John 3.1-17                                                                                            17 February 2008

“TOO COMFORTABLE IN OUR BLESSINGS”

We’ve heard before the story of Nicodemus covertly approaching Jesus by night.

Nicodemus is often described as a restless seeker approaching Jesus to wrestle with his doubts. I don’t much buy that.  The text tells us Nicodemus is a Pharisee, the in-power religious party of his day. Pharisees weren’t known for their doubts. And Nicodemus is not just a member, but a leader. Yes, he certainly was curious.

But Nicodemus isn’t a wide-eyed struggling searcher. He’s a teacher, the picture of self-assured, polished, fixed knowledge. The first words out of this insider’s mouth are, “Rabbi, we know...”  Rabbi, the focus groups clearly show… Rabbi, common sense tells us… Rabbi, conventional wisdom dictates…Could you imagine meeting Jesus and starting in with a homily telling him what you know?   I don’t know about you, but I am falling on my knees and keeping my mouth shut.

It reminds me of a clergy friend, she used to be senior pastor of a prominent UCC church in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Talk about powerful insiders, you’re talking about Fairfield County. Lidabell has retired to a home here in Chatham.  Anyway, when we were both pastors in Fairfield County, this smart, faithful, and humble lady described church meetings, “They come directly from offices in New York, still wearing their suits. I see it in their eyes. They assume they know more about ministry, about what the church should be doing, than the rest of us. They are used to running things and see no reason why they shouldn’t run the church.”

“Rabbi,” Nicodemus opens, “we know you must be of God because, well, you satisfy our criteria for being of God.” Yes, It sounds like affirmation and he likely expects Jesus to be grateful.  But Jesus sees beneath such easy tribute.  He has seen this kind before. “Oh, you have it all figured out, do you?” Jesus counters.   “Nicodemus, no one grasps what the reign of God is about without being born from above, born anew, born of the Spirit. Do you even know these lofty places?” 

Nicodemus is taken aback about this being born anew, from above, in the Spirit. “How can this be? It never came across my desk for my approval.” So it goes for the rest of their exchange. Jesus wanders in the uncharted territory of the Spirit blowing where it will.  And Nicodemus incredulously answers, “How can this be?”

This often befalls the favored, the blessed, the gifted. The din of busy distraction drowns God’s still small voice inviting us outside of ourselves and into discovery.  Ever heard it said that those who know everything too soon never really under-stand anything? That what is going on with Nicodemus.  I know this because I’m vulnerable in the say way. I am favored. I am blessed. I too become comfortable in my blessings.  I do that as I take what I know to be true more seriously than what God reveals. I cringe as my blessings become a wall rather than a bridge. Maybe why that is why Jesus warned, to whom much is given, much is expected.

That reminds me of a story. One August the church camp I attended as a boy welcomed a brother and sister from Africa, children of missionaries.  Summer was ending and they going back to Africa.  Our image of Africa was buzzing flies and elephantiasis. So we were sad for them, returning to hardship, unimaginable poverty, and sacrifice. No more TV. No more Dairy Queen. No more water skiing.

We didn’t know how to say it, so we blurted out our regret that their salad days on furlough were ending. They’d heard this pity before, and wanted no part of it.   “No, we don’t eagerly count the days before coming back to the USA. We are always eager to return to Africa. We can’t wait to get back!” It was their gentle way of saying, don’t cry for us, American suburbia.  And that really shocked us.

Disneyesque America was not their dream.  How could their hearts not burn after  the things we wanted in the 60s? BB guns, Barbie dolls, go-carts, transistor radios.  Had they been brainwashed?  Then a shiver went through us.  Maybe we were brainwashed. As lovely as our homes and streets were, maybe our dreams were far too small? That threw us into a dilemma that only deepened our faith.

I recalled this as I read N. T. Wright, the author 20 of us are reading and discus-sing Thursday morning. “Anyone who has grown up in an average African town has dozens of friends up and down the street; indeed, many children live within what to Western eyes would look like a massive and confusing extended family, with virtually every adult within walking distance being treated as an honorary uncle or aunt in a way that is unimaginable in the modern West.  In such a community, there exist multiple networks of support, encouragement, rebuke, and warning…which keeps everyone together and give people a shared sense of direction.  Those who live in the Western world mostly don’t even realize what they are missing.  In fact, they might be alarmed at the thought of all that togetherness.  In such a community, everyone is in it together, for good or ill.”

We’re so blessed in our way of life; I celebrate our blessings. But it’s all too easy to imagine that we are the only ones blessed.  Or that our blessings are the best.
When we become too comfortable in our blessings, we become spiritually pre-sumptuous. They become a wall rather than the bridge God intends them to be. 

Jesus is a good shepherd putting back together the lives of the broken.  But he is also a mighty wind breaking apart cheap spiritual certainties. “You must be born from above.” Jesus told Nicodemus, trying to shake him loose a little. “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."

Barbara Brown Taylor tells of taking rich Atlanta kids on a mission trip to rural Kentucky.  They didn’t know they were rich. But they lived in a world where teen-agers got convertibles on birthdays and cruised the Bahamas for class parties.
 

