The Church of the Redeemer

Trinity Sunday

June 15, 2003

A husband and wife were deep in conversation, when the wife began discussing her growing sense of frustration with her job, their finances and even their relationship. And, after listening to her for a while he finally asked her what she wanted.  Her reply, “I just want to be happy.”  “Do you really he asked?” “No,” she replied, “what I really want is to be content, to feel a deep down a sense of fulfillment.”   The feelings this woman was grappling with, that sense of lacking, that sense that somehow something was missing in her life, that need to seek something different in order to continue, is a universal experience that each and everyone of us grapples with at many times in our lives. 

This of course is no big secret, for if we watch enough television, listen to the radio or even open our email, we know that the media and advertising industry has picked up on our struggles and is more than willing to provide the answer to what is lacking in our lives. Oprah, Dr. Phil, and countless other talk show hosts present hour after hour of information and angles on how to improve our lives, how to find greater happiness in our marriages, and our work.  Advertisers boldly tell us exactly what we need to find happiness.  If we believe what the maker of Nike sneakers has to say, all we need to do to find contentment is buy their shoes and “ just do it”.   The makers of Hydroxycut, and other diet and fitness aids tell us that contentment is found in having a lean body, and if you do not believe it, look how much happier their models are now that they have gained physical perfection.   If fulfillment is not found in physical perfection, then it can be found in the cars we drive or the clothes we buy.  And if you don’t find happiness and contentment in the above, then the makers of Viagra believe they have found the solution.  And on that statement, I will go no further.

However, the quest for fulfillment is not new to the human experience.   It has been a driving force in our lives since the creation of humankind.  In Genesis, Adam and Eve, succumb to the temptations of the serpent, not out of innocence, but out of the belief that there is something greater for them. The serpent leads them to believe if they eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, then their lives would be enhanced, they would find greater fulfillment, they would become like God.   In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, there is the story of the Rich Man who comes to Jesus and tells him that he has great wealth, that he keeps the commandments, but realizes something is still missing from his life and hopes that Jesus, the great rabbi of his time, will enlighten him. 

Finally, today we have the story of Nicodemus.  He is very much like the rich man.  Nicodemus was wealthy, and as a Pharisee we know he was well educated in the laws of Torah and was part of the ruling class of Israel.  Nicodemus therefore was a very powerful person within the religious establishment that opposed the teachings of Jesus, and it is surprising that he would even consider seeking Jesus’ counsel.  But this is what he chooses to do under the cover of darkness, despite his education, his wealth and his position of influence, because he realized that something was missing.  That same something that was missing for the rich man in the other Gospels, that same something we all at times sense we are missing and the media is ready to tell us what it is, that same something that Adam and Eve were led to believe they would find by eating the apple.  It is that something that can only be found with God, for as God has told us throughout the ages, when we turn to God, we find life, all else leads to death.  And it is that lack of life in our hearts and souls that drive us to seek something more, that nags at us like a dull throbbing ache until we find completion by entering into relationship with God. 

Jesus tells Nicodemus this happens when we are born from above.  Some of our Christian Brothers and Sisters refer to this as being born again others refer to it as conversion.  Whatever we choose to call being born from above, the reality is the same.  It is that event in our lives, when we choose to stop contemplating God in concept, and willingly cross over in to the inexplicable waters of faith.  It is that defining moment when all that we have heard and read about God becomes inexplicably real for us. Rebirth, as one person from this parish so beautifully articulated in my presence, is when we realize that serving God is about placing substance over form.  Poet Maya Angelou experienced rebirth when she realized that the God she thought she had known all her life actually loved her.  No longer did she see herself as a powerless woman of color, but as one who is empowered.  In her memoir, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now, Ms. Angelou records her conversion experience with the following words.  “ I suddenly began to cry at the grandness of it all.  I knew that if God loved me, then I could do wonderful things, I could try great things, learn anything, achieve anything. For what could stand against me with God, since one person, any person with God, constitutes a majority.” 

St. Paul tells the Church in Rome that when we are born again, we are no longer debtors to the flesh.  Paul through his own conversion learned that so much of the flesh is seductive, and he, like Nicodemus, was a slave to the Law.  He was convinced that relationship with God and contentment was found by blindly serving the laws of Torah.  But like anything else that removes God from the center of our lives, Paul did not life in serving the Law but slavery instead.  Paul and Nicodemus were like addicts when it came to the law, dependant on the power and prestige it gave them, they were strove to maintain its centrality in Jewish life no matter what the cost was to them or their people.   And in the act of doing so, lost sight of God as the centerboard of life.  If we look critically at our society’s growing need for greater consumerism, we can see our own enslavement to the flesh as we feel the need for bigger and bigger homes, more cars, bigger and flashier electronics, all of which requires us to work longer and harder hours so we can earn more in order to spend more, because if we can spend more, as the evangelists of consumerism tell us, we will find happiness.  But as we all already know, it’s not happiness or life that we are finding, but enslavement to the flesh and ultimately death. 

If however, we choose birth in the Spirit, then as Paul tells us, we are freed from the bondage of the flesh, freed from the fears of the world, and made joint heirs with Christ.  In the end, what we will find when we allow ourselves to be born again is that which we have been seeking all along, a sense of wholeness and life.  In order to find it however, we must be willing to open ourselves up to the birth that comes from above and let the joy and peace of God lead us to serving God in this world. Amen

The Rev. Craig R Swan

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