks of us. "Trust me: I know what I'm doing." How hard is that?
Well, in Abram's case, trusting God means: "Leave your home and your people and everything you know, and go to the place I will show you." Ooh … how hard is that?
Trusting God is like learning to swim. You have to put your head underwater. You have to believe that you won't drown, or at least that your teacher will rescue you.
In our culture, we're constantly besieged by marketing that encourages us to "take control" of our lives. You can do it! You, too, can double your income! You, too, can lose 40 pounds! You, too, can have the life you've always wished for! Only $19.95!
But in church, we invite you to do exactly the opposite. Here, God asks us to let go of our control. Does your life feel out of control now? Great—you're well on your way.
See, the more you believe you are in control of your life, the harder it is to understand Jesus. You're also fooling yourself, because ultimately, you're not really in control. I fell into this trap myself last week at youth group. I said, "You know, Lent is a great time to work on things about yourself that need to change."
To which a 14-year-old boy added, "Or you could let God work on changing you."
Let God work on changing you: that's exactly right.
Today's Gospel is about Nicodemus, a man who probably believes he's in control. He's a respected, law-abiding citizen and one of the 70 most important leaders in Judaism. But Jesus intrigues him, so Nicodemus comes to him by night—afraid, no doubt, of what his colleagues would think of him if he approached Jesus in broad daylight. "Teacher, you say such wonderful things and do such amazing things. Who are you, anyway? It's clear to me that God has sent you."
But instead of answering Nicodemus's question, Jesus expands to a larger topic. "No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above."
Note the passive verb: "being born." This doesn't sound like something you go out and do. "I think I'll go and be born from above this weekend." And Jesus talks about the wind of the Spirit blowing where it will; we can't control it. "Being born from above," whatever that means, is something we don't do at all! God does it for us.
Abram was born from above. There was a moment in which, suddenly, Abram "got it." And he responded by putting his entire trust in God's grace and love. Many Christians call this a "born again" experience. For some people, it happens just once, in a blinding flash. But for others of us, "being born from above" is something we do a little bit at a time. I think that's how it was for Nicodemus: something about Jesus made him want to go deeper. In Jesus, Nicodemus saw the Kingdom of God, and then he needed Jesus to give it a name: "being born from above."
Jesus also called it "being born of water and the Spirit." Sounds like baptism, right? Our baptism, which we only do once, is a sacrament: a method of seeing the Kingdom of God so that we can participate in it. But "being born of water and the Spirit" is actually a lifelong process, if we will allow God to do it. Every time we wrestle control back from God, we slow down the process or even undo God's work.
All of this leads up to one of the most famous verses in the entire Bible, John 3:16. You've seen it at baseball games. You've heard it referenced in pro wrestling. It even appears on the bottom of coffee cups from In-N-Out Burger restaurants. Say it with me now: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."
The problem is that many Christians read this verse in isolation. If we do, we may be tempted to believe that God's love is conditional, and that if we don't do something very specific—that is, "believe in him"—we will receive not eternal life, but eternal death. An awful lot hangs on that word "believe," because at a glance, it seems like a required action.
Now, the Greek word is "pisteuo," which means "to think to be true, to be persuaded of." Kind of like, "Do you believe it will rain tomorrow?" In its basic form, it's an intellectual exercise.
But "pisteuo" has some extra connotations that our word "believe" doesn't necessarily carry: it means "to trust, to have confidence in, to commit oneself to." That's more like saying to someone, "You can do it; I believe in you."
Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of the world? That's not really what God asks—not to "believe THAT." Instead, do you believe IN—pisteuo—Jesus? Do you put your whole trust in God's grace and love, like Jesus did? It's a very different question, and it calls us out of the black-and-white, heaven-or-hell thinking that many Christians fall victim to.
By this point in the text, a pattern typical of John's Gospel has begun to emerge. The longer Jesus speaks, the more you get the feeling that his words are no longer meant just for Nicodemus. With every passing verse, Jesus is stepping further and further back and speaking to more and more people. And then the distinction between Jesus' words, and the words of the Gospel writer, and the Eternal Word of the Creator of All Things, gets pretty fuzzy. We've expanded from an intimate scene featuring two people in the middle of the night in first-century Jerusalem ... into the realm of Eternal Truth. When Jesus uses the word "believe," he's not asking one person to just get over it and swallow the facts. He's inviting all of us, individually and as a community of Christians, to trust him and commit ourselves to him.
And then—then!—comes the clincher … John 3:17. "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."
Wow. God loves the world, and God saves the world. Being in the presence of Jesus is not an occasion for guilt, but for rejoicing at the opportunity to trust God's promise.
Abram, at nearly 100 years old, turned his life over to God. God changed his name to Abraham, and all the promises that God gave were fulfilled through him.
And Nicodemus, already a prominent religious leader, was "born from above" and started all over again. You get the feeling that he started with baby steps. He stuck up for Jesus—in broad daylight, even!—when the Pharisees were planning to arrest him. And after the crucifixion, Nicodemus tenderly anointed Jesus' body with myrrh and aloes and helped place it in the tomb.
God invites us, like Abraham and Nicodemus, to live in faith and love, letting go of our control. The action required is not really an action, but a perspective from which we can finally see God.
I think the Rev. John Westerhoff said it best in another swimming metaphor. He wrote:
"We are to float. When we swim it is our will against the water, and the water wins and we drown. When we give up and sink to the bottom, we also drown. But when we float, we are cooperating with the water and we live. Floating is not doing nothing, nor is it trying to do everything. It is doing what is necessary and trusting the water so as to live … The faithful life [is] neither striving to be in control nor permitting ourselves to be victims who are totally out of control."
You can't control your life. But you can change your perspective. You can believe, which is to trust God and commit yourself to God. And the Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore. Amen.