Sunday February 17th 2008

SERMON  BY

THE REV. PAUL MULLEN

AT

SCARBORO UNITED CHURCH, CALGARY

FEBRUARY 17, 2008

“QUESTIONS IN THE NIGHT”

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SCRIPTURE:   John 9: 1-41

I want to give you a brief history of time, with apologies to Stephen Hawking, as I am not a physicist. But then he doesn’t claim to be a theologian. He is at a definite disadvantage in that I don’t have to prove my ideas!

I’m going to begin where our Gospel reading left off, with eternity. I have come to think of time as a sphere, like this basketball. If we can imagine God in the middle and time, rather than being a straight line to infinity, is like the outer skin. So eternity is a sphere of time which we travel around in a straight line from birth to death; while God experiences all time as an eternal instant. There is, then, no separation between God, God’s love, eternal life, God’s kingdom or kin-dom. The Apostle Paul refers to God “in whom we live and move and have our being.”

And so we come to Nicodemus as he comes to Jesus by night, the darkness of not knowing. The Gospel of John from the first chapter holds up Jesus as the light in our darkness. Nicodemus comes wanting to find out more about Jesus, whom he sees as being close to God. Does Nicodemus say this because he senses that he, himself, is not very close to God, at least not close enough to perform miracles?

Jesus’ response to Nicodemus, which I have come to see as radically inclusive and unifying, has been used to exclude and divide, at least in recent history. By recent I mean in the last 100 years or so, and particularly in the last 20. Although the passage says that Jesus was not sent to judge the world, it is as if a whole segment of Christianity has responded by saying “that’s OK, we will do all the judging then”. And they use this passage to determine who is and who isn’t a Christian. Who has and who hasn’t eternal life.

Jesus is more concerned about where eternal life comes from. New birth, he says, comes from above. The direction of new life or re-birth is from God to us. It is a given, just as we have been given the whole cosmos as a gift of God’s grace. Having the gift, being born again, does not involve us doing anything  -  saying a prayer, being baptized, speaking in tongues. Being born again is a shift in awareness, a change in attitude and motivation. Being born again is the awareness that we have been given a gift  -  the eternally present moment that is the totality of the cosmos. A gift of love from the source of love who loves us into being and into fulfillment.

What we are doing may not change at all when we receive this gift. Why we are doing it and how we are doing it will be totally different. Zen Buddhists have a saying about enlightenment: “Chopping wood, carrying water.” It comes from a description of the difference enlightenment makes. Climbing the mountain (the quest for enlightenment) chopping wood, carrying water. Coming down the mountain, chopping wood, carrying water. (Sometimes the latter is said with much more expression than the former). Behaviour does not have to change but often a change in behaviour is demanded by the new awareness and attitude. The behaviour doesn’t have to change to gain the insight, but the new insight makes continuing the old way impossible.

Which brings us to Steven Speilberg:

“Hollywood Director, Steven Spielberg, has resigned from his role as artistic

advisor for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, citing

strong disapproval of China's relationship with the government in Sudan, the Wall

Street Journal reported. Spielberg, who first came under attack in the U.S. last

year for his involvement with the Olympics, wrote a letter to President Hu Jintao

saying he had ‘only recently come to understand fully the extent of China's

involvement’ with Sudan. In a statement released on Tuesday, he said that while

the Sudanese government bears the majority of responsibility, the international

community, and particularly China, should be doing more. ‘My conscience will

not allow me to continue with business as usual,’ he said.”

Nicodemus’ question, “How is it possible for one to be born again . . . return to my mother’s womb?” shows that he is still looking to do something to get closer to God. Jesus response is, in my interpretation, that what he is looking for has already been given, surrounds him and is reaching out to him. It is as inclusive as you can get. He asks, “You, a teacher of Israel do not know this? “

This gracious gift of eternity is somewhat like unclaimed lottery winnings, although I want to be clear that I am not endorsing lotteries:

“They are the would‑have‑beens, could‑have‑beens, should‑have‑beens. They

would be rich, recipients of the kind of multimillion‑dollar jackpots that people

dream about.  Instead, after failing to submit their winning lottery tickets on time,

they are left to, well, keep on dreaming.

The could‑have‑been-club boasts a surprisingly large roster, with dozens of hefty jackpots left unclaimed around the country in recent years. There was $14 million in Illinois in 2005. In 2002, $4.6 million went wanting in Massachusetts. That same year, nobody stepped up to take $51.7 million in Indiana  -  apparently the largest forgone prize on record.

It is fair to assume that those who buy these tickets long to be rich and these ones already

are, they just don’t know it. Not being aware of their winning numbers, they are

needlessly condemned to live a life of ‘if only’.”   (February 14, 2007, New York Times)

There is a much richer life available to all of us  -  richer than most lottery ticket purchasers can imagine, so rich it inspires those who become aware of it to live lives of perpetual gratitude. This gratitude overcomes narrow exclusivism and divisiveness. It sees God’s gift of life and love as a gift for the world, not just for certain individuals. God so loved the world that God gave that the world might have eternal life. Yet if we are not aware of it, or if we refuse it, what good does it do?

Sally McFague, in her new book, Life Abundant, talks about the need for a planetary theology, one which sees creation as being within God. A theology which restores the sacredness of creation which we have lost. Like me, she is a panentheist, seeing creation as being within God. In it she describes her own journey from darkness to light, if you will. She tells of not one, but four conversion experiences in her life, each one giving her a new understanding and appreciation of God. Her understanding of God grows from distant and somewhat aloof to profoundly immanent and intimate, from remotely loving to the one whose love is the fabric of creation, the giver and the gift, the lover and the beloved. This understanding gives us a changed perspective in which we are no longer the masters of creation but fellow creatures with a gift to enjoy and to care for.

McFague calls for churches to nurture this kind of theology and to speak out when creation and its creatures are abused.  She says:

“The Ecological Reformation is the great work before us. The urgency of this task

is difficult to overstate. We do not have centuries to turn ourselves around and

begin to treat our planet and our poorer brother and sisters differently. We may

not even have the next century. But the scales are falling from our eyes and we

see what we must do. We must change how we think about ourselves and we must

act on that new knowledge. We must see ourselves as both radically dependent on

nature and as supremely responsible for it. And most of all, we North American

privileged people who are consuming many times our share at the table must find

ways to restructure our society, our nation and the world toward great

equitability. Christians should be at the forefront of this great work – and it is a

great work. Never before have people had to think about the well-being of the

entire planet – we did not ask for this task, but it is the one being demanded of us.

We Christians must participate in the agenda the planet has set before us – in

public and prophetic ways – as our God ‘who so loved the world’ would have us

do.”

So I would urge you to come to the Lenten Series which begins when this Service ends, and will continue through the following three Sundays.  Mishka Lysack and Ruth Morrow will help us struggle with our questions of the night, to listen to God who speaks to us in the night, God who calls us out of darkness, God who calls us to become a blessing to the world, God who walks with us from darkness into light

May God be with us through it all.  Amen.