John 3:1-17
We’ve all heard the old adage, “If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.” If there’s any truth to that saying, then there’s been plenty of mirth in heaven recently. For the past year and a half, everyone’s plans have been upended. Our lives have been disrupted, in ways ranging from the mundane to the monumental. Certainly nothing in our parish has gone according to plan: just two weeks ago we had a completely different approach to our summer schedule all nicely laid out and ready to go, and that plan got thrown out the window when the bishop unexpectedly and significantly altered our diocesan guidelines. I want to tell you that what we are doing today is what we are going to do for the next three months, but I don’t know. Meanwhile, COVID is not done with us: the economic and social damage has been huge, and most importantly, three and a half million people around the world have died from it, with more dying everyday. It’s all very serious and unsettling, and yet I don’t want to let go of that idea of God laughing.
I’ve recently been reading Natalie Sudman’s book, The Application of Impossible Things. Natalie was working for the Army Corps of Engineers when she was blown up by an IED in Iraq in 2007 and had a remarkable near death experience. She found herself floating above the carnage and could see her horribly wounded body. And there were two heavenly beings with her, and as they surveyed the whole scene and where it would lead her in life, all of them, Natalie included, laughed. They laughed! It was startling to read. It wasn’t a malicious laugh at all: quite the opposite. It came, she said, from a deep awareness that this physical world, this life as we currently know it, is not all that there is. And that all we experience, even the worst suffering, just leads to greater love and greater wholeness. It was laughter born of joy. And whatever we might think about near death experiences, that’s an extraordinary epiphany. It reminds me of some mystics in our tradition, people like Julian of Norwich. Julian almost died from a severe illness at the age of thirty. She lived in the fourteenth century, an age rife with plague, sickness, and violence. But after encountering Christ during her illness, she is unrelenting in her cheerfulness. No sin, no suffering can overcome it. It’s not that sin isn’t strong, it’s just that God’s mercy is stronger. It’s not that suffering isn’t real, it’s just that God’s love is far more real. She can laugh and rejoice because she sees everything within the context of God’s utter and eternal goodness. All shall be well, she says with irrepressible assurance. All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
Somehow, in the pain and craziness of this pandemic time, I want us to experience that sense of divine lightness and laughter. And I feel convicted that Jesus wants that for us. He certainly wants it for Nicodemus. I mean, talk about a serious guy! Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, the high Jewish council. He is extremely well-educated, a pillar of the establishment, and, by the norms of his society, super religious — but he’s missing something crucial. Jesus sees this solemn and somber man, and talks about being born from above, being born again, with the vision and wonder of a child. He tells him about the Spirit of God blowing everywhere like the wind. And Nicodemus is completely thrown: he cannot grasp it. How can these things be? And Jesus, I’m sure with a smile on his face, says to him “You are a leader, a teacher of the people of Israel! How can you not get this?” There’s no judgment in his words. The passage makes it abundantly clear that Jesus hasn’t come to condemn anybody: he’s come to save everybody. And salvation comes from seeing the healing and life-giving love of God flowing through all of creation, in all times and in all circumstances, a love which Jesus so beautifully embodies and so generously shares, a love not even death can conquer.
Do we get it? We need to, now more than ever. As we re-organize our daily lives and re-assemble our parish, as we stand for economic and racial justice, as we offer witness and help to a hurting, COVID-stricken world, we need the lightness that comes from being born from above. And the world needs it. God knows the world doesn’t need more dour and judgmental religion: that kind of religion is literally killing people every day. And the world certainly doesn’t need more angry, self-righteous screamers. What the world desperately needs is more lovers, people who have experienced the mercy of God, people who see the Holy Spirit blowing around them and who allow the Holy Spirit to blow through them.
The world needs us. God needs us. It’s not somebody else’s job or somebody else’s mission: it’s ours. But lest we get too angsty about it and take ourselves too seriously, let me remind all of us that Jesus’s yoke is easy and his burden is light. It comes down to allowing ourselves to be loved, and then loving in return. Yes, we are flawed and fallible people, but God is quite happy to work through us anyway. We don't have to do it perfectly: we just have to do it at all. Maybe like Nicodemus, we just need to let ourselves be born anew, need to let ourselves be spiritual toddlers: we take a few steps and fall down, but when we fall, God laughs, not in malice but in joy, and then lifts us up to take more steps until we get stronger and more confident. As Jesus sees it, in fact, it is far better for us to be like children who depend on God’s grace and forgiveness than to be pseudo-adults who think they can do it on their own, who have lost all sense of wonder and have become hardened to the basic realities of love and mercy. This week, in all the strife and struggle of our time, find reasons to smile and find ways to remind yourself that God is smiling. No sin, no suffering, no pandemic will ultimately thwart God’s love. Even if we die, we will live. Weeping may spend the night, says the Psalmist, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:6). We have reason to smile and to laugh, even now. Do not let anything harden your heart to it.
