Seeing The Kingdom
Sunday, June 11th, 2006
Trinity B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
John 3:1-17
Who are we trying to kid?
Honestly, seriously.
Who do we think we are? We claim to follow the teachings, in fact, we claim to LIVE the life of a man who lived almost two thousand years ago, who reportedly died on a cross and was buried and supposedly rose from the dead a couple of days later, and ascended to heaven some weeks after that.
He spent roughly three years walking around Palestine, gathered and taught a bunch of followers, and upset the establishment – both the political and the religious establishment – and THAT resulted in their condemning him to death.
And here we are, roughly two thousand years later, and we try to stand on those claims … you know, the ones where we are to be known by our love, or that if we are to be followers of Christ we are to be servants of all. We are to visit the sick and those in prison, we are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked; and sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t quite make it. And still, we continue to lay hold of those claims.
We live in a nation that claims to be Christian, but has the highest murder rate of any of the world’s most economically developed countries. We claim to have the highest standard of living, and yet there are millions of children who go to bed hungry each night within our borders. We claim to have the best medical care in the world, and we do, for those who can afford it. As a nation, our number one killer is heart disease brought on by terrible habits, not the least of which is one of the most sedentary lifestyles in the world, as well as a diet that is rich in calories and heavy on saturated fat, and short on the healthier stuff.
Sometimes I think we’d be better off dropping the claim to be a ‘Christian’ nation. I don’t mean that in the sense of rejection, I mean that in the sense of admission. I’m not so sure that the continuing move on the part of some who have gained and consolidated power over the last twenty-five years to impose on the rest of the population policies and statutes which I would immediately adhere to VOLUNTARILY but which are being made compulsory are going to turn the nation around.
I’ve studied our history, and though there are some events in the life of our country that signaled the change, I don’t know that there is really any single event that marked the turning away from a foundation of faith.
And yet, here we are, living in the knowledge that Hollywood seems to carry more influence around the world – in terms of what people perceive us to be through movies and television – than anything that might come out of any given church body.
So that would seem to make our job as Christians even harder – aside from our own frailties and shortcomings – we are working against the perception that American Christians are selfish, narrow-minded, provincial, and not interested in the fate of the rest of the world as long as we are warm (or cool, depending on the season) and fed and rested.
How are we going to counteract that? What are we up against? WHO are we up against?
Let’s look at our passage a little more closely. This exchange between Nicodemus and Jesus is one of the most extensive – and profound – conversations recorded in any of the Gospels. There is a wealth of information if we just take the time to uncover it.
Some scholars have suggested that Nicodemus was coming on his own – for his own purposes – since he came to Jesus by night. Others point to his use of the term ‘we’, as in ‘WE know that you are a teacher of the law’, to indicate that, though he might have had personal interest in approaching Jesus, in this instance he was coming as a representative of the established hierarchy – one that had become preoccupied with a rising young Rabbi who had acquired a following and, had already begun to upset the established order – along with the tables that belonged to the money changers in the temple. Most notably in the Gospel of John, Jesus cleanses the temple at the BEGINNING of his public ministry – the story is related just prior to this one, beginning in verse 13 of chapter 2.
A lot can be said in a few words – a title, especially, can tell you a lot about a person. In our own society, terms like ‘Doctor’, ‘Your Honor’, ‘Mr. President’ or ‘Reverend’ can say a lot in just one or two short words. Nicodemus is referred to as ‘a man of the Pharisees’, ‘a ruler of the Jews,’ and, later, by Jesus himself, as ‘a teacher of Israel’.
By calling him ‘a man of the Pharisees’, those who first heard the Gospel of John read to them, or read it themselves, would have understood that he belonged to the most deeply religious brotherhood in all of Judaism. As a ‘ruler of the Jews’, he sat on the supreme judicial body permitted by the Romans, the Sanhedrin, entrusted with the spiritual and moral leadership of the nation. As ‘a teacher of Israel’, he was a trained theologian concerned with the true understanding and teaching of the revelation given by God.
So we can figure out that Nicodemus was not a fly-by-night wanderer, who just happened by and made for a convenient object lesson through dialogue for the writer of the Gospel to fill out more of Jesus’ message. No, he really was after the heart of the Gospel. And it was in the dialogue that the differences between Nicodemus and Jesus – the old and the new – become apparent.
