Born Again (and Again, and Again) Sermon Delivered on Trinity Sunday (May 31, 2015) By Rev. Donna L. Martin Sermon Text John 3:1-17 Well, today is my second to last Sunday to preach here at Bethany. And while that makes me sad, it also makes me bold. Being shorttimer means I can say things I might not otherwise say because the potential fall out won t be long-lived, at least not for me. And yet in a way I hope this sermon remains with you a very long time. So today I am going to go from preaching to meddling and I am hoping that you will not just hear the words I speak, but that you will ponder them, and question them, and ask yourself and God, How are these things possible? Our passage today, though long in terms of verses and rich is terms of theology, is usually remembered for just two verses. The first is the one verse in the bible that practically everyone who calls themselves a Christian knows by heart: John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that everyone who believes him in will not perish but have everlasting life. The other is Jesus statement to Nicodemus: You must be born anew, or, as it is typically translated, You must be born again. (John 3: 7) It is on this statement I will focus. So what does it mean to be born again? Well, in modern Christian parlance it refers to someone who believes in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, believes that he died for their sins, and because of that belief, is assured a place in heaven. But in the post-christian world in which we live being born again is often a derogatory term. This is because those outside the church observe the behavior of some holierthan-thou, born-again Christians who do some pretty unholy things. So they say things like: Why do born-again people so often make you wish they'd never been born the first time? (Katharine Whitehorn) or The trouble with bornagain Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around. (Herb Caen) 1
Maybe it is because people like Jerry Falwell, God rest his soul, an ultraconservative televangelist who spoke against de-segregation in the 60 s and regarded 9/11 as America s punishment for our sins, said things like, If you are not a born again Christian, you re a failure as a human being that other people have said things like: Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high-powered rifle and scope. - P. J. O'Rourke (all of the above quotes can be found at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/born-again.html). In other words, some born again Christians make themselves easy targets. Perhaps the derision found in these quotes is a result of the fact that oftentimes our pride in being born again overrides our call to be lifelong committed disciples of Jesus Christ. Because, let s face it, many times what we say we believe and what we do don t always match up. So for a moment this morning I want to talk about the difference between translations of today s text. Although most of us who are over 40 or 50 were raised on the King James Version of the bible and therefore have learned that Jesus said, You must be born again, a more accurate translation of the Greek is to be found in modern translations such as the one we read today that says, You must be born anew. To some the difference might seem negligible, but I believe there is a spiritual world of difference it is the difference between being religious and being spiritual, being a nominal Christian doing just what we think we must to get into heaven and being a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. Now we are not the only ones to misunderstand what Jesus was saying. Clearly Nicodemus understood Jesus to say, You must be born again, that is, You must be born a second time, because he asks Jesus, How is it possible for an adult to be born? It s impossible to enter the mother s womb for a second time and be born, isn t it? Commenting on this part of the passage, one scholar states, Nicodemus is the very type of truly religious person who is, on the one hand, utterly sincere, and, on the other, complacent about his or her knowledge of God and God s will. Such people are basically closed to divine revelation. Like Nicodemus they know who Jesus is, what his message means. And like Nicodemus, it is only after they have 2
been reduced to the futility of their own ignorance that they can begin the process of coming to the light, not by argument or reasoning, but by doing the truth, a process which gradually opens them to the true meaning of the Scriptures. ( Born Anew by Sandra M. Schneider, Theology Today Journal, 1987). In other words: It is only when we drop are doctrinally calcified beliefs, and attempt to live into them, that the Spirit can open our hearts and minds to a greater, more lifegiving, Truth. So the difference between being born again and being born anew is that the first is a static, one-time event, whereas the latter is an ongoing, dynamic, transformative process. It means that rather than being born again once in a lifetime, we are born again, and again, and again throughout our Christian lives. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, went to great lengths to help people understand that God s grace is on-going and transformative from Prevenient grace that grace that comes before we know Jesus, to justifying grace that moment when we come to believe in Jesus and know our sins are forgiven, to sanctifying grace that grace by which the Holy Spirit continues our spiritual transformation making us holy. You see, Wesley did not believe salvation consisted of merely going to heaven after one dies, but rather is a present thing (The Scripture Way of Salvation, 44). By present thing he means it is presently occurring, because he believed salvation is the entire work of God from the first dawning of grace in the soul, till it is consummated in glory (SW-44) (http://www.jesusdust.com/2013/02/john-wesleys-doctrine-ofsalvation-and.html). So to understand salvation as a one-time event reduces it to justification only and short-changes the abundant life in full relationship with God that God wants us to enjoy now and for the rest of our earthly lives. A great illustration of this process understanding of salvation can be found in Wesley s own life. One of nineteen children born to Samuel Wesley, an Anglican priest, and his devout wife, Susanna, John Wesley seemed destined for a religious life. Upon completely his foundational education, he attended Oxford. There, Wesley proved to be a fine 3
