He Woke to New Life

Sermon by Rev. Mary Alice Mulligan,Ph.D.

2nd Sunday in Lent - Scripture: John 3:1-17

The lectionary committee rotates the Gospels in a three-year cycle. Currently we are in the year that focuses on Matthew. But there are four Gospels, aren’t there? We just cycle through Matthew, Mark, and Luke, called the Synoptic Gospels, coming from the word meaning “together.” These 3 books tell similar stories about the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

We don’t have a year devoted to the Gospel of John, which is too bad, because John gives us a very different picture of Jesus, starting with the very first sentences: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.” John makes a distinct theological proposal, claiming God entered the world in a human being. When believers develop relationship with Jesus, they make a sacred connection with God, because God is present in Jesus. We’ll hear some of John’s lengthy stories and discussions over the next weeks, about Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, and Lazarus, who do not even appear in the synoptics. Today we hear one of the most familiar of John’s passages, which includes the most quoted verse: John 3:16 and the most squabbled over claim: “you must be born again” or “born from above.” So let’s clarify, being born again or born from the Spirit, or born from above, means having a total change in life, like being born all over again. But it is not just to start this life again, but to start a new life connected to the Spirit of God, which makes everything new. So,  stop here and read John 3:1-17.   

Every church has workers. People who volunteer whenever some new task is discovered. What would we do without them? Those who walk in whenever the door opens and immediately get to work. In fact, often the workers are busy when no one else is around, before anyone else even opens the door. Like how, one Saturday, a minister walked into the building and found Nita and Jerry hurrying out, carrying buckets and rags to their car. They had arrived hours earlier to wash all the first-floor windows of the education wing, inside and out. Five rooms on each side of the hallway; 4 windows in each room. I wonder if anyone noticed in Sunday school the next day. Quiet, diligent workers.

Or Donn, who asked if he could come by the church one afternoon with his screw driver to tighten up the pew rack that held the hymnal he used each Sunday. It was loose. But of course, he spent hours going from pew to pew figuring out how to make every pew rack snug again, including even cutting new pieces when something was broken or filling old screw holes and moving the pew rack over a bit to drill new, tight holes. More silent work done, which few hardly notice.

We might guess Nicodemus could be one of those people. John calls him “a leader of the Jews,” but apparently he not only had a position, he participated in synagogue activities enough to know Jesus was someone interesting.

Every religious organization depends on people who will take notes at meetings; clean out the drains on the roof so water doesn’t find a way into the sanctuary; make the coffee before anyone else is even in the building on Sunday mornings and then slip back to plug it in just before worship starts so it’s ready when we are; or give someone a ride home from worship so they know they are cared about. Workers, who make things run smoothly and well. Every church has them.

But work doesn’t always come from faith. A person can be very busy about the church but still have little connection to God. Some people enjoy the fellowship, the warm acceptance, the chocolate cake at coffee hour. They are comfortable being called Christian. They like everything about church. They even enjoy taking on tasks when asked. But they may not have any faith.

Now don’t get me wrong. For lots of folks, the hard work they devote to helping the church run smoothly comes from a deep commitment to Jesus Christ. Think of children’s Sunday school teachers who put up with surly middle schoolers or bored teenagers or hyperactive 2nd and 3rd graders, every Sunday for years. And they admit to loving the children. It must be God!

But hard work may not always indicate a connection to God or Jesus. Faith isn’t a prerequisite for accepting responsibilities and doing them well. Someone once said of one of her church leaders, “He’s one of those people who appears deep on the outside; but on the inside they are really very shallow.” The meaning of the faith didn’t strike his insides honestly. It just wasn’t there. He accepted some basic tenets of Christianity, but it never struck fire in his soul.

In fact, a very sad truth is that even clergy can do lots of the work of ministry without having a deep life of faith. In a movie some years ago, Steve Martin played a traveling evangelist whose preaching was powerful. People were converted, shouting in the aisles, even healed, but he was a scoundrel. A person without a connection to Christ, who learned how to make an evangelistic road show into a cash cow. Glitzy and effective on the outside. Empty inside. We wish hard work always indicated deep faith. We know it usually does. But not always. Sometimes church work does not indicate a deep commitment to God.

So, Jesus calls us to new birth. We can be awakened again to an interior change, in our life in God. Evangelicals don’t have exclusive rights to John 3:16. Being “born again” is not a dirty word. UCC folks can easily report Jesus’ saying he came to bring abundant life. That’s what being born again means. Being awakened. Woke. Receiving a sense of divine abundance, filled up on the insides.

Awaking to new life often starts by realizing God loves us, no matter what we’ve done. And God gives everything for us. Several times scripture tells us Jesus could have stepped out of the terrible situation he was in before his arrest, during his torture, and on the cross. He could have avoided Jerusalem in the first place or slipped away as he did one of the early times people wanted to throw him off a cliff. Or he could have summoned help from heaven.  But he didn’t, because he and God were in agreement. Their love for humanity extends even to the point where we do our vicious worst, and still we are divinely loved.

If we truly understand the death-allowing love which is extended to every person, it changes everything. When we acknowledge we are infinitely loved, the result is shocking joy. We might say we are reborn, not to reiterate the life we have always lived, but as if born again into a whole different reality. Intimately connected to God.

Most of us don’t want some spiritual experience to turn us into some kind of creepy Jesus Freak, but recognizing the love God feels for us, accepting that each of us is divinely valued beyond our imagination, such comprehension will change us. It can help us to be born by the Spirit, which means letting God completely into our innermost being, feeling the Spirit strike fire within us. If each of us belongs to God, each of us can say, “I am yours, every molecule, every thought, every moment, yours God.” Does it feel creepy to hear such language – admitting that God’s love envelopes us and changes us? Maybe we should just try embracing it, welcoming God’s astounding love. Being born from above admits Jesus Christ is God’s mighty claim on our whole life, to fill us with holy abundant life.