Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
"Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
Yesterday I began my blog with talking about some of my experiences as a student at Eastern Nazarene College. It is almost impossible for me to read the Gospel that is part of today's Daily Office and not go back to my college days, and the days when I was part of the Evangelical movement in Christianity. John 3 is the Gospel most used by Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians to try to get non-Christians or even non-Evangelical Christians to convert. This Gospel is also used quite frequently to attack lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning and queer communities, to suggest that if we became Christians, but have not given up our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression than somehow we were not really "born again." Here again lies a big problem with Biblical literalism and those who use it as the "weapon of choice." It is limited, and most likely, not true.
The Christian Faith does involve our experiences. As human beings it is quite difficult to believe in something if we have not had an experience with it. Our experiences shape what and how we believe in something or even someone. The Christian Faith, however, is not based only on what we experience. It is also about Who we are asked to believe in, and how our belief in Jesus Christ manifests itself. Yet, as we are learning through the work of good contemporary theologians and writers, Christianity was never meant to be a dominating religion. As political corruption within the Church became more about control than mission and ministry, sadly, the wrong messages have gotten sent and the reputation of one of the greatest leaders in the world's religions has gotten taken way out of context and his Name has been misused.
What Jesus really speaks about in John 3: 3: "Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above" is finally answered in verse 5. "Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit." Here, Jesus is talking bout the Sacrament of Baptism.
In the Catechism or "Outline of the Faith" that starts on page 845 of the Book of Common Prayer, when we turn to page 858 we begin the section about Holy Baptism. The two I would like to focus on as part of our examination of John 3 begins with the question about what is Holy Baptism and ends with what is the inward and spiritual grace of Baptism?
First question: What is Holy Baptism?
Holy Baptism is the Sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us member's of Christ's Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.
Second question: What is the inward and spiritual grace in Baptism?
The inward and spiritual grace in Baptism is union with Christ in his death and resurrection, birth into God's family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit.
The birth of water and the Spirit that Jesus talks about in John 3: 5 is the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. Our birth in the Holy Spirit through Holy Baptism that allows us to participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was also taught by Paul in his letter to the Romans chapter 6.
"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? There fore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." (Romans 6: 3-5)
The next place I want to focus our attention is the famous John 3: 16 and 17, where it tells us that:
"For God so loved the world that God gave God's only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
What needs to be written from these awesome passages from the Gospel of John is that "God so loved the world". The world is a pretty big place, is it not? If God really loves all of the world, than God's Son came in for all the world, not just those who happened to be white, straight, male, healthy, employed, can write and speak English, wealthy and fully capable, or even Christian. If God sent God's Son because of God's love for the world, that includes the entire world. And there is no race, class, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, culture, religion, challenge that God does not love and able to bring salvation to and for. In no place in the Gospels does Jesus tell people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning or queer that we have to be straight and/or single gender minded to find salvation and happiness in God through Jesus. No, Jesus did not speak of homosexuality or transgendered issues. Jesus did speak of a change of heart and behavior towards those marginalized by society and the Church.
It really does need to be written and said that among the biggest mistakes that conservative Christians make with regards to LGBTQ people, is that they are literally making the whole message about being "born again" about changing the sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression of LGBTQ people. Thankfully, the Gay Christian Network, The Evangelical Network, and Today's Gay Christian are working very hard to change that perception for those who still love Evangelistic Christianity. I still have a love for the hard work of those who want to spread the Good News about the message of salvation in Jesus Christ. The networks that I have mentioned along with their web links for those who want to learn more about them, are to organizations that are busy about the business of creating a place for Christians who are gay to find a place for them to talk, do Bible studies, be involved in the debate and discussion to save the lives and hearts of people who are LGBTQ and still want to be Christian. These websites and organizations are no longer telling people that they must abandon who they are, for Who they want to believe in. Hallelujah!
As for those of us who are Episcopalian, yesterday's Lead had a great column that explains what Episcopalians really believe.
