“How Do We Begin Again?”
Preached Sunday, March 5, 2023
This Lent we have embarked on a sermon series called “Seeking: Honest Questions for a Deeper Faith” - every Sunday the worship theme will be a question that we ask of God and of ourselves.
We are in good company today as we ask our questions, that’s all Nicodemus does of Jesus in our Gospel lesson:
How can anyone be born after having grown old?
Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?
How can these things be?
Even when he first approaches Jesus, he gives a statement but it’s really a question: He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." It sounds like a statement but the text says “Jesus answered him…” And this could be the back and forth of conversation, but to me, it sounds like Jesus is hearing the unasked question in Nicodemus’s statement and answering it.
Nicodemus is asking: If you are who you say you are, if you are from God, if, if, if…then it changes everything, right? And if it changes everything…How do I change? The course of life I am on, the theology and beliefs I live by, how I interact with others, my friends and my support system…if what you say is true…How does everything change for me? …How do I begin again?
That’s why Jesus answers and talks about being born again, about starting anew. It is what Nicodemus is asking. Because “How do I begin again?” is also “How do I leave behind everything I’ve ever known and start anew so radically, that it is as if I am a completely new person, having been born again?” How do I begin again when beginning again means everything is going to change?
Have you ever asked yourself the question, “How do I begin again?” Odds are, you have. And, for many of you, you have asked yourself this question in multiple major turning points of your life, maybe you are even asking it now.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. There has been a lot of ink spilled and words preached over why the inclusion of this detail is important. For me, for this sermon, I think it represents the liminal space that Nicodemus is in. Do you know what I mean by liminal space? It means you are at a threshold. Think of where the water meets the shore. Think of the 9 months of pregnancy. Think of the time in-between diagnosis and making a treatment plan. Think of the time between separating and the divorce being finalized. Think of in-between it being announced your pastor is moving and not knowing who the next pastor will be. Think about deciding to change career paths but not yet having made the switch. Think about anytime you’ve resolved to do something to change your life…and yet you haven’t made a move on it yet or are waiting for the pieces to fall into place - this is living in liminal space.
In Scripture, Nicodemus coming to visit Jesus under cover of darkness represents this liminal space. The dark before dawn. The questions asked before the answer. The weighing of options before a choice is made… While I thought of this week’s sermon and the question. “How do we begin again?” I kept on imagining the scene of standing on a cliff’s edge and the waters below.
Sometimes change, sometimes beginning again, can feel like that big momentous jump off the edge of the cliff - a big leap of faith into something new and exciting and promising new life for us. We know that even if it hurts or even if it will be hard or even if there is a risk - that the jump will be worth it. That the leap will, hopefully, pay off - and so we take it.
This may be something like the decision to be married. The decision to have a child. The decision to choose a career path or change careers. The decision to leave a relationship that isn’t safe or fulfilling. The decision to make a change so that our lives will be better, so that we can live into better love of God and neighbor… and even then, even when these are good things or things we choose, the decision can be hard. The leap of faith can be scary.
But other times…we might not even know we are on a cliff’s edge. And instead of a leap of faith, it can feel like we are pushed off the cliff and into the water below. Dawn shared a story with me that I have permission to share with you this morning. Some years ago, her husband, Dale, was walking through the woods and took a step forward and suddenly, under the weight of his body, the ground fell out beneath him and he fell, going 20 feet down, landing in a standing position, and breaking some bones in the process. I wouldn’t call that a leap of faith so much as a painful fall… Perhaps as a kid someone pushed you into the pool, a feeling of weightlessness and panic before the water hits you, hoping you have time to hold your breath before you take in water.
Some change and new beginnings come in this way, a more scary, unsure, and not by-our-choice way. This can be when a spouse or child or loved one dies. When we get a diagnosis. When we’re fired or laid off from a job. When a disaster happens and our whole world changes. The ground falls out from beneath us - we are pushed off a cliff - pushed into the deep end - and we wonder - “How do I begin again…when it wasn’t my choice to begin again? When I don’t want to begin again?” You might give anything to not have to begin again - to have things back the way they were. You might pray to God not only - “How do I begin again?” but “Where are you in all this?”
