March 5, 2023
“How do we begin again?”
Sermon by Rev. Trip Porch
March 5, 2022 Based on John 3:1-17
A pastor friend of mine was meeting with a recently engaged couple. They were doing premarital counseling and talking through all the necessary things you do to prepare to get married. They asked her “we’re actually hoping to have kids and start a family pretty soon after getting married, and we know you have kids do you have any suggestions or advice for us?” and she responded…
“Yea, you have to know going in that life as you know it will cease to exist. You have to prepare to have everything about your life change completely. and you have to realize that you can’t ever go back. It’ll change fundamentally, and that sounds intense because it is intense, parenting is a lot… BUT it’ll also change in the most amazing and wonderful ways that you can’t even yet conceive of.”
I thought of this story as I read this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus this week. Nicodemus is a pharisee, you know the kind of guy Jesus is often at odds with, calling out for their extremely rigid religiosity and hard-lined beliefs. Most of the time we see Jesus and the Pharisees philosophically sparring with each other in a public space like the synagogue on a sabbath day, or in the marketplace. But here in this story, the setting is under cover of darkness …at night.
It makes you wonder why? Was there something at risk for both of these two to meet like this? What would the other Pharisees think? What would the disciples have thought?
Nevertheless, it is clear that somehow what Jesus has been doing, that is healing folks, caring for the poor, preaching the coming of God’s kingdom has resonated with Nicodemus. He has a deep respect for Jesus and his work because right off the bat he praises Jesus and assures him that he believes God is with him.
But then Jesus responds right away…
“In order to see God’s kingdom, you must be born anew"
…or born again, or born from above, whatever your translation of choice is.
Nicodemus is confused. We are confused by this statement… born a second time? How can someone be born again? What could you possible mean?
I think Jesus means what my pastor friend meant to the couple… in order to follow a life of faith you have to be prepared for everything you’ve ever known to cease to exist. Everything will change completely, fundamentally, and you can’t ever go back. Jesus is meaning to speak a truth that sounds intense and thorough, and hard because changing your life is intense and thorough and hard. But that’s the trajectory Jesus sees for this Pharisee… complete life change, you have to start all over, let all that old stuff go, all of your old ways of doing things and begin again!
While that phrase “Born-again" in our westernized American context has a whole lot of negative and manipulative connotations, I think there is still something important in it for us to listen to and to maybe even claim for ourselves. Because the life of faith does mean change, but it means change for the better, change that not only seeks our own welfare but the welfare of the whole world. Life following Christs’ way of faith does mean change… but as my friend says, it is change in the most wonderful and amazing ways you cannot even conceive of yet. But…
I think if I’m being honest with myself, as someone who was baptized into this faith, who died to my old life and rose into new life with Christ at the age of… well 3 months old, in actual practice as an adult Christian, I think I’ve only really let a little bit of my life change because of faith. I think if many Christians are being honest, most folks feel comfortable with our faith being a layer to our life, an aspect of who we are, but never all of it. I mean that sort of all-encompassing change is a sign of extremism isn’t it? To give yourself over to something and let go of control? That’s in a territory that we decent and in order Christians don’t quite feel comfortable with even if it’s a complete change for the better, even if it means my flourishing and my neighbor’s flourishing.
I mean there are folks in Christianity that I’m aware of who have let their faith have full charge of their life, they found Jesus and they are utterly reborn… they do extreme things like move their families out of their homes to live in intentional Christian communities, they pray almost monastically every morning, noon and night. They join together for dinner with their community at a shared table every evening, they share their money with each other and their resources with each other, they grow their own food, they care for their neighborhoods and try their best to support the poor and care for the sick.
From the outside looking in their way of life is otherworldly and extreme. As much good as they are doing for the world to live this way, not everyone can take on a life like this. It just seems like they have sacrificed too much to be where they are. But for those people, I bet they would describe this way of life as my friend did with the change of life that comes with parenting… yes, its utterly different but it also means a change in the most amazing and wonderful ways that you can’t even yet conceive of.”
I have always been someone who looks at people who take on drastic change and thought… “wow, that’s amazing, but I could never do that.” I have a friend who does Ironman contests, she’s finished 3. Her resilience and stamina boggles my mind. Her Training routine alone utterly dominates her life and fills her in ways that I could never understand. But while I know I will never do an Ironman, my friend’s drive has inspired me towards some change. It’s helped me reprioritize my physical fitness and try to make time for it in my life more regularly. Maybe not every single day for multiple hours as her schedule is but in a way that makes sense for my life. Incremental change for the better.
I have another friend who is a vegan, it’s something he has taken seriously for a long time because of the benefits to his health but also the benefits to the planet, with meat production being one of the largest producers of carbon on the planet. But while I admire him for this total life change, I know I am not in a place where I could make that switch as completely as he has. Sometimes I do eat vegetarian, in fact I try to introduce it into my diet several times a week.
I think what I am saying is that being reborn into a new life in Christ isn’t just the moment of birth, its gestational. It’s a long process of growth and formation. Change that comes little by little that takes time, that takes effort and purpose but is slow work, is hard work. And yet this is the abundant life Christ calls us to, a life that is more wonderful and amazing than we can conceive.
Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born anew, and we don’t know how that sentiment landed. We don’t know where this one-on-one conversation in the night went from there. We don’t know how those words resonated within Nicodemus’ head. In the days and weeks that followed we don’t know how or if Nicodemus changed anything at all. The next morning, he was still Nicodemus, still a Pharisee still a part of the life he was living.
