I
heard an interesting story this week on National Public Radio. It seems the leader of the Canadian
People
don't change easily, even
when they know they need to. We are creatures of habit, and any change - even
change for the better - is experienced as loss and a reason for grief. With the
pace of change accelerating as it has, we are even more hesitant to let go of
the known. This is regrettable, because every one of us has some changes we
need to make. We all need to be re-formed, to let go of some bad habits, to
take hold of some good ones. Just ask the people closest to you, if you dare.
Maybe they'll be honest with you, or just send you an anonymous letter. Whenever John has some “constructive”
criticism about one of my sermons, he always prefaces it by saying that he
overheard Wayne and Geri Johnson say…"maybe it was a tad too
long” or “it had a good beat, but you really couldn’t dance
to it” Do you remember the
things that people wrote in your high school yearbook…things like
“stay the way you are and you'll go far." It was meant as a compliment but it sounds
now like more of a curse. When I look at
my life now, I thank God that I have gone far, precisely because I didn’t
stay the way I was.
We
all need to change at least
a little, and some of us need to change a lot. There are times in life when a
little fine tuning can make all the difference, but there are other moments
when we need to change stations completely because we have been dancing to the
wrong kind of music. We've been listening to Britney Spears when our souls
needed Mozart. I'm talking about a complete overhaul, a 180 change of
direction, a total makeover, a new beginning, a fresh start. The sociologists
call it a "paradigm shift," which means a whole new structural
framework … an altogether different approach to reality … an
entirely new way of seeing things.
I
wore these rose colored glasses today to make the point. I've been accused of wearing them many times
before, but today is actually the first time I’ve ever put them on and I
have to admit that I like the way they turn the world pink. You all have rosy
complexions this morning, and the whole place seems infused with a special kind
of light. Of course, it's not real. It's not true. But if my parents had pulled
these over my eyes at my birth and I had worn them all my life, I wouldn't know
the world doesn’t really look this.
Come to think of it, our parents and our friends and our schools and our
churches and our television sets and our culture do pull tinted, tainted
glasses over our eyes from the day we are born. We see the world in a
particular way, through their eyes, and most of the time, and we don't even
realize there are other ways of seeing the world which may be truer to reality.
Do
you believe everything
you've been told and shown? What if fine clothes aren't what make you
beautiful, but the way you love people is what makes you beautiful? And maybe
the riches really worth having are the friends you can make while you're here.
What if God holds our nation accountable for how we take care of the least of
these here at home and around the world? How would that redefine what we call
"homeland security" if we feared God more than Osama bin Laden?
A
relatively recent approach
to therapy called "cognitive reframing" leads people to reevaluate
their conclusions about events … to reconsider the motives they ascribed
to people, to rethink their experience in a different light. It's another way
of saying, "Why don't you look at it this way?" People can be resistant
to this approach, not only because it means changing their minds and admitting
they may have been wrong, but because it means changing their behavior in light
of reality. As I already said, change is hard. A lot of people who wear rose
colored glasses will keep them on even when they've been shown the world isn't
really the way they see it because they prefer a pink world to the real world,
and they don't want to change.
Consider the story of Nicodemus. He
slipped around in the dark, trying to meet Jesus secretly. Why did he come at
night? He's a Pharisee and a leader of the Jewish people. Jesus has caused a
stir among them … challenged their ideas and their power over the people.
So maybe Nicodemus didn’t want his cronies to know he was inquisitive
with Jesus instead of confrontational.
What would the people think of a learned scholar of scripture asking
questions of an untrained carpenter from
Nicodemus begins obsequiously: "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." (John 3:2)
But Jesus doesn't even let him get to his first question. He interrupts
the set up. He cuts right to the chase
and nails Nicodemus between the eyes with the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth: "Very
truly, I tell you, no one can see the dominion of God without being born from
above" (John 3:3). It doesn't come from tradition or the teaching
of the church. It doesn't come from studying philosophy or theology or science.
It doesn't come from strict discipline or hard work. It doesn't come from your
parents or your culture or your big screen T.V. It comes from God.
But
Nicodemus can't see it…he
takes Jesus literally, and if you always take the Word of God literally, you
aren't taking it seriously. You will probably miss the point…just like he
did. "How can anyone be born
after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be
born?" (John 3:4). It makes no sense. It doesn't fit his view of
reality, so it must be wrong. Poor Nicodemus is too smart for his own good.
Education, experience, age can do that to you - set you up for
failure…make you proud…make you think you know everything when you
really only know a little…and not all of that is true. A lot of the time,
before you can learn something new, you have to let go of what you think you
know and especially your need to be the one who already knows. Pride is the greatest
obstacle to learning and the biggest brake against change.
Jesus
is patient. A good teacher,
he tries another metaphor. He tells Nicodemus that he needs to be born of the
Spirit. In both Hebrew and Greek, the word for "Spirit" and
"breath" and "wind" are all one word, ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in
Greek. Jesus tells Nicodemus "Listen to the ruach! Feel the pneuma!