It is indeed sometimes confusing for people outside the Episcopal Church to put their finger on who we are. The confusion comes from our self-definition, which is that we are a creedal, rather than a confessional church. What this means is that we do not have foundational doctrinal statements other than the Nicene and Apostles Creeds. Most other Christian denominations have some sort of confessional document, like the Ausburg confession for Lutherans or the Greater Catechism for Roman Catholics, that lays out exactly what the teaching of the church is on most matters. Instead, our central document is the Book of Common Prayer, which defines worship rather than doctrine as a unifying principle. The mark of an Episcopalian is that he or she attends Episcopal services, which includes recitation of the creeds. However, there are no requirements that a layperson believes particular doctrine in order to become an Episcopalian. This is why the friend who says, "You can believe pretty much anything you want, so long as you enjoy going to services together with us" is largely correct. My experience as a priest is that as people participate in the liturgy over the years, the doctrine included in our regular worship becomes part of them by an osmotic process.
This morning in the Daily Episcopalian I read a letter written to Anne Rice the woman who has decided to leave Christianity. There are some thoughts in there that I found really profound.
The thing is, the only way any of us knows about Jesus and those words of life, the way that we know about Jesus’ actions, the way that we know about the life Jesus breathed into those whom he encountered and continues to encounter, is from Christian communities. They are the ones, first the eyewitnesses, then their descendants, who told and retold the story of Jesus’ suffering and sorrow, his death by torture, and his resurrection. They are the ones who carried his wisdom sayings in their hearts and forward into the generations. They are the ones who testified to the healings, the changed lives, the rising of hope. The reason we have the story and the memory and thus the presence of Christ is because of, well, the church. With the Holy Spirit, of course. But the Spirit had to work through those humans. Us. Christians. Christianity. In many forms, some of them unsavory, some of them life-saving.
As for the earliest community of the friends of Jesus, let’s not idealize it. It had major problems. The betrayer of Jesus is repeatedly referred to in the Gospels as “one of the Twelve,” as if to remind the remaining friends, to their shame, that betrayal and abandonment existed among them. It was one of us who did this: perhaps any of us could have. Jesus’ friends fell asleep the night he prayed and sweated blood and prepared to die. The one who ended up, the story tells us, as the “rock” on which Jesus said the church would stand, was Peter. That’s Peter the bumbling one who never ‘got it,’ more impetuous than wise, and in the time between the dying and the rising, a denier of the long months of friendship and accompaniment. How’s that for a group of best buddies?
And then there were the women, the other best friends, whom an already patriarchal church could not erase from the story because they were too central to it. Did I mention patriarchy as one of the church’s ongoing little problems? The women did not run from the site of torture and death and they ran early, despite their fear, to the tomb. One of them, Mary of Magdala, faithful to the end, preacher of new beginnings, was the first witness to the Resurrection according to the official accounts, the ones the men approved as part of the canon. There were, off course, other gospels that got left off the list; in one of them, Mary of Magdala is a major actor. And what about Martha, who made the same profession of faith as Peter, naming Jesus as Messiah, Lord, Son of God? Peter, after his confession, is promised the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Where are Martha’s keys? (The question is not original to me. I first read it in the works of Edwina Gateley, English Catholic writer and founder of Chicago’s Genesis House for women involved in prostitution.)
I think the great lesson we can all take from the Gospel and the quotes I have offered here today, is that if we believe that the message of Jesus Christ is one that is for everyone, then we must become a voice for and with everyone to be able to find Jesus. We must stop making the issues of race, culture, class, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression, religion, challenge and the like a barrier to keeping people from finding out how awesome Christianity is. Christianity was never suppose to become a religion of supersessionism. We were not suppose to become a religion of displacement theology, by which we displace all other religions, sexual orientations, genders, gender expressions/identities, races, cultures, challenges for the sake of Christianity. Just today there was an article about how the Religions Right (Christianists) are working to elect people to office to "extend the morals" of Christianity in our Government. Many such churches are all too proud of their racist, sexist and heterosexist attitudes. That is hardly the "rebirth of water and the Spirit" that Jesus spoke of in today's Gospel of John.
Let us remember that Paul invites us to ask for the fruits of the Spirit as found in Galatians 5: 22 and 23. "By contrast the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things." Those who are born of the waters of Baptism and the Holy Spirit should be full of these fruits or asking for them so that they can become part of our lives and the world to help end war, prejudice, hate, cruelty and destruction.
Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 14, Book of Common Prayer, Page 232).
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. (Prayer Attributed to St. Francis, Page 833).
Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon *us your servants the forgiveness of sin and have raised *us to the new life of grace. Strengthen *us O Lord with your presence, enfold *us in the arms of your mercy and keep *us save for ever. Amen. (Prayer, Book of Common Prayer, Page 314 with changes to pronouns for all who have been baptized.)
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