Wind from Above

Text: John 3:1-9

What is your question, Nicodemus? What do you want to know, Nicodemus? What do you want?

Nicodemus comes in the night. He comes in the darkness. Under protection of the night. In the dark. He comes, perhaps, at risk to himself. Fearful, perhaps, we don’t know, of his fellow Pharisees. He comes, perhaps, in secret. To meet this man Jesus.

Nicodemus speaks to Jesus. He tells Jesus what he has heard. He tells Jesus about his own conclusions. He does not ask Jesus a question. He is like the caller on a talk radio show. He has something to say. He does not ask a question. The host in these shows always says, what is your question? Do you have a question for Jesus, we can imagine the host saying. Nicodemus does have a question, for the story says that Jesus answered him. Nicodemus has a question. But it is not a question on his lips. It is a question in his heart.

Nicodemus lives in a time when his nation is occupied and oppressed. The poor are many, and they are very poor. The rich are few, and very rich. Something is wrong. With the world, with the Pharisees, maybe even with Nicodemus himself. The question in Nicodemus’s heart is, I suspect, the question we always have: who are you, who am I, what shall I do, what is going to happen? Maybe those questions are not on your lips, but I bet they are in your heart, too.

Poor Nicodemus. Jesus answers his question, the story says. But what a strange answer. “No one can see the kingdom of God without having been born from above.” What kind of answer is that? Did I ask you anything about the kingdom of God? I guess Jesus thinks he did.

Let’s talk a second about the phrase: born from above. It is a problem. The word that our Bible translates “from above” could also be translated “again.” Born again. As in born-again Christian. The Greek word in the Bible means both things. From above, and again. Both at the same time. It is like the phrase “take it from the top,” meaning start up again.

It obviously does not mean literally to be born all over again. That’s the mistake that Nicodemus makes. What’s the deal, can I go back into the womb, is that what you mean, Jesus? (Or maybe Nicodemus is not so dumb. Maybe he’s just making a joke.) Besides that, when we are born, we come into the world with no history. I’m not sure Jesus means we have to start with a clean slate. We bring our past, the good and the troubled. In the same way, there is not much reason to think that the phrase means you have to have a sudden and mysterious conversion in order to be saved.

But no matter what the details, it seems that Jesus is talking about transformation. About something changing. About your life changing. Or being changed. If you wish to find what you seek, Nicodemus, something will change. This is not proscriptive. It is not a rule that Jesus is making up. Not a task to be accomplished. It is descriptive. No matter what, things will not continue the way they have. That is the way it works.

Nicodemus evidently is not one for letting things just happen. He would like to know things, and once he knows, would like to control what happens. He is a ruler. Rulers are like that.A man of power. In this passage, the word “can” appears six times. And the word really means “have the power.” It is the root of the words “dynamic” and “dynamo.” How can these things be? asks Nicodemus at one point. He is concerned about impossibility. Who has the power to make these things happen? Jesus tells Nicodemus, “I don’t think you quite understand what I’m talking about.”

We are born, Jesus says, of water and Spirit. Of water and wind, you could say, for there is only one word for wind and spirit. We are born as the world was born. In the very beginning, it says at the very beginning of the Bible, “In the beginning, … the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” That is what we are. Part water, born from the waters of the womb, part wind, animated by the Spirit. Part earth, part heaven.

We are as solid as substance. Practical and able, full of power and ability, full of knowledge. At the same time, we are blown about on the wind, fragile, and crazy, and helpless. Our earth side thinks we are in control of things, and sometimes we are. Our wind side knows that we are not. If we think only with the earth side, we are doomed to sadness, frustration, and disappointment. The wind, says Jesus, blows where it chooses. This does not mean we are powerless. It does mean we are not very powerful. It does mean that perhaps we should let go of the notion that we have a destiny.

The forces that move us, the combination of our own and the Spirit’s, never drive us forward on a straight path. We hear God’s voice, the sound of the wind, the voice of the Spirit, as Jesus says here, in the experiences of our lives and the lives of others, we hear God’s voice in the wonder of creation, we hear God’s voice in the person of Jesus, we hear God’s voice in music and prayer and the bread and wine and the gathering of our friends. God’s voice, the sound of the wind, is not hard to hear. You hear the sound of it, Jesus says, but that does not mean you know where it goes. Not exactly. You are a teacher, Nicodemus, Jesus says. How can you not understand these things?

Nicodemus comes, as we do, with a question in his heart. That question in each of us is not always well-formed. We know, as Jesus saw in Nicodemus, that we have a question there, but we rarely know exactly what that question is. Or what it is in terms of the practical details of each of our lives. But just because we cannot articulate the question does not mean that it is not there. It is there.

And if the answer we hear is that transformation is ahead, and that the Spirit will guide you, then what?

Nicodemus, what did you do? What did you do after hearing Jesus? Did you return to your study, to the things of which you were certain, to the calculating and figuring out? Or was your life changed? Did you let go worrying about what could and could not be? What would and would not be? Were you freed? Nicodemus, did you turn and ride the wind?

In the beginning. If we can find it.

Text: Matthew 17:1-9

Let’s begin at the beginning. If only we could find the beginning.

