Sermon

As you know, those of us who are interim ministers, get to be interviewed by church search committees quite often.  When you are in a profession that leads you to a new setting every couple of years, one of the things that you become quite used to is being interviewed.  When I realized the importance of having some interviewing skills early in my interim career, I asked a friend who has done a lot of hiring as a successful Wall Street executive for some advice.  She said, “Try to be either the first one interviewed or the last one interviewed.”  Her thinking was that by going first, you set the bar for others to be measured against and by going last; you are the candidate who is freshest in the minds of the committee.

That has proven to be valuable advice over the years, advice I draw on every time I begin a new search.  And her words came to me earlier this week as I was giving thought to this very special and familiar lesson from John which is our Gospel lesson for today.  Almost everyone knows the story of Nicodemus and remembers Jesus’ first words of advice, “You must be born again, or born from above” as well as Jesus’ closing words here, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whosever shall believe in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  The opening words and closing words of Jesus are the ones that stay in our minds and linger on our lips.  They are the lessons we learn early on in Sunday School and seek to understand through all the days of our life and faith.

And in a way, these two references, “you must be born again” and “For God so loved the world…” serve as the navigational beacons most of us sail between.   I remember a time when the question “Are you born again?” was a  Christian litmus test for some, to which strident believers demanded a positive answer.   Indeed, early in my ministry, I was stopped at the door of a hospital room by a gentleman who demanded to know my answer to this question before I would be admitted to see his dying mother, who was a member of the congregation I served.  

And John 3:16 has long been a standard for understanding Christian faith.   I must say that at this point in my journey, I see myself as much more a John 10:10 Christian than a John 3:16 Christian, but that is a sermon for another day.

Yet as I studied and prayed over this lesson in recent weeks, perhaps recalling those times when I discovered I was in the middle of a group of candidates being interviewed, my mind and heart were drawn to the words of Jesus that are sandwiched in between these familiar lessons.  And in particular, this rich image of the wind, “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: 8)  Indeed, I suspect most of us have come to faith on a course somewhere between the navigational beacons of “you must be born again” and “For God so loved the world…..”   And that is the lesson I would like to focus on this morning.

The story of this encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus is a challenging story to hear and to understand.  Part of the reason for that may be because many of us gathered here this morning have a lot of Nicodemus within us.  Nicodemus was a devoted scholar, a respected member of the Sanhedrin.  He knew the law books and the Scriptures very well and spent the days of his life studying them and discerning God’s will.  

In many ways, our lifelong spiritual search is the process of searching for and finding order amid the chaos; discovering answers to the questions of our heart; and pursuing peace amid the anxiety and fear that is part of a life without God.  And Nicodemus, found all these in the law books which filled the shelves of his home and which were the subject of his daily study.  We too can find that in our lives of discipleship, our studies of the many spiritual resources that fill bookstores, the busyness of church meetings and the demands of our mission outreach. 

And yet when we are honest with ourselves, as Nicodemus was able to be with himself that night, for many that is not enough and our hearts hunger for more.  For us today, the journey continues.  One more Lenten search amid a lifetime of others.  For Nicodemus, his hunger led him, amid a restless night’s sleep, to visit a popular rabbi named Jesus he had heard others speak of. 

The middle of the night is a deeply spiritual time in the course of a day.  We are often suspicious of what goes on in the middle of the night.  In the course of our busy days, it is “no man’s land.”  And yet, Scriptures tell us how many believe God spoke to them through dreams.  In Psalm 130, the Psalmist tells of how his soul waits for Lord, more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.  Many of us have known what it is to wrestle emotionally and spiritually through a long dark night.  For some here this morning, that night might have been just last night.  And of course, we remember how Mary and others who had watched Jesus die on Friday, rose early on Sunday, after another restless night of grief, to head to the tomb, only to find that the miracle which changed human history was taking place. 

And so, on the night when today’s lesson takes place, Nicodemus rises from his bed and creeps out in the middle of the night to meet Jesus.  Of course this encounter took place in the middle of the night.  A seminary professor wouldn’t be meeting an itinerant street preacher to discuss theology over lunch at the best restaurant in New Haven.  And in many ways, that is what this meeting of the minds was about.  The best and brightest of orthodox Jewish thought humbly asking questions of a self-taught visionary.  We don’t know how they became acquainted with each other or who was the intermediary who set this meeting up, but it becomes one of the pivotal encounters in faith history.

In a way, religious law says a lot about where you can’t go, what you can’t do.  Many people have a strong reaction to religion, arguing that it seems that the “thou shalt nots” far outweigh the “thou shalls.”  And in response to these “No’s” and “Can’ts”,  Jesus speaks of learning to trust in the presence of God in your life and then letting the wind blow you wherever the wind goes. 

