SERMONS
Sean Gilbert — 24/2/08
John 3:1-17, 17/2/08 – Seeking a New Nativity
You might recall last Sunday, while Dr Brian Phillips was offering
his reflection, I was out with the youth in the White Room. So,
it was with no small amount of anticipation that I played the recording
of the service late that night. Many people had told me how
good Brian’s message was and it didn’t take me long to
wholeheartedly agree.
He began by suggesting how difficult it is to hear many of our biblical
texts anew. In fact, I think he calculated how many times he
might have addressed certain lectionary readings; every three years
for thirty or forty years, the numbers certainly stack up!
For me, the John 3 passage is one I rarely avoid, as it appears just
about every year in our set of readings, so by a rough estimate I reckon
I must have preached a sermon on this text at least 12 – 15 times. And
whilst my conclusions might – (just might) – have been
different, there has been one constant that has coloured nearly everything
else; a constant that is finally in need of change. A prejudice,
in fact, in need of exposing. You see I have never liked Nicodemus. I’ve
thought of him as but an old fool - as might a younger, more cocksure
religious practitioner like me may well do.
Nicodemus, a man
of the institution, not of spirit, not of genuine truth, one therefore
to be dismissed, even felt sorry for.
Well, now in my 50th year (and arguably much older than the character
of Nicodemus anyway), and not so certain about anything too much these
days, Nicodemus looks a little different to me. For despite the
non-imaginative thought he displays, he is, nevertheless a seeker;
one who comes by night, (out of view, out of ear-shot) yet still comes
to Jesus for words of life and hope when many of his peers dare not
seek him out at all. And perhaps like us, he cannot fully articulate
what he wants, but Jesus puts his finger on it, because he knows, he
knows, what all human beings need and seek in the depths
of their souls; an awakening to life through unconditional love. The
great American poet, Wendell Berry puts it this way:
A spring wind blowing,
the smell of the ground
through the interconnecting of traffic,
the mind turns, seeks a new nativity –
Another place, simpler, less weighted by what has already been.
It is enough to grieve me –
That old dream of going of becoming a better man
Just by getting up and going to a better place.
The mystery,
The old unaccountable unfolding.
The iron trees in the park
suddenly remember forests.
It becomes possible to think of going.
- A place where thought can take its shape, as quietly in the
mind as water in a pitcher or
a man can be safely without thought,
see the day begin,
and lean back;
a simple wakefulness
filling perfectly
the space among the leaves.
In the midst of our seeking, our yearning, confusions, our inarticulate
speech of the heart, the voice of one who knows about such things,
says, “You must be born anew”. You must find a way
beyond your strivings and woundings, beyond your best behaviour’s
and efforts, your growing lists of responsibilities and obligations,
beyond your persona, your pretense, your body image, your petty falsehoods.
Lean back in the space and receive – in the seeming poverty of
your own space – a new nativity; the birth of that which is not
most true, most real and most life-giving, your most authentic, precious
and ‘wild self”, to quote yet another poet….
On Wednesday morning, I believe, we as a Nation experienced something
of a New Nativity: human richness arising out of an acknowledged poverty. The
letting go of defensiveness and self-righteousness, the release of pent
up guilt and shame, and wholeness arising out of deep inquiry; the
coming together of different cultures, life-assumptions and values
and an honest admission of “sorry” for the sake of healing
and the restoration of human worth and dignity.
For this, in the end, is the new birth Jesus is referring to – a
new heart and mind for the world, not some privatized and
sanctimonious experience that would only create more divisions, suspicion
and more hatred amongst us.
For that’s often how religion works but that is not what Jesus
is talking about. He is not talking about exclusive clubs or
me being better than you or me being different to you. This new
birth, this new nativity finds us within the midst of a common humanity
and we are to revel in that, for that is our place of belonging. That
is the place from where we are called to offer love and goodness; not
from a position of being beyond or on high.
Without seeking to be too political, one of the great things Prime
Minister Rudd did in contrast to our previous Prime Minister was that
he dared to talk our humanity and points of need within that
humanity, not just about economic bottom lines or the economic prosperity
of this nation. He talked about our Soul. This is the
difference. And I don’t think anyone is not thinking about
the need of a healthy economy, but when you look at the meaning of
the word, it simply means the good ordering of the household. Therefore
it is not just about money, rather it is how we order things in Australia;
people to people, race to race, culture to culture and bringing those
things progressively together.
A new nativity, a new way of seeing our country – from within,
even from below, from the heart. For this, in the end, is the
new birth that Jesus is referring to.
My, how we have tamed the Word of God! How we have domesticated
its message and then controlled its impact by creating formulas, so
as to conform to our own abstractions, not to transform present and
difficult realities. So that Christianity might always be nice,
predictable, if not controllable, whereas for Jesus, this was never
its intent. No, faith is a force of awakening, of stirring, of
change. “The wind blows where it will”, he said, “and
you cannot know where it is going”.
It is simply our task, our calling, to move with it as best we can, so
as to be taken always to new places of nativity and hope, those better places
in which genuine life can be found and duly shared for the well being of all.
Friends, in this season of lent – a spacious and inviting season,
free of clutter and hyper activity – may we all “lean back” a
little and allow the stirrings, the gestations of Spirit to have their
way with us, to change the unchangeable, to move the immovable, to
free the unfreeable.
In the name of Christ, the very living Word and Being of God.
Amen.
