Where were you born? Where are you from? They sound like harmless questions, don’t they—conversation starters. One of my favorite guilty pleasures is watching how people react when I reply to those questions with my southern accent by saying, “I’m from L.A. —lower Alabama.” The puzzled looks are priceless.
But, these are actually spiritual questions with ultimate value—where are you from, where are you coming from? And that’s what this conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus is all about.
I’ll cut to the chase. If your identity is born from this world—if you make sense of everything on the world’s terms—your life will bring a constant barrage of the world’s pressures and anxieties. And, it’s a tragic plot twist, because the way of the world promised me contentment—but only produces exhaustion.
I’m talking about performance fatigue! That’s what another guy from Alabama, Hank Williams, was singing about in the most depressing country song ever written: “All my dreams have died and vanished, And now I’m so tired of it all.”
Hank was a hugely performer by any metric, but he confessed that all he felt was an unbending pressure to perform, perform, perform at a higher and higher level—or else. And how did he deal with that “or else?” The man took up morphine and booze, and his heart checked out at the age of 29 on the way to yet another performance!
Have you ever noticed that most of us spend exactly 103 percent of our energy, and sap at least 76.4 percent of the energy from the loved ones around us, fretting over things like performance and pedigree—the “cares and occupations of this world,” as they are often called: the right car, the right job, the right retirement plan, the right reply, the right dress, the right shampoo, the right house, the right yard, the right profile pic, the right resume, and so on.
These aren’t bad things in and of themselves, of course. It’s even commendable to seek out the right job and to say the right things. But the world can’t give like God gives—and most of the time it only takes.
And when things fall apart, because they always do, it’s really a shame – because we meant well! But the problem of being born from this world isn’t good intentions. The real terror strikes when we realize that the world is absolutely and 100 percent tit for tat—that it’s completely devoid of mercy and leaves no room for failure. In a word, it only gives conditionally.
Have you considered Nicodemus? We have more in common with him than you might imagine: “There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews,” writes St. John, and he asked Jesus, “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.” This isn’t flattery. Nicodemus wants to ask: “Explain the special sauce to me, because you’re performing at a REALLY high level.”
But Jesus doesn’t like where he’s coming from—his born of this world attitude—so He says to Nicodemus, “You must be born from above.”
And that’s a hard moment for Nicodemus—it’s when his internal hard drive freezes-up, so, being born from this world, he doubles-down by asking more “how can” questions.
“How can anyone be born after having grown old,” he wants to know. “Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”
This is a genuine existential meltdown. It’s Pink Floyd before Pink Floyd: “If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?” He’s stuck.
And these “how can” questions are exactly the ones we should expect from a Pharisee—from someone who’s been led his whole life to believe that “accomplishment precedes acceptance” (phrase from a podcast about Tullian Tchividjivan). But that is just not true in God’s economy of grace.
Now, I need to shift gears and figure out how to end this homily somehow.
I think I’ve told you about the time I used white-out on my report card in the 9th grade to change my failing algebra grade from a 57 to an 87. It was a disaster.
What I haven’t shared with you before now is how the punishment went down. My parents did their part at home, of course, taking away privileges and so forth. But, they took it up about ten notches when they told me I would be taken to school extra early the next morning to confess my transgression to the principal, Mr. Holly.
And may I just tell you the John W. Holly was a terrifying legend in Linden, Alabama—imagine Kojack taking over Mr. Rodgers? Mr. Holly totally had the sweater-jacket thing going on, but his fuse was always lit. And this was back in the days of corporal punishment—the man literally had holes drilled in his paddle so the drag wouldn’t interrupt the airflow on the upswing!
So, I was dropped off about 6:45 AM and proceeded to Mr. Holly’s office (is it hot in here, or is it just me?). I was literally trembling with fear. He asked me why I’d come in to see him so early, and I told him word for word what I’d done. I event started crying. After I finished, I was braced pretty much for sentencing to the electric chair, but he walked around his desk, extended his hand, shook my hand, and said, “Charleston, thank you for telling me. You can go get ready for class now.”
I can also remember something about my algebra teacher in all of this, too. Her name was Mary Olive Hasty, and a few weeks after the white out scandal I flunked the final. And Mrs. Hasty knew I didn’t have an excuse—that I’d procrastinated studying, and that I didn’t really care in general.
Do you know what she did? She called me after she graded my exam and said, “Charleston, I’m going to work with you every morning, from 9-11, over the first six weeks of the summer, and you’re going to retake that final.” Would you believe that after the six weeks tutoring period, I retook the exam and I aced it. Those folks changed my life.
Forgiveness in the face of repeated failure is born from above, and it changes people!
I wonder what might happen if you and I really believed that God loves us unconditionally—that in God’s economy, acceptance actually precedes any and every accomplishment!
I can think of no better news in all the world to share with you today than this: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to the end that all believeth in Him should not perish (should not perish on the world’s terms) but have everlasting life.”
Where are you from again?
Sermon preached by the Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
2nd Sunday of Lent
8 March 2020