"The Mystery Of Water And Spirit" Lent 2 February 17, 2008

(First read the text for this sermon: John 3:1-17)

In our prayer study groups over the past months, we’ve been trying out 12 different types of prayer practice, drawn from Christian tradition. (Did you know there are 12 ways to pray? Actually, there are many more than that!) The past couple of weeks, our focus has been on prayer that happens while slowly walking. This prayer practice arises from the metaphor of our spiritual life as a journey.

Like all journeys, sometimes the terrain of your spiritual journey is smooth and free of obstacles. At other times, the landscape is rough and rocky. Sometimes, along the way of our journeys, we feel as if we are lost in a spiritual wilderness. At all stages, and across all terrains during our spiritual journeys, in our prayer, we are to be listening for God’s guidance and presence.

The season of Lent is a spiritual journey in itself. It is a journey of 40 days (not including Sundays, which are feast days). In the adult class this morning, I led some Bible study highlighting the importance of the holy number “40,” throughout Scripture. As one example, think of the story that epitomizes journeying through times that are confusing and frightening: remember Moses and the Chosen People, wandering through 40 years of literal wilderness experience.

What is the terrain of your spiritual journey these days?

In my own spiritual journey, I am not currently experiencing wilderness. But I am finding some depth this year during my Lenten journey, using again a daily devotional from the writings of Henri Nouwen that I saved from last year. The devotions are based on the parable off the “Prodigal Son,” and his father, and the elder, compulsively responsible son (that’s the one I am!). These devotions are helpful because, in my prayer, I am still coming to terms with the absence of my father, who died 17 months ago.

More broadly, over the past several years in my spiritual journey, I’ve been discovering more and more the mystery of God; becoming aware of what we cannot understand about God; of how God is so much more than any of our intellectua conceptions and formulas of God. This is exhilarating for me, in my prayer! It also contributes to intellectual clarity. I am at a place of recognizing how futile it is to try to understand who God is with too much precision, in terms that are too limiting!

That’s what I am noticing, this time through this morning’s story from John. Some of you have heard this story many times. It begins in dramatic fashion: Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God."

Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, under the cover of darkness. He’s taking a risk! He’s a Pharisee. He’s one of the elite leaders of the Jewish people. And yet, he’s drawn to Jesus and what Jesus is teaching and doing! And there are evidently other Pharisees who are attracted to Jesus: Nicodemus refers to “we.”

But, curiously, Jesus responds to all this interest in a way that is confusing and ambiguous. "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?"

Do you see the comedy here, in what Nicodemus says? We’re encountering a literary technique that the author of the gospel of John uses, as he constructs dialogue between Jesus and another person. Again and again in the gospel of John, Jesus speaks in flowing, figurative and metaphorical language – but his listener is literal and wooden-headed in his or her attempt to understand what Jesus is talking about! Look at this case: poor Nicodemus is trying to understand Jesus by picturing a grown adult somehow re-entering his mother’s womb, to be born a second time! Ludicrous!

Nicodemus is entirely missing the point. But it’s not entirely his fault. The Greek word that’s used in the story, anothen, could mean to be born “again,” as Nicodemus seems to assume. But it does not necessarily mean that! The word could also be translated to mean, born “from above”; or even, born “anew.” Indeed, you do find all three translations in various versions of the Bible!

Why does the gospel writer use a word that is so difficult, so ambiguous? Could it be intentional? Could it be to prevent us readers from understanding too precisely?

That’s what I suspect, at this point on my spiritual journey! This story does not encourage us to try to understand with too much precision, as if God can be reduced to a set of intellectual categories. Instead, this story is inviting us into the mystery that is God!

As supporting evidence, listen to more of what this gospel-of-John Jesus says. Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' 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."

In his befuddlement, all that poor Nicodemus can say to Jesus is, "How can these things be?"

Don’t you feel sorry for the guy? He’s taken great personal risk to approach Jesus, under the cover of darkness. He’s drawn to what Jesus is teaching. But is Jesus helping him out, with all this metaphorical and poetic language?

Well yes, I think Jesus is trying to help Nicodemus – because Nicodemus is struggling with a narrow and restrictive understanding of what is possible! Jesus’ responses are way beyond that! Jesus asks, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he has to let go of what he knows, so that he can enter into the mystery that is God!

The point of our spiritual journeys is to enter into that mystery more and more deeply. That is particularly true of our journeys during the season of Lent.

Are you willing to take the risk of entering into the mystery of being born of water and Spirit?

How might you and I be changed – by simply following the Spirit in our spiritual journeys, as the Spirit leads us into this ambiguity?

How might the Spirit draw us into God?

There is risk in this, because it draws us so far beyond what we think we understand about God – in our heads. (Most of us Lutherans put primary emphasis on that!) But, in our spiritual journeys, we can walk with great confidence: because what God the Holy Spirit is doing is leading us more and more deeply into Love. After all, we read this, in this morning’s story from John: "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. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Blessings on your continuing journey through Lent.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
Saint Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia