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The Heart of the Matter
John 3:1-17

Ever been asked that question? Or perhaps its relative, “Are you saved?”

I have been asked that question on an airplane, while walking across campus in college, by billboards and graffiti along the highway. No doubt all of you have encountered this question at one time or another in your life.

Now, I don't know about you, but even though I am sure of my faith and feel like I am fairly articulate about it, being asked if I've been “born again” always makes me uncomfortable. Because when someone asks that question, they have a clear idea of the answer they are looking for. They want a specific date, time and location, a story of a sudden and decisive conversion. And I don't have a story like that.

So I'm usually left there, knowing that my story of faith my not be considered valid by someone who approaches what it means to be a Christian from an entirely different perspective. We have trouble communicating because we are coming at the question from very different places.

There is something of this kind of miscommunication in the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a leader of the Jews.

First, let's look at the history of the world at that time.

The Palestine in which Jesus and John's community lived was a country under occupation by the Roman Empire. While the Empire allowed Jews to practice their own religion, many Jews chafed under Roman control, outraged that the land given to the Jews by God was under the rule of a foreign nation. Out of this dissatisfaction developed a group militantly opposed to the Romans, known as the Zealots. In 66 CE, the Zealots led a rebellion that drove the Romans out of Palestine, but the victory was short-lived. Eventually, inevitably the Roman army came back to reclaim and subdue the renegade province, and Palestine was ultimately crushed. Villages and cities throughout the land were destroyed, Jerusalem in particular. The city wall and the temple were left in ruins. In the aftermath, out of the rubble, the Jewish people tried to rebuild a life.

Prior to the rise of the Zealots, different sects of Judaism—Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, to name a few—lived together mostly peacefully. Now remember that those who followed Jesus Christ still very much considered themselves to be Jews, and these Christian Jews were tolerated by the other sects. After the defeat of the Zealots and the destruction of the Temple, however, only two major groups remained: the Pharisaic Jews and the Christian Jews. Out of the turmoil of rebuilding their life and community, came a struggle for control between the groups. The Pharisaic Jews put pressure on those who didn't keep Torah according to their way, and began excluding those—primarily Christian Jews—who didn't follow the law as they interpreted it. The Pharisaic Jews had control over the synagogues, and they kept out all of those who didn't follow their way.

So, the community in which John's gospel was written was a community deeply marked by opposition—either you're in, or you're out.

Given this history, the fact that a Pharisee is coming to see Jesus sets off alarm bells. The Pharisees in John are portrayed as being in opposition to Jesus. Therefore, John sets up the story so that Nicodemus comes to see Jesus at night. We might think it is because as a leader of his people, Nicodemus needs the cover of darkness, but more than likely John uses this as a way of saying, Nicodemus was of the darkness; that is, he did not understand.

Even so, Nicodemus begins by calling Jesus “Rabbi” and announcing, “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.” (v. 2)

In this world where groups are opposed to one another, Nicodemus represents those religious leaders who are open to what Jesus is doing. But in this story, John uses Nicodemus as a foil to Jesus, having him play the part of the one who just doesn't understand what Jesus is trying to say.

“Very truly, I tell you,” Jesus says, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born anothen .”

Now, anothen is a Greek word that has double-meaning—it can be translated as “from above” or “anew” or “again.”

Depending on which translation of the Bible you prefer, you will get a different translation of anothen : The Revised Standard Version (which is in the pews) translates it as “born anew.” The New Revised Standard Version (which is what we read from) translates it as “born from above.” The King James Version, the New International Version and the Good News Bible all translate it as “born again.”

Whatever meaning Jesus may have intended, Nicodemus fixates on one meaning only, and gets caught up in the impossibility of the idea of being born again. “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?” (v. 4)

Jesus tries to clarify what he means by pointing back at the testimony John the Baptizer made about Jesus in the first chapter, about how John baptizes with water, while Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit (1.33). Both, he says, are now necessary to enter the kingdom of God.

Then he says, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (v.6)

This verse can seem a bit confusing to us. We must remember that in the world at that time, one's birth determined nearly everything about a person's life because one's family determined identity. The first century Mediterranean world didn't have the same concepts of individuality or self-determination that we have today. Where you were born, who your family was, and what position they held in society defined who you were when you were born, an identity that did not change throughout your life.