Nicodemus comes into the conversation as a pragmatist – a practical man – trained and educated and carrying on in the realm of the intersection of the divine and the mundane, but nonetheless, a realist – who focuses on the here and now, what he can see in front of him and what he can touch and feel with his own hands. Between verses 2 and 9, the Greek word that is translated for us as ‘can’ appears six times. His last question to Jesus ‘How can these things be?’ One scholar, William E. Hull, wrote: ‘They are the hallmark of a practical realist who was cautious, if not skeptical, of all efforts to transform human nature in the midst of this present life.’ (Broadman Bible Commentary, 1970, Vol 9, p. 239) It seems Nicodemus was not that different from us, then. We strive to understand what it means to live by faith, to walk in faith, and to trust in faith, and to trust the changing power of that, but … what percentage of the time do we fall back on our own understanding? Sixty percent of the time? Seventy? Eighty? Ninety? And how likely are we to allow for the unimaginable to happen?
That’s where Jesus was coming from in the conversation. Nicodemus was concerned with that which was possible, the human element; Jesus is coming from the point of view of one who knows about divine authority, over and above human ability.
Nicodemus began by admitting that Jesus COULD do signs, and stated that he wouldn’t be able to do them apart from the presence of God. And what is Jesus’ reply? ‘No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above,’ which walks them into the rest of the conversation almost talking past each other. Nicodemus is stuck in the material – how can someone go back into their mother’s womb and be born again? Jesus’ answer: “you’ve got to be born of water and of the spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” To that, we hear Nicodemus scratch his head and ask ‘How can these things be?’
The essential absence of allowing for the possibility of what God might do was the hurdle that Nicodemus had to wrestle with. He was part of that religious brotherhood that, in it’s beginnings, was considered a radical upstart movement that emphasized personal holiness in a way that was foreign to the PREVIOUS religious establishment – Pharisees were the Jesus People of their day – the loose cannons, the young idealists, the mavericks.
Human nature hasn’t really changed that much in two and a half millennia. We go through cycles. We figure out what works, we adopt it, we live with it, sometimes for a long time, until things change and it stops working as well, or works, but only for a few of us, and then someone comes along and suggests some ways to change, and we look at the possibilities, and act on some, discard others, and it goes back to working again.
Are we allowing for the possibilities of what God might do, if we just let God DO – through us, with us, and in spite of us?
What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
Next year we will be observing and celebrating our 175th anniversary as a congregation. Imagine what it would be like if Elder Thomas Braxton were to come back and walk through the front door of the sanctuary on any given Sunday Morning. Do you think he might be surprised by anything he saw? Would he turn around and leave the service because of it? How much has the worship and life of Jerusalem changed in the last hundred and seventy-four years?
Or do you think he would stop, take it in, and nod, saying ‘We’re keeping in touch – we’re speaking the language of the people.’ In preparing over the last couple of weeks, I discovered that when Jesus first read from the scroll of Isaiah, he read it in Hebrew, which even though it was the official language of the land, was not the language that you’d hear on the street or in day to day conversation. After the reading was done in Hebrew, it was then translated into Aramaic – the common language – a form of Hebrew – by either the person reading or by the attendant who brought the scroll out.
In some ways, that is what the church has had to do all along – the original message has remained unchanged – in the original language of Love and Faith, so to speak. But it has been translated into the vernacular – ‘the language of the day’ – time and time again. From Greek and Hebrew to Latin, or to English and Spanish, from 15th and 16th century English and Spanish to 19th century forms, and from there to more contemporary versions.
So how do we translate the truths of the Gospel into language that people today will understand? We can bemoan the fact that faith has taken a back seat in people’s lives, beat ourselves or someone else up over who is responsible for that, or we can put our minds together and figure out a way to speak so that people will listen.
Jerusalem has a good record of doing that – of speaking through action – through involvement in activities in the greater community, through food pantry donations, through meal preparation and deliveries, through making our facility available as a polling place, but what about the way we speak – actually speak about God and Jesus Christ? The terms and phrases we use are ones that most of us – having been reared in the church – are familiar with and can understand – but what about someone who was not raised in a faith tradition? How would they understand the invitation? How would they understand ‘giving your heart to Jesus, making him Lord of your life’ would they ask ‘how can these things be?’ just like Nicodemus?
How would we answer them?
The disciples came from a lifetime of practicing their faith in one set way, and in knowing Jesus they opened themselves up to a radically different way that completely changed not only their point of view, but how they lived their day to day lives. Knowing Jesus will do that. It’s a risky, discomforting thing, to contemplate so much change.
The question is, are we willing to open ourselves up to that possibility in order to let others see the Kingdom of God?
Let’s pray.
