Second Sunday in Lent: Born Again

3/16

 Sooner or later this morning, we’re going to have to get around to dealing with, 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…..and we’re going to have to talk about being born again, too, that’s where we are this Sunday in Lent.

Even though Joe and La Toya were gone before I got here, I had a lot of sweeping to do. Dion shows up in plenty of time to help me set up. Two young Korean men  have joined us and a young man from the neighborhood as well.

On our way there, we stopped to talk about Abraham becoming the father of many nations. But it’s the gospel where we’re headed. The story of Nicodemus. John 3: 1-17.  The wrangle around born from above, born from again. Nicodemus’ cynical response to Jesus.  Jesus was clearly talking about a new spiritual awakening. But maybe that’s not far from being born again. It’s not the sole aegis of the Pentecostals or evangelicals. It’s something that happens over and over and over again, one hopes in a lifetime. This church was born again when we came back into it full time in  March 2011. I feel I’m in process. It’s always there.

My favorite verse in this section is ⁸The 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. That’s part of the answer to the those who want to challenge us on the born again issue…the wind blows where it wills..if God is truly God then God can do what God wants when God wants with whomever God wants. Not up to us. To believe differently is to be guilty of the sin of Adam, IE wanting to have the full knowledge of the mind of God, like we talked about last week.

But sooner or later, we’ve got to get around to John 3:16. I believe that you’ve got to read that in light of the wind where it wills.  But Jeremy wants to challenge that. He, like most of us has had someone close who has a true born again experience then quotes this passage, with the clear idea that anyone who does not believe in Jesus is headed to burn in hell. I’ve never been able to figure out why some of us in order to feel right, have to know that someone somewhere is going to hell and that they know why. Well, truth be told, I feel that way too, sometimes, we’re just working in different categories. 

I want to struggle with what Jeremy asks. It’s basic. I raise the hermeneutic issue again, that is we all choose an interpretive key and interpret everything else through that. If you start with God is love, you wind up one place with this. And if you’re listening for an exclusivity, you’ll wind up somewhere else. When I hear these words, 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, I often feel like I can affirm them completely. Though there’s nothing in that passage definitive as to how exactly that’s going happen. I prefer it that way. The mystery.

My visitor from the neighborhood had an interesting both/and take on the issue. And my Korean friends had never heard anything quite like this before.

It’s a season that offers rebirth. Renewal. I’m not the best guide for that, though I often feel it happening. There’s an opening up, a letting go, a letting be…allowing our self to move with the earth as it pushes itself out from this too long deep freeze.

Wayne has come in during the service. Haven’t seen him for awhile. Just in the nick of time. It’s St.Patrick’s Day weekend and we’ve already had a song from the Scottish psalter and one from  Wales so we’ve got to do Irish. And this time that means He Looked Beyond My Fault, that beautiful Dottie Rambo song set to Danny Boy.

Amazing Grace will always be my song of Praise, for it was Grace that brought me liberty, I do not know just why he came to love me so, he looked beyond my fault and saw my needs. I shall forever lift my eyes to Calvary, to view the Cross where Jesus died for me, how marvelous his Grace that caught my falling soul, he looked beyond my fault and saw my needs. I shall forever lift my eyes to Calvary, to view the cross where Jesus died for me, how marvelous his Grace that caught my falling soul, he looked beyond my fault and saw my needs. He looked beyond my fault and he saw my needs

I was ready to give it a shot, but seriously…Wayne has that gentle tenor touch to pull it off. And with no rehearsal, he and Jeremy do it fine and there are amens and applause.

Our final hymn is another Irish one, Be Thou My Vision. I will never, ever, forget Bill Schimmel with his accordion singing that song like a nearly broken farmer in the midst of the potato famine. Gruff, of the earth, but still standing firm.

We close our circle. And then the session meets to discuss the week in court ahead.

                                                      * * * *

On the issue of being born again, you might try Hello, Hooray by Rolf Kempf.

Ready as the rain to fall, just to fall again
Ready as a man to be born, only to be born again,
I’ve been waiting so long for another song
I’ve been thinking so long I was the only one
We’ve been hoping so long for another song

And listen to Judy Collins. Not Alice Cooper. Please.

Second Sunday in Lent: Born Again

3/20

Sunny but cold again. March. My cell rings. It’s Hope. She’s a half block from the church. With Norma. I stop at Barney Greengrass. Ask Gary if today is Purim, the feast of Esther, the Jewish version of Carnival. He laughs and says yes. I tell him he needs a mask or at least a three cornered hat. He says “Moe had one,” referring to his father who was not only a restauranter but a magician as well.  Gary wishes me a hag purim and I’m on my way. 

Andre is waiting for me. Then Hope and Norma. It is good to see Norma , to have her with us after Kelly’s death. By eleven, almost everyone is there. They’ve taken my Lenten  challenge to get there on time. And today we will ordain and install elders and deacons.  During announcements, Hope talks of having  joined the picket line with the Saigon Grill workers and encourages us to join in the big rally scheduled for next Saturday, when several of us will have to be  at a Presbytery meeting. 

