2 Lent A March 8, 2020
Gen 12:1-8
Ps.121
Rom.
4:1-5, (6-12)13-17 Jn.3:1-17
Lectionary Link
One of the most influential books that I have read in my studies was written by a historian of science. It was written in the 1960's but it had to wait until the 1990's to distill into the culture-at-large after being limited mainly to the academic world. You may not know the book or the author but you know the lasting catch phrase of the book. What is that phrase? Paradigm Shift. How many of you have heard the phrase Paradigm Shift or a change of paradigm? When something new was happening in any field, suddenly people would say, "A paradigm switch has happened....there is a sea change and we have to think and act differently because of this paradigm switch." People in an old paradigm did not seem to speak the same language as the people in the new paradigm even though they used the same words.
The writer of this book was T.S. Kuhn and the book was, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." Kuhn observed changes in the scientific communities like those who held for the Ptolemaic Cosmology of geocentricism and the switch to the Copernicium Cosmology of a heliocentric world, a sun-centered solar system. Kuhn wrote about the change from Newtonian physics to Einsteinian Relativity. He notes that while people in both paradigms used the same terms of energy, mass and matter; they in fact meant something different. And this can be confusing when people use the same words but mean something different by them. How does one come to understand a new paradigm and what the words within a new paradigm mean?
The paradigm shift metaphor is useful to understand how change occur in science, in culture, in politics and in our faith experience. I believed in God and Jesus when I was sixteen, and I do now, but my understanding of God and Jesus now would be unrecognizable to me as a 16 year old person. In short, I have undergone many paradigm shifts in my life of faith and I remain the same person who encompasses all of those changes.
This notion of paradigm change might help us to understand the words of Jesus to Nicodemus: "So Nicodemus, you don't understand my program? Well, you have to be born again, or born from above, or perceive from a more elevated/heavenly point of view."
The Gospel of John explains the Jesus Movement as a significant paradigm shift from Judaism, even while the same words and symbols are used, they mean something different in the churches of the Risen Christ.
The Gospel of John, in long discourses of Jesus, almost like Socratic dialogues, channels the mind, voice and Spirit of the Risen Christ and place these channeled words of Jesus within a narrative of the life of Jesus. Why? The leaders of the communities of St. John's Gospel are trying to teach the meaning of the life of Jesus Christ in a newly constituted Jesus Movement within house churches.
Just as Einsteinian physics did not burn the bridges with Newtonian physics, but rather enlarged meanings to solve problems which could not be answered by the old paradigm, so too the Jesus Movement did not burn bridges with the Hebrew Scriptures. The leaders of the Jesus Movement reinterpreted many symbols which derived from the Hebrew Scriptures. How did the Jesus Movement re-appropriate the symbols of the Hebrew Scriptures? We can look at some which are found in our Scripture readings for today. Abraham, The Law, Baptism, Water, Spirit, and the serpent which Moses placed on a pole for the people who were plagued with poisonous snakes to see and be healed.
The new Christ-paradigm might be called the "born again" paradigm or the "kingdom of God" paradigm.
Once one has been born into this new divine realm, how does one see things in a new way? One suddenly sees the flow of Gentiles into the Jesus Movement. How can this be in keeping with the Hebrew Scriptures which seem to be a Holy Book restricted to the people of the Judaic faith? Well, Abraham is like a Gentile person because he is pre-Jewish, he is before Jacob who became Israel. He is before Moses and the Law and he is before King David and the prophets. Was Abraham, who was not a Jew, accepted by God even though he did not live with the benefit of the law? Yes, of course. Abraham was justified or accepted by God because of his faith. And now Gentiles have come to have faith without the benefit of knowing the Judaic law and the rules of ritual purity. Was Abraham in the kingdom of God without the benefit of the law? Yes, indeed, then so can the Gentiles be like Abraham in their lives of faith.
What about the crown jewel of Judaism, the Law? The law recommends behaviors for good and holy living. What the law shows is that everyone breaks the law in some way. The law cannot make ones inner life and motives clean and holy. The law can teach us how to live well but it cannot perfect those who cannot be perfect. The Law can only show us that we aren't perfect. So what is the purpose of the law in the Jesus Movement? To show us that we have to live by faith in God's grace to justify us.
Moses was given the law; Jesus brought the law of grace and the law of the Spirit. Water is the symbol of baptism; it is the like the amniotic fluid which accompanies this new birth by the Holy Spirit. This birth by the Holy Spirit is God justifying us because God justifies the Divine presence of the Risen Christ and the Spirit within us. Having the Spirit of God within us gives us the access to this new realm of the kingdom of God, into which we have been born.
What about the serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness by Moses? In the Jesus Movement, the lifting up of Jesus on the Cross as the proof that God sacrificed his own being in dying with us and for us, gives us a place to glance and believe in God's sacrificial grace. Since we know that we aren't perfect and always falling short, we can glance at the perfect offering of God on our behalf and ride on the coattails of Jesus into this new realm of life, the eternal life of the Spirit.
