Homily
by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
Francis' Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC; 2 Lent, 12 March
2017
RCL
Year A: Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans
4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17
You’re
driving on a highway & the big, flashing sign says: “Construction
Ahead. Proceed with Caution!”
What
do you do?
Yes!
Thank
you for slowing down &
being wise drivers who proceed with caution. Nicodemus is a “wise
driver”. He proceeds with caution as he encounters new conditions
on the road of life, new concepts he hears from Jesus.
As
Bible commentaries note,1
Nicodemus is a legal scholar & leader of his day, so the idea
there is something greater than God’s law confuses
him.
The
Nick we meet at night in today’s Gospel has
a good heart. He wants
to learn
from Jesus. He’s not sneaking in the dark so his fellow leaders
won’t see him with Jesus. He comes at night so he & Jesus have
quality, quiet time after the day’s clamoring crowds have left.
2
Notice
the different response we hear in our lesson from Genesis: God tells
Abram “Go” & Abe goes. We don’t know the time
of day or night when he hears this call.
Abe
obeys while his name is Abram, before he has a hint of how God’s
promise will work & despite his family responsibilities. Abe’s
nephew Lot, the son of Abe’s deceased youngest brother, Haran, goes
too. Abe sets out to an unknown destination long before he
understands fully.
Do
we ever understand fully?
As
we hear in our Gospel, God works with us where we are.
We
feed an infant long before he or she understands food’s nutritional
value. Infants grow & thrive by God’s grace.
Like
infants, we do not have to understand God’s grace to be nourished
by God’s Love, including nourishing Love we receive in the bread &
wine of Holy Communion.
When
we are busy [as we tend to be] we can get distracted like Nick &
fail to comprehend what Jesus says. If we are slower than Abe to
respond, we can see hope for us in our beloved brother Nick. God’s
great love makes room for all kinds of people.
By
God’s grace through Jesus’ saving work on the cross, each of us
is a work in progress. Like Nick, we may
be confused about newness in life as we grow older. Yet each spring
we see old bushes break forth with new life & blossoms.
God
has planted unique gifts in each of us.
Entertainer
Judy Garland said: Always
be a first-rate version of yourself instead of a second-rate version
of somebody else.3
What
is the 1st-rate
you God created?
With
Jesus’ Love & guided by the Holy Spirit, we can learn to be our
1st-rate self. [We
know Jesus’ unique purpose.]
We
see Nick in our Gospel stuck not being his 1st-rate
self. He sees life from a limited perspective. He doesn’t yet know:
“If you
keep telling yourself the same sad story, you will keep living the
same sad small life.”4
Remember:
later in our Gospel from John,
Nick comes to Jesus’ defense [John 7:50-52] &
helps Joseph of Arimathea prepare Jesus’ body for burial [John
19:38-42]. He becomes the first-rate person God designed him
to be.
We
know life changes after God changes Abraham’s & Sarah’s names
to emphasize the change their promised parenthood will bring. They
have unique work to do in God’s creation.
Did they ask God for
this unique work? That would be like asking to be born.
Do
you remember asking to be born?
Our
being born was God’s idea.
YOU
are God’s idea.
What
was God up to when God created you?
Look
around & notice each of us is unique. Our God-given uniqueness
may connect each of us like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle,
imagery we spoke about during Epiphany. Fitting together with
the purposes of each other, we manifest God’s Goodness where we
are.
What
is your purpose?
Answer
this: Beyond being with family & friends, what do you love to do?
? ? [Think of simple things which give you a burst of
satisfaction deep inside when you do them. . . .[I
love to crochet, to tap dance, to watch dragonflies.]
I
invite you to share some things you love to do….especially little
things which give you deep satisfaction. . . .
[Answers
from our 2 services included: Cook. Watch movies. Work at the Soup
Kitchen. Sing. Golf. Fish.]
I
believe what we love to do is true to our core purpose.
You may instinctively know the timeless quality or gift of what you
do. Being aware of our gifts helps prevent burnout, helps us be good
stewards of our gifts, & helps us see how to apply the timeless
quality in new ways.
