February 17, 2008

by The Rev. Constance Jones

Genesis 12:1-4a
John 3:1-17

A few days ago Carleton noticed that I was preaching during this “visioning” weekend
that’s occupied 70 or 80 members of this congregation, all told, for the last three days.
He said to me, Don’t forget to preach about Vision!

Hmmmmmmm. I thought.
But this isnn’t the first time I’ve felt like the Executive Officer
squinting into the distance at the elbow of the captain of the ship.

Not the first time that I’ve wondered what visionary leaders are supposed to see out there.
To be authentic should it look like Kevin Costner in “Field of Dreams” –
a whole detailed green-grassy brightly-lighted field
complete with baseball players with names on their jerseys?
Is what’s authentic knowing there’s one clear snapshot
worth moving heaven and earth to achieve so “they will come”?
Worth rolling over ever obstacle in the way?

I don’t know about you, but I seldom have that clarity of vision.
Maybe it’s my bifocals.
Not only that I’m so old and have seen so much,
but that I see so much at a time.

So with relief I retreat to today’s lessons, which as often is the case,
by the Grace of God, are just right.

Nicodemus appears twice in the Gospel of John.
Here, he comes to Jesus “by night”
and engages in this apparently obtuse dialogue,
taking “born again” literally, and provoking Jesus into saying,
“How can you be a teacher of Israel and not know these things?”
Nicodemus appears again after the crucifixion [John 19:38-42]
when he and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus,
apparently secret followers of Jesus,
come out of the shadows to bury and to anoint their Lord’s body.
A book some of us read Lent last year calls them “followers by night.”¹

In the book of Genesis today, on the other hand, Abram is told by God,
Go from your home, your family, and all that is familiar and dear to you,
to the place that I will show you.
There will be descendants. There will be blessing – and not just for you.
Through you all the world shall be blessed.
But go. And by God, Abram went.

Because of my squinty glasses I’ll point out
that God says to Abraham and Sarah, go to the place that I will show you.
Hebrew verb tenses are notoriously hard to figure out, trust me on this;
it is quite certain that Abraham and Sarah are being asked to embark on a journey
whose ultimate destination is not in a “Field of Dreams” focus.
As St. Paul says, Abraham’s righteousness was that he stepped out in faith.
It was his faith that blesses all of us.
We honor Abraham and Sarah because they risked
all that was secure and familiar and valuable, all their past and all their future,
and they stepped out and said Yes to God in the light.

Imagine their loss and the grief.
Change always brings loss and grief; it’s a kind of dying.
You move a new home but grieve the old one.
You rejoice when the kids go to college, but mourn their childhood and losing them.
New life only comes with some dying, which is no doubt why we resist it so much!
But it is only after stepping out in faith that we get our next instructions.
It is only after the dying that we have life.

Yesterday we spent a fascinating time in the Parish Hall
looking at slides of baptismal fonts.
Christine Reinhart, the liturgical design consultant
to the building committee and the vestry was our guide and presenter.
I hope many more of you will get to see Christine’s presentation after church today.
Yesterday as we were talking about Baptism, she offered us this quotation
about our lives as baptized people from St. Basil the Great.
“There is in baptism an image both of death and of life, the water being the symbol of death, the Spirit giving the pledge of life. The water into which the body enters as into a tomb symbolizes death; the Spirit instills into us his life-giving power....this then is what it means to be born again of water and the Spirit: we die in the water.”

Nostalgia will not work for Abraham and Sarah.
It will not work for Nicodemus or any Christian.
No, we do not dishonor our past, nor do we ever forget it. We cherish it.
But we cannot live there. Does this sound like a very delicate balance? It is.
Thank God it is not all up to us.
Because God will lead the people he chooses to be his
vessels of blessing to the whole world.
God will lead them, lead us, when we say Yes and step out in faith.
God knows full well that we don’t have the whole picture clear in our minds.

Jesus told Nicodemus that the wind of the Spirit blows where God wills it,
and all the prudence in the world cannot control it.
Beware of waiting in this life until you have the Holy Spirit under control,
for you will never have it.
Instead, be open to the Spirit’s future of possibility not yet created.
Yes, do the homework first, but hitch a ride on it.

To live life in the Holy Spirit of God is not to experience a smooth ride all the time.
Not if you have your eyes open.
There are sights along the way in this life that will break a heart of stone
and that feel like death and a descent into hell.
You may take my word for this, or you may take the witness stand yourself.

But it is only through the dying that we have eternal life.
Through the plunge into the water that we have resurrection.
Through beginning on the journey that we reach our destination.
Through taking the risk that we live by faith.
Through opening our eyes and saying Yes
that we see the grandeur of God
and know that he has been drawing us along the path all along.

Christine reminded us yesterday of the art of the trapeze.
You do all the training, you do the hard work of preparation.
You hold onto the bar and swing in a higher and higher arc,
using all your strength and judgment and acuity.
But there comes a moment when you must let go and fly through the air,
and then be caught.
The catching, however, is not up to you, but to the catcher.
Your flight and your safety are now in the hands of another.
You must have faith.

We here in Grace Church, and in all our lives outside these doors,
are on a kind of journey like Abraham.
Maybe it does sometimes feel like a flight through thin air.
We do the best we can to train for what is before us,
with our education, our prudent investments and budgets,
and even, yes, very definitely, our spiritual disciplines.
We do our work and we say our prayers.
But there comes a time to embark on a journey where we can’t name the destination yet. A time to fly through the air and let go in faith.

Thank God in all of this that we have each other.

And thank God that God is with us, unless we refuse to go.

You know, in the long run either we believe all this business about rusting God,
about losing everything but gaining eternal life,
about letting go and being caught in God’s arms, or not.
It’s a choice.

For me, the company at Grace Church is a place to sign on for the journey with open eyes. Join me, will you? Beginning this afternoon?

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