scholar, and was soon ordained into the Anglican ministry. At Oxford, he joined a society whose members took vows to lead holy lives, take Communion once a week, pray daily, and visit prisons regularly. In addition, they spent three hours every afternoon studying the Bible and other devotional material. From Oxford, Wesley sailed to Georgia to be a pastor. However, his experience there proved to be a failure. A woman he courted in Savannah married another man and when he tried to enforce the disciplines he had practiced at Oxford on his church, the congregation rebelled. A bitter Wesley decided to return to England. It was at this point in his life that two significant experiences opened his heart wide enough for the Spirit to blow through him and transform him. One occurred in 1735 on his return crossing from America to England when the ship he was on found itself in bad weather and serious trouble. Wesley, the chaplain of the vessel, feared for his life. But he noticed that a group of German Moravians on board were not afraid at all. In fact, throughout the storm, they sang hymns calmly. Wesley saw in these devout souls something he did not have, but that he wanted and needed. But it would be three more years of internal struggle, searching the scriptures and praying before he found it. Though he continued to try to be good, he remained frustrated. In his journal he wrote, "I was indeed fighting continually, but not conquering. I fell and rose, and fell again" (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/denominationalfo unders/wesley.html). Then May 24, 1738, he had another experience that changed him once again. Wesley describes the event in his journal also: "In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/denominationalfo unders/wesley.html). After many new births throughout his life, Wesley was born anew at 4
Aldersgate. But Wesley continued to be born again, and again, and again as God s sanctifying grace worked in and through him, transforming him and creating the Methodist branch of the Christian family tree. But I tell you this story, not so that you will know how we people called Methodist came to be, but so that you will see, even for someone like John Wesley (a man who dedicated his whole life to God), salvation is a process. Nicodemus came to Jesus saying he knew who Jesus was because he had heard and seen Jesus signs or miracles. John Wesley thought he knew who Jesus was through his upbringing, his education, his ordination, and his holy practices. But both of these men found out that it is just at that point of certainty that Jesus goes from preaching to meddling and undoes our certainty. No one can see anything clearly about God or God s kingdom without being born anew in the Spirit. And this, my friends, is part of a continual process. We are never done as long as we are alive. To be sure, sometimes there is a specific moment in time when we know, not just who Jesus is, but know him in our hearts. Our hearts are strangely warmed, just as Wesley s was. But for many of us, being born anew is an ongoing spiritually evolutionary process. We experience intermittent moments of enlightenment and though we do not realize it, these moments have a cumulative effect on our soul. Then one day we look back and see that the person we are now is vastly different than the person we once were. So we live into this new way of knowing Jesus for a while, and then the Spirit provides some new revelation, and then we live into that. We are born anew again and again and again. I want to tell you about something exciting happening here at Bethany -something that a majority of you may not be aware of. Over Lent a small group of people took part in a study on Discipleship. The eyes of many of the participants were opened as Jesus went from preaching to meddling in our hearts. After that class some of those same folks began working on a couple of our Small Church Initiative tasks 1) defining who a disciple of Jesus is and what a disciple does and 2) developing a discipleship pathway. This discipleship pathway provides those interested in being born anew with identifiable steps to grow spiritually beginning with Exploring Christ, moving on to Growing in 5
Christ, then to Closer to Christ, and finally to being Christ-centered. Each of these steps consists of the foundational means whereby we experience God s transformative grace prayer, bible reading and study, worship, witness, giving, and service. My friends, I believe the Spirit is moving in this church to do a powerful and transformative thing through the Discipleship Pathway. When it is disseminated to in the future, I pray that you will remember this sermon and use it as a tool for your own spiritual development. But I want to be clear, taking steps on the Discipleship Pathway is not a way to earn our salvation. We cannot, on our own, make our salvation or transformation happen. Jesus said the Spirit blows where (and when) it will. BUT these steps on the pathway can prepare your hearts to receive the Holy Spirit and to be born anew. They are invitations for the Holy Spirit to come into your lives. They will help you be present, so that God s Spirit can bear witness with your Spirit. Because making ourselves available to the movement of the Sprit is our response to God s love. For God so loved the world, but how do we so love God? Do we love him enough to do more than be satisfied with a once-and-done view of salvation? Or are we so rigid in our religious beliefs that we are blinded to the newness of on-going revelation? I believe this is the lesson we learn from Nicodemus encounter with Jesus. In this text Jesus goes from preaching to meddling. He shakes up Nicodemus religious understanding to help him see more than the obvious to see that spirituality is more than following the letter of the law and checking things off the list. He wants Nicodemus to experience spirituality in a new way to be continually born anew through the power of the Holy Spirit. He wants him to understand that to be his disciple means being born again, and again, and again. My friends, Jesus wants us to understand this also. Amen. 6