Sermon, March 20, 2011, Lent 2

“Reborn to Keep Moving”, A Sermon preached by the Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, March 20, 2011 at Church of the Ascension, Rochester, New York

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1)

“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.” (John 3)

The news this week has been sobering, as we have all watched in horrified fascination the video clips of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan just over a week ago. Images of the sea surging onto land, consuming whole villages, carrying cars, trucks, houses, boats, people and pets and leaving devastation and rubble in its wake bring tears to the eyes and heartache to those of us watching from afar. Then the nuclear plant explosions that have released dangerous levels of radiation into the air, compounding the victims’ difficulties, necessitating evacuations of villages near the plants left everyone reeling and wondering when the cascade of trauma is going to end. Thousands are dead, tens of thousands missing as relief workers the world over mobilize to try to help the victims sending food, water, equipment and medicine to stricken villages and towns. For many elderly Japanese people, this is a sickening reminder of the trauma they faced at the end of World War 2, when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastated by the nuclear bombs that ended that war. For the people of Japan, life is once again changed irrevocably in a matter of moments. The earth moved, the sea raged and life as they knew it ended. The victims of the earthquake/tsunami face what most of us hope we’ll never face, a truly defining moment when everything they’ve ever known is swept away and somehow life will have to begin anew.

Moments like these often come through natural disasters and war, but rarely do any of us voluntarily upheave our lives for anything short of a life or death emergency. If someone is dying, or is hurt seriously in an accident, or has a crisis of some sort, we might hop a plane and leave our life behind for a day or two and go tend to the crisis, but rarely are we willing to simply drop everything and go for anything short of a truly emergent situation. In the story of Abram’s call that we read this morning, we see a man who responded with just that kind of immediacy to the call of God, leaving behind all that is comforting and precious and dear to go somewhere that God sends him. In Abram’s case, he isn’t even told where he is going, simply that he must go to a land God will show him as he proceeds on the journey. This call story is challenging to those of us who live in a culture that emphasizes security and careful life planning because it flies in the face of the way we believe we need to live our lives. There’s nothing rational about God’s request or Abram’s response.

Abram was doing fine, living his life with Sarai and their servants and household when God showed up one day and told him to leave his father’s house, his kindred, his country and go to a land that God would show him. He had no roadmap, no Google directions or GPS device, no cell phone to accompany him on his journey. He had to uproot not only himself but also his wife, his nephew Lot and their entire household including animals and servants. They set off on a journey to an unknown destination purely on the basis of a promise from God that God would bless Abram and that he would then become a blessing to many and would have offspring who would also be blessed. That he would have any offspring at all was in itself an unbelievable promise, since he and Sarai were well on in years and she had been unable to bear children. And yet, Abram went because God told him to do so. He literally dropped everything, uprooted his life and went into the unknown future that God held out for him. Whether he is an example of extreme faithfulness and courage or complete foolhardiness is a legitimate question when examining this story, especially given the meager information he had to go on when God told him to “Go.” Unlike the victims of natural disasters, Abram could have chosen not to upheave and uproot his life but to stay right where he was safe and comfortable. Instead, he voluntarily turned his and his family’s life upside down and went hundreds of miles to a foreign country trusting in the God who sent him.

Then we listen in on Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, a devout Pharisee who was a leader in his community, a practicing Jew and teacher of other Jews, who seeks out an audience with Jesus. Nicodemus is curious about Jesus and wants to engage him, but chooses to seek him out in the dark of night so as not to be seen by others. While he is committed to his faith he is not eager to be too public about his interest in what Jesus is all about and he wants to keep his religious curiosity separate from his public life. He and Jesus then engage in an enigmatic conversation in which Jesus challenges Nicodemus and suggests that to deepen his faith he must be open to being “born again” a concept that Nicodemus struggles to understand. Jesus’ choice of birth as the image of what it means to grow in faith and spiritual maturity was a provocative and shocking image in his day and Nicodemus’ struggle to understand what Jesus is saying is a pretty predictable response to Jesus’ words.

