Sermon: May 08 2022 Fourth Sunday after Easter

Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

Scripture: John 3:1-17; 2 Corinthians 5:16-19

Nicodemus knows his stuff. He’s a Rabbi, a teacher of the faith. He’s been to seminary, got the master’s degree, finished it off with a PhD and little post-doc work overseas. Plenty of pastoral experience in the local community of faith. And worked his way up in the hierarchy to the Council overseeing all the congregations in the country. He’s got all the knowledge, all the titles, all the influence. He’s brilliant, experienced. He’s a big deal.

During Nicodemus’ tenure, though, another big deal arrives on the scene. This country bumpkin from Galilee, in Nazareth—redneck country. This guy named Jesus. Jesus arrives suddenly on the scene, gathering followers, crowds of adoring fans. Teaching and preaching, feeding, even performing miracles. Supposedly he showed up at a wedding in Cana. The keg was dry, liquor drained, empty wine bottles piled as high as the dumpster out back. The party was just about dead, then Jesus allegedly made the water cooler run red with the finest cabernet sauvignon. Of course, you have to take a report like this with a grain of salt. After all, there was an open bar. And besides, hillbillies don’t have the kind of education necessary to discern miracle from metaphor.

Of course, this uncredentialed Jesus rubs most of the religious and political establishment the wrong way. His interpretation of scripture pushes the bounds of established norms, and his ethical teachings make the Roman occupiers pretty nervous. And no doubt there’s some kind of jealousy as to the size of Jesus’ crowds—I mean, we have trouble getting a few people out to synagogue and this guy’s filling stadiums with his snake oil. These folks must be brainwashed. It’s not fair.

Jesus is the last guy any respectable clergyman, politician or public intellectual wants to be seen with. But you know, Nicodemus—he’s actually pretty curious. He’s like the opera singer who finds herself humming nothing but Justin Bieber in the car or shower—Nicodemus keeps this guilty pleasure to himself.

Despite all the Twitter hate piled on him, though, there’s something about Jesus that Nicodemus finds himself drawn to. So one day he sneaks out to meet with him. Not wanting to spoil his career or ruin his reputation, Nicodemus heads out in the middle of the night, away from prying eyes and nosey iPhones. And he declares to Jesus that he’s a secret fan. And that he’s not the only one. “Rabbi,” he says. “We all know that you’re a teacher sent by God. That’s some crazy stuff you do… and we can’t help but think that God’s up to something here. You’re the real deal, and most of us know it.”

Jesus’ response, though, is a bit… disconcerting. “Very truly I tell you… amen, brother… no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Without being born again.”

Say what? Nicodemus, being a rational, reasonable person sees this as nonsense, maybe a joke. “Uh… hate to break it to you, but I’m a few decades past my due date. Are you telling me I have to somehow find a womb, with the water and the uh… and go through that whole procedure all over again?”

Realizing Nicodemus’ density, Jesus walks him through it again. “Very truly I tell you, amen, brother. Nobody can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. What’s flesh is flesh, what’s born of the Spirit is spirit.

You were already born in water after nine months in the womb. What I’m talking about here, is a second birth, a spiritual rebirth. I’m talking about a restart, a total reboot. A complete reconstruction of your humanity top to bottom, from above, by the power of God, giving birth to a whole new you. You’re a teacher of Israel, for God’s sake—literally for God’s sake. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

“You have to be born again from above.” It’s with these words, really, that we get at the heart of Christianity. Often the faith is reduced to ethics—i.e. what we should or should not do. Or it’s reduced to abstract belief—hold these ten propositions in your head. Or it’s reduced to advocating for a particular political—sometimes left-wing, mostly right wing.

Don’t get me wrong—these aren’t unimportant things. But they really do scratch the surface on the kind of change that’s needed. In us, in our world. Here, Jesus tells us it’s about being reborn. Not a simple tweak or optional add-on. No five steps to salvation. Because there is a short circuit in our human nature that no simple tweak can fix. But Christianity is about being completely remade, from the inside out. Our other scripture passage uses the language of new creation—see everything has become new! Becoming truly human, our lives being entirely transformed, conformed to the image of God in Jesus Christ. It’s total makeover: human nature edition. We need to be remade. We need to be born all over again by the Spirit of God. It’s the only thing that’ll save us.

So get at it! Do it! Go on. Be more like Jesus, already people! Be born again!

How come you aren’t doing it?

