How Do We Begin Again?

 Rev. Debbie
John 3:1-17 | Genesis 12:1-4a
Fairfield Community Church
March 5 , 2023

Holy God, We come to you today with our biggest questions: Who are we called to be? What do you need from us? Where are you in our midst? How can we follow you more clearly? As we read your Word today, we ask that you would weave answers into the text. Speak to us through these ancient stories that we might find what we are seeking in you. With gratitude and open hearts we pray, amen.

 How Do We Begin Again?

 

When you called me as your pastor in November 2021, I had a picture in my mind of what my ministry here was going to look like.  I had a plan for how pastoring this church and being in this community was going to play out. 

Then, just two months later, in January, that changed.  An ultra-sound found a blood clot from my left ankle all the way up my leg to my belly.  And then in the hospital, a CT-scan found blood clots in my lungs. 

I could have died.  But I didn’t.  Here I was just a few months into my call, stuck in the hospital for five days, thankful to be alive, and wondering why God spared my life. I also wondered what this meant for all the plans I had.  Was God calling me to begin again?  Something different than I planned ?

Fast forward to December 2022.  11 months later. I’ve had asthma for years, but it’s never been an issue.  Until Sunday, December 4^th.  I stopped breathing.  I could not get any air. None.  I was lucky I was at church because I would not have been able to call for help – I could not talk. Rachelle came and held my hand and I remember Marci calling 911.  I don’t remember a lot.  But more than anything, I remember Rachelle holding my hand.  At some point, she turned into Jesus.  Jesus was holding my hand.  I haven’t told anyone that.  It was an intimate experience.  It was a holy experience. Rachelle, you were my Jesus.  I don’t remember the first responders but they saved my life.  I could have died.  The second time in a year. 

 Once again, my plans were put on hold.  It was Advent, a very busy time in the church.  Once again, I was in the hospital and not pastoring this church.  Everything has changed for me – at least temporarily which is going on for much longer than I think it should. I’ve learned a lot about myself.  What am I to learn?  I’m asking a lot of questions.  I’m seeking answers that I’m not finding.  Not yet.  Is God calling me to begin again?  What does that mean?

Have you ever had a crisis in your life, an unexpected change that turned your world upside down and inside-out and suddenly nothing was the same anymore?  Did you consider that perhaps that was God calling you to begin again?

In Genesis, God commands Abram and Sarai to leave everything—their home, their family, their land—to seek the land of Canaan and begin again. At 75 years old, Abram is called to start over, but through this new beginning, God creates a new family and a new nation.[1]

 Scripture makes it sound like God made the command and Abram took his family and all his animals and belongings and just left his family home for a place he had never heard of or seen.  But Abram was human and he was married to a woman who was human.  I imagine there were some hard conversations.  Conversations questioning the wisdom of starting over; the fear of giving it all up for a new beginning.  Life was good for Abram and Sarai.  They were very wealthy.  Their herds were thriving. Why should they leave it all and go to a strange place?  What would be there for them? 

Change is hard – for everyone.  Even when it’s God that’s calling. Yet, Abram and Sarai trusted God.  They began again.  And God blessed them in ways they could not have imagined.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the veil of night to ask him big faith questions. Hard questions.  As a leader of Jewish law, Nicodemus holds beliefs that no longer align with this Kingdom of God that Jesus embodies. Jesus invites him to begin again, to learn a new way of knowing and living out his faith.[2]

 It’s risky for Nicodemus to go to Jesus, so he goes at night. It matters what time and location these stories occur. If he gets caught, how would that look?  He is a Pharisee, a member of the elite Jews who are opposed to Jesus. Yet he is drawn to Jesus’ teachings and wants to understand what he means by the Kingdom of Heaven and being born again. Asking his questions, wanting to understand more, challenging his own beliefs, feels so high stakes that he couldn’t just ask Jesus his questions directly during the daytime. What if someone were to see him?  But he wants answers, he feels an urgency, so he asks.[3] Perhaps God is calling him to begin again. 