The
outward form of what we love to do may have to change. [Aging fingers
may make me give up crocheting prayer shawls, but I can express the
joy, love & blessings I put into these in other ways.]
The
timeless quality remains inside us.
What
is the timeless quality, the motivation of
what
you love to do ? ? ?
Some
of you love to cook, to play golf, to fish. You might share the same
essential quality. Cooks may share the joy of cooking for different
reasons.
This
temporal act of creativity may be a challenge to bring together
different flavors. Some golfers & fisher folk like a challenge,
like to bring together different competitors.
Cooks
may focus on aesthetics of how the food looks. Fisher folk &
golfers may focus on the beauty of their setting, a great looking
catch, a beautiful shot.
Perhaps
the essence delighting a cook, a golfer, or fisherman is sharing with
others the meal, the time on the course or in a boat.
A
priest I know in Oregon says he finds great satisfaction gluing
large plastic pipes together [!] as he does handyman work at
home.
The
essence of what he does is to make things fit. In his
work, he makes sure his staff “fit” together for the good of all.
Perhaps he is on earth to make things fit.
Jesus
tells the fishermen James & John: “Come follow me & I will
make you fishers of people”. The disciples get to do what they love
to do in a different way.
Jesus
tells us in our Gospel God sent him so the
world can be saved through him. We continue the work Jesus has
started. We have our unique gifts for this work.
Trusting
Jesus, following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we work to help our
brothers & sisters in the human family get out of the literal
“stuckness” we see today in Nicodemus. This frees our brothers &
sisters to live into the eternal quality only they have to give to
the jigsaw puzzle of life.
“Stuckness”
is victim living. We know & must help others know how to move
from victim to survivor to
thriver.
We
can’t change what has happened. We
can change how we see it.
When
someone keeps telling you the worst thing that ever happened to them,
you can ask them to notice:
“You
are here today. You survived.
God’s
life-giving Love in you is bigger than
the worst that has happened & can happen.”
A
victim’s story is Bad Friday.
A
survivor story is bewildering Saturday before Easter. We survived.
Now what?
Suddenly
it’s Easter: a new beginning, an awareness life may be very
different, but life has not been taken from us!
Easter
transforms Bad Friday into Good Friday.
Easter
tells the thriver story!
Our
Risen Lord Jesus shows us God brings life & good from any
situation.
Jesus’
love links us to each other, to God & all creation.
The
timeless, valuable, life-giving qualities
of what we love to do are
like golden threads linking all aspects of our lives now,
in the
past, into the future.
Notice
life’s golden threads.
Discover
their timeless, unhurried essence
which comes from God’s Love.
Bibliography
Barclay, William. The Gospel of John. Vol. 1. Revised Ed.
Philadelphia: The Westminster Press. 1975.
Dios Habla Hoy: La Biblia. 2nd Ed. Nueva York:
Sociedad Biblica Americana. 1983.
Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San
Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1988.
Harper’s Bible Dictionary. General Ed.: Paul J. Achtemeier.
San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1985.
Holy Bible with the Apocrypha. New Revised Standard Version.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation.
New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Johnson, Luke Timothy. The
Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation.
Revised Ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 1999.
Levenson, Jon D. Sinai
& Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible.
Minneapolis: A Seabury Book. Winston Press. 1985.
New Oxford Anontated Bible with Apocrypha.
Eds: Herbert G. May, Bruce M. Metzger. New York: Oxford University
Press, Inc. 1977.
Voyles, Robert J. Restoring
Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.
Hillsboro, OR:The Appreciative Way. 2010. “Teaching Forgiveness”.
www.appreciativeway.com.
2014.
1
See Bibliography.
3
Quoted P. 37 of “Teaching Forgiveness” based on Voyles, Robert
J. Restoring Hope:
Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.
Hillsboro, OR. The Appreciative Way. 2010.
4
Ibid. P. 40 Quoting Jean Houston.
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