A few decades ago, the late great evangelist Billy Graham had a book How to Be Born Again. No offense to Billy, but the funny thing about being born is that it’s not something we do ourselves. Does anyone remember my impression of a fig tree from a few weeks ago, trying harder to bear fruit? Here’s a reminder (Impression). It’s pretty much the same with being born. Here’s my impression of a baby in a womb trying harder to be born (impression). Of course, we can do a little wiggling, struggling, kicking, try to claw our way but mostly it’s all out of our hands. Jesus says the Spirit is like the wind, it blows where it will. Jesus says that God sent the Son that we might not perish, not that we sent for him through the right techniques or good, moral behavior. No.

Being born again is something that happens to us. It comes when it comes. The water breaks when the water breaks. All we can do is really go with it when it does. All we can do is trust that wherever those waters are taking, wherever or however or how terror-inducing the change, no matter how hard, or difficult it’s gonna be that it’s gonna be ok.

Of course, this is our second week in our baptismal series.  I’ve been dancing around it, but the scripture’s got strong baptismal themes. From the beginning, the church has always read Jesus’ words about being born again by water and the Spirit as a direct reference to baptism. The water is the water of rebirth, the baptismal font the womb of God.

Again, as last week, baptism itself doesn’t magically make us better people. But baptism carries God’s promises to us. The promise that our lives can change, the world can change. That we can be reborn, made new. That in Christ we are a new creation.

Paul Hoffman is a retired Lutheran pastor in Seattle. He also happens to be a consultant we’re working with in implementing our Christian formation process in the fall. Paul tells the story of a couple, Robert and Maria, who came with their newborn baby, Jared. This family showed up at church one Sunday, telling Paul they were looking to have their baby baptized. After the service Robert notified Paul that their extended family was all gathering together in Seattle in two weeks time, and he was the pastor who they’d chosen for infant Jared’s baptism. Despite the fact that they’d never seen him or met him before.

Unfortunately for them, this church didn’t do what Paul calls a “drive thru” baptism. Instead, Paul invited them to join their spiritual formation process called “the Way.” This process involved meeting with others over a meal, and hosting the scripture text from Sunday over several months. It’s what we’re embarking on in the fall. While it wasn’t exactly what they’d envisioned in terms of the quick two week turn around, Paul convinced them that it would allow all three of them to become more deeply aware of, and reflective on the meaning of their own baptisms. And both the joys and costs of following Jesus.

And soon enough, that wind-like Spirit blew through Robert’s life.

“Not long after The Way began that fall,” Paul says. “Not long after The Way began, Robert came to see me.

‘We’ve never really talked much about my work, pastor,’ he began. ‘But through the Bible studies in The WAY and conversations with my sponsor, I’m beginning to see that I can’t be a good baptismal daddy for my son and still keep working where I currently work.’

“What is it you do, Robert?” Paul asked.

“I’m the manager of a club downtown. To be honest, a strip club, actually. I think I need to look for something different. I can see that Christ loves and values all people, that my current work is exploiting women, and I want something better for my son, for my wife, and for myself.” [i]

Not long after Jared was baptized and Robert and Maria stood before the congregation to affirm their own baptisms, they sold their home, packed up their belongings, and moved to Chicago where Robert shifted from exploiting bodies in the strip club to mending bodies by studying physical therapy.

The birth of this new baby had them seeking out baptism, and they got more than they bargained for. They were just looking for a little family ritual, with a little sprinkling on the head. Instead their whole lives got pulled under a tidal wave of change. They were reborn by water and the Spirit. It wasn’t easy. Difficult, costly, life-uprooting, scary. All those things. But they were able to go with it. Trusting that the waters they were caught up weren’t carrying them off a cliff of death, but towards the infinite sea of life with God. Life in the full. Of course, they weren’t all the way there. But their baptisms assured them that with Christ, the floodgates of eternity are always open.

And really, dear friends, the same promise is for us. It’s true that no tiny tweak or technique will make us who we ougtha be. But the promise of the gospel is that God is at work through Jesus Christ making new people out of us, from the inside out. The font is the womb where we’re given the promise of rebirth, total transformation.

Which means that YOUR LIFE CAN BE DIFFERENT, and it WILL be. Our world can be different, and it will be. YOU are being remade, made new. Not by your own efforts, earning, or achievement but by God’s ever-flowing grace, poured out on the cross for you in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ God is giving birth to a whole new humanity, a river of life flowing from the cross to deliver us into to us a whole new creation. Baptism is the sign and seal of your rebirth. When it comes, all we can really do is ride the wave in faith.

Every time you wash your face, every time you bathe your kids. Every time you kick a puddle, or splash in the font at church. Remember this truth. May you ride the wave, and let it change you. May you be born again, by water and the Spirit.

Amen.

[i] Paul Hoffman, Faith Forming Faith: Bringing New Christians to Baptism and Beyond (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2012), 21-23.