 I think this church is in the process of beginning again.  I first started preaching here in the summer of 2021.  I knew right away that you were warm, loving people.  I could feel it.  But there was also low energy; a lack of hope that I felt in this sanctuary.  Maybe it was a tiredness.  I’m not sure. 

 But I feel something different now.  The Holy Spirit is moving amongst us and through us. I feel energy and enthusiasm.  I sense renewed hopefulness and I hear it in your voices.  God has invited us to begin again. 

He has something new for us – for our church, for our community. It’s risky!  Change always is.  But God won’t lead us somewhere we aren’t supposed to go.  That’s why we need everyone’s voice.  So we know we are following the Spirit.  The Spirit speaks and leads through us – God’s people.

 We’ve been seeking.  We’ve been asking questions.  What is God calling us to, we’ve asked?  What is he calling us to be as a church in this community where we are planted?  What does our community need?  How is he calling us as individual members of this congregation to be involved?  These questions have challenged us to think outside of the box.  Think about church differently than how we have thought in the past.  The answers have caused us to get out of our comfort zone.  Do things differently.  Be involved on more than Sunday morning. 

 We’ve experimented and adjusted.  We’ve had multiple discussions.  We’ve listened to each other.  That’s what seeking is all about.  It’s vulnerable to look for something, to be unsure, to feel like something is missing and to try to seek something without knowing where it will take us. When we seek, are we, like Nicodemus, trying to avoid risk? Are we trying to self-protect? Or are we open to whatever and wherever our seeking leads?

Just like the church, perhaps God has or is calling you to begin again.  It may happen for no apparent reason like it did for Abram.  It may happen because of a medical crises or diagnosis.  Perhaps a lost job left you numb with no hope for a future yet, God called you to a new beginning – one you could not have imagined on your own.  Perhaps depression had you in a really dark place for a long time and then the light began to shine and you found a way out – a beginning you couldn’t have hoped for on your own. No matter what happens in  your life, you can start over.  You can begin again.

There are so many examples in scripture of people that were lost and oppressed until Jesus called them into a new beginning.  The leper he healed, the blind man who was given sight, the bleeding woman who was ostracized from society, the woman at the well, the adulteress woman who was about to be stoned, the crippled man at the spring…  I could continue.   All these and more called to begin again because of Jesus’ touch.  You don’t have to stay where you are if it’s not healthy or whole or everything that God has for you.

 We may not know much about Nicodemus’ backstory, or what prompted him to visit Jesus in the night, but we do know that he ultimately accompanies Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus, to tend to Jesus’ body after his death. Together, they carefully anoint his body in myrrh and aloe, wrap him in linens, and lay him in the tomb. Knowing this, how do you imagine Nicodemus was changed by his interaction with Jesus in the night? Was he born anew? Did he begin again?

God’s blessing to Abram—to lead a new nation through which all the earth will be blessed — was a new and radical idea in a culture in which tribal identity and preservation were brutally protected.  Abraham’s tribe, also known as Israel, exists not just for its own purpose, but for the purpose of blessing others. How might a  new beginning invite you to be a blessing to others?

I’d like to close by sharing a poem by Steve Garnaas-Holmes

"Beginning"

       You must be born again.

                           —John 3.7

In the season of Lent Jesus invites us
to practice the discipline of beginning.

God, give me grace to let go of who I have been,
what I have done and not done,
all pride of accomplishment and guilt over failure—
and start over, like a newborn child.
Give me such trust in your absolute, profound forgiveness
that I am free to begin anew.
Help me to let go of having it all figured out,
to be a rookie. Beginner's mind.
To be a learner, attentive each moment,
free of old habits and assumptions,
seeing as if for the first time.
To ask for help and be willing to be led,
as utterly reliant on you
as a newborn infant in my mother's arms.
          

As we travel through Lent together, consider how and if God might be calling you to begin again.  Amen.

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[1] Rev. Anna Strickland, Operations Support & Content Creator.  Sanctified Art.
[2] Rev. Anna Strickland, Operations Support & Content Creator.  Sanctified Art.
[3] Rev. Anna Strickland, Operations Support & Content Creator.  Sanctified Art.