March 8, 2020 – John 3:1-17
John 3:1-17
Being Born . . . Anew – Lent at the Movies II
Second Sunday in Lent – March 8, 2020
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Once upon a time, somebody saw something in you.
Maybe it was something you didn’t see in yourself.
Goodness. Kindness. Compassion. Trustworthiness.
Maybe it was a long time ago. Maybe it is today.
But whoever saw those things in you was right: those things are there.
And they are waiting to grow.
Once upon a time, a cynical reporter was sent to do a fluff piece on Mr. Rogers.
The reporter thought the assignment was beneath him.
The reporter called Mr. Rogers on the phone and
asked Mr. Rogers some questions about himself.
But Mr. Rogers was not interested in talking about himself.
Mr. Rogers was interested in the reporter.
It was Mr. Rogers who was asking the questions.
And the question he asked the reporter was this:
“Do you know what the most important thing in the world is to me?
talking to you on the phone right now.”
As their conversations continue, the reporter discovers that he is the one being investigated,
as Mr. Rogers in deep love peers deep inside the reporter and
discovers there the reporter’s feelings of anger towards his father.
During one of their conversations,
Mr. Rogers asks the reporter why he and his father had a big fight.
The reporters responds, “I don’t want to talk about it,” and simply leaves.
And Mr. Rogers lets him.
Once upon a time, a man named Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night.
Nicodemus is important and respected and part of the establishment – and
doesn’t want anyone to know he is coming to Jesus with his questions,
which is why he comes at night.
Nicodemus is important and respected and well-off – but presumably that is not enough.
But he has seen something in Jesus, something different, something life-giving.
Jesus is definitely not part of the establishment.
Jesus is different – Jesus appears to be from another planet entirely.
And so Nicodemus asks: Where are you from?
But soon it is Jesus who is doing the investigating.
Jesus looks at Nicodemus, then looks deep inside Nicodemus, and simply says:
You must be born anew.
As if to say: I see something in you, something good, something life-giving.
Let it be born and come to life.
Nicodemus does not understand.
And so Jesus speaks as clearly as he can:
God loves the world so much that he sent the Son to apprentice to God’s task of loving the world and every person in it – including you, Nicodemus. And this Son was sent not in order to judge the world or anyone in it, but to save it and everyone in it, that is, to set it right and to allow the very best that is in each person to grow and grow and grow.
And then Nicodemus, simply leaves.
And Jesus lets him.
The film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood starring Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers is wonderful.
It tells the story of Lloyd Vogel, a cynical and sometimes cruel journalist,
who is completely changed by his unlikely friendship with Mr. Rogers.
He comes to learn he has a capacity for grace – and for forgiveness –
that he never saw in himself – but that somehow Fred Rogers helps bring to birth.
He eventually reconciles with his estranged father and forgives him.
And that allows Lloyd Vogel in turn to become a father and nurture the life of his son Gavin.
The film is based on the true life friendship between Mr. Rogers and
a reporter named Tom Junod.
While the film does make certain things up, it does do a good and faithful job of portraying the
nature of the relationship between the two.
It does not, however, do a very good job of showing the Christian core of Mr. Rogers’
entire way of being, a way firmly grounded in grace and the unconditional love of God.
He once wrote Tom Junod an email in which he spoke of his deepest convictions:
God’s nature has grown and grown and grown all through the ages. Yet at the heart of the original creation is that Word (call it Love, call it Grace, call it Peace. . .), that essence which is lodged somewhere within each of us that longs for ultimate expression. If we choose to allow it to grow we’ll be given help. If we choose otherwise we won’t be forced. If there is such a thing as a “dark corner” of God’s nature then I think it’s God’s refusal to go back on the promise of ‘the creation’s freedom to love or not.’
We have a choice.
To let this thing that is in us, this love, this grace, this peace, to grow or not.
To let it be nurtured by the people around us and the things we do – or not.
To choose things that are life-giving – or not.
To allow the best that is in us to grow or not.
As he wrote about Mr. Rogers, I think Tom Junod came to realize that his encounter with
him was about the kind of person he himself was going to be.
Would he remain the careless, cruel journalist he had become?
Or would he let that thing that was in him from the time was a child be born anew and grow?
“You were a child once,” Fred Rogers would often say,
urging people to remember what it was like to be a child,
to be loved into being by those around them.
He believed, wrote Tom Junod, that if you remembered what it was like to be a child,
you would remember that you were also a child of God.
