Today’s reading from Genesis, the story of Abram obeying God’s command and setting out on a journey without knowing its destination reminded me of a session we had in Synod in 2017. The topic was the mission and ministry of the church in this diocese. One speaker explained that he instinctively wanted a road map of the journey – the A, B, C & D as he put it – but that he had learned that A was enough and that, if you set out, B, C and D would follow. I warmed to his words because I too have an instinctive desire for road maps and have had to learn that they aren’t always available and that, if you set out in trust, the route will, bit by bit, become clear, though the destination may still surprise you. Abram set out with no real understanding of where B, C and D might be, and only a gloriously general hint of the X, Y and Z that would result:
“…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
The journey would change him, even change his name. Abram is a name which confers high status – in Hebrew it means “exalted father”. God renamed him Abraham, which means “father of many nations”. So there were two senses in which he was being called to leave his comfort zone. Firstly, the geographical:
“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you…”
And secondly the vocational, the calling to move away from a society in which he enjoyed power and prestige in order to become Abraham the father of many nations and confer a blessing on the whole of humanity.
The link between our reading from Genesis and today’s Gospel isn’t at first obvious but I think that both of them are stories about someone being called to leave his comfort zone. Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. He’s a Pharisee, a religious leader. He doesn’t wish it to be known that he is meeting Jesus and yet he is interested to know what Jesus thinks and believes. He begins by complimenting Jesus:
“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.”
Jesus’ response is disconcerting:
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
The Authorized Version of the Bible translates that differently.
“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
The difference reflects an ambiguity in the Greek, for the Greek word that the Gospel writer uses can mean either “again” or “from above”. Nicodemus takes Jesus literally.
“How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”
Jesus responds with a second use of the phrase “the kingdom of God”.
“Very truly, I tell you, Nicodemus, no-one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.”
Why is Jesus using birth as a metaphor? Almost certainly because he is talking to a person, Nicodemus, who believes that he is a biological descendant of Abraham and sees that as an essential part of his religious identify. And Jesus, who can claim the same identity, suggests that that is very good but he challenges Nicodemus to think about what it means.
Born of water? Water is cleansing and it changes things in other ways. Water moves things along.
Born of the Spirit? The Gospel writer uses a word which also means wind. That too is about movement and change, for the wind is an unpredictable, powerful element which blows things into different places, as the Holy Spirit can blow people into different ways of thinking and acting.
And that is what Nicodemus needed – a different way of understanding and living out the wonderful tradition in which he had grown up, a tradition in which he was content and comfortable. Jesus encourages him not to a rejection of that tradition, but to a radical deepening and widening of it. He is reminding Nicodemus that there is something much richer and more generous in his faith:
“Are you, Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?”
He is reminding Nicodemus of his true vocation, the vocation to which God called Abram, a vocation that involves leaving one’s comfort zone. And Jesus makes that point forcefully. Today’s Gospel ends on a wonderfully generous and inclusive note:
“Indeed, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
And those words are both an echo of and an explanation of God’s promise to Abram:
“…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Lent is a good time to reflect on the questions which Jesus was implying in his responses to Nicodemus.
“What are the deeper truths and the more profound challenges of the beliefs and traditions that I value?”
“Out of what comfort zone might the wind of God be hoping to blow me?”