No Sermon This Week

No Sermon this week as I am on retreat in Holy Island.

20th March 2010 - Lent 2

"You must be born from above." John 3.7

A little while ago someone suggested I go and see a certain family. They said to me, “You’ll enjoy meeting them. They are born again Christians.” And the person was right. I did go and visit the family, and I did enjoy the time I spent with them. I was reminded of that conversation as I read the Bible readings set for today because of that term, “Born again Christians.” That term “born again” comes from the King James Version text of John Chapter three. In the New Revised Standard Version which we have read this morning it is rendered “born from above”. This reflects the fact that the phrase is a difficult one to translate into English. The words used in the original language mean “born from above” and “born again” and “born anew”. It is not that one phrase is a more accurate translation. The words in the original language encompass all three meanings.

Now I am fairly sure that you would have a pretty good understanding of what was meant by the person who used that phrase, "born again Christians". If you heard someone described as a “born again Christian” you’d probably think about someone who was quite enthusiastic about their faith, someone who attended a church with lively songs and worship, someone who took very seriously the call to share their faith with other people - perhaps even to the extent of not being able to ever get off the subject. Above all you might think about a person who had moved from unbelief to belief and had experienced a great transformation in their life as a consequence. That is the sort of thing that people generally mean by that phrase today. But what did Jesus mean when he used that phrase? Is it something we need to understand? or is it just for extremists and enthusiasts and not for good Anglicans like us.

In John Chapter 3 Jesus is approached by a man named Nicodemus, who is described as “a leader of the Jews”. This probably means that he is a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of Judea. He appears three times in John’s Gospel. First here, then later when the ruling council begins to think about moving against Jesus, he calls for patience and tolerance and is mocked by the rest of the council, and then finally after the crucifixion when he, together with Joseph of Arimathea, asked Pilate to let him have Jesus' body so they can place it in a tomb. Nicodemus is member of the party of the Pharisees, a group who believed that by keeping God’s laws perfectly they would bring about the liberation of their people. All of this suggests that Nicodemus was a good, tolerant and scholarly man from a wealthy family with good connections in both the Jewish and Roman ruling classes. So not an extremist or an enthusiast but in many ways rather like a good Anglican; or at least the stereotype thereof.  

This Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. There are a number of ways to understand this. Firstly it could mean that he is coming unobtrusively; he has heard about Jesus, wants to find out about him, but doesn’t want anyone else to see him doing it. Secondly, it could simply mean that he comes to Jesus when Jesus has time for a private conversation. During the day Jesus is surrounded by people. After sunset there is time for an individual and in-depth conversation. But there is a third possible meaning too. In John’s Gospel the terms day and night, light and darkness, refer to people’s attitude to God. Most dramatically, when Judas leaves to betray Jesus we are told “And it was night”. In Chapter 11 Jesus says, “those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” He is not talking about the need to carry a torch. The darkness of night is darkness of a life lived without reference to God. Just two verses after the end of today’s Gospel reading John writes “this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”

So where have we got too? I think this; Nicodemus is not a bad man but probably the kind of person you would see as being the best of his people. He is learned, religious, tolerant and wise. He comes from a good family and is well respected in his community. But despite all this he is still in the darkness. He still did not walk in the light.

Nicodemus reminds me in some ways of another member of the Pharisee party. This man wrote of all the advantages in life that he had received. “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

The writer is, of course, Saint Paul, but after listing his advantages he goes on to say, “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ...”

And this, I think, explains what it means to be born again. To be born again is to step away from all those things that we think make us special and to realise that they count for nothing in the sight of God. It is to stand before God as helpless and naked as a newborn child and accept his complete authority over who we are and what we do. It is both the easiest and most demanding thing that you will ever encounter. The easiest because it is utterly the action of God. The most demanding because God’s love “so amazing, so divine; demands my life, my soul, my all”.

And of course it is a lot easier to do if you know that your life is rubbish. That is why we associate that phrase “born again Christian” with people who have experienced that dramatic change. Go to the churches you associate with “born again Christians” and you will hear the testimonies - I used to be a drug addict, a thief, a gang member; but Jesus changed my rubbish life and gave me a new one. It was ever so, Jesus said to the Pharisees “Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”

But Nicodemus’ life didn’t appear to be rubbish. If anyone was OK he was. But he wasn’t. It was to him, the good man, the tolerant man, the scholar, that Jesus said“no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Even the best are not good enough, even the worst will be accepted if they come to God empty handed and ask Him to rule their lives. "You must be born from above."

13th March 2011 - The First Sunday in Lent

Friday is my normal day off so last Friday I was having a bit of a lay in when my wife came and told me that there had been a major earthquake in Japan. We turned on the TV news and were overwhelmed by the pictures we saw of collapsing buildings, burning oil refineries and the ugly and seemingly unstoppable wave of the tsunami. As the day wore on we saw the same pictures over and over again and then newer pictures as night came in Japan, including one from a military aircraft which seemed to show a whole coastline on fire. On Saturday we had the scenes of an explosion from the nuclear reactor and the question about what that would bring about.

