Sermon: Born, Ready or Not
Texts: Isaiah 6:1-8, John 3:1-17
Date: June 7, 2009
Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church
One of the ideas from the school of thought called Process Theology that always leaves me lost in wonder is the concept of God continually taking in the experience of the whole universe. The process understanding of God’s consciousness is that God is “tuned in,” all the time, to every little thing that is happening in the universe. God is also responding to every little thing, but let’s just focus for the moment on the notion of being conscious of everything.
To single out a particular kind of experience: What must it be like for the Divine Being to be there at the moment of the thousands of births that take place each day? I’ve been present at just a few births, and it is astonishing. I wonder if God is kind of used to it, or whether it renews God’s sense of awe to absorb all that birth energy every day?
This is purely recreational theology—we can’t possibly comprehend what it must be like for God to take in the experience of the one giving birth and the one being born simultaneously, times thousands. We can’t even remember our own births, at least not most of us. One of the people Studs Terkel interviewed in our last book group selection, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, has a long memory. Studs asked her, “What was your first awareness that there was such a thing as death?” She answered, “Oh, when I was about two.” Studs was surprised. “You go back that far?” She said, “I remember when I was born.” So of course he asked, “What was it like being born?” She replied, “Very difficult.” [Laughs.][1]
It probably was. In fact, reading Jesus’ teaching and Nicodemus’ questions about being born anew reminded me of a goofy little movie made back in 1989 called “Look Who’s Talking.” I want to show you this clip from it which is birth from the point of view of the one being born.[2] It’s a very short clip, not too graphic, but I’ll warn you that it does have an umbilical cord in it for a few seconds so feel free to close your eyes for that bit if it seems too icky for you to look at. [Film clip]
With the possible exception of the woman in the interview, most of can’t check that depiction for accuracy. But there is something about it that rings true; especially the outright terror of being pushed into a new and unfamiliar world. Gone the safe, warm confines of the closed womb; on to a confusing, noisy, alien place. Auuuuuugghh! You have to sympathize with the poor kid, don’t you? Even if he is being born into the happiest, most secure family the world has ever known, the transition has got to be a nightmare.
We may not remember our actual births, but we may well remember a few rough transitions from one way of life to another. Just this last couple of weeks I have heard stories from a number of people who are in transitions that may or may not have been of their own choosing. Someone’s grieving the death of their grown child. Someone else is changing jobs. Someone is suffering through the shock of an unexpected divorce. Someone is grieving the death of a mother and grandmother. Someone is graduating and going on to a new place. Someone is moving from one home to another. Someone is looking for a new home. Someone is finishing a huge project and wondering what to do next. Someone is wondering whether their business is going to survive these difficult economic times. Someone is wrestling with a new health problem.
In every one of the more dramatic transitions we face there is natural sense of fear, if not downright terror. This especially true of those transitions that are thrust upon us. Like the baby in the movie we find ourselves begging the force outside ourselves to stop pushing, usually to no avail. Something in our world is in motion, and we’re going to be popped out into a new world, like it or not, ready or not. It’s unnerving to say the least.
Who would choose it? Who would voluntarily go through being born, or going through a transition that inspires similar alarm? Not many would choose it, am I right? Good thing the baby doesn’t get to vote on whether the labor should get underway. Good thing the baby isn’t vested with veto power.
It’s fascinating, given the sheer trauma of birth, that Jesus would speak about being born as a spiritual metaphor. “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above…No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” He clearly wants to offer Nicodemus the wisdom he came seeking. But the lesson he lays out is confusing and frankly, a little daunting. He wants Nicodemus to volunteer for something that few of us would volunteer for—leaving the safe confines of the familiar world we have known and allowing ourselves to be propelled into a new life, a new world. As if two first-century men talking about birth wasn’t weird enough, Jesus lurches into another metaphor, that of the wind, which blows where it chooses, which though you may hear, you cannot comprehend its origin or its destination. “And so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus responds to this conversational turn with the biblical equivalent of “Huh?”
One of the commentaries on this text I read suggests that Jesus was quite deliberately trying to unbalance Nicodemus with his perplexing mixed metaphors. The form of the conversation suited its intent; it was meant to make his head spin, his heart race, take him out of his familiar world of being the expert and the authority on religious matters. Nicodemus came to Jesus with a rather cocksure statement about what he “knew”: “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.” Right away, Jesus yanks him away from what he thinks he knows with the conversational curve-ball about being born anew. He wants him to leave behind his secure world view, his tidy understandings of right and wrong, insiders and outsiders, propriety and impropriety, which his party, the Pharisees, were rather famous for. Did Nicodemus suspect in advance that merely engaging Jesus in discussion would lead to a radical new world opening before him which he would be urged to enter?
He might have expected he would be in for something new and exciting; after all, he did deliberately seek Jesus out. In the “Look Who’s Talking” movie, just before the pushing begins you see the baby turn and ask, “Hey, what’s that light over there?” I think that’s what Nicodemus was doing, turning toward the light, not yet sure what would happen if he drew near. He might not have known he was in for such a radical change, but he was attracted to the promise of the light he saw in Jesus. He learned soon enough that birth is what you get with our Savior, ready or not.
Ready or not. Some of the transitions in which we are involved are voluntary. We turn toward something new because we are drawn to it. We might not know what’s on the other side, but we willingly enter into a transition because we expect something good on the other side. Changes we assent to may take longer than we anticipated; even though no one asks for it, you have to admit that long labors are normal. Gradual transformations in human character are commonplace; more ordinary than the kind of overnight character transplants that we might associate with the most common use of the term “born again.” Being born anew, born from above, isn’t necessarily an instantaneous affair even if we have chosen in voluntarily.
The involuntary transitions we go through—not ready, not ready, NOT READY!-- have different beginnings but can have the same results. What I mean is that even the terrifying transitions we go through can end in a beautiful new life we hadn’t dreamed of in the closed confines of our former life. We might not have seen or turned toward a new light, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. We may travel through a period of fear and startling newness and find that on the other side we are still in the loving arms of God in a brand new world.
One of the most beautiful aspects of our faith is that we can rest in the knowledge that no matter what we will be wrapped up and held in the tender care of God. It’s hard to know or remember that when we are in the midst of a terrifying transition. What I hope you will take from these reflections today is a reminder to try to look at the perspective of the one giving birth when you’re the one being born anew. You saw in the film clip that the experience of the parent and the experience of the child are very, very different in the process of the birth. The parent knows that even though the transition is difficult—painful!—in the new world the child will be safe, deeply loved, held secure. The parent knows that the birth is a necessary step to a bright new world where the child can grow far beyond the confines of the womb. The parent knows what joy waits for both the baby and the parent as they meet in a new setting.
God knows our pain and our fear when we have to leave familiarity behind and enter a new life. We can, perhaps, glimpse the compassion and the exhilaration of God who brings us into new life. God our Mother, God our Father, will wrap us in the warmth of great love, hold us tenderly , show us a brand new world, and walk with us as we grow into new life. May such assurance give us the courage to respond to an invitation to our next occasion of birth not with “hey, stop pushing,” but rather, “Here I am, send me!”
[1] Terkel, Studs Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith New York: The New Press, 2001, p. 191-92
[2] If you want to see it, try http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1825047321/
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