The Answer is Blowing in the Wind Genesis 12:1-8, John 3:1-17 February 20, 2005, Year A the Second Sunday in Lent The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi Have you ever thought about what a big sports fan God must be? How do I know God must be a sports fan? Think about it, as you watched a televised football or basketball game and dead center behind the uprights of the goal post as the field goal kicker is about to kick or immediately behind the basket as the player is about to shoot a free throw, how many times have you seen "John 3:16" in gigantic letters. What I haven't figured out is whether God is just continuing to be humble or can God not get anything better than end zone tickets? Probably no other Bible verse is more quoted than John 3:16. Similarly, the phrase "born again" from today's johannine text has become part of daily vernacular. However, probably no other Bible verse and no other concept of the soteriological (i.e the redeeming) nature of Christ, have been more misunderstood and misapplied to commit horrendous acts. The bloody Christian crusades, the Holocaust and the annihilation of indigenous peoples of North America were justified because the Muslims, Jews and indigenous peoples did not believe in the Son. In 21st century America, the phrase "born again" has become a password into inner circles of national politics. Thus, it is quite easy for us to identify with Nicodemus. It is so easy, away from the crowds, secluded from the day-time, work world, to ask a question, to ponder the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven with one who appears to know. But even then, it is also tempting to come, pretending we have a question but instead offer pronouncements. With our academic degrees and job titles, our status in the community, our long-time church membership, it is so easy to say, "I have heard your teachings and seen your signs and wonders, and I know that you are from God. I know who you are." And so Jesus still answers, "No, you haven't a clue. You heard me teach on a hillside. You saw me supply wine for the wedding feast. You saw me cleanse the temple of those who were making a business there, and you think you can use this evidence to draw logical, rational conclusions. If this is your profession of faith, you know nothing of faith. Faith involves commitment and risks. Your slipping over here in the dark of night in order to tell me who I am is not faith." It is so easy to be confused, to misunderstand Jesus' message, to interpret it through our preconceptions. It is so easy to be a Nicodemus because, like Nicodemus, despite our pretension otherwise, most of us carry an emptiness the secular world cannot fill which asks, "Who am I?" A spiritual void our preconceptions of God do not fulfil, which asks, "Why was I born?" A burning within our souls which asks, "Where do I belong? How can I be at peace with who I am?" The kinds of questions which keep one up at night and send us into the dark trying to find the answers. It is so easy to be a Nicodemus and ask questions reflecting an accounting view of life: questions about balancing the ledger - how to win the prize, questions reflecting the notion that when things add up only then can they be true - how to achieve for myself the life that is beyond my grasp, how to place myself in the presence of God. And Jesus still recognizes our searching and answers the questions which we do not know how to ask. It is so easy to be a Nicodemus preoccupied with our "How to" questions, with wanting to line up proofs and arguments in order to arrive at a clear conclusion and thereby become a believer, to want Jesus to be a good spiritual tax lawyer advising us on the loopholes of the tax code minimizing what we have to pay. Thus, we are still confused by Jesus' answers about being born of the wind, life in God's kingdom not being earned or achieved and there being no loopholes in the expansive love God gives and wants in return, love so expansive that God's son comes to save not condemn. It is so easy to be a Nicodemus that we forget where we are going this Lent and why we are going. We are on the way to the cross not because of what we have done or left undone but because of what God has done. And, the cross is not one more piece of damaging evidence that seals shut the case against guilty humanity but blows the wind where it chooses. Being Nicodemuses, what we need is not more instruction but to let go of our defining who God is and to let God reveal Gods' self to us. What if we were to recognize that God is bigger than our naming of God? What if we were to stop telling God what we know, stop telling God who we are, stop telling God what we should be doing. What if we were to listen for God's Word to sweep over us without direction from us? Being Nicodemuses means Jesus also extends to you and me the same invitation to be born of the wind. To be born of the wind is to trust your life to the God who first breathed life into you to breath new birth into you; to be born of the wind is to trust God's love for you and for all people; to be born of the wind is to live as one born of love; to be born of the wind is to allow the Spirit to propel you along the way without any sense of your old securities; to be born of the wind is to embrace the mysterious newness of God knowing you do not have a final hold on the Holy Spirit; to be born of the wind is to join Abraham and Sarah in stepping out on a journey with God without the comfort of knowing exactly where it will lead; to be born of the wind is to listen for God to call forth from you that which you did not recognize as being possible God calls into existence things that do not yet exist. God calls forth life which we cannot bring about on our own. What might God be calling forth from us now? Can we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to the untamed wind of God? Can we listen for what we have heretofore been unwilling to hear? Can we see in one another not something to critique or judge but rather the image of the God who has given us birth? Our pericope (i.e our text for today) abruptly ends the dialogue between Nicodemus and Jesus. If that were the end, with it being so easy for you and me to be a Nicodemus, it would leave us stranded. However, while we do not know if there were more to this conversation, we do encounter Nicodemus again toward the end of John's Gospel. Jesus, the one to whom he came at night with questions, is dead, crucified. And among the few daring to be near was Nicodemus. Considering that Jesus was crucified by the wise and the powerful, it's quite a surprise to see Nicodemus, member of the establishment, risking that. He is there, at the end, not as interrogator but as a disciple, not as a visitor in the night, but as a committed follower of the light. There, at the cross, there is none of that "We know…." In fact, Nicodemus doesn't say anything. He comes bearing expensive spices to honor the body of Jesus. He comes to worship the Son of God, slain for sin. He offers not questions or answers but sweet smelling spices whose aroma is carried by a wind that blows where it will, even today, where it will, stopped by no darkness, questions, or answers we have been able to put to it, contained in no boxes of our devising, no categories of our invention. And the wind blows where it will.