One hot August morning they met in the parking lot and piled into a Ford rental van. They drove to a land of tarpaper shacks and skinny dogs.  They visited Barnes Mountain, where a rural mission was set up in an abandoned farmhouse in the woods. Their job was to finish chinking the new log cabin to serve as parsonage for the coming pastor.  They slept in a chicken house across the way.

As they worked, it attracted a pool of three helpers from local teenagers. After all, who could resist seeing city kids mix a 50 bag of cement in a rusty wheelbarrow!  One especially endearing local was a boy named Dwayne. He was as fascinated by their stories as they were by his.  They told him about the dining room at the top of the Marriott that revolves once every hour.  He told them about his uncle who had broken his hip falling into an abandoned coalmine.  They talked about the big, bad Braves. He talked about the pet barn owl he had raised from a baby.

wayne worked with them, played with them, ate with them.  At week’s end, as they gathered for communion before driving home, he prayed with them.  Something like real community emerged.  Because they didn’t want to let go of it, crying marked their parting. During spontaneously offered prayers, everyone prayed. Many prayers had to do with the privilege of serving the poor of the area.  

 D

I guess all of that is predictable enough.  All of it, except for one painful part. The pity Dwayne sensed in the kids’ spontaneous prayers upset him. When asked what was wrong, he said, “You all called me poor!  I swear, I never thought of myself that way until you said it.  I have these woods to run around in.  I have a grandma and a grandpa who love me. I got a whole shed full of rabbits I can play with any time I want.  Does that sound poor to you?  It don’t sound poor to me. Well, you should all save your prayers for someone else who really needs them.”

Who wants to be on the receiving end of hand-outs? The answer is nobody. Who wants to be part of a community that transcends race, geography and class? The answer is all of us.  By making Dwayne a project they took what he wanted most.

“If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe,” Jesus asked Nicodemus, “how can you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?”  Jesus was not giving him a new set of theological doctrines.  No, Jesus was giving Nicodemus a new life, a new wonder, a new worship. Jesus was driving him to his knees before God.  So Jesus would graciously but unswervingly go after our arrogance.

In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, one of New York City’s most passionate workers against AIDS was a physician named Joyce Wallace. She was ahead of her time, seeking out those at risk to be tested before the disease could spread. Her method met with bitter resistance and rejection from her medical colleagues.

Wallace drew inspiration from her mother, a teacher of brain-injured children, to color outside the lines of treatment.  One powerful memory for Wallace was when her mother had her class stage a production of My Fair Lady.  She gave the lead role of Eliza Doolittle to a little girl in a wheelchair. Her mother had never done the calculations that in giving this role to such a child, the audience, so condi-tioned by who we perceive as blessed and cursed, would collapse into tears as the girl rolled herself across stage, lustily singing, “I could have danced all night.”

Sometimes we’re so comfortable in our blessings, we grow stubbornly blind.  “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 born of the Spirit.”  We might take a long, deep breath before assuming we know God’s will and where everything and everyone belongs.  God’s dream is bigger than ours.

Sixteen chapters later, John says that when Jesus died, Nicodemus was there. This time he comes not as interrogator, expert or Messiah-maker. He comes as servant disciple. He collects Jesus’ crumpled body. He doesn’t say, We know this or I know that. Nicodemus bears 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes to anoint Jesus’ crumpled body. A hundred pounds! Can you imagine that massive mound of fragrance?  What a holy gesture. Nicodemus wanted to match the sweetness of what the living Jesus had given him by anointing the dead Jesus with his extra-vagant reverence. He likely did that on bended knee. This aroma was carried by a wind that blows where it will. It fills our nostrils with hope. It pleases God.  Amen.

O God, whose Spirit searches all things, and whose love bears all things, encourage us to perceive all others—the lives, their families, their customs—as made in your image.  And invite us to approach your throne in humility and truth.  Save us from a worship with our lips, which is more about us, while our hearts are far away from what you are doing here and now in the world.  Save us from the useless labor of concealing our presumption from you who sees the heart.

Make us strong enough to bear your vision of truth, and to put away pretence, posturing, and pride so that we may see ourselves and your world as we are, and fear no more.  Give us the grace of gratitude for you and for all of your children. Give us purity of heart to dedicate ourselves to wherever your Spirit blows.

As we’ve prayed before for Columbine, for Virginia Tech, we pray again today for Northern Illinois University and the senseless loss of seven young lives, for grieving families, for a grieving nation.  We pray for Barbara Mabee who this past week too soon lost her son, Kevin, at age 52.    We pray for Rich and Beth Tosh, in her third go around against cancer.  We pray for Carol MacPherson in Florida, who collapsed, was hospitalized, and is now recovering.   We pray for Ella Grace, granddaughter to George and Betty Bartlett, recently in the hospital with a health crisis. We pray for the 8 from this church and the 35 from the Mass Conference journeying to New Orleans.  We pray for DUC as we yesterday again turned the page at our annual meeting.