All this on top of the devastating scenes from Christchurch New Zealand which have affected some of us here personally because they were there, or nearby, or have relatives or friends who have been involved. Add this to the upheavals in North Africa and particularly in Libya, and the ongoing effects of the economic meltdown in the western nations and most of us will be asking “what on earth is going on in the world?”.

Troubled times always provoke questions. For some people the troubles and suffering of the world will be seen as confirming their belief of the non-existence of God. For others such suffering might be seen as the action of God. On Thursday I was visited by a Jehovah’s Witness who clearly saw the New Zealand Earthquake as a warning that God was about to decisively intervene in the history of the world. Still others who are even more extreme might see what is going as God’s Judgement on particular nations and peoples just as, after the earthquake in Haiti, one American preacher blamed it on the islanders' practice of Voodoo.

Let me say straight away that I wouldn’t sign up to any of those so called “explanations”. Nevertheless I do believe that my Christian faith has something to say as I reflect on these things. I don’t think I have any “cut and dried” answers to the questions that are raised. Indeed I think “cut and dried” answers are inappropriate - our thinking about such things is always provisional. But let me say where my thinking has brought me so far.

Firstly, I am utterly convinced that any explanation which seeks to blame the victims is wrong. The whole of Jewish and Christian tradition, theology and teaching is against any such idea. The great biblical discussion of suffering is found in the book of Job in the Old Testament. There Job, a good man, suffers for seemingly no reason at all. Four friends come, Job’s comforters, and attempt to persuade him with long and detailed arguments that he must have done something to deserve it. They start with a premise which is demonstrably true; that wicked actions inevitably lead to negative consequences: but then they go on to turn this around to try and argue that all suffering comes because of wicked actions. This is what is called a logical fallacy. You can see how it is wrong if you consider the proposition “Cats have four legs, therefore if it has four legs it’s a cat”. No, it might be a dog, a cow, a horse or an aardvark. There may be many explanations for suffering other than the wickedness of the sufferer. In Job's case God comes in at the end and tells his so called friends that actually they’ve got it wrong. Job is innocent. In the end Job’s suffering is a mystery as is much of the suffering in our world.

So no, blaming the victim is simply not compatible with Jewish and Christian teaching.

The second thing that comes into my thinking is this. We do live in a world in which bad things happen, seemingly at random. The Jehovah’s Witness that called at my door was basing his thinking on Mathew Chapter 24 where Jesus says that before the end comes “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places”. Now as I read that passage Jesus is not saying that these are signs to be looked for but things that will always happen. These things have happened throughout history and will continue to happen. I believe Jesus will come again and that his coming will be preceded by a time of great suffering, including persecution of Christians, but once again we shouldn’t think that means that any particular suffering is some special sign, “This must take place” says Jesus, “but the end is not yet”.

As I said before, we live in a world in which bad things happen, seemingly at random. The universe has a randomness built into its makeup. Scientists tell us that we could not exist unless this was so. That on a planet on which disasters could not happen there could also be no life, and that we as human beings owe our very existence to catastrophes which have happened in the past. Theologically I can see that God has made the world (indeed the universe) in such a way that this is so because the universe is designed to produce creatures like us. Creatures who are capable of thinking and acting independently of God so that we do not exist as God’s robots but as his children; so that our obedience to him may be freely given and not compelled.

Thirdly, I am convinced that whatever such disasters demonstrate, they do not demonstrate the absence of God. The teaching of Christianity is that God is not absent from our suffering but present in it. The theologian Jürgan Moltman has written that the crucified God of Christianity is the only God that can make sense in the presence of the suffering of the world:

“Any other answer would be blasphemy. There cannot be any other Christian answer to the question of this torment. To speak here of a God who could not suffer would make God a demon. To speak here of an absolute God would make God an annihilating nothingness. To speak here of an indifferent God would condemn men to indifference.”

God is not absent from suffering but present in it. Because of Jesus the person who suffers is not just a helpless victim but also an icon of Christ.

One way of reading a difficult passage in the letter to the Romans is this, “in all things God works for good for those who love him” (Romans 8.28 margin). In other words God is not absent from suffering but in it, working for good.

I do not believe that Christians have any special “get out of jail free” card which exempts them from suffering. It is realistic to say that anything that can happen to anyone can happen to me. Yet we are promised that God will never leave us or forsake us, “So we can say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?'” (Hebrews 13:5,6).

So there is my thinking - I hope it helps. Blaming the victims is never an option. Suffering is part of the randomness of the world. But God is present in our suffering seeking our good and the good of his world.

On Friday the Bishop of Chelmsford wrote this, and I end with his words:

"But there is something we can do. We can pray for those who suffer. We can give generously to those in need. Therefore, I am calling upon the people of Chelmsford Diocese to pray for all who are caught up in the aftermath of this disaster and to give what they can to the appeals for aid that will soon be set up. The Christian faith teaches us that we are one human family.

"We must stand together with those who suffer across our world."

I've Decided to Reactivate this Blog

If anyone is reading this!!!

After a couple of years without posting I've decided to reactivate this Blog.