But we do know that the process of change had begun for Nicodemus that night. Because later, at the end of this story, after Jesus was tried by the powers that be, judged harshly by the Pharisees themselves and sentenced to die and then executed. Nicodemus was one of the disciples there to bring Jesus’ body down off the cross, to wrap him in cloth, care for it and prepare it for burial.
How do we begin again?
Step by step, little by little, growing into this amazing new life Christ lays out for us.
Amen.
WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE
PRELUDE “Sarabande” from Cello Suite No. 3 J.S. Bach
Cello Soloist - Lucy Reed
INTROIT “Kyrie” ORTHODOX TRADITIONAL
WELCOME Rev. Trip Porch
*CALL TO WORSHIP
One: What is it like to begin again?
All: It is like flowers in the spring that push through frozen ground.
It is like babies learning to walk, one clumsy step at a time.
It is like Nicodemus in the night, asking Jesus for guidance.
It is like a Sunday morning, starting our week anew.
One: May we find God in our seeking.
All: May we learn as we go.
One: May we be brave enough to begin again.
All: Let us worship the God of new beginnings.
*GATHERING SONG “We Seek You With Our Questions Lord” KINGSFOLD
We seek you with our questions, God,
with open heart and mind;
we long to live a fresher life
and leave our past behind,
for all that we have known before
has faded and grown worn.
We seek you with our questions, God,
that we might be reborn
*PRAYER OF CONFESSION Brian Roe
One: God of new life, you call us into unknown places,
All: and we bury our heads in the sand.
One: You promise all the stars in the sky,
All: and we doubt it can be true.
One: You speak of new life in the Spirit,
All: and we tell ourselves we’ve missed our chance.
One: Over and over and over again, you invite us closer to you.
All: Show us the way. Forgive our mistakes. Give us the courage to begin again
with you. Amen.
*ASSURANCE OF PARDON
One: Join me in saying:
All: We belong to God. We are held in God’s love. We are made new. Amen.
*RESPONSE OF PRAISER #469 “Lord, Listen to Your Children” CHILDREN PRAYING
*PASSING OF THE PEACE
One: The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,
All: And also with you.
WE LISTEN FOR GOD’S WORD
ANTHEM “How Great Thou Art” arr. B.E. Boykin
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
CHILDREN’S MESSAGE Parker Wilkinson
SCRIPTURE John 3:1-17 Brian Roe, Marie Boozer, Michael Ayers
There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a Jewish leader. He came to Jesus under cover of night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could do these miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered, “I assure you, unless someone is born anew, it’s not possible to see God’s kingdom.” Nicodemus asked, “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?” Jesus answered, “I assure you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t be surprised that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus said, “How are these things possible?” “Jesus answered, “You are a teacher of Israel and you don’t know these things? I assure you that we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you don’t receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Human One. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Human One be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
One: Holy Wisdom, Holy Word All: Thanks be to God
SERMON Rev. Trip Porch
*HYMN “Who on Earth Can Find God's Kingdom?” NETTLETON
Words: Carolyn Winfrey Gillette (2017)
Who on earth can find God's kingdom? Who can know God's wondrous reign?
How can we receive the freedom of a people born again?
Can we hear the winds a-blowing — where they come from and return?
Can we see God's kingdom growing? These are things we long to learn.
Nicodemus said to Jesus, "God must be at work in you!
Rabbi, you're a God-sent teacher; we can see the signs you do!"
Jesus saw his faith and questions, so he spoke these words of love:
"Surely, none can see God's kingdom, till they're born from God above."
Nicodemus kept on wondering, "How can one be born anew?"
Jesus said, "This is the birthing that God's Spirit brings to you.
If you want to see God's kingdom, do not be at all surprised.
You can't see God's Spirit moving, yet it's working, changing lives."
God, we see your world around us, and we wonder what will be.
Is your loving reign among us; is it something yet to see?
May we trust your Spirit's moving, giving life and hope and birth.
May we trust what you are doing, joy of heaven, hope of earth.
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
We believe in a God who meets us in the shadows, who welcomes our questions, who invites us to begin again. We believe that Jesus showed us a new way, a deeper faith, a more compassionate existence. We believe that all of our beginnings should return us to this foundation, and that no matter how many times we lose our way, God always welcomes us home. Amen.
TIME OF OFFERING The Old Rugged Cross” by G. Bennard
*OFFERTORY RESPONSE #698 “Take, O Take Me as I Am” TAKE ME AS I AM
COMMUNION
INVITATION TO THE TABLE
GREAT PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
SHARING OF BREAD AND CUP
MUSIC DURING COMMUNION “Broken Body of Christ” by The Many
PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION
God of manna and mustard seeds, we came to this Table hungry, and we leave feeling full—full of hope, full of promise, full of what could be. For we not only found glimpses of you at this Table, but we caught a glimpse of the way things could be: in a meal where all are welcomed and all are fed. Is there anything holier than that? So thank you for nourishing our curiosity alongside our spirit and our conviction. May we always seek you the way you seek after us. With grateful hearts we pray, amen.
*HYMN NO. 288 “Spirit of the Living God” x2 LIVING GOD
TIME OF COMMUNITY SHARING
MFM - Nehemiah Action Susan Shockey
CHARGE AND BENEDICTION
BENEDICTION RESPONSE “Christ, We Do All Adore Thee” Theodore Dubois
POSTLUDE “The Lord's Prayer” by A. Malotte
Acknowledgments: Unless otherwise indicated, all texts and music are printed and broadcast under OneLicense.net license #A-702452
Liturgy by Rev. Sarah A. Speed | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org.