Sunday, June 11th, 2006
Trinity B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
John 3:1-17
1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 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.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 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?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 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.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you (all) do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “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. 17 “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.
Who are we trying to kid?
Honestly, seriously.
Who do we think we are? We claim to follow the teachings, in fact, we claim to LIVE the life of a man who lived almost two thousand years ago, who reportedly died on a cross and was buried and supposedly rose from the dead a couple of days later, and ascended to heaven some weeks after that.
He spent roughly three years walking around Palestine, gathered and taught a bunch of followers, and upset the establishment – both the political and the religious establishment – and THAT resulted in their condemning him to death.
And here we are, roughly two thousand years later, and we try to stand on those claims … you know, the ones where we are to be known by our love, or that if we are to be followers of Christ we are to be servants of all. We are to visit the sick and those in prison, we are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked; and sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t quite make it. And still, we continue to lay hold of those claims.
We live in a nation that claims to be Christian, but has the highest murder rate of any of the world’s most economically developed countries. We claim to have the highest standard of living, and yet there are millions of children who go to bed hungry each night within our borders. We claim to have the best medical care in the world, and we do, for those who can afford it. As a nation, our number one killer is heart disease brought on by terrible habits, not the least of which is one of the most sedentary lifestyles in the world, as well as a diet that is rich in calories and heavy on saturated fat, and short on the healthier stuff.
Sometimes I think we’d be better off dropping the claim to be a ‘Christian’ nation. I don’t mean that in the sense of rejection, I mean that in the sense of admission. I’m not so sure that the continuing move on the part of some who have gained and consolidated power over the last twenty-five years to impose on the rest of the population policies and statutes which I would immediately adhere to VOLUNTARILY but which are being made compulsory are going to turn the nation around.
I’ve studied our history, and though there are some events in the life of our country that signaled the change, I don’t know that there is really any single event that marked the turning away from a foundation of faith.
And yet, here we are, living in the knowledge that Hollywood seems to carry more influence around the world – in terms of what people perceive us to be through movies and television – than anything that might come out of any given church body.
So that would seem to make our job as Christians even harder – aside from our own frailties and shortcomings – we are working against the perception that American Christians are selfish, narrow-minded, provincial, and not interested in the fate of the rest of the world as long as we are warm (or cool, depending on the season) and fed and rested.
How are we going to counteract that? What are we up against? WHO are we up against?
Let’s look at our passage a little more closely. This exchange between Nicodemus and Jesus is one of the most extensive – and profound – conversations recorded in any of the Gospels. There is a wealth of information if we just take the time to uncover it.
Some scholars have suggested that Nicodemus was coming on his own – for his own purposes – since he came to Jesus by night. Others point to his use of the term ‘we’, as in ‘WE know that you are a teacher of the law’, to indicate that, though he might have had personal interest in approaching Jesus, in this instance he was coming as a representative of the established hierarchy – one that had become preoccupied with a rising young Rabbi who had acquired a following and, had already begun to upset the established order – along with the tables that belonged to the money changers in the temple. Most notably in the Gospel of John, Jesus cleanses the temple at the BEGINNING of his public ministry – the story is related just prior to this one, beginning in verse 13 of chapter 2.
A lot can be said in a few words – a title, especially, can tell you a lot about a person. In our own society, terms like ‘Doctor’, ‘Your Honor’, ‘Mr. President’ or ‘Reverend’ can say a lot in just one or two short words. Nicodemus is referred to as ‘a man of the Pharisees’, ‘a ruler of the Jews,’ and, later, by Jesus himself, as ‘a teacher of Israel’.
By calling him ‘a man of the Pharisees’, those who first heard the Gospel of John read to them, or read it themselves, would have understood that he belonged to the most deeply religious brotherhood in all of Judaism. As a ‘ruler of the Jews’, he sat on the supreme judicial body permitted by the Romans, the Sanhedrin, entrusted with the spiritual and moral leadership of the nation. As ‘a teacher of Israel’, he was a trained theologian concerned with the true understanding and teaching of the revelation given by God.
So we can figure out that Nicodemus was not a fly-by-night wanderer, who just happened by and made for a convenient object lesson through dialogue for the writer of the Gospel to fill out more of Jesus’ message. No, he really was after the heart of the Gospel. And it was in the dialogue that the differences between Nicodemus and Jesus – the old and the new – become apparent.
