IGenesis 12:1-8
Romans 4:1-5(6-12)13-17
John 3:1-17
Psalm 33:12-22
When I was a small child, I loved to go to the little country church in LaBelle, Missouri where my aunt and uncle and cousins and grandparents were all members. Since I spent many of my childhood summers at their farm just outside of LaBelle, I spent many Sunday mornings in that rather plain little church.
I can still see the fresh white walls, the summer sun shining through the tall, clear glass windows, and the simple bouquets of grandma's gladiolas and Auntie Lou's sweet peas on the pedestals up front. Their scent fresh and gentle - like the air after a summer shower.
I can hear the strains of old hymns my aunt plays on the piano - "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" - "I Love to Tell the Story" ... and I can feel the sticky heat of a Missouri summer morning and the sweet relief when a breeze finally finds its way through the open windows.
While I recall very little of what the preacher or the Sunday school teacher actually said, what I do recall is the certainty with which I knew that God loved me, and that God's Spirit filled that sanctuary to overflowing - so that even though it was actually a very small room, it seemed as though it was as big as all outdoors.
There were no closed doors in that little church. It wasn't big enough to have separate rooms for the different Sunday school classes. Everything happened in the sanctuary. The adult class met in one corner, the bigger kids in another, and the little kids met in yet another - and the sound of murmuring voices mingled together with the soft breeze and scent of flowers provided a comfort that is just as alive today as it was 50 years ago when I was in the little kid's class.
I knew God was there with all of us and each time I felt the breeze brush against my cheek it was like God had just touched me and said, "Remember, I love you."
There's another time I recall - a time from later in my youth... when I was a young adolescent and worshiped with my family in a large Presbyterian church in St. Louis where we lived.
The image is less clear ... there was so much stuff to look at and it was so big and crowded that it was hard to know just where to focus your attention.
The air was often stuffy and the scent of perfume and after-shave mingled in a rather noxious way so that I was often slightly nauseated by about mid-way through the service. I don't recall much about the music. And even though we sat there each Sunday morning when the day was bright and fresh, it always seemed very dark.
Although I was considerably older than when I spent Sunday mornings in the little church at LaBelle, I felt much smaller and insignificant.
I don't remember very much about what the preacher said in that church either. But what I do remember is that I worried a lot while I sat in the pew with my family.
Mostly I worried about doing things ‘right' - and not looking stupid in front of all the people who were crowded in the pews behind us. Somewhere along the way I had become convinced that there were right ways of doing things in church, and wrong ways - and I was pretty sure I wasn't doing it right.
It was there in that large successful church that I began to wonder just where God had gone. Even though I came from a successful family and my mother was a Sunday school teacher, and my father was an Elder in the church, I was sure that I had messed up somewhere....that I must be doing something wrong - though what it might be completely eluded me.
What I had known so confidently as a small child in that little country church had slipped away.
Somewhere between the ages of 6 and 14 or so, I had lost the confidence that God loved me simply because I was me - and I had become convinced that God couldn't ever really love me because I just wasn't good enough - because I didn't always do the right thing - or because I felt the wrong feelings, or because I wasn't praying right, or (fill in the blank). The light and joy of that little country church had gradually faded and been replaced by the dark mustiness of the large, dimly lit sanctuary.
When I think about Nicodemus' nighttime visit to the homeless preacher from Nazareth, I find myself wondering if he too hasn't become filled with the despair that no matter how hard he tries to understand and follow the law; no matter how successful he becomes; no matter how powerful he is - he still hasn't got it right...because there is still something missing.
There must have been something incredibly strong tugging at Nicodemus to bring him to Jesus...a craving and a longing that welled up from the very depths of his soul....
because in the culture of his day, Nicodemus had arrived... He was a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, and a scribe or teacher of Israel.
As a Pharisee, he had dedicated his life to refining in minute detail all the thousands of rules and regulations that were believed necessary in order to follow the law.
Literally months of study with other scribes and Pharisees would be dedicated to such questions as whether carrying a child on the Sabbath would constitute carrying a burden, and thus violate the law against carrying burdens on that day.
For these men, such decisions were quite literally believed to be matters of life and death..they were religion..they were the road to salvation... and the only way of pleasing and serving God...
The Sanhedrin was the supreme court of the Jews. So as a member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus had religious jurisdiction over every Jew in the world.
The evidence suggests that Nicodemus was a very wealthy man. And as such, he held the power and influence that comes with wealth.
It's remarkable that a man like Nicodemus should come to this itinerant preacher who associated with the outcasts of society to talk about his soul. Not only was Jesus poor and seemingly shiftless, he was preaching a message that challenged everything that Nicodemus had been taught to hold sacred.
It's hard to comprehend what kind of grace and humility it must have taken for Nicodemus to step out of the dark and crowded rooms of the synagogue in order to approach the man whom he had to have known would shed a blinding light on his life's work...a light that would burst open the doors of the synagogues and very possibly destroy all that he held sacred.
Something in Nicodemus' soul had bubbled up to the surface that would simply not let him alone...something that drew him to the man from Galilee with the same insistence that a gentle breeze beckons a child to the light of a summer day.
Kahil Gibran captured it in his book, Jesus, when he depicts Nicodemus as saying...
Do you not remember me, Nicodemus, who believed in naught but the laws and decrees and was in continual subjection to observances?
And behold me now, a man who walks with life and laughs with the sun from the first moment it smiles upon the mountain until it yields itself to bed behind the hills.
Lent is about clearing away the clutter, it's about cleaning house and getting rid of the stuff that gets in our way, that keeps us from God... it's about giving up our illusions that we are in control of our own salvation - rather than God.
So where do we need to step out of our own musty sanctuaries and challenge our selves? What ideas or beliefs are we still clinging to that convince us that we are not worthy of God's unconditional love and mercy?
Am I telling God that I can't accept God's grace unless I keep my lenten prayer discipline without a hitch? Or am I reminding God that my resentment of my neighbor is just as entrenched this year as it was last year and therefore I'm unworthy of God's compassion?
How am I telling God that God is just plain wrong about me, that I'm not doing it right, that I'll never be able to really please God?
In the new vision statement of the Diocese, one of the key themes is to proclaim the hope in the Gospel of Jesus Christ...
How are we proclaiming that hope in our churches and in our lives? Are we keeping our doors and windows tightly shut by proclaiming all the ways in which the Good News is really conditional, is really only for those who do things the right way -
or are we opening all the windows and doors - and inviting the breezes of God's unconditional love to blow away the pride which suggests that we, instead of God, are the authors of our salvation?
AMEN.