Sermon 2/17/08
Lion King: Reborn - Genesis 12:1-4a, John 3:1-17
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Today we’ve heard another song from the Lion King. This one you Disney movie buffs might not recognize – it’s a beautiful song from the Broadway Musical Version. Last week we talked about the lion Scar arranging for the death of the lion Mufasa so that Scar could be in power. Scar also ran Mufasa’s son, Simba, out of town. With Scar in charge, the situation in the homeland becomes terrible – the food is gone, the land is desolate. Nala, a lioness, decides to leave her home in search of food, help, something, anything. And so she sings this beautiful piece, “Shadowland,” as a song of mourning for her homeland, wondering about where she will go, knowing that she must take this journey.
Have you ever had to leave your home behind? Have you ever had to make a significant move? Have you ever known you needed to go to the next place in life, and still not wanted to go? For me, I remember feeling this way when it was time to start college. Somehow, I’d gotten myself signed up to attend Ohio Wesleyan University, about an 8 ½ hour drive from my hometown, Rome, NY. And unlike many of my friends who just couldn’t wait to get to college, I was dreading it. I knew getting back for visits from Ohio wouldn’t be easy. I was and am very close to my family, and I didn’t want to be so far away. I knew Ohio Wesleyan was a good school, I knew I needed to continue my education, and I even felt God was calling me. And yet, even at the last minute, it was so tempting to stay home, maybe go to community college, just stay where I was. Of course, I fell in love with Ohio Wesleyan. I loved college. I loved seminary. I loved becoming a pastor. It was so hard to see at the moment of starting college though that I would ever fall in love with a new place, a new life, new experiences. What if I had never taken that step? What if I hadn’t gone to college, hadn’t responded to God’s call? I can’t imagine where my life would be right now. Have you ever had to leave your home behind?
There are other kinds of journeys we are called to make other than a literal move from location to location, of course. Sometimes we are called to leave not a physical place, but an emotional place, a spiritual place, a state of mind. Sometimes we are called to leave behind the way things have been to embrace a new vision, a new hope, a new direction. These journeys can be as difficult, if not more, than our physical leaving behind. What other places have you had to leave behind?
In our scripture readings for today, we find both kinds of stories of journeys – a physical journey, and a spiritual journey. In Genesis, we read of God calling Abram to leave his homeland to journey to a land that God will show to him. God promises that Abram will be blessed, that his family will be blessed, that Abram will become a great nation. And without questions, at least not questions that the Bible records for us, Abram goes. We read, “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.” I don’t know about you, but if I were Abram, I’d probably have a lot more in the way of questions. Why can’t God just bless me where I am? Why do I have to go to a new land to receive this blessing? Why me? How do I know this new land and new life will be better than the life I already know now? But in the situation we have here, God speaks, and Abram acts.
Our lesson from the gospel of John talks about a journey too, of a different kind. Jesus asks the Pharisee Nicodemus to go on a spiritual journey with him, in this famous biblical passage. If you know anything about John 3, you probably know John 3:16, perhaps the most famous verse in the whole bible. I had to memorize it as a child. Maybe you did too – if you did, you can say it with me: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” But you probably don’t know the rest of the passage so well, and I consider the rest of the passage to be perhaps even more important than this single famous verse. Our chapter opens with Nicodemus, a Pharisee leader, coming to Jesus at night to ask him questions. You get the impression that Nicodemus doesn’t want the other Pharisees to know what he’s up to – but it seems he is intrigued enough by Jesus to just need to have more information. Jesus tells him, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus – he seems so sincere you have to smile, so earnest – asks, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Today we may be familiar with Christian language of being “born again,” but for Nicodemus, this was new talk. So Jesus continues – “very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” He continues to talk about flesh, wind, and spirit, the wind blowing where it chooses. Nicodemus seems even more confused. “How can these things be?” Jesus answers, typical in his response to Pharisees, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” Jesus wonders how Nicodemus will get heavenly matters, struggling so much with earthly matters. But still, Jesus concludes, the message he has is about love and grace, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Why? Because “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Nicodemus, as a Pharisee, was a person who was an educated man, a religious leader, one known, as Pharisees were, for his understanding, command, and practice of the laws of the Torah, the laws the guided the Jewish people in faithful living according to the commands God has given them. And yet, despite all this, he couldn’t grasp what Jesus was talking about. “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” Jesus points out with his question how little Nicodemus understands, though he is one who would claim to know everything that was needed for faithful living. Jesus tries to reorient Nicodemus. “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,” he says. “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” In other words, though you can’t describe it, you know the wind is there and at work and you know what it does and what effect it has. So it is with those born of the Spirit. So God calls us to be.