Let’s take a moment here and pivot to our reading from Genesis today: “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.’”
Now, in the 11th chapter of Genesis, the chapter before this, there is a long genealogy - the kind of genealogy we read and our eyes glaze over. But what we learn from it at the end is this: “Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot son of Haran and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were two hundred five years, and Terah died in Haran.”
The genealogy tells us that for Terah, Abram’s father, and for Abram and Sarai, their homeland was a place marked with death and childlessness so they left it with a goal in mind, a new destination, a new beginning, they took a big leap of faith…but they never quite got there. They settled along the way. Perhaps enough for Haran to feel like home to Abram and Sarai when God told them…”pack up and move, I have bigger and better plans for you, begin again. And I will always be with you and your descendants - from this time forward, you are blessed. I have a vision of the future where you are flourishing - and I will always be with you.”
Sometimes when we ask, “How do I begin again?” - when we finally begin to ask that question - we realize we’ve been changing for a long time, we’ve been inching ourselves closer and closer to the edge of the cliff, we’ve been moving along slowly but steadily, moving towards a new beginning at a speed where it is almost unnoticed until we stop and reflect on how far we’ve come. Maybe a better metaphor, instead of jumping (or being pushed) off a cliff - would be chrysalis. The day the butterfly breaks out, the day of a new beginning, wasn’t the start of that change, the change began long before. The day you started thinking that something needed to give, the day you started planning, the day you started dreaming, the first time you thought: “How do I begin again?” Just by asking that question, you already have.
Many preachers have said that we don’t see an immediate change in Nicodemus from his conversation with Jesus - but that’s not entirely true. Yes, he is confused in the conversation and he goes away…but for him to have come to Jesus at all, in the night, in that liminal space, and ask him, “How do I begin again?” God was already beginning something new within him - allowing him to step out in faith and start a new beginning.
So we return to the question, whether we’re taking big leaps of faith, getting pushed into the deep end, or slowly moving toward a new beginning - How do we begin again? And where is God in all this?
Genesis 12 says: We begin again with God’s blessing.
John 3:16 says: We begin again with God’s love through Jesus - love for us, and love for the whole world.
Whenever you find yourself asking, “How do I begin again?” The Holy Spirit is right there, whispering to you, “With my help and blessing.”
Wherever life has taken you where you realize there is no going back, the Holy Spirit is right there saying, “I will guide you to a new beginning.”
However you got there - a leap of faith, a push into the deep end, in a chrysalis, slowly changing, the Holy Spirit is right there with you saying, “I will never leave. I will walk with you on this journey - leap with you, fall with you, hold you close.”
Every Lent is an opportunity for us to look at our lives and ask: How do I begin again? Our God is a God of new beginnings, who had the ultimate new beginning in his death and resurrection - talk about big leaps (or pushes) of faith…Jesus died and rose again so that we too could have new life, so that we too could have a new beginning.
I am going to close with a poem prayer by the Rev. Sarah Speed entitled, “How Do We Begin Again?”
“Do we slide into something new?
Do we make a formal announcement? Dearest reader,
I have decided to begin again. Do we turn gradually, a gentle yield
in a new direction; or like a wave,
do we crash onto the shore of a new day?
Do we grieve the change? Are there breadcrumbs on the path?
Will Nicodemus be there?
Will it ever be easy?
I’m not sure exactly how we begin again,
but I know that moths wrap themselves in silk,
and after quite some time,
after many long nights,
after days spent alone,
they break out of their shell.
They pull themselves out under open sky,
and they spend the rest of their days chasing the light.
Maybe it’s always that way with beginnings.
Maybe it feels like the protective layer falling away.
Maybe we have to go it alone at first.
Maybe it feels like pulling and dragging yourself into something new.
Maybe there’s always open sky at the other end.”
Amen.
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