Moving on Up -- a Lectionary Reflection for the Second Sunday of Lent

Genesis 12:1-4a



Romans 4:1-5, 13-17


John 3:1-17

Moving on Up . . .

You can’t see the Kingdom of God without being “born from above.” So says Jesus to Nicodemus (John 3:3). That phrase “born from above” might be a key to understanding the journey of faith. We are by nature physical beings, but by grace we become spiritual beings. By faith we are enabled, as we allow the Spirit, who like the wind, blows where it likes, without us being able to control it. If we’re willing to allow grace to bless us, then our lives might be transformed so that we can participate in God’s work of transforming the world that God loves. If being part of the realm of God means being “born from above,” then most assuredly the path of faith is an upward track. While this path may lead upward, it needs to be said that most often it first goes into the valley.

In approaching these three lectionary texts for the second Sunday of Lent, my thoughts are being pushed in interesting directions from my concurrent readings in Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey Bass, advanced proof). Rohr speaks of the reality that faces us all – that we will fall before we rise.

So we must stumble and fall, I am sorry to say. And that does not mean reading about falling, as you are doing here. We must actually be out of the driver’s seat for a while, or we’ll never learn how to give up control to the Real Guide. It is the necessary pattern. (P. 66).

The journey we are taking, should we chose the way of the Spirit of God, won’t be an easy one. Consider the journey of Abraham and Sarah, after God calls him. Yes, he receives a promise and a purpose, but it’s not all smooth sailing. God calls Paul on the Damascus Road, he’s blinded and then healed, but it’s not all smooth sailing for him either. As for Jesus, he hears the call and takes up the mantle of God, but his path leads to a cross before it leads to resurrection. Suffering is part of the course of life. We must go down, in order to move up. The cross comes before resurrection. If we’re to experience the fullness of God’s promises we must understand this reality.

Our journey starts with a promise to Abram. God says – go to a new country and I’ll make for you many descendants and you we’ll be blessed so that you might be a blessing to the nations. That’s pretty good news, but it demands a sacrifice. Abram must leave behind his home and his family in order to receive the blessings. But Abram went by faith. But, he doesn’t go alone. In this particular set of verses, we don’t read Sarai’s name, but this is a partnership. There will be no descendants without her. The promise made to Abram and Sarai is really one of the most important statements in scripture, because it sets the context for the rest of the story. Christians come into the story as heirs of the promise to Abraham by grace, for we are not direct descendants of Abraham and Sarah. But then again, as we’ll see, even Abraham and Sarah and their descendants don’t earn this promise, but instead receive it by grace. It is grace that enables them to receive the call of righteousness by faith.

In many ways Romans 4 is a commentary on the Genesis 12 passage. According to Paul, the call of Abraham is not something that has been earned. Abraham is our ancestor, not because of works, but simply because Abraham believed God. Now what does this mean? “Abraham believed God.” Does that mean that God gave Abraham some kind of ordination exam with a set of questions that needed proper answers lest he be rejected? That doesn’t seem to be the case. Abraham isn’t justified – made right before God – because of the Law. Remember the Law doesn’t come until later. No, it’s a matter of faith, and again faith isn’t assent to a set of doctrines, but is simply trust. Abraham heard the call to leave behind family and friends and security so that he could follow God’s lead into Canaan.

It’s important that as we hear Paul place the Law behind Faith, we don’t hear him denigrate the value of Law. For Paul the Law its place, but it’s not the end game. Again, turning to Richard Rohr, who speaks of life’s two halves, the first half has to do with identity formation and security. It’s a question of ordering one’s life, and most assuredly the Law helps with this task. In the second half of life, we can begin to take risks and journeys beyond secure boundaries, but as Rohr suggest, “maybe they cannot answer a second call because they have not yet completed the first task.” He then goes on to write:

Unless you build your first house well, you will never leave it. To build your house well is, ironically, to be nudged beyond its doors (p. 23).

We have to fulfill at least a large part of the first half tasks before we’re ready to move on. Apparently Abraham was ready to take the next step. So was Paul. The point is, that if adherence to the Law is all that is required, then faith is of little value. If Law is the end, then what we have is a rather risk-averse life. The Law has its place, for as Rohr writes, “without law in some form, and also without butting up against the law, we cannot move forward easily and naturally” (p. 25). To live by faith is to take that step outside the doors, to butt up against the walls that try to keep us inside, and being to fly, to test the waters, and live by the Spirit.

This brings us to the gospel lesson from John. The text itself doesn’t speak to the Abraham paradigm that is present in the two texts from Genesis and Romans, but John pushes us to think outside the box. Nicodemus comes to Jesus, seeking wisdom (we would assume), but Jesus throws him for a loop with his talk of being born from above if he should want to see God’s kingdom. Like most of us, Nicodemus is thinking in very material terms. How can I be reborn from my mother’s womb? But, Jesus is speaking in spiritual not material terms. He’s moving beyond the first half concerns of rules and boundaries and identities to the life in the Spirit, where we test boundaries and allow God to move in and through us so we might reach our full potential as God’s children. Jesus first says – if you want to see the realm of God you have to be born from above – that is, born from heaven. Then he ups the ante, and says – if you want to enter the Kingdom then you will have to be “born of water and Spirit.” Traditionally, this phrase has been taken to refer to baptism, but I’m convinced that in context the point isn’t baptism, but rather a contrast between physical birth (water) and spiritual birth. Both are necessary, for we are born of the flesh, but if we’re open then we can also be born of the Spirit as well. To enter the kingdom we must experience this spiritual birth, and when it comes to the Spirit, the wind blows where it will. We don’t control it, and it will push us outside the box.

In this conversation, as John tells the story, Jesus moves onto a discussion of what it means to fall upward. No one has ascended to heaven, he says, except the one who has descended from heaven – the Son of Man. But the one who has descended must be lifted up, even as Moses lifted up the serpent, so that whoever would believe might have eternal life. And what does it mean to believe? Again, I don’t think it means signing on the dotted doctrinal line, but rather trusting in the one who seeks to take us on a journey of faith – the Spirit of God. Our hope lies then in the one sent by God who loves the world, so that whoever trusts in the one God has sent might not perish but have eternal life, which as Richard Beck notes, may have less to do with quantity of time as it does with quality of life in God.

The question that these texts raise concerns whether we’re ready to move on up into the heavenly realm? Are we ready to follow the Spirit and live outside the box? Have we formed/been formed in such a way that our identities are secure enough that we can leave the nest and follow the Spirit into new opportunities to be in partnership with God in loving the world? And we do so by faith, knowing that the wind of the Spirit blows where ever it wills!



Putting on New Clothes -- Sermon on Colossians 3

Colossians 3:1-11

Mark Twain famously said that “Clothes make the man,” and we’re often told to dress for success. In fact there is much truth to this adage, which is why there is a nonprofit called “Dress for Success” that provides appropriate clothing for job seekers. Even in this much more casual era, we seem to understand that clothes stand for something, and by changing our clothes we can change our identity.

Although it’s probably not polite to talk about movies that feature a prostitute as the main character, I couldn’t come up with a better example of the way clothes can transform a person’s identity than the Julia Roberts film Pretty Woman. I even searched the internet to see if I could find a “better” example, but nothing spoke so clearly to this issue of the way clothes can change one’s identity than this movie, except perhaps the story of Cinderella.

In this film a rich man played by Richard Gere hires a prostitute named Vivian to be there for him, to be his “companion” for the weekend. When Vivian arrives at the man’s apartment, she looks the part of a prostitute, and everyone, including Edward, the rich man, treats her like a prostitute – someone hired to do the bidding of another. In the course of time, Edward realizes that Vivian’s clothes aren’t appropriate for someone who is connected with him, and so he gives her money to buy new clothes. It will take intervention by the concierge and a friend of the concierge to make the difference, but once she gets the new clothes, it transforms her life. People look at her differently, including Edward. No longer do they see a prostitute, but instead they see a beautiful and sophisticated woman. It takes time for her to come to grips with the change, but she begins to feel differently about herself, and as a result her life changes. She ceases to be a prostitute and becomes a person of self worth and value. Indeed, Edward begins to see her as a person and not a thing, and falls in love. Yes, clothes can make the person – or at least changing one’s clothes can symbolize a change in identity.

1. Before and After

As you read the Colossian letter, you will see an emphasis on “before and after.” The author is writing to Gentile Christians, people who once lived in sinful idolatry. He writes to them, telling them that once they had lived outside God’s grace, but now they are children of God. Once their lives had been marked with darkness, but now they live in the light. To make his point the author lists some of the vices that had defined their former lives, vices such as evil desires, greed, anger, malice, lies, and more. That was the old life, the life before Christ, but now that they are in Christ, they have put off this old life and have clothed themselves with a new self.

Most of us who gather here today grew up as Christians, or at least in a Christian context. Many of us have never known a time when we weren’t in the church. That doesn’t mean we’ve not had our struggles or our doubts. It doesn’t mean we’ve lived perfect lives. But it does mean that the “changes” that have occurred in our lives don’t seem as drastic, as those described in this letter. But, for the first readers of this letter, being a Christian meant taking on a new identity. The old self was dead and buried.

