Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

8:30 & 11:00 AM Morning Promise Services – 02/24/02

by Gregory S. Kaurin

Associate Pastor for Spiritual Care and Development

 

Text: John 3:1-17

 

The Sermon:

Ubuntu!

 

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Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has developed a whole theology around this word, “Ubuntu” (pronounced oom-boon-too).  At the 2003 Youth Gathering in Atlanta, it will be summarized by the invitation to “Do life!” but as a South African expression (in Xhosa, one of the Bantu languages) it means something like “I am… because we are.”  In other words, I need you all (and God through all of you) to be me.

It carries further: “I am… because we are.  And we are because Christ is.”  The One who draws us together and connects us defines who we are.  Jesus said to Nicodemus in our Bible lesson, “As Moses once lifted the bronze serpent to heal the Israelites in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that whoever will believe in him will have eternal life.”

In another place in scripture Jesus said even more about being lifted up; he said, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw everyone to myself.”  Bishop Tutu says that we can see how “God has set in motion a centripetal process, a moving toward the center, toward unity, harmony, goodness, peace and justice.”  God is moving creation toward unity, peace and justice.  “I shall draw everyone,” Jesus said, “all people to myself.”

Christianity is not a one-person show.  Sometimes we ask the question, “Can you be a Christian by yourself?”  No.  You can’t.  It is physically and spiritually impossible.  The whole body defines Christianity.  Being a Christian means that you are connected to Jesus Christ the Son.  The Son of God is part the triune God—who is connected, intertwined, and permeating throughout the universe.  Being Christian means that God has married you to all the people around you, saints, and sinners.  God has married you to his creation.  Like marriage, it means that we have a responsibility, a responsibility to care for creation, for each other, and for those who need to be lead into this discovery of new life.  And it also carries a promise of life for us. 

So we look to God and say, “I am… because you are.”  Then we look to the rest of the people around us—our community in Christ—gathered here, and all those who’ve ever been.  They gather with us.  “I am because, in Jesus Christ, we all are.”

 

I was thinking about today’s lesson in which Jesus talks about new life and this theme of Ubuntu, and suddenly this show tune from the 70’s popped into my head.  I haven’t thought of it in years.  Beside Walt Disney’s “Davy, Davy Crockett,” this was one of my other favorites: “Born Free.” 

It was a show based on a 1966 movie by the same name, which in turn was based on the real life adventures of a husband and wife who were game wardens in East Africa, George and Joy Adamson.  But, of course, my favorite character was Elsa, the lioness.  And there was this song…I think many of us recognize it.  Let’s sing the first stanza on the screen…

 

Born free—as free as the wind blows,

as free as the grass grows,

born free to follow your heart.*

 

Born free.  Honestly, I don’t think the song was only about Elsa and the other lions and animals—but a freedom for which all of humanity reaches.  There is a shadow over us… and sometimes it feels like a prison.

 

In our Bible lesson, John tells us that Nicodemus came to Jesus under the cover of darkness.  It could be for two reasons.  First, he didn’t want anyone to see him.  Jesus had just cleared out the Temple and overturned tables only a few days before this, and Nick was one of the Pharisees.  More important, he was a leader of Pharisees, one of only seventy.

Somewhere along the line, Jesus must have struck a chord with Nicodemus, whether by what he did or said.  So, the second reason Nick came at night: he wanted to talk to Jesus—alone—without distraction—in the dead of night. 

And immediately, Jesus started throwing these strange comments at him…about needing to be born from above (which in the original language could also mean being born again).  Nicodemus said, “Now wait a second here.  I don’t get it—a fully grown man can’t return to his mother’s womb to be born again.”

Most preachers will tell you that Nicodemus understood Jesus too literally.  I disagree.  Playing with words and double meanings—these kinds of things were second nature to a man like Nicodemus.  And the Old Testament, many of the psalms and prophets, talked plenty about repentance and forgiveness being like a re-birth.  Nicodemus knew what Jesus was getting at, but he threw back the literal meaning of the words to say that what Jesus was saying was just as ridiculous and impossible.

