St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, March 20, 2011

The Spiritual Maternity Ward – Rev. David Mundy

Genesis 12:1-4a Psalm 121 John 3:1-17

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In two months, our son Isaac, who is 28-years-old, will be ordained as a United Church minister. As I say this, I realize that it is impossible because it seems as though he was just born the other day. In fact he was born while I served my first pastorate in the United Church, which was in outport Newfoundland. This was Ruth’s first pregnancy and we lived 60 kilometres from the hospital in Gander, at that time a teeming metropolis of 12,000 people. I was nervous about my role in getting her safely to the hospital and when she informed me that she was experiencing contractions I was practically out the door and driving away without her.

After a couple of hours of walking the halls of the maternity ward, the head nurse decided that they would keep Ruth in overnight as a precaution, but told me, rather abruptly, to go home because she was quite sure that this was a false alarm. A few minutes after I arrived back in the community late in the evening, the phone rang. Get back to the hospital as quickly as possible, I was told, the baby is on its way. So back into the car and on the road, with a brief stop at the home of the high school principal, who had become a friend. He had told me that when the time came he would accompany us to town for moral support. The hitch was that this fine, upstanding man had just come home at midnight from the end-of-the-year party for his staff. I can’t give a precise analysis of his condition, but he was obviously not in pain.

Nonetheless, he jumped in the car, and he proved to be the perfect companion. I was driving the winding road to Gander at speeds well above the limit, and at a time of night when the danger of an unfortunate meeting with a moose was considerable. Any other passenger would have been terrified, but he smiled away throughout the drive.

It turned out that we made it in the proverbial nick of time. I went straight to the delivery room and hardly did any of the coaching I had been trained to do before Isaac was born. I remember vividly the feeling of elation as I looked on my newborn son, and his very pointed head. “He’s from Zontar! I exclaimed, referring to a comedy sketch from the old SCTV series with John Candy. “No he’s not,” admonished Ruth. “Yes he is” agreed the doctor.

I walked out to tell our friend who I found sound asleep in the waiting room. I wanted to tell the whole world but, at two in the morning, it isn’t the best idea. There are 490,000 babies born every day on this planet – nearly half a million, every single day. Yet, when we experience birth in our lives, it is as though it is the only one that has ever happened. There was for me, as for many of us, the sense that the birth of a child is a deeply spiritual experience. And there was also that feeling that, as a freshly minted father, I was no longer the person I had been to that point in my life. I was entering into a relationship which was scary and unknown, as well as exciting and filled with possibility. I was being born as a dad.

This morning, we listened to a birthing story, although it is about spiritual birth, or wait now, is it actually about physical birth? No, no, it is about being born from above or born again, so it must be spiritual. It really is rather confusing, don’t you think? During the next four weeks of this season of Lent, we will hear stories from the gospel of John, which are encounters with Jesus unique to this gospel.

Encounter with an Insider – Nicodemus -- John 3

Encounter with an Outsider – The Samaritan Woman – John 4

A Healing Encounter – The Man Blind from Birth – John 9

An Encounter of Death and Resurrection – The Raising of Lazarus – John 11

We began with the Jewish spiritual leader who visited Jesus one night in what turns out to be a spiritual maternity ward. The impression we get is that Nicodemus was a respected man who also came to Jesus respectfully. It sounds as though there has already been discussion amongst his fellow Pharisees about Jesus because Nicodemus mentions that “we” have agreed that Jesus is a teacher sent from God. He comes as an insider with his feet firmly on the ground, ready for dialogue. But his cautious curiosity results in being thrown off balance by Jesus’ mysterious talk about rebirth and the wind of God’s Spirit, which will blow him hither and yon.