John chapter 3, highlights the reality of the paradigm which occurred in the Jesus Movement because of the life, death and post resurrection appearances of Christ to his followers. This chapter of John's Gospel is perhaps the most famous chapter for the people who call themselves fundamentalist evangelical, born again Christians. In fact, "born again," has actually become a definable political designation in our country.
I know this group; it was how I was raised. I was raised as a fundamentalist, evangelical, born again Christian. We loved the 3rd Chapter of John's Gospel. How many of you have watched sports on television and seen the sign or placard, Jn 3:16? This Bible verse is the identifying verse of fundamental evangelical Christianity. And it is a good verse. God so love the world. How much? God gave the divine Son in full identity with human life even to the point of his death. That the divine life experienced death expresses a full solidarity with human life. And if we believe in this solidarity of God with us, we can ride the divine elevator to know eternal life. We can know God's Spirit within us as eternal life.
One of the weaknesses of fundamentalism and the "born again" mentality is that it is so narrow. One is born again to get into the kingdom of God. And what this refers to is a one time experience so that one can know that one is not going to hell.
What is more accurate to spiritual growth and process is that we need to have many born again experiences on the spiritual path. We need to have continuous conversion, not a one-time conversion. We need to have many paradigm changes on our spiritual journey. God's perfection invites us to new break throughs in our understanding of God, Christ, the Christian paradigms and much more. Old Christian practices do not do justice to God's love especially for people who previously were ostracized, marginalized or kept in the closet about their own self knowledge. The Holy Spirit is dynamics and invites us to both personal and communal paradigm changes. If we didn't make biblical paradigm shifts, we would still believe in slavery and the subjugation of women because it is in the Bible. The reason that churches and Christians are often divided is because they live in different paradigms. We have come to live in a paradigm where we believe the love of Christ honors the dignity of LGBT persons and believe that they should have full participatory standing in our church life.
Part of the conflict in our church and in our society and in our politics is due to the fact that we are unevenly located in different paradigms of the practice of the love of God in Christ to the diverse people who are actually in our lives.
What does this mean? It means we need to continually invite people to be born again. We need to demonstrate that the love of Christ as we live it in our Christian paradigm is winsome and truly honors a fullness of what we understand to be human dignity and justice.
So during this Lent, for all of us who have been born again; let be open for this to happen to us again and again as we come into new paradigm changes toward knowing the excellence of the love of God in Christ. Amen.
One of the most influential books that I have read in my studies was written by a historian of science. It was written in the 1960's but it had to wait until the 1990's to distill into the culture-at-large after being limited mainly to the academic world. You may not know the book or the author but you know the lasting catch phrase of the book. What is that phrase? Paradigm Shift. How many of you have heard the phrase Paradigm Shift or a change of paradigm? When something new was happening in any field, suddenly people would say, "A paradigm switch has happened....there is a sea change and we have to think and act differently because of this paradigm switch." People in an old paradigm did not seem to speak the same language as the people in the new paradigm even though they used the same words.
The writer of this book was T.S. Kuhn and the book was, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." Kuhn observed changes in the scientific communities like those who held for the Ptolemaic Cosmology of geocentricism and the switch to the Copernicium Cosmology of a heliocentric world, a sun-centered solar system. Kuhn wrote about the change from Newtonian physics to Einsteinian Relativity. He notes that while people in both paradigms used the same terms of energy, mass and matter; they in fact meant something different. And this can be confusing when people use the same words but mean something different by them. How does one come to understand a new paradigm and what the words within a new paradigm mean?
The paradigm shift metaphor is useful to understand how change occur in science, in culture, in politics and in our faith experience. I believed in God and Jesus when I was sixteen, and I do now, but my understanding of God and Jesus now would be unrecognizable to me as a 16 year old person. In short, I have undergone many paradigm shifts in my life of faith and I remain the same person who encompasses all of those changes.
This notion of paradigm change might help us to understand the words of Jesus to Nicodemus: "So Nicodemus, you don't understand my program? Well, you have to be born again, or born from above, or perceive from a more elevated/heavenly point of view."
The Gospel of John explains the Jesus Movement as a significant paradigm shift from Judaism, even while the same words and symbols are used, they mean something different in the churches of the Risen Christ.
The Gospel of John, in long discourses of Jesus, almost like Socratic dialogues, channels the mind, voice and Spirit of the Risen Christ and place these channeled words of Jesus within a narrative of the life of Jesus. Why? The leaders of the communities of St. John's Gospel are trying to teach the meaning of the life of Jesus Christ in a newly constituted Jesus Movement within house churches.
