A New Way of Thinking

February 17, 2008
Second Sunday of Lent
Year A
John 3:1-17
Repreached from 2/28/1999
A New Way of Thinking
Repreached on 3/20/11


Introduction
I have actually preached this sermon at this church before, but that was in seven years ago in 2001. That was long enough ago that it is okay to refresh your memory. It is a sermon that is will force you to think – actually as I ask you some of the riddles- you may remember the answers from last time. I actually first preached and wrote this sermon in 1999. However, I felt that the message was still relevant for today. And I can assure you that even though I didn’t write a sermon this week, I did do my background research for it.

There are two brothers, the mother gave birth to one at two oclock, and she gave birth to the other an hour later. But they are not twins, how can that be?

Today, on this second Sunday of lent, we are going to deal with riddles, the riddles of life, the riddles of what it means to be a Christian. Those are the riddles that a wealthy prominent citizen, Nicodemus struggled with. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, he was expected to have the answers to everything, but obviously he didn’t. These questions were so difficult for him that he couldn’t sleep and had to come to Jesus in the middle of the night.
The answers that Jesus gave him confused him even more. Jesus answered him with a birth riddle, much like the one that I talked about before. Jesus told him that in order to have eternal life, you must be born again. How can you be born again? Do you have to go back a second time into your mother’s womb? After all, how can two brothers be born at about the same time and not be twins? There is an answer to both, but to come up with you, you have to think about things in a new way. First let us try Jesus riddle. Jesus in the book of John does this all of the time. Someone comes to him with a question and he answered with a riddle – a hard saying. They are confused and say something stupid and Jesus answers with an even harder saying. And if they don’t just trust that Jesus knows what he is saying, then they leave as confused as ever. Jesus even teases Nicodemus – How can you be a teacher of Isreal and not know these things.

I don’t know about you, but I get confused a lot. The problem is that Nicodemus is a left brain thinker. He is used to clear cut memorized rules. A pharisee’s job was to make sure that all of the thousands of rules that had become Jewish law were able to be kept. At the end of the day, he could judge whether it was a good day or not by the number of rules that he broke. If he remembered all of the rules and he obeyed them, everything was okay. The thing is, the good news of the gospel is a right brain activity. It has to do with images, not words, it breaks all of the rules. Being a Christian is not about following the rules – it is in believing that God loves you. But more on that later. If you can answer this question, you are truly a good Christian. How many animals did Adam and Eve put in the ark. If you are awake this morning then you will know that it was Noah who put the animals in the ark, not Adam and Eve.
But the thing that we can celebrate about out faith, is that we don’t have to explain it, or even understand it clearly. Our faith is in the mystery of God. Our faith is like the wind, you don’t know where it comes from, but you can feel its presence. All of those left brain activities like balancing your checkbook, or maintaining your car or using your computer are not things that will get you into heaven. Thank God, I would not have a chance. But when you think about your favorite concert, or a walk in the sun, or what you got on your best birthday ever, then you are on the road to understanding the faith of Jesus. If you put that part of the mind in charge, the part that remembers feelings and doesn’t need concrete answers, then you will get an understanding of what Jesus was trying to get across to Nicodemus.
Here is another one for you, how many birthdays does the average person in America have in a lifetime? Well the answer is negotiable. If you are only born once, then you can only have one birth day. If Christ tells you that we must be born again, then that means that Christians have two birth days right? Well that depends on what it means to be born again. Jesus says that the first birth is a physical birth, and that the second is a spiritual birth. It is sort of like the moment that you have been trying to get the answer to a riddle that has you stomped. It is when all of the solutions that you have been trying to come up with are exhausted. And then the answer just comes to you out of the middle of nowhere. But have you ever noticed that along with this new answer, comes a whole new way of thinking. The Jesus of the book of John liked to speak in riddles, because riddles force us to think until we come up with a new way of thinking. To be born again is to undergo such a radical change of thinking that it is like a new birth. It is to have something happen to the soul which makes us a whole new person. It is a point in your conscious existence when you allow the spirit to move within you and you say Yes to God.
The passage for today contains one of the most familiar bible passages in the world. For God so loved the world that he have his only begotten son. So that we may have life and have it abundantly. God’s love is eternal. God’s love last forever. There is nothing else in the world that will be with us forever, through all circumstances.
When we are open to the new way of thinking that the spirit allows, then we all know the love of God. God’s love is unlimited, unconditional and redemptive.
It is easy for us to be tempted to finish the sentence god so loved with world with conditions. God will love you if you are righteous, God will love you if your study the word, God will love you of you do what others expect of you.
For God so loved the world. Even John is tempted to say that God loves only those who do the will of Jesus. Even the disciples are tempted to say that God only loves Christians. But God loves all people. God loves all of creation. God loves political and corrupt powers, God loves the strucutures in our world which pollute and oppress people. God love those who we agree with, and those whom we don’t. God loves us just as we are
God is concerned with this world and bringing all of this world into the fullness of creation. We are all a part of creation. God is not through with us yet, we are still a work in progress. God still loves this world and is still creating and working to make us complete.
God’s love is redemptive. God loves us just the way we are because God is working to redeem us and make us better persons. God sent Jesus into the world to save us. I follow Jesus in his mission to make a difference in the world then we share his love of creation and of all people.
I have another riddle for you. Frank is a night watchman, who works seven nights a week at a manufacturing plant. His boss is supposed to fly overseas on a business deal, but this really bothers Frank. Frank warns his boss that the previous night he had a dream that his boss would die in a plane crash. The boss ignored Frank’s warnings and left for his trip. On his trip he has some time to think about what Frank said – he returned a few days later and fired Frank.
The business deal turned out wonderfully – so what would make Frank’s boss fire him?
The key to that riddle is what you think about dreams. A dreamer is someone who is not bond by rules and laws. A dreamer is free to think of life in a new way. When we understand the love of God and who that love works in our lives, then that makes us all dreamers.
Have you ever noticed that there is a time just before you wake up where your mind is free to think in all types of new ways.
This twilight time is the time that Nicodemus came to Jesus, he came in the middle of the night. You can tell from his questions that he yearned to be free from his life of rules. He wanted to be from how they controlled his life. Jesus riddles about being born again gave him permission to be a dreamer. He was free to see the world in a whole new way. There is nothing wrong with dreams, unless you are a night watchman and you are dreaming when you are supposed to be watching. That is a cause to be fired.
It is not in the middle of the night for we, we are no sleeping. It is a new day for us, a day of celebration because it is a day that we can be born again and see life in a whole new way.
Okay, I have one more riddle in honor of leap year. Some months have 31 days, some have 30 days. How many months have 28 days? Mind you I did not ask how many months have exactly 28 days. All months have 28 days. We have 28 days and more to feel that love and Christ and to spread it all throughout the world.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Jesus came into the world to give us love. A love unlimited, a love unconditional, a love redeemed – how do you intend to respond to such love?
Oh before I forget, let me tell you the answer to the birth riddle that I told at the beginning of the sermon. The two brothers who were born an hour apart are not twins because they are triplets.
God’s love also gives us the opportunity to see life in ways that we would have never thought of before. That is what is means to be born again. Amen.