March 18, 2012

Rev. Daniel England

Game Change

I would like to ask if you would be willing to indicate by a show of hands, how many of you are Boston Red Sox fans?  Okay, that takes care of the confession part of the service.

Now how many of you are Yankee fans?  Fine.  Now tell me, by a show of hands, if we were to match up the most die-hard Red Sox fan here with the most die-hard Yankee fan, and sent them to the Lounge for the rest of the hour, how many of you think that they could convince each other to switch their loyalty.  Why not?

After all we are all reasonable, even educated people. Surely a true fan would be able to muster arguments and statistics about his or her favorite team, number of World Series championships, for example, (well, maybe that wouldn’t be a good one to bring up), outstanding players and so forth.  But I agree, it would be a tall order to get someone to change their mind about the team they support.

I mention this because a parishioner pointed something out to me the other day based on something he read somewhere.  He said that scientists scanning activity in the brain have found that the area of the brain which is most active when people are talking about sports is the same area of the brain that is most active when they are talking about politics.

I am not quite sure why politics in this country have become so strident nor why even casual conversations about the politics of say Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama can soon lead to fisticuffs if the participants aren’t on their guard.  Part of it is due to the extreme claims of the extreme wings of the two parties.  Part of it has to do with socio-economic divides.  But the certainty of many people in not only how sensible their position is but the moral rightness of their position is making conversation about politics almost impossible.

As I was musing about all of this, I started to mull over whether people ever change their mind and if so how.  I was talking to an acquaintance of mine the other day, a very socially and politically conservative person, when the subject drifted into the matter of Mr. Gingrich.  I immediately mentioned some of his view on moon colonization and the money he received as a consultant for Freddy Mac.  He ignored the moon reference but immediately began to defend Mr. Gingrich in an increasingly loud voice on the matter of his fees.  Eventually, we moved on to another topic on which we disagreed and generally had a most disagreeable half hour.

The next day, I happened to see him again and he started to laugh and said, "You know, I got to thinking about what you were saying yesterday and I was really upset because I thought to myself, you know, darn it, Dan was right about that money.  He shouldn’t have been involved in that."  He still didn’t mention the moon.

I wasn’t so interested that he had changed his mind on this small point — I still don’t think he will throw his support to Mr. Obama later this year — but the process of changing his mind.  It took some time and it wasn’t a big change but he was big enough to admit it.

There are few things stranger than people arguing vehemently.  To all appearances, it seems like each person in the argument believes against all experience that the other person is going to put up their hand and say, "Okay, you can stop right there.  You’re right." In the history of spousal relations or in the history of teenagers and parents has this ever happened? I doubt it.

The fact is that only if you are talking about a behavior about which the person already feels tremendous guilt, will that kind of dramatic turn-around take place.  That is why occasionally interventions help with someone who has an addiction problem.

And there is a Biblical example in the story of David.  God sends Nathan to King David and Nathan tells him a story of one man’s unbelievable selfishness to another.  King David becomes enraged that such a wicked thing could happen in his country and threatens to have the man killed.  But Nathan turns to David and says, "You are that man."  And David’s self-justifications for killing Uriah and taking his wife collapse.  It is said that Psalm 51 is the prayer of David that arose out of this incident. "Against you alone have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight."

But ordinarily such reversals are rare.  I like to think that as many people who have come to our Bible Study these past few weeks have modified their views about heaven and the hereafter.  But I also know that for some, they will not embrace what we talked about at all and others will only get there in the years ahead, when something happens in their life that brings it all together for them.

How slowly most people change their minds.  It is why arguing is usually so fruitless, whether you’re talking about the kinds of disagreements that happen between couples — money, sex, kids — or whether you’re trying to persuade your teenager to come in before midnight.  Love, respect and compromise are really the only options for moving a person, a family or even a country from one point of view to another.  If you do not want to become one of those people who are critical, judgmental, inflexible and self-righteous, there is only one antidote and that is humility.

Now having said that — and it is perhaps stating the bleeding obvious — I want to point out that this is part of Jesus’ teaching — to love one another and to be humble.  But what Jesus’ was really talking about, and really demonstrating with his own life, was not a change of mind but a change of game — a change in a person’s frame of reference.

Nowhere is it more evident than in the story of Nicodemus.  Nicodemus is a Pharisee and not only that but a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Israel.  He is, as it were, in the cabinet of the Jews.  He would have been highly educated and rigorously observant of the Old Testament law.  He likely would have been raised in a strict Jewish home, schooled in all the best schools by the most prominent Rabbis and have risen to the very height of political power and social prominence.  But something is bothering him.  Something has gotten under his skin.

It is this Jesus.  He doesn’t know what to do with him.  He knows Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist who spent most of his short life decrying the Pharisees, just like him.  Jesus sides with the down and out, the drunks, the prostitutes, even tax collectors who work for the Romans against their own people. Most of his colleagues have been blasted by Jesus at one time or another and some are plotting to kill him.  But he cannot get Jesus out of his head.  He has seen him heal people.  His words are strange.  He breaks the sacred Sabbath and yet seems to be what?  From God?