Just as Einsteinian physics did not burn the bridges with Newtonian physics, but rather enlarged meanings to solve problems which could not be answered by the old paradigm, so too the Jesus Movement did not burn bridges with the Hebrew Scriptures. The leaders of the Jesus Movement reinterpreted many symbols which derived from the Hebrew Scriptures. How did the Jesus Movement re-appropriate the symbols of the Hebrew Scriptures? We can look at some which are found in our Scripture readings for today. Abraham, The Law, Baptism, Water, Spirit, and the serpent which Moses placed on a pole for the people who were plagued with poisonous snakes to see and be healed.
The new Christ-paradigm might be called the "born again" paradigm or the "kingdom of God" paradigm.
Once one has been born into this new divine realm, how does one see things in a new way? One suddenly sees the flow of Gentiles into the Jesus Movement. How can this be in keeping with the Hebrew Scriptures which seem to be a Holy Book restricted to the people of the Judaic faith? Well, Abraham is like a Gentile person because he is pre-Jewish, he is before Jacob who became Israel. He is before Moses and the Law and he is before King David and the prophets. Was Abraham, who was not a Jew, accepted by God even though he did not live with the benefit of the law? Yes, of course. Abraham was justified or accepted by God because of his faith. And now Gentiles have come to have faith without the benefit of knowing the Judaic law and the rules of ritual purity. Was Abraham in the kingdom of God without the benefit of the law? Yes, indeed, then so can the Gentiles be like Abraham in their lives of faith.
What about the crown jewel of Judaism, the Law? The law recommends behaviors for good and holy living. What the law shows is that everyone breaks the law in some way. The law cannot make ones inner life and motives clean and holy. The law can teach us how to live well but it cannot perfect those who cannot be perfect. The Law can only show us that we aren't perfect. So what is the purpose of the law in the Jesus Movement? To show us that we have to live by faith in God's grace to justify us.
Moses was given the law; Jesus brought the law of grace and the law of the Spirit. Water is the symbol of baptism; it is the like the amniotic fluid which accompanies this new birth by the Holy Spirit. This birth by the Holy Spirit is God justifying us because God justifies the Divine presence of the Risen Christ and the Spirit within us. Having the Spirit of God within us gives us the access to this new realm of the kingdom of God, into which we have been born.
What about the serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness by Moses? In the Jesus Movement, the lifting up of Jesus on the Cross as the proof that God sacrificed his own being in dying with us and for us, gives us a place to glance and believe in God's sacrificial grace. Since we know that we aren't perfect and always falling short, we can glance at the perfect offering of God on our behalf and ride on the coattails of Jesus into this new realm of life, the eternal life of the Spirit.
John chapter 3, highlights the reality of the paradigm which occurred in the Jesus Movement because of the life, death and post resurrection appearances of Christ to his followers. This chapter of John's Gospel is perhaps the most famous chapter for the people who call themselves fundamentalist evangelical, born again Christians. In fact, "born again," has actually become a definable political designation in our country.
I know this group; it was how I was raised. I was raised as a fundamentalist, evangelical, born again Christian. We loved the 3rd Chapter of John's Gospel. How many of you have watched sports on television and seen the sign or placard, Jn 3:16? This Bible verse is the identifying verse of fundamental evangelical Christianity. And it is a good verse. God so love the world. How much? God gave the divine Son in full identity with human life even to the point of his death. That the divine life experienced death expresses a full solidarity with human life. And if we believe in this solidarity of God with us, we can ride the divine elevator to know eternal life. We can know God's Spirit within us as eternal life.
One of the weaknesses of fundamentalism and the "born again" mentality is that it is so narrow. One is born again to get into the kingdom of God. And what this refers to is a one time experience so that one can know that one is not going to hell.
What is more accurate to spiritual growth and process is that we need to have many born again experiences on the spiritual path. We need to have continuous conversion, not a one-time conversion. We need to have many paradigm changes on our spiritual journey. God's perfection invites us to new break throughs in our understanding of God, Christ, the Christian paradigms and much more. Old Christian practices do not do justice to God's love especially for people who previously were ostracized, marginalized or kept in the closet about their own self knowledge. The Holy Spirit is dynamics and invites us to both personal and communal paradigm changes. If we didn't make biblical paradigm shifts, we would still believe in slavery and the subjugation of women because it is in the Bible. The reason that churches and Christians are often divided is because they live in different paradigms. We have come to live in a paradigm where we believe the love of Christ honors the dignity of LGBT persons and believe that they should have full participatory standing in our church life.
Part of the conflict in our church and in our society and in our politics is due to the fact that we are unevenly located in different paradigms of the practice of the love of God in Christ to the diverse people who are actually in our lives.
What does this mean? It means we need to continually invite people to be born again. We need to demonstrate that the love of Christ as we live it in our Christian paradigm is winsome and truly honors a fullness of what we understand to be human dignity and justice.
So during this Lent, for all of us who have been born again; let be open for this to happen to us again and again as we come into new paradigm changes toward knowing the excellence of the love of God in Christ. Amen.
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