The wind blows where it wants and you can't control it. It comes from somewhere
else beyond you. But you feel it. You see its effects. That's the way it is
with being born of the Spirit. You can't control it. It comes from somewhere
else beyond you. But you feel it. You see its effects. Listen to the ruach! Feel the pneuma breeze across your life
with refreshing newness. Breathe it in. Give yourself to it. Let God's Spirit
awaken your life."
"How
can this be?" Nicodemus
complains. Poor guy…he knows too much and feels too little. The rose
colored glasses he wears, prescribed by the religion of his ancestors and his
parents and his teachers and his culture, even his hard won place in life, tell
him that God has handed down the rules and you better follow them or you are
going to get zapped. They say God will condemn you for not obeying perfectly.
They say religion is all about getting saved from what God will do to you.
Emphasizing the rules made Nicodeumus’ faith
more of a head trip than a heart trip, a relationship with a book rather than
with a Being who is God. And this is not a specifically Jewish problem any more
than it is a Christian problem among those who worship scripture and
discipleship and emphasize holiness over the living God.
Nicodemus
was all about knowledge and status and the appearance of righteousness. He put so much energy into
studying, memorizing, and following rules that he had no heart for the love of
God and the people of God. He had to sneak around in the dark for fear of what
his other brothers and sisters will think if he asks questions about his faith
out loud. The pressure for public holiness and the threat of condemnation from
a criticizing community create a break between the public Nicodemus and the
private Nicodemus. The public Nicodemus is steadfast and faithful. Everybody
thinks he is a model of righteousness. And they know they aren't that righteous
in their own hearts. Well, neither is he, but they don't know that. So they
live in secret shame, all of them knowing they don't live up to the hard
demands of holiness, but all of them afraid to talk about it honestly because
they might risk rejection by God or at least by God's people. What kind of
spiritual community is that, where people cannot be real enough to be honest
about their struggles, doubts, questions, and sins, but must pretend everything
is fine even if it isn't? No wonder old Nicodemus is sneaking around in the
dark.
What's
most amazing to me about
this story - - - is that Jesus didn't make this emphasis on being born again
with some degenerate or prostitute or drunk or demon-possessed mass-murderer.
He told this to the most religious guy around, the most God-fearing,
law-abiding, Bible-totin', scripture-quotin', righteous Pharisee you could find. He tells that guy:
"You need to start over. You need a paradigm shift. You need to be born
from above. You, you proud and noble believer, need to quit
talking God and start trusting God. You, you intellectual, hard-working
scholar, need to get out of your head before you go out of your mind. You need
to trust a God who is bigger than your brain will ever comprehend. You need to
be filled by a love that will accomplish more than your thoughts could ever
engage. You, you hard working holy man, need what only God can do for you and
you cannot achieve. You need God’s grace! Quit thinking and start
linking. Quit striving and start arriving. Quit shoving and start loving."
Typical
of the gospel of John, it
isn't clear in this story where Jesus stops talking and John starts. But the
conversation with Nicodemus ends here and the commentary by either Jesus or
John begins. In the commentary, we are told, that in the first place, God is
not about condemning people but about loving them. And in the second place, we
don’t believe Jesus because of signs and wonders but because he has come
to offer us life and connect us with God. And in the third place, if we believe
in Jesus, we do not sneak around in the dark but we come to the light so that
our deeds … some evil and some good … will be seen and either
healed or affirmed. In other words, we don't need to be saved from God. We need
to be saved from ourselves, and from each other, and especially from each
other's misguided shaming religion.
Jesus
comes to take off the fractured glasses of our self-righteousness so we can see we are all alike as sinners.
If you think you are better in God's eyes than anybody else or smarter or more approved,
then you are lying to yourself and avoiding the truth. Jesus comes to show us a
God of love who seeks us out and accepts us as we are on the way to making us
what we can become. If you think God hates some people and loves others…
that God relishes in punishing some while rewarding others … you are also
lying to yourself and avoiding the truth. Jesus comes to offer us grace and
grace and grace. And Jesus comes to offer us the power to make a paradigm
shift, to start over, to be born from above.
Maybe you just need a slight correction
today … to let go of something small that's holding you back …
something you can't forgive of someone or a habit that's hurting you. Maybe you
just need to add a little something … like starting each day with prayer
or getting a little more exercise. The Lord can help you find the discipline
and resolve to make those small changes. But maybe you are at a place in your
life where only a whole new direction will do. You can see where you're headed
and it's not where you want to go. But you're stuck, you're afraid to change.
I
suppose we fear change, even
change for the better, because it feels like death. But in Christ, death is
simply a gateway to new birth and new life, rich and eternal. Don't be afraid
to change today. Don't be afraid to be born. Listen to the wind. And let the
Spirit of God give you birth from above.
May
we pray?
First Lord, show us where and how we need to
change, because it's hard for us to see, and harder for us to admit, and
hardest of all for us to commit to changing. Then Lord, remind us that grace is
not something we have to earn or win or reason our way into, but a gift we need
merely to receive like the air we breathe which gives us life and the energy to
move forward. So let us feel the fresh wind of the Spirit among us bringing
life out of death and new beginnings out of necessary endings and pushing us
forward for Jesus' sake, Amen.
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa