SCRIPTURE: John 3:1-17
TEXT:5Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit THEME: Worship away from the temple with a spirited faith in us. INTRODUCTION As John writes the Gospel named after himself, he is not making a strict chronological account, (we have three other gospels to gives us this timeline of events). What John writes about Jesus, is thematic. He begins with a cosmic account of the Incarnation of the Word. Next we are introduced to the forerunner, prophet, John the Baptist. He identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God, whose blood marks the door post of our households, to signal Death to Passover. In Chapter Two Jesus clears the Temple of money changers, setting the tone for a new kind of worship, away from the sin and sacrifice economy that organized religion had created. This sets the stage for what’s coming next, a night time conversation between two Rabbis about the transformative work of the Spirit, moving us away from ritual religion and into a spiritual relationship with God. SCRIPTURE Nicodemus and Jesus have a conversation in a traditional rabbinic fashion with plays on words, talking about physical and spiritual things. Nicodemus plays dumb or devil’s advocate in bringing up absurd objections to what Jesus is saying, so in this way, he can get further clarification from Jesus. They spar around the analogy of birth and rebirth, or transformative change, initiated by God’s Spirit in us. In a world where we are striving for self-sufficiency, Jesus is proposing a God who want us to be dependent, a God who wants to involved intimately with us, and who wants us to call for help. This is very different from a religious faith that is trying to keep within God’s Laws. Jesus reveals a gracious God who does not see us as a woeful mistake that God needs to fix, but a joyful child who God welcomes into fellowship. Embryonic Water and animating Spirit are entry points into this fellowship with God. Right now the Israelites are living with God as a tyrant, policing to punish anytime they break the Law. But Jesus portrays a loving God, who provides path ways of healing and restoration even when our misery is our own fault. We suffer trying to live within the confines of the Law of God, where we can instead be in relationship with God, living the law of love with each other. Jesus brings a paradigm shift, a new way of understanding who God is and who we are. Using the system of Love to define our reality with God, instead of the Law. (This is starting to feel liberating) There is a shift where we are not obsessing about being good enough for eternal life, towards having an assurance of enjoying an eternal relationship with God and each other. This is liberating, freeing, as it takes us off of the cycle of sin and sacrifice, sin and forgiveness, and debt and payment, to being imaginative in our relationship with God to create in our world. Jesus is moving the worship of God away from temple sacrifices into embracing God’s truth in our hearts by being in fellowship with God. The Spirit of God in us makes Change possible, transformation possible, and a shift to understand God as loving possible. Jesus is casting a vision of grace, love, forgiveness, promises, joy, and liberty. We don’t need to be self-sufficient, but dependent upon God who loves us. When Israel was wandering in the desert and serpents entered their camp, biting and killing them, God intervened. God had Moses carve out a bronze serpent and lifted it up on a stick with instructions and a promise, ”Lift your eyes upon it and live.” This is nuts, off the wall, craziness, when faith seems like silliness, where trust exhibited in faith, takes hold of promises and acts, is where we can be born again with a Spirited Faith. APPLICATION The church exemplifies the love of God in community. Within the world we live in, we balance our lives with this Spirited Faith. Our relationship with God sees us as good and the power of God as transformative. Where does the Spirit want us to be ‘born again’? There is an economic theory, that if rich people are made richer, then poorer people will benefit, as their wealth trickles down. This sounds plausible as there are example of philanthropist who do tremendous work with the poor, outcast, education and the prevention of malaria, but this does not work unless people are driven by a moral compass, a Spirited Faith. So if the 1% control a majority share of the wealth, but an even smaller percentage of them lack a Spirited Faith, then most of the wealth, sadly is kept for themselves and only makes them richer with no benefit to the middle class or the poor. We can’t imagine this amount of wealth, except for stories we hear in the housing market, where home for sale, are being bought in paradise for hundreds of thousand of dollars over the asking price, and upon purchase, they are torn down for a new houses to be built. This is happening in Honolulu where 90% of the available land is already being utilized for housing, and is being bought by others, who have come from elsewhere during the pandemic, to work here from home and have decided to stay. Local people are priced out of the Housing Market. This is what happens when the Spirit is lacking. New partnerships of collaboration need to be formed to pool the resources of money, land, time and talent in order to be stewards of our community. Josh Hayashi tells us that what we are doing with the Wailuku Mission Housing is unique, as we are forming a partnership with the State, County, Churches, Community, and Neighbors, so that those born and raised here have a chance to raise their families where they grew up. This is based on our Spirited Faith in God. I have a whole list of things the Spirit is prodding us to be born from and be reborn into, but I don’t have time to elaborate on them. So I’ll leave you with my list; to be born from flesh to Spirit, from racism to humanity, from bias to appreciation, from hate to understanding, from fear to peace, from money to relationships, from manipulation to collaboration, from power to love, from insecurity to confidence, addition to coping skills, abuse to respect, poverty to contentment, from hunger to satisfied, from tradition to meaning, from apathy to empathy, and from selfishness to community. CONCLUSION The transformative work of the Spirit, moves us away from ritual religion, into a Spirited Faith in relationship with God and each other. God’s Spirit with us makes transformation and change possible in us and in our world. Our Worship can be more than just an absolution of guilt, but a liberation from bondage and Spirited Faith formations of loving communities, neighborhoods, partnerships, collaborations and ministries.
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May 2024
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