In the midst of this system, Jesus suggests something else: that besides being born in the usual way, there is another birth possible, even necessary in this life—to be born of the Spirit.

When we baptize in this church—from infants through adults—we talk about welcoming another member into the family of God. It's a beautiful image, one that makes all of us participating in the baptism feel good.

But in Jesus' first century Mediterranean world, this idea wasn't just happy and comforting, it was radical. It was life-changing.

Because when the people of John's community made the decision to follow Jesus Christ, it had cost them dearly. The exclusion from the synagogue was devastating beyond what we can understand. The synagogue was not just a place of worship, it was the center of the Jewish social world. To be excluded from the synagogue was to be cut off from family and community, from one's very identity. It was a loss most of us cannot imagine.

To these hurting people, John has Jesus say, you may have been rejected by the world, but you are claimed by God. The family into which you were born may have disowned you, but now you belong to a new family. Such a promise was a lifeline. Because what they had lost was so large, so all-encompassing, it was like a death.

Born anew, as a child of God. To have a new life, a new identity in Christ.

Born again, a second time, and this time as an heir to the kingdom. A new community, a new family of which to be a part.

But what about us today? At first glance, it may seem this message of new identity and new life is one that we in the United States don't really need. Few of us have had the experience of being thrown out of our worship communities or our families. We live in a country where we are not defined by who our parents are or where we were born, where we can reinvent ourselves at will, be who we want to be, do what we want to do.

In his book, The Heart of Christianity , Marcus Borg argues that even in this land of self-determination, we are too often defined by things outside of us, particularly the things of our culture.

Our worth as human beings too often has to do with how we measure up against the three A's—appearance, achievement and affluence. We are constantly bombarded with messages about how we should look, what we should wear, what we should own, and how high we should climb the ladder of success. We are plagued by the question, Am I good enough? We let the culture define who we supposed to be so that as Frederick Buechner puts it, we live our lives from the outside in rather than the inside out

In the midst of this reality—almost a false, or manufactured reality—comes Christ's invitation to be born anew, to be born again, as a new creation.

Marcus Borg writes, “To be born again involves dying to the false self, to that identity, to that way of being, and to be born into an identity centered in the Spirit, in Christ, in God. It is the process of internal redefinition of the self whereby a real person is born within us.” (Borg, p. 117)

Part of being born anew or again is dying to the ways that have held us back. It's the idea behind what Paul writes about baptism in Romans:

“Do you not know that all of us who have baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:3-4) 

Buried by the waters of baptism, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we may have newness of life.

To all of this, Nicodemus, a man of a certain social standing, a leader in his community because of the lineage of his birth, responded in confusion, “How can these things be?” (v. 9)

To which Jesus replies, “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.” (vv. 7-8)

Just as we can't see or contain or predict the wind, neither can we see or contain or predict what the Holy Spirit will do. It remains a mystery beyond our understanding, but we can believe that God's Spirit is real and it is continually around us and within us.

When we leave him in John 3, it seems that Nicodemus doesn't understand what Jesus tries to teach him. But he appears two more times in the Gospel of John, and both times shows that he has, indeed, gotten it. In chapter 7, Nicodemus takes Jesus' side in an argument among the chief priests and Pharisees over whether Jesus should be arrested. And then in chapter 19, after Jesus' body is taken down from the cross, Nicodemus helps Joseph of Arimathea take the body, wrap it with spices and linen clothes, and place it in the empty tomb. Given that the climate was hostile enough to crucify Jesus, to associate with him was a dangerous thing, and yet Nicodemus has the courage to speak up for him and to claim his body. Nicodemus made the decision to believe in Jesus. Could he have guessed at where the wind of the Spirit would take him?

But then who ever has?

The disciples couldn't have imagined that from such a small, frightened group after Jesus' death and resurrection they would grow in strength and numbers and start the church. Martin Luther wouldn't have guessed that his nagging discomfort with the church would develop into the Reformation. A village of French Protestants could not have known that their belief in Christ would lead them to save the lives of hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust.

I leave you this morning with a poem given to me during an orientation for a group of Presbyterian Mission Volunteers, as I was getting to leave for a year in the former East Germany.

SO IS EVERY ONE THAT IS BORN OF THE SPIRIT

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First Presbyterian Church of Cedar Rapids
310 Fifth Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Phone: 319-364-6148
E-mail: church@fpccr.org

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