looking again at "born again"

The well-known text of John 3 came up in the lectionary last week, and I had the chance to preach on it on Sunday.

Aside from verse 16, John 3 is conspicuous for its introduction of the "born again" theme in Christian thought. Certainly in South Africa, the "born again" label is in coinage.  Christians of the Pentecostal and Charismatic stripes self-identity as "born agains", and their insistence on being "born again" sometimes makes Christians of the "mainline" churches--Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Catholic--distance themselves from the term.  Because we are in the position of having regular fellowship with both mainline and Charismatic Christians, we can neither completely deny the claims of one nor ignore the complaints of the other.

The text itself, John 3:1-10, is a dialogue between two "teachers".  The first teacher is Jesus, whom Nicodemus, his visitor "by night", calls a "teacher who has come from God" (3:2).  At the end of the text, Jesus refers to Nicodemus as a "teacher", albeit in a prodding manner--"Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?" (3:10).

The "these things" that the two "teachers" are discussing and which Nicodemus has "not understood" is the meaning of "birth".  Jesus himself makes two statements about birth in response to Nicodemus.  "No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above" and "No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit" (3:3, 5).  A third statement is like the first, "Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above'" (3:7).

I do prefer the NRSV's rendering of the Greek word anothen, "from above" (3:3, 7), for, although the Greek may be rendered as either "from above" or "again", context suggests it is not Jesus who begins speaking about being "born again".  It is Nicodemus, in response to Jesus, who elaborates on the meaning of birth from his own understanding as "a person entering into his mother's womb a second time", that is, "again" (3:4).  And it is as a result of Nicodemus's misinterpretation of Jesus' words about being born anothen that Jesus must clarify that he is talking about being "born of water and Spirit" (3:5).  It is because Nicodemus wishes to talk about being born "a second time" or "again" that Jesus needs to talk about "water and Spirit" as a synonym for being born "from above."  And it is because of Nicodemus's preoccupation with the subject of being "born again" that he fails to grasp the meaning of being "born from above" and does not "understand these things" even though he is "a teacher of Israel."

For a "teacher of Israel", being born "from above" has everything to do with knowing the story of Israel, with "setting one's mind on things above" (Col 3:2).  The story of Israel which Nicodemus "the teacher of Israel" might have taught was a story of "water and Spirit" and of Israel's God thwarting human wisdom by the wisdom "from above."  If Nicodemus had known his story, he would have seen that the earth was created "through waters" by the "spirit of God" (Gen 1:3).  He would have remembered that Israel became Israel, a people saved from slavery to foreign powers, by God's mercy through the cloud and fire of his spirit through the waters of the Red Sea (Ex 14:19ff.; see also 1 Pet 2:10).  He would have seen that Israel's was a story of God's ways above human ways, of battles won by downsizing at the riverside (Jdg 7), of anointing through humility (1 Sam 16), of cleansing in waters beautiful not to human eyes but in which God's Spirit chose to dwell (2 Kgs 5).

A teacher of Israel knows that to be born "of water and spirit" is to be born "from above".  A teacher of Israel knows that being born of God means to abide in the wisdom of God's "higher ways" (Isa 55:8-9).  A teacher of Israel knows not to "be conformed to the pattern of this world" but to "be transformed by the renewing of the mind" (Rom 12:2).

What then can we say about the "born again" debate within contemporary Christianity?

If being born "from above" or "by water and Spirit" has priority over being "born again", and if being born "from above" is something like being born into the world-confounding wisdom of God, then Christians will neither,

1) demand of individuals certain prescribed experiences in the world of the spirit which in and of themselves, apart from the "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal 5:22), are evidences of God's presence within a person's life; nor

2) reject the category of spirit as antithetical to a reasonable faith.

Rather, those who are "born of God" (Jn 1:13) will look for an ethics of the Spirit as the sign of God's presence in the world.  Wherever lives conform to the story of Israel fulfilled in Jesus, the Christ, there on earth is the kingdom of God which has come "from above."

-Joe

to give or not to give

For the final lesson of our discipleship class this year, we studied Jesus’ parable of the ten bridesmaids, Matthew 25:1-13.

The parable gives out a key conclusion from the outset—of the ten bridesmaids, “five of them were foolish, and five were wise” (v. 2). Moreover, the text elaborates from the beginning the reason for their respective foolishness and wisdom: “When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps” (vv. 3-4). As a result, then, the suspense, the drama of the unfolding story, lies not in that five were wise and five were foolish, nor in the specific action that marks the line between wisdom and folly, but in why taking “flasks of oil with their lamps” should constitute wisdom. In order to answer that question, the reader will have to know more about the purpose for which the ten took lamps and did or did not take with them “flasks of oil”, which is the same as asking for whom did the bridesmaids take their lamps.

