BORN AGAIN IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK
John 3:1-10
"How can anyone be born
after having grown old?"
Many people
were surprised recently when N.T. Wright, an Anglican Bishop and distinguished
New Testament scholar, publicly stated that "heaven" is not a place
you go to after death. When Jesus speaks
about "heaven," Wright said, he
is not talking about a heavenly realm beyond the clouds populated by angels
playing harps. The word
"heaven" is used by Jesus as an alternative for the word "God"
because that word was not meant to be uttered. Heaven is the presence of
God. Where God is present there is
heaven whether in this life or the next.
Heaven is a reality beyond death but also a possibility on earth. As the
Psalmist says God is not present everywhere. (139:7)
So what
does the "kingdom of heaven" or the "kingdom of God" mean? It
refers not just to God's presence, but also to God's authority. When we obey God, the kingdom of heaven is
within us or among us, in the life of the Church and the world. How we participate in God's kingdom, how we
obey God's authority, was precisely the subject of the conversation between
Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus which we read about this morning.
Nicodemus
was not asking how he could get to heaven when he died, but how he could live
now as a citizen of heaven on earth; that is, how could he enter God's kingdom.
Jesus
tells him straight out that he had to be "born again," (Authorised
Version) or in other translations, "born from above." Nicodemus was
perplexed. What do you mean? He thought
he knew all there was to know about God's kingdom for he kept the Law of Moses diligently. He was also perplexed because he was old, and
old people cannot change their ways, they cannot as it were enter into their
mother's womb and start life again.
Jesus, who we must remember, was about 30 years old, is adamant.
Nicodemus, you just don't get it!
You can't see that God's kingdom has come in what I am doing and saying
because your mindset prevents you. I am showing
you the door through which you can enter
God's kingdom but you are resisting because it requires a fundamental change of
mind. You are trapped in traditions that
prevent you from seeing and entering. Instead
of the Law enabling you to understand God's rule, it has become a stumbling
block because you have turned the law into burdensome rules.
This
was the bone of contention in all Jesus' dealings with the Pharisees. It was not that they did not keep the
commandments or were insincere in their beliefs, but they had turned keeping the Law into a
burdensome legalism which prevented them from seeing the whole point of the
Law, love of God and neighbour, justice, mercy and compassion even on the
sabbath. That is why Nicodemus had to start again. "Truly I tell you, whoever does not
receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." (Mark 10:15)
Think of it this way. When
children play together in a nursery school they don't worry about the fact that
some are white, others black, some from rich backgrounds and others poor, some
foreigners and others local, some clever and others not. They simply accept one another as play
mates. It is only when they grow up that
they begin to be conditioned by social norms, cultural conventions and prejudices. They lose their childlike capacity to be
inclusive of others just as they lose their creative imagination.
Nicodemus
acknowledged that God was at work in what Jesus was doing. He was a thoughtful, wise and righteous man. But he had yet to grasp the secret of the
kingdom revealed in Jesus. Namely that
God's grace fulfilled the Law, that entry into God's kingdom was not determined
by race, ethnicity, gender, class, or religion.
In Jesus, God had opened up his kingdom to all who would enter. Jesus even said, "the last shall be
first in the kingdom of God." He
also said that rules like those for the Sabbath could be broken if human need
required it. This was the good news of the kingdom of heaven which Nicodemus
had failed to grasp. So he had to go
back to nursery school and start again. And
the same applies to everyone, not least those of us who think they know what it
means to be born again! For many
"born agains" live by laws that exclude others rather than by God's
grace and love that embraces them. (See Galatians 5) So they not only fail to enter the kingdom, but also
prevent others from doing so. (See Matthew 23:13-15)
During
the Volmoed Youth Leadership Training Programme the "voeltjies" as we
called them, kept on helping us to see things differently, not least Sam White,
the African American whose booming voice so enriched our worship. Well he, and some of the others have since
become active in the "Black lives matter," movement in the US and in
South Africa. Understandably some people have
responded: "yes, of course, black
lives matter, but then all lives matter!" That is an understandable reaction but it
misses the point just as Nicodemus did. Yes,
all people matter, that is fundamental.
But in many contexts some matter
more, and often far more than others. Blacks not whites were slaves, migratory
labourers, , paid less, lynched and shot by gun-toting cops. In fact apartheid was based on the belief
that white lives mattered more than black ones.
That mind-set is still prevalent among many white South Africas, even
those who claim to be "born again" Christians! It is called racism.
Jesus
did not say that his fellow Jews did not matter; but he insisted that
Samaritans matter as well, as do women, children, slaves, tax-collectors, prodigal sons, prostitutes -- in fact he
specifically named and included everyone that the Pharisees excluded. And that is why today we have to say that
black lives matter, Palestinians matter, gay people matter, poor people matter. Like
Nicodemus we have to begin to think out
of the boxes into which we have been imprisoned since nursery school by
convention, culture and prejudice. That
is what repentance in the NT means, quite literally change your mind so that
you can see things differently. We all
need a change of heart so that you can live and act differently. And by God's
grace we can do that even if we are old.
Otherwise we won't get the message of the good news of God's kingdom,
God's inclusive, saving grace which embraces us all and sets us free to love
others. We all really do need to be born
of the Spirit, as Jesus said.
John de
Gruchy
Volmoed
13 October 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment