Reclaiming Our Story
John 3:1-17
University Christian Church, Seattle, WA
June 11, 2006
Rev. Sandy Messick

• The words set us on edge as soon as we hear them. We immediately look at and see the person in a new light. “Have you been born again?” “Are you a born again Christian?”
• Labels immediately come to mind about the person doing the questioning and we make assumptions: conservative, fundamentalist, and evangelical.
• We’re not even sure how to answer the question: To say “yes” only invites more questions: Where, when, how, and stories of where, when, how, they were born again. But to say “no” is equally risky, because it too invites questions, and sermons about the need to be saved, and worse yet, maybe even an Invitation to Go to their church!
• The stereotype of the born again Christian is so pervasive, it makes its way into the mainstream of language. Comedian Dennis Miller was quoted as saying, “Born again? No I’m not, excuse me for getting it right the first time.” Others have said “The trouble with born again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.” And “Making fun of Born again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope.” Marcus Borg explains the temptation to resort to such stereotypes by saying that “Most of us have known at least one person who was born again in a remarkably unattractive way.”
• All this is to say that being “born again” has gotten a bad rap, and too often raises negative images for some if not many of us, Christians, and non-Christians alike.
• And yet, there is a scriptural basis for the phrase, it’s here in this passage from John. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again, or born anew, or perhaps born from above, depending on which version you’re reading.
• Perhaps it’s time to take back the image of being born again, to renew our own understanding of what Jesus meant, to reclaim our story.
• So how can we make sense of Jesus’ instruction, if you would see the kingdom of God, you must be born again.

• I’m indebted to Marcus Borg for much of the underlying thoughts of this sermon. In his book, “The Heart of Christianity,” Borg spends a whole chapter wrestling with the image and the importance of being born again.
• But first, the story:
• It begins with Nicodemus, we don’t know a lot about him except that he’s Jewish, he’s a leader, he’s well respected, and he’s wealthy
• He hears Jesus during the day, and that night, comes to Jesus. Why at night? Some have supposed that he comes in secrecy. Because of his position in the Jewish leadership, he doesn’t want to be seen with the Rebel Jesus. Others have suggested he comes openly, but at night because after-dark was the set aside time to study Torah, away from distractions and the work of the day, so perhaps Nicodemus comes to continue his study, the Torah in flesh. Still others point to the symbolism of the night. Nicodemus is in the dark. Without understanding. And so he comes, in the dark, seeking the light. For whatever reason, Nicodemus comes at night.
• He comes with a compliment: Rabbi, I know you are from God for no one can do these things you do apart from God.
• Jesus doesn’t seem to hear the compliment, or perhaps he sees through the compliment to the question underneath. In any case: Jesus changes the subject. “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
• Nicodemus though is a literalist and these words make no sense. How can one be born again? Can a grown man crawl into his mother’s womb?
• But Jesus repeats his words: One must be born of the Spirit, of the breath of God. To be born anew, or again, or from above, is to enter into a new life through and in the Spirit. In other words, it is to be reborn into a life centered in the spirit.
• As Marcus Borg writes: “What Nicodemus needs is a spiritual rebirth…a personal transformation. This is what we all need.”

• The image of being born again is used rarely in scripture. But the images of dying and being raised with Christ are abundant in the New Testament, and Borg argues that this is the foundation of what Jesus meant when he said we must be born again.
• Jesus himself talked of taking up one’s cross in order to follow him. And he proclaimed that if any would save their lives, they must lose them.
• Paul in his letters talks of dying and being raised with Christ. In his letter to the Galatians he writes that he himself has been crucified with Christ, therefore it is no longer he that lives, but Christ who lives in him.
• So being born again becomes the process of dying to our old identity and being reborn into a new identity. The old identity that needs to give way is the identity based on how we are perceived in the world: the name we’ve made for ourselves, the value granted to us by society’s standards, the identity centered in me, myself, and I. And the rebirth, the new identity is one centered in God and God’s Spirit: perceiving ourselves as valued not by what we have accomplished, not even by who we are, but by the intimate and grace-filled knowledge of whose we are. Dying to our old way of being, and being raise to a new life centered in God that recenters our thinking and reorders our ways of being.
• Behold the old has passed away, and the new has come.

• Borg stresses, quite rightly I think, that this is not our doing. It is not something we can will ourselves into. It is God who grants new life, it is God who raises us from the death of our former selves. But we can prepare the soil, and we can open ourselves to the possibility, and we can clear out the clutter that keeps us from God, in order that God’s transforming presence may be made known.
• Sometimes that born again experience does happen in an instant. It certainly did for John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church. Though he was already a preacher, he didn’t feel connected with God, certainly didn’t feel centered in God or a recipient of God’s grace. He wrestled with how he could continue to preach when his faith was so limited, nearly non-existent. And yet he prayed, and hoped, and made room. One day he reluctantly attended a church meeting, someone read from the Letter to the Romans. And suddenly, he was reborn, renewed, connected to God. Later he would describe it this way: I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, and that my sins, even mine, were forgiven.” New life. Rebirth.
• But often, being born again is a lifelong transformation, or perhaps a daily transformation. Marcus Borg writes, “In the course of a day, I sometimes realize that I have become burdened, and that the cause is that I have forgotten God. In the act of remembering God, of reminding myself of the reality of God, I sometimes feel a lightness of being – a rising out of my self-preoccupation and burdensome confinement. We are called again and again to come forth from our tombs.”
• John Newton experienced both the instantaneous and the lifetime transformation. A slave trader in the 1700s in England, he made his living on ships that carried human cargo from Africa to the New World. On one of the journeys, he happened to find a copy of Thomas a Kempis’ “Imitation of Christ.” Shortly after, during a storm, he prayed for God’s forgiveness. He was born again. But even then, God was still at work. He didn’t leave the slave trade immediately, he even moved up to the position of captain. But over time he began to see the injustice and absolute horror of how he was making a living. That perhaps was the real re-birth. He left the trade and became a minister. And through his preaching and work as an advocate, he helped lead England to abolishing slavery. He never forgot his wretched past, or the gracious gift of new life he found in a life lived centered in Christ. We remember him today not so much for his abolitionist movements, but for one of the hymns he wrote: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
• Born again. In an instant, over a lifetime, day in and day out, however it occurs, the experience of being born anew, or born from above, or born again is the experience of living a life centered in God. It is life-changing, life renewing, it is transformation.
• And the mark of the renewed life is love. It is a life marked by compassion and grace. Paul lists many fruits of the spirit: freedom, faith, gentleness, hope, but then he reminds us, the greatest of these is love.
• So maybe being born again isn’t such a bad thing, or strange thing, or off the wall thing. It’s a transformation thing. It’s a dying to old ways and rebirth into new ways. It’s a separating from that which focuses on self, and a union with that which centers us on God.
• What Jesus said is true: If you would glimpse the kingdom of God, that life lived in God, you must be renewed and rebirthed by God. New life. Behold, the new has come.