So by night, by night mind you — he’s acting in secret — he goes to see Jesus.  Until we came up with the bulletin cover for this week, however, it had never occurred to me that he may have met with Jesus outside, in a garden, alone and away from prying eyes.  "Look," he says, "we all know, even those who don’t want to, know that you are straight from God. No one could do what you do and say what you say if God were not in on it."

"But I have loved God my whole life and followed his holy law," says Nicodemus.  "I don’t understand what you’re talking about. What am I to do?"

Jesus says, "You must be born from above." Sometimes the Greek word anothen is translated born again.  It can also mean changed radically.  The translation "born again" makes UCC people nervous because of the baggage that comes with that term in America.

Nevertheless, there it is.  And Nicodemus says, in effect, "I’m trying to understand who you are and what you’re telling me about God.  This ‘born again’ I don’t get.  You can’t mean going back to the womb can you?"

"No, not literally, but metaphorically yes.  In a sense you have to go right back to the creation and to your creation.  In the creation, the Spirit hovered over the deep and from it came life.  The Spirit has to come to you as well and you must come to a new and different life."

"How?" Nicodemus asks.  And Jesus says, "wrong question."  Not how. You might as well ask where the wind comes from.  The question is what.   And the answer is that God so loved the world — and you Nicodemus — that he sent his only son to tell you so –  and to overcome sin and death and make you a new creature in his new creation, his Kingdom.  You just have to believe that."

And here, as far as this conversation with Nicodemus is concerned, the story ends.  Jesus says much more through the author John in this passage.  At the end of chapter 3, Peterson translates Jesus’ words to Nicodemus this way:

The One that God sent speaks God’s word.  And don’t think he rations out the Spirit in bits and pieces.  The Father loves the Son extravagantly.  He turned everything over to him so he could give it away — a lavish distribution of gifts.  That is why whoever accepts and trusts the Son gets in on everything, life complete and forever."

Now the thing that particularly interested me about this exchange is it doesn’t say what happened to Nicodemus.  I suspect that just like most of us, he was not altogether convinced by what Jesus had to say.  It was a big change of mind Jesus was talking, more than a change of mind, a game change.  But I also suspect that Jesus’ words to Nicodemus were said in love and in hope.  Perhaps when he left that night, Jesus said to him, "Think on these things my friend."

Nicodemus, in any case, shows up twice more in John’s gospel.  In John 7, the Pharisees send the police to arrest Jesus.  Jesus says, "I am with you only a short time.  Then I go to the One who sent me.  You will look for me but you won’t find me," which really threw the Jews. "What does he mean," they said.

The Temple police reported back to the Pharisees who asked them, "Why didn’t you bring him back with you?"

The police say, "Have you heard the way he talks?  We’ve never heard anyone speak like this man."

The Pharisees said, "Are you carried away like the rest of the rabble?  You don’t see any of the leaders believing in him do you?  Or any from the Pharisees?  It’s only this crowd ignorant of God’s Law that is taken in by him."

Then John says,

Nicodemus, the man who had come to Jesus earlier and was both a ruler and a Pharisee spoke up. "Does our Law decide about a man’s guilt without first listening to him and finding out what  he is doing?"  But they cut him off, "Are you also campaigning for the Galilean?  Examine the evidence.  See if any prophet ever comes from Galilee."

And then it says, they all went home.  But clearly, something’s up with Nicodemus.

He’s mentioned one more time and you have to think Nicodemus has gone through not just a change of mind, but a life choice, a game change.

Listen.  From John.

After the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea (he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he was intimidated by the Jews) petitioned Pilate to take the body of Jesus.  Pilate gave permission. So Joseph came and took the body.

Nicodemus, who had first come to Jesus at night, came now in broad daylight, carrying a mixture of myrrh and aloes and about seventy-five pounds.  He’s not only changed, but he’s strong.  In broad daylight, he brings these spices for the tomb.  This time, he doesn’t care who sees them. Then, the record says, Joseph and Nicodemus took Jesus’ body and placed it in a tomb.

To be born from above means this:  A person becomes infused with God.  God is no longer a possibility to be discussed but a reality affecting every decision, affecting our whole life.

The old person, the person before Jesus coming into his or her life, can only know and think what everyone in the world knows and thinks.  Watch out for number one and do you what you have to to get as far ahead as you can, to get as much as you can as quickly as you can.  But for the one born from above, there’s a game change:  Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

The natural reaction of human beings:  If someone offends you cut them off, cut them out.  Maybe even revenge is in order.  But for one born from above there’s a game change:  Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Love your enemies and pray for those who despitefully use you.

What does the world require?  If you didn’t make it by now that’s not my problem.  If you’d worked harder and smarter you wouldn’t be in this mess. People get what they deserve.  But for one born from above, there’s a game change.  What does the Lord require of you but that you do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.

Now I suppose you could argue with all of this.  But if Jesus is right, it would be like trying to argue with the wind.

Amen