“Born again?  You say I should become like a newborn?  There’s too much pressing down on my head, Jesus.  I’ve tried everything, but still it gathers on me.  You can tell the age of a tree by its rings.  You can tell the age of a man by his burden of guilt—all the things I’ve done—and all my repentance, my sacrifices, and my rituals—I can’t keep up…and it just doesn’t feel real anymore.  How can I be reborn, Jesus?  How in the world can I ever be made fresh and new, ever again?”

So, Jesus tried to answer; he said that rebirth is a heavenly power.  Nicodemus had tried and tried, but it was never in his power.  “Flesh is flesh,” Jesus said, “That is it’s limit, and it truly does not have the power to give you new life.”  All the trying in the world won’t make you clean.  What we’re talking about, instead, is letting yourself be born into the Spirit. 

And here’s another double meaning.  In Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek: each of those Biblical languages had one word that could mean, “wind, breath, spirit,” and sometimes it even meant “life.”  So, Jesus made this connection between wind and spirit; he said, “Look at the power of the wind.  You can’t see it; you can’t manipulate or control it, but you know it’s there.  You can see what it does.  You can feel it move across your skin.  So it is with the Spirit.  The Spirit of God is powerful and free.  Being born again means trusting the power of the Holy Spirit—and only that power—to clean you: like new; free, for eternity. 

 

The second stanza of the song is about living free—and seeing beauty.  At the last Thursday morning Bible study, someone mentioned how her dad, who happened to be a pastor, would drive through the mountains—point out the car windows and exclaim, “Look out there.  This is God’s cathedral!”

And it is.  It is an incredible cathedral: huge and even intimidating, powerful and frightening.  It stretches eternal light years from end to end.  And it is beautiful.  God was an artist—down to microscopic and atomic patterns—up to the huge canvas of sky.

We are a part of that beauty.  We are connected to it.  Ubuntu.  Creation is God’s Cathedral, but what is most amazing is that through Jesus Christ he has included each of us, and made us a part of its beauty.  Let’s sing the second stanza…

Live free—and beauty surrounds you,

the world still astounds you,

each time you look at a star.

 

The third stanza talks about staying free.  Sometimes, even though we’ve heard it time and again, we just don’t get it.  We don’t get grace, and we don’t understand our freedom.

Having been born again, you and I do have a freedom: we have the freedom to let go of God.  But how much worse it feels once you’ve tasted his presence.  It’s hard to believe that some people take this freedom—but I suppose we all let go from time to time, and turn back toward the darkness.  Sometimes it’s because we just simply can’t believe the grace.

It is hard to realize that Grace is free.  We live in a world where nothing comes without paying some price.  When somebody wants to give us something they say is “free,” we question it.  Even all the wonderful gifts of our parents seem to come, not with repayment exactly, but with spoken or unspoken expectations. 

So, when something so much more wonderful like the Grace of God is given to us, we still, in our guilty and fearful hearts, find ourselves questioning it.  It can’t be that easy?  It shouldn’t be that free?  We always seem to think we have to give something in return, but we can’t repay something so huge.  Only God can do it.  He must give us salvation; we can receive it no other way.

Flesh is flesh; so all the trying in the world can’t make us new.  The power of God’s Spirit is the only power that can give us a new life—it as simple as accepting and breathing in …and because it comes from God’s Spirit, holding it back is as silly and worthless as trying to hold back the ocean’s tide.  It is so strong that all the powers of the devil and death cannot force you out from his hands.  You are free at last.  So, stay that way.  Don’t go back to live in the darkness and prison.  Let’s sing the third stanza…

 

Stay free—where no walls divide you,

You’re free as a roaring tide,

So there’s no need to hide.

 

 

And here’s the truth, the center that Bishop Desmond Tutu insists that all creation is headed toward.  (The theology of “Ubuntu” and any theology worth its salt can be defined by these words of Jesus.)  Late one night under the stars, Jesus said these words to Nicodemus, and Nicodemus later passed them on to us.  Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever might believe in him will not die, but will have eternal life.  The Son came not to condemn the world to fire and wrath—but to save it.”

That, my friends, is the center of scripture.  Understand and interpret all the rest through that statement of God’s will.  These three words make life worth living: “God so loved!”  Please stand and sing the last stanza with me…

 

Born free—and life is worth living,

But only worth living,

‘Cause you’re born free.

 

The simple fact is that you are reborn.  You are a born again Christian.  You are called out of darkness to live in that life and freedom.  Amen.

 

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