We have a model of our lives. The big picture. Sort of a scheme of things. A common model is that our lives are lived in stages. Grammar school, middle school, high school, college, graduate school, post-doc. Or: Dating, courtship, marriage. Or: That time when I lived in Boston, when I lived in California, when I lived in Cambodia. Or: Intern, novice, manager, partner. As if we were a reality TV show, divided into seasons and episodes. In this view of things, it seems inside of us as if life were a series of discreet steps, steps usually made intentionally, and sometimes marked by ritual. Graduation, wedding, promotion. Each step a new beginning.

But beginnings are seen only in retrospect. What constitutes an episode is clear only when events are passed. That time your eyes met on the dance floor is only significant after it has turned into a long-term relationship. Otherwise, it was only a glance that, like most others, led to nothing. You can see beginnings only when looking backward. In hindsight. You know that something new has already begun when you can no longer choose to do anything different. If you can get out of a relationship, no harm done, then there was no relationship begun. The relationship with someone begins when you discover that you can choose no other.

The story we just heard in the Gospel reading is commonly called the Transfiguration, because in it Jesus is changed, which is what transfiguration means. But the story could just as well have been called “Jesus meets the old prophets” or “God speaks to the disciples” or “Peter gets it wrong” or “Tempted by heavenly persons, Jesus decides instead to return to earth.” I think that what Matthew—whose version of the story of Jesus we are reading this year—what Matthew would like to call it is “The beginning of the end.”

Matthew, who wrote this Gospel long after Jesus had died and been risen, had the benefit of hindsight. Matthew knew, as the disciples could not have known at this moment, that Jesus was about to go to be executed in a horrible way. And he knew more than that. He also knew that a movement would spring up from the stories of Jesus' resurrection, and that people would gather in worship and tell those stories, and that some people would believe the stories and some would laugh at them.

Matthew takes this story of the Transfiguration and puts it in his rendering of the Gospel in a spot that makes it the perfect lead-in to the passion story, the crucifixion story. Which is why we read it just before Lent, which starts this Wednesday. Matthew likes to see beginnings when he looks back on the story of Jesus. A genealogy begins the birth story of Jesus. His baptism begins his ministry. The transfiguration begins the Passion.

The story proves things, according the Matthew. It proves that Jesus hangs around with the greatest prophets, it proves that Jesus is connected to the divine, it proves that Jesus is God’s son. It gives Jesus authority and authenticity. And furthermore, there are witnesses to the whole thing. James and John and Peter were there watching and listening. Matthew needs these witnesses, because he wants to argue his case about Jesus. It is good for us to be here, says Peter. Good for Matthew and his argument, at least.

But inside the story, so to speak, things are different. In the drama of the story, the disciples don’t know the future as Matthew does. They follow Jesus, a mysterious and charismatic man who says and does amazing things. Peter has just declared Jesus to be the Messiah, the one who comes to fix the world. Peter has also just heard that Jesus plans to go to his death, and has pleaded with Jesus not to. Even in this Transfiguration story, so full of formal symbols and purposes, we hear the friendship of the disciples, and Peter in particular, for Jesus and their love for him. They would follow him to the ends of the earth, and they do. Matthew wants the disciples to be nothing more than witnesses—they had roles to play, they could be anybody. But the story itself is so powerful that the disciples’ personalities and love come breaking through. Why did they think Jesus took them up on the mountain? Not to prove a point, I’m guessing. But to show them something cool and revealing. Or maybe just to have their company. It is good for us to be here, says Peter. Good for you, Jesus, that we are here with you.

We look back on the life of Jesus from a distance much further away than Matthew did. We know, as Matthew did, how the story ends. But we know more, which is that the story has become the foundation for a huge amount of theology, doctrine, tradition, and that a gigantic and mostly successful institution has grown up around it. There is no way that the disciples could have imagined Christianity.

We need to be careful not to look at Jesus with too much hindsight. We are followers of Jesus, and as such we have a lot in common with the first disciples. The church exists to preserve the story of Jesus, but it does not substitute for that story. How we know God develops over time. And like the disciples, we are not sure how it will all play out. We do not know whether events in our faith life are beginnings or middles or nothing at all, at least so far. Like the disciples, we could approach Jesus with less knowledge and with a simple willingness to go where Jesus invites us to.

The inscription around the chancel, the altar area here, reads “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” At the beginning and the end are the Greeks letters Alpha and Omicron. But they were supposed to be—or usually are—the letters Alpha (the first letter of the Greek alphabet) and Omega (which is the last letter) which is not shaped like an “O” but a little like a bowler hat. I have always thought that this was a mistake made by the builders of Faith. But maybe not. Mistake or no, it has the timeline right. Because for us in this time, the story is not over. We are in the middle of it. As far as we know, at the Omicron, not the Omega.

Seeing the life of the church, seeing your faith life, seeing your life, in episodes is not super helpful. Worrying about what things are beginnings and what things are just things makes us anxious about everything. Seeing things as episodes makes us impatient. Seeing things as episodes makes us live in the past or the future. Seeing things as episodes makes us miss the whole story.

I’m trying out a GPS in my car. I’m not sure I like it. It shows the street I’m on and the next street at which I’ll be expected to take some action. It makes something which is more or less continuous into a series of distinct stages, each one just beyond the horizon, demanding my attention. Left turn in half a mile onto Prospect Street. It makes the trip a series of inexorable and tedious events. It makes me anxious, not relieved. It makes me tired.

Life is not a series of small firm steps, one after the other. It is a discovery. The episodes appear after we have lived them. We can not figure it all out in advance. The path is not determined. We can do what the disciples did. Trust in God with an open heart. Do not be afraid. And see what happens.