What is Jesus saying? Jesus says that to see the kingdom of God we must be born from above – we must be born in a new way, a way that’s different from our physical birth. To be part of God’s kingdom, we have to be a new us, transformed by God’s love for us. To be part of God’s kingdom, we have to leave the selves we know, the selves we’re used to, the selves we’re in control of, and become what we could be, what we might be if we followed God. To be part of God’s kingdom, we have to claim this new identity – not born of flesh, bound by where we live, or what we look like, or how much we have, or what we do for a living – but born of water and Spirit, where our identity is as beloved children of God. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that to be part of the kingdom of God, Nicodemus has to go on a journey, to leave what is known, and comfortable. Nicodemus doesn’t understand – or he doesn’t want to understand. He seeks Jesus out, he’s looking for answers. But I’m not sure Nicodemus is ready for the answers he gets.
As individuals, as a congregation, I think we try to listen for God’s call. We try to understand what God wants of us, what God has in store for us, how God might use us. But sometimes, we’re too afraid to make the journey God requires of us to ever figure out how good things could be with God. Maybe, like Nicodemus, we have more questions for God and not enough answers. Maybe, like with Abram, what God describes to us is vague. Maybe we’re so happy where we are that we can’t understand why God wants to lead us somewhere else. But as disciples of Jesus, God asks us to put away our “maybes” and “what ifs” and instead say, “yes.” Instead, trust. Instead, follow – GO!
One of my older brother’s favorite Zen parables goes like this: Nan-in, a Japanese master during the [late 1800s] received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!" "Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” One of my favorite bible verses says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart compared what God has in store for those who love God.” What does God have in store for us? I don’t know exactly. I try to listen, to hear God’s voice. But unless I am willing, you are willing to follow where God leads, we’ll never be able to find out. Unless we are willing to empty our cups, we can never be filled back up by what God has waiting for us. Unless Abram left his home, he could never receive the blessing God had described for him – maybe something else, maybe something not so terrible – but never the fullness of what God had planned for him. Unless Nicodemus could be born from above, not by flesh, by law, by the rules of the Pharisees, but instead born of water and Spirit, Nicodemus could never experience the kingdom of God – maybe an ok life, but never the kind of life that God meant for us to have.
Discipleship is a journey. God is always calling us into deeper relationship, and so discipleship never lets us stay where we are. That means as people of faith, we’re always having to leave our places of comfort behind. We can never get to settled in before we suspect God may be calling us somewhere else, to a new way of living, a new way of loving, to discover a new way of serving. In Lent, we follow Jesus as he travels literally and figuratively closer to his own death. Why does he do it? Jesus probably could have lived a life as a faithful, even devout Jew without coming a step closer to the cross. He could have been a teacher, just as he was. He could have taught just as he did, without getting himself in so much trouble. But Jesus knew God’s plan for him, and knew, even in his darkest moments when he couldn’t see clearly why he had to take the journey he did, that God would be with him through that journey, and bless us through that journey. Jesus knew that if he meant what he said, what he preached and taught, then he had to follow where God led.
Do you believe what we say we believe? If we do, if we do believe in this God who created us, then we can trust in God’s blessings planned for us. But if we believe, then we’re called to follow, to leave what we’ve known, the life we’ve been living, the comfortable places we’ve been existing in, and follow where God would lead us. I can’t imagine my life if I’d decided not to go to college, or not to attend seminary at Drew, or not to become a pastor. I can’t imagine Genesis if Abram had decided not to leave his home. I can’t imagine where we’d be if Jesus had decided not to follow the path that led him relentless to sacrifice his own life for others. Why, then, would I want to imagine, to stay in a place where I stop listening to God’s call on my life?
John 3:16 begins “for God so-loved the world.” If we believe that – if we believe that God so loves us, we can’t go wrong when we answer God’s call. We might end up far away from where we began. We might end up on a journey we never expected. But we’ll always be walking with God.
Amen.