Jesus even throws out a challenge to Nicodemus, when the religious leader asks “How does this happen?’ When Jesus responds, he seems to have what we might call “attitude,” especially the way we heard it from Eugene Peterson’s The Message

Jesus said, "You're a respected teacher of Israel and you don't know these basics? Listen carefully. I'm speaking the sober truth to you. I speak only of what I know by experience; I give witness only to what I have seen with my own eyes. There is nothing second hand here, no hearsay. Yet, instead of facing the evidence and accepting it, you procrastinate with questions. If I tell you things that are plain as the hand before your face and you don't believe me, what use is there in telling you of things you can't see, the things of God? John 3:10-12

This is one of the truly wonderful and frustrating stories of the gospels. It’s wonderful because it does invite us into the promise of transformation and possibilities for both this life and the next. Jesus was doing his best to wake Nicodemus up in the dead of night, and perhaps his words can awaken us as well.

So, do you wonder why, when this story of spiritual birth is so intriguing, we tend to be reluctant to describe ourselves as “born again” Christians? Maybe it is because, when some people want to know if we are “born again,” we get the impression that they are asking if we have the same special spiritual status that they have. And we can assure them that we are Christians all we want, but you can tell that it just isn’t the same, and we need to know that. It feels a little like getting onto a plane and having to walk through business class and see how the other half lives to get to our seats. Sure, we’re flying, but not like them.

Surely we can do better than this though. We can rehabilitate what it means to be born anew or from above. I am a “born again” Christian – I had an experience in my teens which awakened me in a new way to the faith in which I had been raised since birth. I will always appreciate that experience and it is a touchstone for my Christian journey. At the same time, my faith has been refreshed and renewed and blown in new directions many times through the forty years since that happened, and I’m grateful that Christ didn’t leave me stuck in that moment.

I want to encourage all of you this morning to become “born again” Christians, although in ways that honour the unconventional and transforming spirit of the story. The theologian Marcus Borg, whom many would consider a liberal Christian, encourages us to reclaim the notion of being born from above or born again. He offers these thoughts:

It seems to me that what we see in Jesus answers to our deepest personal longing--that longing to be born again, even as it answers to the world's greatest need--the kingdom of God . . . Or, even more simply, the Christian life is about our love for God, and loving God means paying attention to our relationship with God, and paying attention to that relationship is the process of being born again. Loving God means loving that which God loves.

There is still Good News of renewal and transformation in Christ, although the challenge might be greater than we can imagine. Earlier this week, I met with a group of my colleagues to consider the passages for this week. One of them, a mother of two, observed that there are two sets of muscles required for giving birth. Immediately the alarm bells went off for all the men, but she didn’t stop there. She informed us that one set of muscles is for pushing and the other for opening. The other women all nodded their heads, and the men all appeared to be in shock!

Well, whether we want to hear it or not, new life in Christ does require both pushing and opening. The biggest challenge may be to those of us who are insiders, like Nicodemus. Some of us who are here this morning are relatively new to the Christian faith, and may actually feel a bit on the outside. But the majority of us are insiders, those who have been around long enough that our comfort level is not conducive to being fully alive in faith. We can experience a personal revival, if we open to the Spirit.

As a congregation we can ask whether the wind of the Holy Spirit is breathing and blowing in our midst. Many mainline denominations, including the United Church, are struggling to find a purpose, and even concerned about survival these days. It’s tempting to want to hold on to what we think are the good old days and the good old ways, rather than be open to Christ’s new way.

We can decide whether we are at the bedside in the palliative care unit, waiting for death, or in the maternity ward, about to be reborn and revitalized. It may require a slap on the backside to get us breathing, but sometimes that’s what’s needed, not as punishment but as revival. Sometimes birth is actually more painful than death, but we choose life.

We can go a step further and ask how Jesus’ talk about a redeemed world will lead us as Christians to actively, passionately care for the planet in all its variety and beauty. All of creation is groaning like a woman in labour pains, to use the image of the apostle Paul in Romans. Can we hear the invitation to love this planet in the way God loves this planet.

Let’s give the last word to Jesus this morning, first through the traditional language of the King James bible, then the contemporary language of The Message

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 KJV

God didn’t go all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to set the world right again. John 3:17 The Message

What a promise! Christ sets the world right again! Whether we are outsiders or insiders or somewhere in between, abundant life and eternal life is our promise. Are you ready for this birth? Welcome to Christ’s maternity ward.