Our author knows that even when our lives change, it’s not always easy to keep focused on the things of God. It’s easy to get distracted and even return to the old life. Sometimes the old life even seems more inviting than the present life. Remember the people of Israel, who having wandered in the desert for a time, began to pine for the “flesh pots of Egypt.” Yes, in comparison to wandering in the desert, slavery seemed preferable. At least then they knew where the next meal was coming from and where they would lay their head at night.

The letter serves as a reminder, a wake up call, to people who might be straying from the things of God. It is a reminder to keep one’s focus on the things of heaven – after all, they are now possessors of a new identity in Christ.

2. Baptism, death, and new life.

Although this chapter doesn’t speak directly about baptism, references to death and resurrection, old self and new self, even new clothes, fit well with the biblical understanding of baptism. In Romans 6, Paul links the act of baptism to Christ’s own experience of dying and rising (Romans 6:1-6). This linking of baptism to the death and resurrection of Jesus is one of the most powerful images that emerges out of our practice of baptism by immersion. You go into the waters of baptism and are buried with Christ, leaving behind the old life, dying to sin and its hold on one’s life, and then the baptismal candidate rises out of the waters of death and now experiences the newness of Christ’s resurrection life. The old is washed away, and the new is there to be embraced. The author of this letter goes into detail naming the behaviors that mark the old life, behaviors that are left behind in the waters of baptism.

As the letter continues, the image changes from death and resurrection, but baptism continues to stand behind the images. In the next image, we’re encouraged to strip off the old life and clothe ourselves with the new self. We don’t know when the practice began, but it became common in the early church for baptismal candidates to strip off their clothes before they entered the baptismal waters, where they would be baptized naked, so that they might be reborn as they came out of the baptismal waters, at which point they would receive new clothes, to mark their new identity. Because baptisms often took place on the Saturday prior to Easter, this practice may have given rise to the tradition of buying new clothes for Easter Sunday, as a reminder that in baptism one is made new.

3. Living the New Life

Having received the new clothes, symbolizing one’s status as a reborn self, the expectation is that one will take on a new way of life. First of all, the nature of our relationships has changed. We’re told that in Christ, there are no longer Jew or Greek, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian or Scythian, slave or free, but all are one in Christ. It’s unfortunate that the author of this letter didn’t include that important pairing from Galatians – “male and female,” but I think we can get the point – there is now in Christ oneness of purpose and relationship. The old divisions that society sets up have been set aside as we experience union with God in Christ.

Getting back to the movie Pretty Woman, the transformation wasn’t an easy one, but by the end of the movie Vivian had become a new person. The old life was gone, and while the transformation may not have been instantaneous, those new clothes symbolized her change of identity. Of course, that meant living life differently. There were bumps in the road, but in the end, as is true of most movies, the couple, both changed as a result of their encounter, live happily ever after.

What is true of the movie is somewhat true of the Christian life. The transformation isn’t instantaneous. It is instead, a gradual process. Thomas a Kempis, a 15th century monk, wrote in his devotional classic The Imitation of Christ, about the need for patience in the face of temptation:

Patience is necessary in this life because so much of life is fraught with adversity. No matter how hard we try, our lives will never be without strife and grief. Thus, we should not strive for a peace that is without temptation, or for a life that never feels adversity. Peace is not found by escaping temptations, but by being tried by them. We will have discovered peace when we have been tried and come through the trial of temptation. (Devotional Classics, Richard Foster and James Bryan Smith, eds., San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1993, pp185-186).

Although the transformation will last a life time, we are instructed to see ourselves in a new light. We are a new self, with new clothes, and a new identity, and not only has the nature of our relationships been transformed, but so is the way we’re to live our lives in this world.

In the verses that follow our lectionary reading we find a description of the kinds of behaviors that are expected of those who have clothed themselves with the new self through baptism. Let me read a portion of this text:

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (Col. 3:12-14)

Whereas the old life was marked by anger, greed, evil desires, the new life in Christ is to be marked by compassion, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and above all love, which we’re told “binds everything together in perfect harmony.” This is the life we’re called to live, the life that leads to peace with our neighbors and with God. Having taken up this new life, let us, as our author encourages, “teach and admonish one another, and take up hymns and songs of praise, so that “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3:16-17).

Preached by:

Dr. Robert Cornwall

Pastor,

Central Woodwoard Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Troy, MI

August 1, 2010

10th Sunday after Pentecost