As usual, much to talk about.  Look, Gaddhafi’s slaughtering of his own  people was despicable. But now we’re bombing Tripoli? Hugo looks despondent and says, “This foreign policy, no different than Bush. Or Clinton neoliberalism.” And he reminds me of the  cynical western rehabilitation of Gaddhafi’s image in recent years. And now we’re jumping in. What happens to the legitimate people’s movement? 

And of course continued anguish in Japan?  

I start my sermon with a challenge.  What does it mean to be born again?  I tell them that  back in the day, when  I had weekly sermon titles, just  to be provocative, I put Born Again out on the sign board. Almost immediately I began getting phone calls from members. Their comments ranged from being  careful that   no one get the wrong idea to we don’t do that here, we’re Presbyterian. I’ve touched on being born again before but today I want to go deeper. 

So we begin with the father of all born again stories, Abraham. (Genesis 12: 1-4a.)Common parent of Muslim, Christian and Jew.  In order to receive what is new, he must give up all that is old, familiar, known.  He must let go. Be emptied.  A friend in my lectionary study  brought up Japan.  The moment to begin again. And Libya. But, as I pointed out,  those radical changes were imposed, not voluntarily taken on. It’s different. Though it is true that you can still grow from wheat you do not volunteer for, for what you never wanted or expected. Like in  Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, it’s not the experience itself but how you experience it. How you choose to experience it. The meaning you give to it. It’s about leaving identity, kinship groups. About taking a leap of faith. 

The Abraham story is a  good passage for leaving. But wait a minute. We’re coming back.We’ve been called to beginning again in the same place, well, it’s not the same, but...let’s just say we’re  beginning again in place.  

And now the ultimate born again passage.  John 3: 1-17. Jesus and Nicodemus.Where  this  language cones from.And our new translations show the confusion. The phrase γεννηθῆναι ἄνωθεν can mean born from above, or born anew, or born again?  No wonder Nicodemus is confused. 

The wind blows where it chooses...these words are always helpful to me. They follow up the Genesis story we spoke of last week. They speak to God’s radical freedom. God’s spirit will do what God would do...( And as of this morning there are only 16 more Presbyteries to go to approve 10a...to finally open the doors to inclusion...after all these years..)  The wind blows where it chooses. 

Andre speaks up, “so was that what Bob Dylan was talking about? Blowin’ in the wind?” That’s it, Andre, exactly, the  Holy Spirit, the ruach, the pneuma..The wind blows where it chooses....And no one can resist...well, we try, we try. 

Working on this last night, these words came to me from an old Judy Collins’ album. (Showing my age here...) from Hello, Hooray on the Who Knows Where the Time Goes album...

Hello! Hooray! Let the show begin

I’m ready

Hello! Hooray! Let the lights grow dim

We’ve been ready

Ready as the rain to fall, just to fall again

Ready as a man to be born, only to be born again, and again and again and again

(Which may also be the only Judy Collins song ever covered by Alice Cooper)

It’s about parting oneself from one’s baggage....is it even possible? It raises some hard questions...

.What if our system had to stat over? It’s broken, not broke. As Michael Moore said in Wisconsin, the US is not broke. WIsconsin is not broke. New York City is not broke. It’s where the money is and who controls it. And that those who came close to destroying the world’s economy continue to want us to pay for it.

. What if the PC(USA)had to start over? Stop the annual cutbacks,trying to make a broken system work and just start over? 

. Or New York City Presbytery? 

. Or..take a breath...West-Park Church? (And I hear Andre’s voice  say, I thought that’s what we’re doing? And I smile.) It means being open to new realities, new people, new ways of doing things. It can’t just be bricks and mortar. 

. And you? We have to do it all the time. Some of our moments, our turning moments  more dramatic than others...Others are more subtle. But sometimes decisions change lives.

I shared with them the story of Captain John Riley and the San Patricio batallion. Most had never heard it before. 

I talked about the concert I heard last night at Symphony Space. A klezmer clarinetist squeezing out despair and joy,the sparkling dancing sounds of an armenian zither, an oud player celebrating el andaluz where spanish, arab and jewish culture all came together in a golden age....that’s what I want church to be like...

So this is our time. A season for intentional spiritual exploration. Leaps of faith. Risk taking.  Born again.

I remind them that those who would be ordained and installed today do so not as a board of directors but so people who have been called by God to leadership. To lead the people . To lead the people with creativity, imagination, but most of all, love.

Following the offering, they come forward. Stand in front of the table. Answer the questions. And then all who have preceded them come forward for the laying on of hands. And the connection of hands goes on back through the 100 years of West-Park. And before. All the way to the beginning. We sing Here I am, Lord. We hold hands in a circle for the benediction. Sing Amen. And then share Ana’s cafe con leche.