Both of these stories illustrate the risk that is involved in the life of faith and the unpredictability of our journey with God. Often God shows up as we are going about our daily lives minding our own business, secure and content with how things are for us, just as Abram and Nicodemus were. When God shows up all that comfort and security inevitably goes out the window. God is not unlike an earthquake or tsunami! God’s entry into our lives is also quite similar to the arrival of a newborn into the household. All that was normal before is not normal now, life is irrevocably changed and our challenge is to move confidently into that new place with optimism, faith and trust. When taken as metaphors for the journey of faith, these stories remind us that a life lived with God is a life fraught with change and surprise. Faith in God and response to God almost always means that things will constantly shift and move, that God will always be out one step ahead of us and we will be called to follow and go to places we never heard of, either literally or metaphorically. The life of faith, seen as a journey in response to the call of God becomes not a talisman against life’s ups and downs, but often the very source of those ups and downs, all of which lead to a deepening intimacy with God which in the end brings blessing to us and those we love.

The image of being born from above that Jesus uses with Nicodemus is an earthy image, the power of which may be lost on those of us 21st century mainline Christians who have heard the phrase “born again Christian” in reference to fundamentalist and evangelical Christians whose spirituality we don’t necessarily understand and with which we are not entirely comfortable. Jesus uses a deceptively simple image, that of "birth" to describe a complex and lifelong process, what Margaret Guenther describes as "the birth of God in the human soul." Spiritual birth or rebirth is as profound and life changing an experience as is physical birth. If we are attentive to God's signals, and surrender to God's timing as God is being born in our souls, our lives will be transformed as fundamentally and irrevocably as are the lives of parents on the day their child is born.

The process of being born from above of which Jesus speaks is very much like the process of giving birth, particularly the point in the birthing process known as transition, when the birth of the child is near and the intensity of the labor is at its peak. Life always has its ups and downs, which can often be managed and controlled. At some point, however, a major transition event will hit. It is often at times of extreme chaos and pain, times of grief or loss due to death, illness, divorce, loss of employment, times of physical transition like moving, or graduating from school, or retiring after many years of working, or facing the empty nest as the last child leaves for college, that we are most likely to experience God being born in our soul. In those chaotic and painful times, as we experience emotional and/or spiritual exhaustion, when we feel forsaken, lonely, and ill prepared for the trial at hand, we may be on the brink of our spiritual birth, and more receptive to God's saving grace than at any other time in our lives.

In the process of being born again spiritually, we participate in the birth process both as one giving birth and one being born. As we struggle to survive whatever version of transition we experience, we also emerge from it as a newborn child of God. Through the process of physical birth, that painful, bloody, messy process, a child leaves the darkness, security, quiet, calm and comfort of the womb, and is thrust, usually screaming, into the light, into a world of sights sounds, colors, relationship to others and a life journey to a destination that God will offer. Spiritual birth takes us from the darkness of our own pain or complacency or apathy, into the light of relationship with God and neighbors that may not always be comfortable nor feel safe but that is certainly rich and colorful. Jesus encouraged Nicodemus to move from living his faith in the dark of night, to proclaiming it in the light of day. God nudged Abram out of the security and comfort of his life in Ur, to the new challenges and opportunities that would await him in the foreign land of Canaan, promising that he would be blessed and be a blessing to the world by surrendering to that call to “Go.”

As you at Ascension get closer to calling a new leader, you are approaching the kind of spiritual transition time that Jesus and Nicodemus talked about. Things will change, new challenges will come your way, new ministries will emerge in your midst and you will be called to respond to God’s new call to you to be a blessing to your community in ways you might not have considered to date. Fortunately, you have not had to endure an earthquake or tsunami in the physical sense. You will continue to do ministry from this building and in this neighborhood, but the challenges and opportunities you will be invited to embrace in order to be born again as a vibrant Christian community may, at times, feel like the aftershocks of an earthquake. As you move together into what is still an unknown future, remember the words of God to Abram – “I will bless you so that you will be a blessing.” This community is in the process of being reborn in the spirit so that you can keep moving to the land that God will show you. Happy birthday and bon voyage! Amen.