2 Lent, Yr A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield

Lent 2, Yr A (2023)                                                                The Rev. Karen C. Barfield

Genesis 12:1-4a                                                                       St. Andrew’s on-the-Hill

John 3:1-17    

In the name of the one, holy, and living God:           

Creaator, Redeemer, and Sanctifying Spirit.  Amen.

Lutheran pastor, David Risendal said:

“Lent can be a dangerous business. 

It can give the impression that the life of faith is all about what we do.

“What can we do to give faith a toehold in our lives?

“What can we do to enhance our faith?

“What can we do to draw closer to God?

“These are dangerous questions because they can draw us away from a faith that is rooted in God’s grace, and towards a faith that becomes one of our own making. 

“A faith that is more dependent upon us than it is on Christ.”  (David J. Risendal at onelittleword.org)

In reality, our lives of faith are responses to God’s action in our lives…

            this is what today’s Scripture readings are all about.

We just need to get out of our own way

so that we can hear God’s invitations to new life

            and follow where God leads us.

Today’s scripture passages offer us faithful responses to God’s invitation to new life;

however, these two responses take shape in very different ways.

Let’s start with Abram.

“The Lord said to Abram,

‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house

       to the land that I will show you.’” (Gen 12:1)

Let’s stop and think about that…..

if we were going about our daily lives,

            washing clothes and cooking dinner…

      and God showed up and said to us:

“Hey!

I’ve got a great plan for you.

     Pack your suitcase,

    let go of your job,

leave your family and friends,

   in fact, leave the country altogether! 

Make these preparations,

and then I will lead you to a foreign land. 

I’m not going to tell you where you’re headed just yet.

After you hit the road, I’ll let you know where you’re going!

     Just trust me on this.

What might our reaction be?

Some of us might say, “Sure.  Let’s go!”

That’s what Abram did…. “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.”

Now, we don’t exactly know if Abram went peacefully

 or if he was terrified to his core. 

Either way, he went.

Even if this isn’t our normal modus operandi,

perhaps from time to time we might respond in a similar way. 

And I’d venture to say that

      sometimes we are at peace with a difficult decision to follow where God leads us.

And other times we are terrified to the core, but dive in anyway.

Now, while I’d love to claim that I’m one of these people who just dives right in,

            in reality, I am more slow and cautious…

like Nicodemus.

Nicodemus, a Pharisee, represented Jewish orthodoxy at its finest. 

He was a man above reproach. 

He was curious about Jesus

but cautious. 

Nicodemus came to Jesus “by night” – under the cloak of darkness,

not willing to be seen in public with Jesus,

 yet courageous enough to seek him out.

Nicodemus at least understands that Jesus comes from God

because he sees that Jesus’ life exudes a power that can only come from God.

So he seeks out Jesus to try to understand this power and life that he seems to embody.

As he and Jesus converse, they speak to one another on different planes.

Nicodemus tries and tries to understand birth and rebirth in physical terms:

“How can anyone be born after having grown old?

      Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

Nicodemus cannot quite grasp the work of the Spirit

outside the confines of his own thinking and reasoning.

And, I must admit, it is rather difficult

because our experience is…well, human!

Nicodemus was focused on understanding and getting it right

(according to his own reasoning and experience).

Yet, sometimes,

instead of understanding everything,

maybe we simply have to turn ourselves over to the Grace of God…

and trust.

We just have to let go.

We need to be willing to go where the Spirit leads,

            being willing to be a sojourner in a foreign land,

even if that foreign land is in our own city or country or family.

Our faith, then, becomes dependent upon God and not ourselves.

            We follow where the Spirit leads.

But, radically trusting God can be a difficult task. 

It is hard to let go of our selves…our egos: our wants and desires and reasoning.

Henry Ossawa Tanner painted an exquisite painting of Jesus and Nicodemus.

His work is just tremendous…

he captures so well what is behind the words of our Scripture.

Jesus and Nicodemus are sitting on a rooftop. 

Jerusalem is in the background.

It appears to be the dawning of a new day. 

The sky is gray with a purple tint on the horizon. 

Nicodemus, an older man with a long gray beard,

 is dressed in ordinary, drab brown robes. 

      His back is slightly hunched as happens in older age.

You can only see the side of his face as he looks peacefully - but intently - at Jesus.

In the right foreground of the painting,

you can see the top two steps leading up to the roof where they are seated. 

The rising sun tells us it has been a long night of conversation. 

The sun’s rays reflect bright light on a portion of the top two steps and upon Jesus’ chest.

Jesus’ eyes and nose are illuminated and his left hand raised

as if explaining a point.

“No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit….

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.”

There is Jesus’ invitation to new life for Nicodemus…

            Do you hear it?

It is an invitation that Nicodemus had already experienced…

it is why he came to find Jesus for himself.

At the end of this conversation, Nicodemus gives no response to Jesus.

I imagine that he quietly and quickly slipped back down the stairs before the sun fully rose and revealed his secret rendezvous.

But a seed had begun to sprout within him.

            A new day was dawning.

Later in the gospel of John we are told that the chief priests and the Pharisees sent the temple police to arrest Jesus.  

When the police did not arrest him and were questioned by the Pharisees,

Nicodemus spoke up,

defending Jesus’ right to a hearing,

and Jesus was left alone.

And then when Jesus died,

Nicodemus came with spices to anoint his body…

this time in broad daylight!

So, you see, the Spirit dwelling in Nicodemus brought him, too, to faithful action –

to truth-telling, compassion, and boldness. 

His journey of accepting God’s call to radical trust and faithfulness just took him a little longer than Abram.  

And it involved doubt and questioning and a slow process of revelation and courage.

My friends, God invites everyone to the banquet.

We are all invited to healing and wholeness.

We are all invited to trust in the God who watches over our comings and our goings…

the God who loves us so much

       that he took on human flesh and suffered alongside us

so that we might find new life, eternal life, through him.

Each of our journeys will look different,

and that is just fine.

I pray that we may encourage each other along the way,

in our places of doubt as well as our places of faith. 

    And may we have the courage to invite others we meet to join in the journey.

The light of Christ shines in the darkness,

            and the darkness will not overcome it.

Amen.