Second Sunday of Lent - Sunday 16 March 2014 Genesis 12:1-4 Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 John 3:1-17
My young son has been learning Robert Frost’s wonderful poem ‘The r oad not taken’, verses about walking in the woods and kicking up the remains of the season, about coming to a fork in the path and about making choices in our lives.
Meanwhile I have been to a day confer ence on new monasticism and felt a sense of the Church at a cr ossroads and choices ahead. It was an inspiring day as we listened to representatives fr om dif ferent communities sharing their vision and discussed our own r eflections on the big issues facing the world and the Church as well as those things that fir e us up with passion for engagement in God’s mission to his world.
At the hear t of the discussion was the question of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ today in a rapidly changing, often bewildering world. What it cer tainly did not imply was that the answer lay in withdrawal fr om the world into some kind of tightly boundaried holy huddle. Monks and monasteries are often perceived in this way, yet if we look at the histor y of the Church, it was often the monasteries that were at the cutting edge of mission and the agents of change as well as the pr eser vers of the faith at critical times.
Think of the collapse of Rome and the advent of St Benedict and his communities. It was the monks who evangelised Eur ope, taking the Gospel to far-flung places, and often being martyred in the pr ocess. Or the ravages of the Viking raids in these islands and the way the monasteries kept alive Christian lear ning so that it could be handed on to the next generations. There was nothing pr ecious or r emote about those brave men and women who stood up to be counted and lived counter-cultural lives in the face of a hostile world.
I do not feel called to join a monastic community, but there is no doubt that ther e are stirrings of new communities ever ywhere in the Church and many consciously draw on the principles of the older , established communities, some of which go back to the early centuries of Christian histor y. The key is the r elationship between prayer and action, spirituality and mission. Prayer without action turns us inward and quickly becomes sterile. Action without prayer soon loses its way and becomes disconnected from the Christ we ser ve.
The discussions on new monasticism wer e set against the backdrop of the serious threats that face our world: climate change, the energy crisis, the growing demand for food, economic inequality and other issues that af fect ever yone, Christians as well as the rest.
Frost muses in his poem about coming back to tread the road not taken another day, but he knows that he won’t do so. He took the r oad less travelled by and for him that made all the difference. Christians are called to march to a different drum, to make choices that may not be popular. There are many voices out ther e which makes it all the more impor tant that we hear the word of the Lord. The subject of our readings this week is the gracious blessing of a new start with God, however old one might be.
Abram is called by God, aged 75, to leave everything with which he is familiar and comfortable to go to an unspecified new location. Leaving his family and friends, he is promised a great nation in return. Forsaking the blessings of hearth and home, he is assured of fame, and a blessing so magnificent it will be proverbial. It could be dangerous to wander the vast tracts of the ancient world alone, but the Lord promised to prosper Abram’s allies and curse his enemies. But more than all this, he promised to our faithful father that through him the world, come of age in the shadow of the Fall, would be redeemed from its bondage to decay and enslavement to sin East of Eden. If the families of the world were to be saved, it would be solely through a divine plan in which Abram would play a crucial part.
Abram obeyed, and went as God had told him, despite his great age. Another old man, in our Gospel reading, would find following the path that the Lord showed him more difficult to accept. Nicodemus approaches Jesus under cover of night, with self-assured, flattering words. “We know God sent you,” he kindly assures Jesus, “we can see God’s power and presence in the miracles.”
Who is this “we”? Jesus cuts through the proud human attempt to validate his ministry and have it accredited by this experienced professor: “You can’t see the kingdom of God unless you’re born again.” There is no Johannine comment between verses 3 and 4, but Nicodemus was surely startled by this abrupt and unwelcome opener from Jesus. His face no doubt was a picture! He thought he knew a few things already and could build on his knowledge by asking some questions of this prophetic newcomer; perhaps they could work together? But Jesus tells him that he knows nothing, sees nothing, and makes attainment of the sought-after wisdom seem impossible. ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old?’
Nicodemus must do more than turn over a new leaf. He requires new life. Not an easy message for one so long in the tooth and one so respected for his learning. ‘Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?’ Jesus turns the professor’s rhetoric around: ‘Very truly, I tell you, WE speak of what WE know and testify to what WE have seen; yet YOU do not receive our testimony.’
Nicodemus hadn’t been listening carefully enough to the words of Jesus, too dazzled by the miracles and his own agenda. Yet he offers the blessing of eternal life to everyone who believes in him. He has administered a rebuke, a humiliation even, yet he came not to condemn but to save. Jesus doesn’t want to be talent-spotted, but trusted.
Nicodemus and Abram both learned that the blessings of God are given graciously and freely, quite apart from our merits or good works. As Article 11 so memorably puts it, the doctrine that “we are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings,” is “a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort.” It is also a doctrine that calls us to move forward in faith, not trusting our own cleverness or human wisdom but the guarantees of God. It is those lessons, which Paul draws from the Genesis narratives, that he dwells on in Romans 4. The promise of divine blessing rests solely on grace, only to those who imitate the faith of Abraham. It brings justification and peace to the ungodly, and life to the dead (and the old!). Lee Gatiss is Director of Church Society and Editor of the NIV Proclamation Bible
All I once held dear All my hope on God is founded I’m accepted, I’m forgiven The God of Abraham praise
To God be the glory