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John M. Buchanan
John 3:1-17

March 20, 1985

He came at night to see Jesus. He told his wife he
was going for a walk because he couldn't sleep.| He _didn't

tell her where he was going, because he hadn't decided

that wet, or if he had decided, it was in that back (compart-

ment of the mind where complex decisions are made and then

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kept secret - even from the rest of the mind. | aster twenty
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minutes or so, walking along dark streets, in and out of
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shadows, not exactly furtively, but not deliberately either,

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he found himself standing in front of a house where Jesus
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of Nazareth was staying the night.

Nicodemus had become expert in the art of playing

it sate. | He was a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin,

the high court in Jerusalem which actually governed the

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nation under Roman occupation. | The Sanhedrin was composed
— Bast aoe Es

of Pharisees, who were experts in the law of Moses, and
im asec

Sadducees and priests. There were lawyers attached to
Were Ree [aan

the Sanhedrin whose job it was to interpret_the Law They
al Ee

were called sogribes | The presiding officer was the High

Priest | His name was Caiaphas.

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what anyone in his or any age wishes to become: respected,

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revered, successful. \ He had also become expert at playing

it safe.| Having been given respect because of his stature,
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he had become very adept at protecting his respectability

in order to preserve his stature.

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The difference is profound. It had tam for him the

middie of what later generations would call a mid-life

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crisis. | The fire had begun to diminish. | The passion which

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had given birth in him to high pfesonal ideals and higher

Doe ra aad

hopes for his nation had been tempered by the cold reality

me Lael esters ad
of Roman occupation. The deep love of life expressed in
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marriage, parenthood, friendships, vocation - had moderated

and diminished and turned into a modest "getting-by."\ The

aioe ——

purity of his devotion to God, had been modified by the

necessities of surviving as an aristocrat under the suspi-

cious eyes of the Romans. \ Nicodemus didn't take chances.
ii

He did what was expected of him and expected, little of
Seen

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life, \ you could almost say Nicodemus didn't feel deeply

enough about anything to call it love: certainly not deeply

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enough to take risks.

So it was at night that he came to talk with Jesus
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of Nazareth. And Jesus of Nazareth, carpenter, itinerant
ree

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rabbi, told Nicodemus the Pharisee, that he needed a rebirth
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in his life \ Frederick Buechner, with tongue in cheek,

catches the flavor of this curious encounter:
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"That was all very well, Nicodemus said, but
just how were you supposed to pull a thing like
that off? | How especially were you supposed to
pull it off if you were pushing sixty-five? | How
did you pet born again when it was a challenge
just to get out of bed in the morning? { He even
rot a little sarcastic. | Could a man enter a
second time into his mother's womb; he asked,
when it was all he could do to enter a taxi without
the driverg coming around to give him a_e shove

from behind?" (Peculiar Treasures, p. 122)

Now a funny thing happens at this point in the story.

After Nicodemus asks for clarity about this "born again"

‘Wittens —

business, Jesus launches into a homily about spiritual
——

birth, and the wind blowing where it wants to biow. And

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then Jesus stops talking the author takes over.( the dialogue

ends, voice-over commentary begins.f{."For God so loved

iii 7

the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes

in him should

not perish but have eternal 1ite."") May I
paraphrase? I 'God loves the Nicodemuses of this world so

gave Jesus: \ so that the Nicodemuses don't
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much that he
have to watch their waning years trickle through their

fingers like dry ashes, but instead might live fully, thor-

— eg

oughly, joyfully, eternally.” The author of the fourth

gospel wants Nicodemus to remind us of the dynamic of God's

lege which is capable of saving us from death in the midst

of life - and in the process capable of saving the world.
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The basic Christian assertion is this: the creator God
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views the world and every creature in it with love;] not

————

with hostility, enmity; [noe with skepticism; |not with bemused
eRrreneestt tele FC a

neutrality;| not with judgement, but with love.
nel

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Something so central and so simple is bound not to

be understood.} Thus the theologians issue a warning before
“SER Bon
tkey start discussing God's love.\ Reinhold Niebuhr wrote:

‘When we talk about love we have to become mature or we

will become sentimental." (Love and Justice, p. 35).

Hans Kung was praphic..&"What theologians say about love

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sometimes feels like col water running down one's back.”

(Does God Exist, p. 693). My favorite, however, came from

a professor of homiletics who said most preachers are in-
——
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clined to get lost in a "romantic fog" when they start

in on the three Greek words for love.

I will resist the temptation, therefore, to add to
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the cumulative burden church goers bear in this regard,
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bY nokebabking about eros, philia, and aga

pe one more time.