Once upon a time, after he wandered away from Jesus,
Nicodemus found he had to make a choice.
His friends condemn Jesus, but Nicodemus remembers his encounter with Jesus and
remembers that Jesus has not come to condemn or judge but to save and bring to life.
Nicodemus remembers Jesus saying that
there is something in him that can come to birth and grow.
Jesus saw something in Nicodemus, something good.
And Nicodemus makes his first choice: he refuses to condemn Jesus.
Once upon a time in the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,
the reporter Lloyd Vogel has an epiphany about Fred Rogers.
He says, “You love people like me.”
And Mr. Rogers asks, “What kind of people?”
And Lloyd Vogel says, “Broken people.”
Once upon a time, Mr. Rogers received an Emmy award for television.
And rather than make an acceptance speech, this is what he said to the assembled celebrities:
All of us have special ones who have loved us into being.
Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. . . . Ten seconds of silence.
And the people did, and the tears came, and when the ten seconds were up, Mr. Rogers said,
May God be with you.
Once upon on a time, on a Friday, three crosses with three dead bodies stood on a hill.
It was daytime, about noon.
Jesus’ dead body was among the bodies taken down from those crosses.
Nicodemus was there. Nicodemus asked if he could take the body and prepare it for burial.
Nicodemus had come to love this body and all other broken bodies like it –
because he in his brokenness had been loved, by Jesus.
And so he lavished the very best on this broken body, and anointed it with a hundred pounds of
spices and oil before burial, which is only something you would do for a king.
Having been loved in his brokenness, something was birthed into being in Nicodemus:
a great love for broken ones like him.
There is a great longing in each of us: as Fred Rogers would say,
we each have a longing to know there’s a graciousness at the heart of creation.
Or, as he would also say,
we each long to know that we are making this day special by just being ourselves.
“There’s no one in this whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.”
He was an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church and wanted
his television program to be used for “the broadcasting of grace throughout the land.”
He loved telling stories where people came together to help one another or other creatures,
as in a story where strangers once got out of their cars near Atlanta in order to
help an enormous snapping turtle across a highway.
Why did he love such stories?
Because, he said, whenever people come together to help either another person or another creature, something has happened, and everyone wants to know about it – because we all long to know that there’s a graciousness at the heart of creation.
Once upon time there was an enormous snapping turtle trying to cross Victor Street.
Just kidding.
But there were a lot of hungry people, people hungry for food, hungry for community,
hungry for acceptance, hungry for companionship, hungry for love.
And on Wednesday, Melody and her friends went to pick up groceries at Winnipeg Harvest.
And Kelly and her friends made giant dishes of spaghetti and homemade meat sauce.
And all these people came together to give away the groceries and serve the meal.
And it was all done in love.
And something was born. Hospitality, friendship, grace and love. Community.
People’s best selves were born.
And the people who came knew there was a graciousness at the heart of creation.
And now so do you.
And like them, you have a choice, a choice to be a certain kind of person.
The sermon is not really about Lloyd Vogel, or Tom Junod, or Nicodemus, or even Jesus.
The sermon is about you, and the freedom you have to remember what it was like to be a child,
to be loved into being, and let that thing that that is deep inside you be born.
But it is a choice you must make every day for the rest of your life.
You have the freedom to love or not, to be part of the graciousness at the heart of creation or not.
To make a food bank community meal or not.
But whatever you decide, you will still be loved with a love that is almost impossible to imagine.
For Jesus sees what you have in you, just as Jesus saw something in Nicodemus,
and just like Mr. Rogers saw something in Tom Junod.
Just like I see it in you.
Fred Rogers had a vision, writes Tom Junod.
His vision was of a public square, a place full of strangers, transformed by love and kindness into something like a neighbourhood. That vision depended on civility, on strangers feeling welcome. . . .
Sound like any place you know?
This place is where God is at work, right here, right now.
You have made this intersection at Sargent and Victor into a neighbourhood and
you have transformed this building into a space where all are truly welcome.
Where each person who encounters us knows
they are making this day special by just being themselves.
Where each person is seen for who they truly are: a beloved child of God.
God loves the world so much that he sent the Son to apprentice to God’s task of loving the world and every person in it – including you. And this Son was sent not in order to judge the world or anyone in it, but in order to save it and everyone in it, that is, to set it right and to allow the very best that is in each person to grow and grow and grow.
So with Nicodemus and Tom Junod and Fred Rogers and all the saints of every time and place,
let us be born anew,
let us continue to be part of the graciousness at the heart of creation,
and together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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