Genesis 12: 1–4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4: 1–5, 13–17; John 3: 1–17
A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at Trinity
Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, March 16, 2014.
“THE SPIRITUAL AND THE PHYSICAL”
(Homily text: John 3: 1–17)
“Are you a
teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?” Jesus said to the
Pharisee Nicodemus.
What might
the Lord have been referring to by asking this challenging question of His
nighttime visitor, Nicodemus?
Jesus’
comments about spiritual realities having to do with rebirth provide the
answer. The Lord says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew (or
again)[1],
he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Jesus is
speaking of a spiritual reality, as we see in His comments about the movement
of the Spirit of God being like the wind, which blows where it will.
But notice
Nicodemus’ response to the necessity of rebirth: He asks if a person must re-enter his
mother’s womb and be born a second time.
Nicodemus’
focus is on the physical, Jesus’ focus is on the spiritual.
The two are
talking past each other, to a great degree.
This
conversation tells a great deal about the mindset of the Jews of Jesus’
day. It is a mindset that had to do
almost entirely with the physical realities of daily living. It concentrated on that reality so much – one
gets the impression – that the things of God were blocked out. For evidence of that mindset, consider the
things that seemed to be important to the Jews of 2,000 years ago:
- Strict observance of the laws concerning the observance of the Sabbath day meant that one could not travel more than a certain distance. Nor could a person be healed on the Sabbath (remember that Jesus got into trouble for doing that). Nor could a person walk through a wheat field and pluck grain on the Sabbath (Jesus’ disciples got into trouble doing that).
- Rules about the distinctions between what was clean and what was unclean meant that contact with things that would render a person ritually unclean were to be avoided at all costs. For example, in Jesus’ parable about the Good Samaritan, notice that He says that the priest and the Levite both pass by the wounded man lying beside the road without stopped to assist. The reason for their avoidance is because both the priest and the Levite would have become ritually unclean by coming into contact with the man’s blood, and would have been unable to enter the temple until they had gone through a cleansing process.
- Certain persons, because of their behavior or their occupation, were regarded as sinners. Jesus cites the tax collectors and the prostitutes as examples of those the Jews of His day declared to be in that category, perhaps permanently so. And yet, despite the prevailing attitudes of many, Jesus specifically reached out to these outcasts.
We live in
a material, physical world. So did the
people of Jesus’ day.
We are
surrounded by nature and by the things that human beings have created: Buildings, roads, cities, a culture, nations
(to cite but a few). We occupy much of
our time dealing with the physical demands of daily living: Preparing meals, seeing to the maintenance
and upkeep of property, getting work done on our cars, decided what to wear on
any given day, going to work, and so forth.
It’s easy,
given the predominance of the physical realities of life, to think that that’s
all there is to life and living.
We live in
what has been called a “consumer age”. Evidence of our preoccupation with the
physical and tangible can be seen in the slogan which says, “The one who dies
with the most toys wins.”
We are
preoccupied with getting ahead, with landing a new or better job, with managing
our financial portfolio or our bank account.
It is easy
for this mindset and these preoccupations to skew our priorities and alter the
things we pay attention to in our life with God, as well. Ever met a person whose concentration in the
Church is on the beauty of the Church building, or on the liturgy, or on the
music, or on the Prayer Book? Sometimes,
people who focus in on such physical details as these risk missing the
spiritual realities which lie within and beyond the physical realities of
Church architecture, liturgy and music.
That was
the focus of many in Jesus’ day, as well.
Those who went to the temple in Jerusalem marveled at its grandeur and
majestic size and architecture. They
took part in its rituals and scrupulously followed the Law of Moses in their
liturgical practices. The image the
gospel accounts paint of the religious practices of Jesus’ day is one of a
formal-but-distant relationship with God.
Much of what took place in the Temple had to do with maintaining what
was the “big business” of that day: The
priestly families made money from the sale of animals that were destined for
sacrifice. (Remember that Jesus cast out
the money-changers, accusing them of making His Father’s house a “den of
thieves”.)
How does
the spiritual reality relate to the physical reality?
Nicodemus
seems to be somewhat aware that God was active in the things that Jesus did,
for his opening comment affirms that reality.
Nicodemus says, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God,
for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.”
Now, it’s
possible that Nicodemus was simply seeking to curry favor with the Lord by
putting his best and most positive foot forward at the beginning of their
conversation. But it’s also possible
that Nicodemus is affirming that God was active in the observable, physical
things that Jesus had been doing.
Perhaps Nicodemus had in mind Jesus’ healings, or the feeding of the
5,000.
But
Nicodemus seems to miss the scope of God’s activity in the things that Jesus
was doing. His reaction to Jesus’
requirement for a rebirth affirms that he is caught in the mindset of his
day: “Can a man be born a second time
when he is old?” Nicodemus says.
Jesus
attempts to get Nicodemus to see things differently, and with larger eyes than
the mindset of many in the culture of his day would allow. Jesus points to the spiritual reality which
interacts with the physical reality.
That is the essence of being born anw.
The
Spirit’s power changes everything about the physical. The unseen reality shapes
the reality we can see.
So, for
example, in the Eucharist, we affirm that Jesus is really present in the
elements of bread and wine. The
sacrifice of the Eucharist isn’t simply a memorial meal, but it is to come into
one-on-one contact with the Lord Himself, who is present in some mysterious way
we can’t fully understand, but can fully affirm, in the physical and tangible
elements. To think that the Holy
Communion is simply a memorial and nothing more is to risk dismissing the
spiritual reality in favor of the physical reality.
If we
ignore or deny the Spirit of God’s power to create and to re-create, we risk
behaving like the Pharisees of long ago.
- We might think that God’s power to change lives, to bring about a new birth, is limited.
- We might think that some situations are simply never going to change, because no one, including God, can change them.
- We might think that some people are permanently outside of God’s favor.
But Jesus’
comments tell us otherwise. Jesus tells
us that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
“Whoever”.
Anyone and
everyone can come into a new or a renewed relationship with God, and to have a
new birth, a new way of being, in the process.
Thanks be
to the God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask
or imagine.
AMEN.