I would, however, like to suggest again that we do have
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fundamental problems with our religion's fundamental asser-

tion about God loving the world in general and us in particu-

lar.

There is something in us that insists that you have

to feel bad before you can feel good, and that it is at

that which is bad.
ie
that God might

there have to be maj

he can get around to it. [ (rnere is something

us which resists the Gospel at the fundamental point.
a ‘ “rime

Beyond that, there is something safe and comfortable
eatin

about that traditional religious posture which regards

the world and God as rivals, if not enemies. | “Worldly”
Dt aaa al cme mine

sounds like it ought to be the opposite of "Godly," | and
Senso

in fact a lot of rel

igion acts as if that is the case,
as if the world and all it represents is one of God's mis-
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takes.& Thus religion is an escape from the world, a respite,

a haven, a safe port from everything that is secular, physi-
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Samar —
cal, material, sensitive - worldly.
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And finally, there is something in us that wants to

privatize God's love, which is essentially a denial of

love's power to chanpe us.

God actually does love us, by turning that love into a

manageable emotion, that sentimen

Sree EES
about, that romantic ros\\neligion

when it becomes solely
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personal quickly becomes a sticky piety which walks alone
ty [aa aia

in the garden ‘with Jesus without acknowledging the world
mas ars Dhrtereaterrasnoee

of flesh and blood human beings outside the garden wall:

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a piety which gets excited about gestures like innocuous

prayers

class rooms, while failing to see the

connection between a God of love and existence of hungry
Bass
children.

God's Love is intenti 1, dynamic, poxensun. | It's
’ _ sma a

purpose is to change things, in the world, and in our lives.
oe ——__— Ieee

The Bible shocks us by what it means when it says,

“God is love. ‘] Ronald Goetrg wrote

pire doesn't mean that

“eod is composed of some abstract pmeta- physical stuff called

sete
love. It means quite simply: God is a ver. \ In the

very specificity of human existence on earth God has been

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found loving." (Christian Century, 3/17/76, p. 245)

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God wants to change us by loving. | The dynamic of
Sree

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God's love is not limited to making us feel good. \ It's
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purpose is to change our lives in a way that will change
hoe Dern al

the world around us\ It's a conspiracy actually, the purpose
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of which is to set off a revolution of love in your life.

The psychologists understand the connection between

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being loved and loving. They are teaching us that the

earliest realizations that we will be fed when hungry,

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and made warm and safe, that someone does indeed care deeply
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for us. | ana tragically, we are learning that when that

Saar

dynamic is not there, the individual may never know how

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to love. | We have seen the ghastly results of the opposite:

how abused children become abusing parents, because violence
has replaced love at that basic place in the emerging person-
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ality.

So, your rebirth and mine, begins not necessarily

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with emotional cataclism or moral crisis, \ but with the
bem - = =

deep realization that against all the odds, in the face
eso =a Samar

of all the contrary reasons we are loyga: | there is a God
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who cares deeply about us. | And so, your c uing growth

“temeoreemeim
and mine, our life itself, depends on the nourishment ,

that surprising love of God.. [meat--and—drink,_for_us._here

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represented-by—bread and wittea=

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"The people to whom the Gospel is to speak today,"
BRR ,
writes Yale Professor William Muehl, “are not huddled fear-
fully in the shadow of ancient altars...they are rather
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wandering about aimlessly, troubled by the increasing suspi-

cion that no one literally gives a damn about what they

do...'' (All the Damed Angels, p. 38)

Muehi tells a story about a Kindergardener, meeting

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his parents after the Christmas program at school and drop-

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ping and smashing the ceramic gift he had worked on fgF
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weeks and ther wailing in despair. \ His father said,
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doesn't matter, son." J But his mother, wiser, knelt and

hugged him close and said, f"Of course it matters. “\NIt matters
qecserematetanes- eeeteurmneen a

and wept with him.

a great deal,'

God so loves you; [ood so cares about you;| God $0 wants
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to make a lover out of you - he gave his only son. That

is the Gospel.

Nicodemus...? Nicodemus went on with his, bu

for three years or so and was, along the way, reborn, a

Soe weer EET,
rover. We know th because on the day of the

etry
tion of Jesus of Nazareth, Nicodemus appears |

again, with

his friend Joesph, going to the tomb to pay his respects.
Pal i reel

This time he came in the broad light of day. | (see Buechner,

Peculiar Treasures, Nicodemus, p. 123)

ately ke he Galt lows
ra v4 Aeitte = Viehue of lajea

balers ein = be us loves —