The second variant of that question, of course, is also stated from the outset—“Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom” (v. 1). Indeed, to meet the bridegroom was the sole purpose for which the ten took their lamps. Having one purpose, five took “flasks of oil” with their lamps and five did not. Seeing that one purpose, we wonder why five brought no flasks of oil with their lamps, and understand why having oil with their lamps is the difference between wisdom and folly. Indeed, if the bridesmaids truly cared about their one purpose, or for the one for whom they were bridesmaids, they would have prepared themselves against all contingencies. Though they—not even the wise ones—did not expect the bridegroom to be “delayed”, five of the ten were nonetheless prepared to meet him “at midnight” when the “shout” of his arrival went up (vv. 5-6). Consequently, the wisdom of the five who were prepared (“those who were ready”, v. 10), though they slept like the rest (v. 5), consists not in their foreknowledge of the bridegroom’s time of arrival but in their knowing what they needed to complete the task for which they were called. That sole task—to accompany the bridegroom into “the wedding banquet”—requires enough oil-powered light to illumine the narrow way (Mt. 7:13-14) forward through darkness.

To have enough oil to show the way absolutely forbids, in this case, sharing what one has with others who have not; the oil in this parable is not bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty, clothes for the naked (cf. Mt. 25:31-46). The giving of oil in their flasks to those who brought no flasks with oil but could have is akin to “throwing your pearls before swine” who will only trample (Mt. 7:6), to attempting to do for others what they must do but have failed to do for themselves. To give, in this story, is to try to do for someone else what only that person can do for herself. To give here is to intercede where no intercession is possible, to intervene between a person and her bridegroom—her Lord—where no intervention can work. That the five who brought flasks of oil with their lamps perceive that to give to those who did not bring flasks of oil with their lamps is a dead-end is precisely what makes them wise. They know, that is, that the whole purpose for which they—and their fellow bridesmaids who brought no flasks of oil—exist as servants—to go with the bridegroom into the wedding banquet—will not succeed if they give their oil. It is better to have five lamps, burning oil, making enough light to see the task through than to forfeit the task itself by spreading the oil so thin among ten that all the lamps will go out before the bridegroom enters his glory.

This, then, is the knowledge that pertains to knowledge, the wisdom of wisdom: It is better to put a lot into a few than to put a little into many.

If we should follow the wisdom of the first half of this statement, we will enter the wedding banquet with the bridegroom. If we follow the second half, neither we—once thought wise, once prepared—nor the foolish will enter.

Let, therefore, those who bring flasks of oil with their lamps go with the bridegroom into his wedding banquet.

-Joe

the beginning of wisdom

Because I may be called upon to preach whenever we attend Harvest Time Ministries, a small Pentecostal congregation in Mandela Park in Mthatha, I keep myself immersed in scripture by following the Revised Common Lectionary. We also read these--four readings per week--every morning at breakfast before the boys go to school and we go to our office.

The readings from the lectionary may not be appropriate for some Sundays in Mandela Park; I need to keep myself free to speak a word from wherever in the Bible the Spirit might direct me. More commonly, however, the work of the Spirit is in making connections between my preparation in certain texts and the particular needs of a Sunday morning.

One such example comes from two weeks ago. The pastor had informed me in the week leading up to that Sunday that two special events were to occupy the service: a church blessing for a newly married couple and the welcoming of another young couple into positions of leadership in the ministry. I was assigned the marriage blessing; the pastor would do the welcome. However, when the newlyweds did not show, the pastor gave me the other assignment. I had to switch from something I was preparing in my heart from Ephesians 5 to--well, I didn't know what. But what came to me was what I had been reading that week from the lectionary: 1 Kings 3:3-14.

It so happens that 1 Kings 3:3-14 is a most appropriate text for exhorting new leaders; it describes something of a divine commissioning of Solomon to leadership of Israel. The commissioning comes in the form of a test set in a dream of Solomon.

God asks Solomon to ask God what God should give him. Solomon assumes a humble posture in response to the revelation of God, acknowledging God's "steadfast love" in the past, that is, to his father David, and his own inability for so great a task as "leading the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted" (v. 8).

Solomon's request pleases God. Solomon asks "only" for the wisdom to "discern between good and evil" in the cause of leading God's great people. Solomon's request for wisdom to do the good and shun the evil is significant in the text in light of that to which it is in opposition--"long life or riches" or "the life of your enemies." God does not want a leader for God's people who looks first to external things, to the things outside oneself, but internally, within his own heart. That is, as in words ascribed to Solomon's very father, David, the leader of Israel, God wants someone who asks God,

"search me and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Ps. 139:23-24).

The enemy which God's appointed leader seeks to slay lurks not without but within. The enemies from outside are not the greatest danger to God's people; danger attacks from within.

The leader cannot buy "long life and riches"--prosperity--for the people. Neither can the leader protect the nation through the forcible removal of its enemies. Rather, the leader provides and protects by being who God has called the leader to be.

When confronted by the greatness of the God who "alone is good" (Mk. 10:18), the humble leader, like Solomon in the text, sees himself as he is: "a child", lacking in understanding ("I do not know how to go out or come in", v. 7), in need of the higher wisdom in order to do the good. In the piercing light of perfect love, complete knowledge (omniscience), and total capability (omnipotence), the humble leader rightly fears, for he now sees that perfect love and light cannot abide the bitterness and darkness within his own heart; "God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all" (1 Jn. 1:5). The leader either submits to the God who can cleanse her, thereby saving her life, or clings to her desire for wealth and the life of her enemies, thereby subjecting herself to the destructive cycle of greed and jealousy with those very enemies who seek her life. The leader has only two options: fear God or fear humans.

The latter is the way of mutual destruction. The former is "the beginning of wisdom", the way of peace for the people of God (Ps. 111:10).

-Joe