We are in Lent. If we take today’s Gospel reading, the secret nighttime conversation between Jesus and the Pharisee leader Nicodemus as a contribution to what Lent is all about it, we come up with re-birth, re-generation, a new life: a life different from our usual ordinary expectations and desires and their fulfillment. Rather, a life deeply rooted (indeed, re-born) in the Spirit of God’s Son: “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.” In John’s Gospel, “eternal life” means a quality of life so deeply rooted in the Word made flesh and the Spirit that we are re-born. In Paul’s letters, the parallel idea is living “in Christ”.
So as a kind of self-examination, we may well ask, what needs to die in me, so that through God’s grace, I may be re-born. That is a question each of us should ask ourselves individually, perhaps best in a quiet and reflective time. It is generally not very constructive to tell another person what is wrong with him or her: “you worry too much, you eat too much, you’re stuck in the past, you don’t face reality, you handle your finances poorly, you drink too much, etc.” If someone talked that way to me consistently, I’d eventually say, “Get lost!”. Yet each of us, in the quiet of our hearts, is called to reflect (especially in Lent) on areas where we need rebirth. In doing so, we may want to ask the advice of others or even offer our confession. But in the end, each of us decides for ourselves and tries to make the changes necessary for re-birth to take place.
What that re-birth may be is not always clear. That is the whole point of Abram’s following God’s call in the short Old Testament passage today. He simply has faith and goes, even though he does not know what the destination will be. He does not determine the destination, he simply goes. His rebirth as Abraham is rooted in faith that is absolute trust in God. He lets go of the past and never returns to it.
Unfortunately, we tend not to be so trusting today. We often want everything explained and determined beforehand: a fixed and guaranteed goal, one without risk. Imagine two scenarios. You have an opportunity to go away on a weekend holiday. One travel company tells the destination, say Niagara Falls or Muskoka, with every detail about accommodation, food, sights to be seen, and social activities given. But another travel company offers a “mystery tour”, “guaranteed to be interesting” but with no details. Which would you pick? How many would pick the “mystery tour”? I suspect that because of the general rise of distrust in our society, more and more people would choose the all-details provided tour and distrust the mystery one. We don’t much trust “blind dates” anymore; we want all the details, even the picture, beforehand. Yet, Abram went in faith into a new and unknown situation, a mysterious land, a blind date.
So, one element of opening ourselves to re-birth is cultivation of trust – trust in the judgement of others but also cultivation of our own sense of self-trust: for moving into new and unfamiliar situations. If those situations relate to aging or ill health, for example, they may not seem very promising or we may be tempted to resort to denial. Yet even in ill-health and aging are opportunities for new life and re-birth.
God wants us to have and experience “eternal life”: a life marked by depth and quality, even if long years are not a possibility. Better a shorter number of years of quality than many years of misery. But a good quality of life often produces length of days and we do not seek or encourage death. That eternal life is rooted in times of prayer and reflection, reading and discussion of Scripture, self-examination and self-criticism, good relationships, constant attempts to amend our ways and the “leap of faith” that all this makes sense: that we are Christ’s forever, born of water and the Spirit in Baptism, sustained in the Body and Blood of the Eucharist, nourished in loving Christian fellowship with one another.
As with previous weeks, Paul’s reflection in our Epistle, brings together the Old Testament teaching about Abraham living by faith and the Christian life of faith: that we are heirs of Abraham, justified by “the righteousness of faith”. We do not know what the future will bring. No church or civil law will give the full answer, though we do well to be guided by them. Rather we are encouraged to share Abraham’s and Paul’s great confidence: that moving ahead in faith, even if we do not see the final goal or outcome, is the way to go.
Finally, I believe all of this has relevance for us as a parish. We can make rules and guidelines, we can plan with goals and outcomes, we can fine-tune budgets, but what is the foundation of it all is deep faith: faith to love however God calls us to love, openness and friendliness to all, undergoing constant regeneration and rebirth in our relations with ourselves, our neighbours and the world, a place where the word of God is heard and studied, a home for the Spirit of God, a place of eternal life experienced. That already happens but we can always improve. Lent is that time for improvement: a time to step back individually and corporately in self-examination. Like Nicodemus, how do we need to change, that more grace of rebirth might take place within ourselves – rebirth that will lead to hearing God’s true call to ourselves, so that like Abraham and Paul and all the saints, we may respond with deep faith, even if we do not know the destination. Only in that way will we grow in eternal life. Thanks be to God.
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