The spiritual search for the ultimate, the sacred, the holy in our life can be compared to drilling a well for water.  One can start to dig or begin their search in one place with great hope.  The seeker attends church, begins to read the Bible, sets aside time for prayer and to give thought how best to live out their faith in mission and witness with the same hope and determination that the driller searches for the best place and begins to drill with a sense of hope and determination.  And inevitably, in both searches, there will be times of doubt and second-guessing.  The answers and peace that the spiritual seeker desires don’t come at the same pace as their expectations.  The well driller seems to be coming up dry.  And so both searchers face the question—drill deeper or start somewhere else.

For Lent this year, Doug and Susie Hawthorne are leading a book study on Father James Martin’s book, My Life with the Saints.  This is a very engaging book in which James Martin, a well-respected Jesuit priest who is also the editor of America, a leading Roman Catholic magazine, details the lives of some of his spiritual mentors.   One of those he speaks of is Thomas Merton, whose writings have influenced so many contemporary theologians.

In the chapter in which he writes of Merton’s conversion, Father Martin notes that Merton’s conversion was not quick and sudden and did not occur through only one avenue.  He did not have a sudden born-again experience. He explains the Merton came to faith came first through his intellect, his studies and through reading spiritual writings of others.   It deepened as he came to know and experience God through the senses, through the art that spanned several centuries.   And it deepened to the point of conversion for him as he came to know God emotionally, in his heart.   (Martin, My Life with the Saints, pp. 49-50)

My experience has been that many have found the richness of faith as Merton did, over time and through a variety of avenues.    Faith development often begins with the faith of our childhood, which feeds us for a time, but then often seems lacking.   And so, life apart from faith is explored, until it too, comes up short.    And so, seekers pursue new avenues—through the intellect, through the experience of community, through the inevitable times of crisis that drive us to our knees, figuratively or literally, desperate, hungry to know that God is present and near.   Most searches are a process of trial and error, and many times in faith, you just have to “fake it till you make it.”   Work at the discipline of faith.   Trust and believe and move ahead and then find one day that the parts of the search which once took great effort now are part of one’s routine and increasing in meaning.  And in the mystery of life and faith, the peace and presence of God becomes alive and present in the seeker’s life as mysteriously as a gust of wind comes to us unexpectedly.

One of the richest avenues to deeper faith comes in the experience of community.     Churches offer to the seeker a chance to be a part of a wider family.   And for many, the experience of being part of a wider community is deeply enriching.   Twenty of our women members are deepening their faith and their connection with each other this weekend in their time apart in Ivoryton.  Someone new comes to worship and coffee hour, meets some people, makes some friends, and finds themselves eager to come again and be part of the fellowship, and the church and the new member are blessed anew.  And as with the mystery of the movement of the wind, many times it is the impact of a caring community that deepens one’s faith.

I will likely, and hopefully, never forget, how that happened for me one Sunday several years ago.   It was painful to hear during the joys and concerns, prayers being requested for my wife the Sunday after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.    It was a tough and challenging morning to lead worship in, and while everyone was very supportive and caring, I found myself dreading heading into coffee hour that morning, anxious about my emotions and the inevitable conversations.  When I walked in, I was met by a line of about ten church members, all of whom were breast cancer survivors or the family of survivors.   Every one with an encouraging word, an offer to call Maggie, a corner of the Sunday bulletin with a phone number to call anytime.  It was an experience of the power of community and the experience of being cared for that let me know we were not alone in this, and that God, in the presence of others, was with us.

Pursuing God and the search by going deeper is one route, but opening oneself to the movement of the Spirit, the blowing of the wind, the comfort and hope of a community of the faithful, and seeking in new avenues, can also be effective.

We are not likely to ever know what drove Nicodemus out into the dark of that night to meet with Jesus.  We are not certain how their conversation ended that night.  Did Nicodemus come around to follow Jesus like the driller who starts anew somewhere else in the field or did he return home that night determined the next day to drill even deeper in the sources and the faith he had known for so long?  We get some clues as to how impactful that late night conversation was, at the end of chapters 7 and 19 in John, which you can read and explore later today.

Thomas Merton once said, “If you find God with great ease, perhaps it is not God who you have found.”   “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,” Jesus teaches.

Nicodemus’ search and struggle is likely one that we can all relate to.  And Jesus’ words speak to us, as they once did to Nicodemus, as words both of encouragement and of challenge.  Can we dare to live as Christ calls us to, with a vulnerability and faith that will move us wherever the Spirit leads? 

As I said, there is a lot of Nicodemus in us each.  Open your hearts to the joys of Christ’s call and the challenges of Christ’s teachings.  Boldly believe and trust in God’s leadings so that you can be open to where the winds of the Spirit blow, that you may be led to the places where the good news of God’s redeeming love in Jesus Christ might be proclaimed.  Jesus’ call to Nicodemus and us today is a call to faith and risk, vulnerability and new hope.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.