Starting again in Trust

This sermon can be listened to here

Gate Pa – 2^nd  Sunday in Lent - Year A - 2020

Readings:

Psalm -                        Psalm: 121

First Reading -             Gen 12:1-4a

Second Reading-        Rom 4:1-5,13-17

Gospel-                       John 3: 1-17 

What I want to say:

Abram and Sarai are called away from everything they know, everything that shaped who they are, everything that gives safety and security to be the means through which God might restore the human and non-human creation and be able to live in harmony with God’s original intention for the world.

John (like Paul) presents Jesus as the means by which this promise, this hope, this covenant is fulfilled. And Nicodemus is invited to leave all that he knew, all that shaped who he was and gave him safety and security to join in this work.

What I want to happen:

What do we hear in this story for us?

The Sermon

       1.     Introduction:

Before it begins

Humanity is divided

Tribes have emerged

Each speaking their own language

Each defending what they see as their own

Each wanting more

There is greed and violence

There is war and destruction

This is not what God intended for this world

And creation is suffering

Paying the price

For this rupture.

       2.     It Begins

It begins with Abram

Who with his wife Sarai

Live with his father’s people

His hapu and whanau
In the land of Haran

Where they had ceased their journeying

Here their cooking fires burned

And the bones of the dead are buried

It is becoming their Turangawaewae

The place they belong

The place they return to from their wanderings with flocks

A place of safety

A place that defines them

With maunga and awa

Mountain and river.

They are the people of Haran.

But God speaks to Abram

Inviting him to leave this place

To leave his people

his iwi and hapu

To leave his marae

This place that shapes who he is

That defines his position in the world

Who he relates to
What his life is about

How he lives his life

He is invited to leave for a new location

A new purpose

A new identity

And eventually a new name

He is invited into an impossibility

With his barren wife, Sarai

They are invited into the unknown

To give birth to a great nation

To be the primary ancestors of numberless descendants

When they cannot give birth to one.

They are invited to trust this God

And to sacrifice all for this promise.

If they trust

this new people will be unlike any other.

They will be the means by which God

Will heal the rupture

Restoring this world to all that God intended

Tribes will learn to speak the language of their neighbour

They will become grateful for all that God has given

And to freely give what they once saw as their own

Greed and violence will be replaced with compassion and generosity

The tribes working together to build peace

So that creation is healed

Renewed

And all will live in harmony

As God always intended.

And Abram and Sarai trust.

They leave behind all they were

And become the mother and father of this hope.

But too soon their descendants forget

And the old ways of the tribe return

Claiming their own

Living in fear

Defending what had once been a gift.

But that is not the end of the story.

       3.     Jesus is the beginning and the end

The promise remains

Is grasped occasionally

And lost again

The seeds lying still in the soil of the

Story of those ancestors who trusted into a new life.

This promise is born anew in a baby

Born in Bethlehem

To peasants who live in a small

Collection of caves in Galilee

The son of a carpenter and a young peasant girl

Now a travelling rabbi

Living the promise

Of human community healed

creation restored

the reign of God

eternal life now

Jesus the Nazarene.

Crowds come to see and hear

Amazed at his acts

Troubled by his words

One comes

An elder and Pharisee

A Judean kaumatua

He comes at night

Perhaps unseen

Perhaps unsure

Perhaps to spend the hours after sundown

Hours reserved for study and debate

Testing this peasant rabbi of no standing

He begins courteously

Honouring this newcomer

To get this conversation underway

"Rabbi, we all know you're a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren't in on it."

And Jesus responds with a simple

"You're absolutely right.

Take it from me: Unless a person is born again / from above, it's not possible to see what I'm pointing to—to God's kingdom."

There it is again

Did you hear it?

It is the invitation to Abram and Sarai

To leave all that defines

All that gives meaning to a life

All that Nicodemus has given his life to

To start again

He is invited to trust God

to sacrifice all

And there are so many reasons not to

How can one climb again into your mother’s womb?

“I am a man of status and place

A man of mana.

I have spent a life getting to this place

And you invite me to let it all go

To begin again

With all the angst and uncertainty

To Trust!?

For what?”

For that ancient promise

Held in Abram and Sarai’s wobbly trust

That gave birth to a new people

unlike any other.

The means by which God

is healing the rupture
Restoring this world to all that God intended

Inviting tribes to learn to embrace their enemy as whanau

As family

To live whanaungatanga and manaakitanga for all

For all

Even those who for the ages has been the enemy.

This is hard

Nicodemus has many objections

It will be a long journey

       4.     Lifted up

Jesus is not done

Nicodemus may have bit off more than he could chew

"You're a respected teacher of Israel and you don't know these basics?

Listen carefully. I'm speaking sober truth to you.

I speak only of what I know by experience;

I give witness only to what I have seen with my own eyes.

There is nothing secondhand here, no hearsay.

Yet instead of facing the evidence and accepting it,

you procrastinate with questions.

If I tell you things that are plain as the hand before your face and you don't believe me,

what use is there in telling you of things you can't see, the things of God? “

Remember when Moses lifted the serpent in the desert

To survive the bite of the snake

the people of God had to look at the consequence of their distrust

Their moaning and longing

Looking and wishing for more and more

Despite all God had done

Bringing out of slavery

Keeping them alive in the wilderness

Offering the promise of going home

Of being the people

in whom God is healing the rupture

Restoring this world to all that God intended

In the same way it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up

A symbol of the consequence of humanities distrust

Their moaning and longing

Looking and wishing for more and more

Despite all God has done

Bringing them out of slavery

Keeping them alive in their wilderness

Offering the promise of going home

Of being the people

in whom God will heal the rupture

"This is how much God loved the world:

He gave his Son, his one and only Son.

And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed;

by trusting in him

As Abram and Sarai trusted

anyone can have a whole and lasting life now

anyone can be part of God’s healing work.

God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was.

He came to help, to put the world right again.

To offer a way

That all will become grateful for all that God has given

And will freely give what they once saw as their own

Greed and violence will be replaced with compassion and generosity

The tribes working together to build peace

So that creation is healed

Renewed

And all will live in harmony

       5.     What do you hear?

Jesus is not just speaking to Nicodemus

He speaks to all who would listen

He speaks to you and me

This morning as he speaks these words again

What do we hear in this story?

What stood out

What questions do you have?

What questions are asked of you?

What are you invited to this lent?

The biblical quotes are based on The Message