Nicodemus comes into the conversation as a pragmatist – a practical man – trained and educated and carrying on in the realm of the intersection of the divine and the mundane, but nonetheless, a realist – who focuses on the here and now, what he can see in front of him and what he can touch and feel with his own hands. Between verses 2 and 9, the Greek word that is translated for us as ‘can’ appears six times. His last question to Jesus ‘How can these things be?’ One scholar, William E. Hull, wrote: ‘They are the hallmark of a practical realist who was cautious, if not skeptical, of all efforts to transform human nature in the midst of this present life.’ (Broadman Bible Commentary, 1970, Vol 9, p. 239) It seems Nicodemus was not that different from us, then. We strive to understand what it means to live by faith, to walk in faith, and to trust in faith, and to trust the changing power of that, but … what percentage of the time do we fall back on our own understanding? Sixty percent of the time? Seventy? Eighty? Ninety? And how likely are we to allow for the unimaginable to happen?
That’s where Jesus was coming from in the conversation. Nicodemus was concerned with that which was possible, the human element; Jesus is coming from the point of view of one who knows about divine authority, over and above human ability.
Nicodemus began by admitting that Jesus COULD do signs, and stated that he wouldn’t be able to do them apart from the presence of God. And what is Jesus’ reply? ‘No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above,’ which walks them into the rest of the conversation almost talking past each other. Nicodemus is stuck in the material – how can someone go back into their mother’s womb and be born again? Jesus’ answer: “you’ve got to be born of water and of the spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” To that, we hear Nicodemus scratch his head and ask ‘How can these things be?’
The essential absence of allowing for the possibility of what God might do was the hurdle that Nicodemus had to wrestle with. He was part of that religious brotherhood that, in it’s beginnings, was considered a radical upstart movement that emphasized personal holiness in a way that was foreign to the PREVIOUS religious establishment – Pharisees were the Jesus People of their day – the loose cannons, the young idealists, the mavericks.
Human nature hasn’t really changed that much in two and a half millennia. We go through cycles. We figure out what works, we adopt it, we live with it, sometimes for a long time, until things change and it stops working as well, or works, but only for a few of us, and then someone comes along and suggests some ways to change, and we look at the possibilities, and act on some, discard others, and it goes back to working again.
Are we allowing for the possibilities of what God might do, if we just let God DO – through us, with us, and in spite of us?
What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
Next year we will be observing and celebrating our 175th anniversary as a congregation. Imagine what it would be like if Elder Thomas Braxton were to come back and walk through the front door of the sanctuary on any given Sunday Morning. Do you think he might be surprised by anything he saw? Would he turn around and leave the service because of it? How much has the worship and life of Jerusalem changed in the last hundred and seventy-four years?
Or do you think he would stop, take it in, and nod, saying ‘We’re keeping in touch – we’re speaking the language of the people.’ In preparing over the last couple of weeks, I discovered that when Jesus first read from the scroll of Isaiah, he read it in Hebrew, which even though it was the official language of the land, was not the language that you’d hear on the street or in day to day conversation. After the reading was done in Hebrew, it was then translated into Aramaic – the common language – a form of Hebrew – by either the person reading or by the attendant who brought the scroll out.
In some ways, that is what the church has had to do all along – the original message has remained unchanged – in the original language of Love and Faith, so to speak. But it has been translated into the vernacular – ‘the language of the day’ – time and time again. From Greek and Hebrew to Latin, or to English and Spanish, from 15th and 16th century English and Spanish to 19th century forms, and from there to more contemporary versions.
So how do we translate the truths of the Gospel into language that people today will understand? We can bemoan the fact that faith has taken a back seat in people’s lives, beat ourselves or someone else up over who is responsible for that, or we can put our minds together and figure out a way to speak so that people will listen.
Jerusalem has a good record of doing that – of speaking through action – through involvement in activities in the greater community, through food pantry donations, through meal preparation and deliveries, through making our facility available as a polling place, but what about the way we speak – actually speak about God and Jesus Christ? The terms and phrases we use are ones that most of us – having been reared in the church – are familiar with and can understand – but what about someone who was not raised in a faith tradition? How would they understand the invitation? How would they understand ‘giving your heart to Jesus, making him Lord of your life’ would they ask ‘how can these things be?’ just like Nicodemus?
How would we answer them?
The disciples came from a lifetime of practicing their faith in one set way, and in knowing Jesus they opened themselves up to a radically different way that completely changed not only their point of view, but how they lived their day to day lives. Knowing Jesus will do that. It’s a risky, discomforting thing, to contemplate so much change.
The question is, are we willing to open ourselves up to that possibility in order to let others see the Kingdom of God?
Let’s pray.
No comments:
Post a Comment