There was an old man
Named Michael Finnegan
He had whiskers
On his chin-ne-gan
He shaved them off
and they grew in again
Poor old Michael Finnegan, Begin Again

Today we have stories of two men who are asked to begin again. If you include Michael Finnegan, it’s three.

At the end of the long lineage lists in Genesis 10-11, we get a little note about the birth of Abram. Abram is born to Terah – no mention of a mother. Terah, with his son Abram and daughter-in-law Sarai, as well as grandson Lot, travel from Ur of the Chaldeans toward Canaan. They get about half way to their destination and decide to settle down in Haran, and there Terah dies.

With the death of Terah, the family leader is now Abram. God tells Abram that he is to move. It is one thing to move because you can’t make a living, because opportunities have dried up, your parent dies or you are restless. It is quite another thing in the midst of a comfortable life, to hear a voice that says you should move on. “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” Does that mean leave everything behind, physically – or just psychically?

In verse 5 we read that Abram takes everything with him when he goes. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran. Abram leads his family and workers and livestock to the “land that God will show” them. It doesn’t really sound like a land so much as a state of being: I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.   

Begin again.

Many generations later, we meet one of that great nation of Abraham, Nicodemus. He is an established and settled man, a respected religious leader, living comfortably. And yet something makes him go, in the dead of night, to see this new rabbi, Jesus. This young rabbi teaches the Law and the Prophets with surprising authority. The signs and wonders associated with Jesus are so amazing and unusual there can only be one source, The One Source.

Usually rabbis ask questions, digging deeper and wider, but at this midnight meeting of a rabbi and a religious leader, they both start with statements. Nicodemus affirms Jesus being from God. Jesus affirms that a person can’t recognize the reign of God unless they are born from above or born again. Is Jesus saying that Nicodemus, since he has recognized the signs Jesus has been performing, is already born from above? If so, that is not how Nicodemus hears it because now the questions start.

I can understand why Nicodemus keeps pressing for answers. The responses Jesus gives are peculiar and somewhat circular. Jesus keeps saying “I tell you the truth,” but his responses are more akin to Japanese koans than clear Jewish proverbs. It is a wonder Nicodemus sticks with the conversation.

The conversation continues on until we get what has now become its own Christian proverb, what some Christians understand as the essence of what it means to be a Jesus follower: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”  While we read this verse today as part of what Jesus said to Nicodemus, some scholars understand John 3:16-21 as commentary that the writer or editor added in here. In either case, it has become “gospel” for us to wrestle with. It is part of Nicodemus being asked to set aside what he thinks he knows and to start over.

Begin again.

In January, I heard “anablacktivist” theologian, Drew Hart, speak at the School for Leadership Training at Eastern Mennonite Seminary. He remarked that some Christians talk about being born again. Some people even have a particular point in time that they can name when they were “born again.”  But Drew Hart says, being born again is not a “one and done” kind of thing. Just saying we “believe” is not enough. We need to be born again, again. If we truly want to be disciples we have to be born again again.

Begin again again.

Sally was a woman of deep and deliberate faith and a long time member of this congregation. I will always remember what said to me one time as I visited with her in her last months of life. “I thought that as I got older, faith would become easier. But I find that is not the case.”

In the years since Sally died, as I get older, I understand what Sally was saying.  There is not an arrival point to living out our faith. We need to be born again again, and again. That came clear to me personally a few days ago.

On Friday, I went to the Native Nations March with my friend Cathy. We were fairly proud of our middle aged selves for showing up in the rain and snow, though it was just a short metro ride for us. It was a trip across the country for the many people who came from Standing Rock and Oregon and Washington and other parts of the country. We walked with several thousand people from the Army Corps of Engineers building to the White House. Walking near us was a 25 foot long black snake-like puppet that represented an oil pipeline. In front of us, a few people smudged the city with burning sage; behind us a young Native American man danced. We stopped in front of the Trump Hotel while a tipi was erected. We saw signs in Korean and Chinese as well as a huge banner representing Pacific Islanders. I carried my large cardboard sign, painted the night before that said, “Water is Life.”

I thought I had a sense of why we were all there, to be in solidarity with the Native Nations and their people, to join our voices in support of “keeping the oil in the soil.” Then up ahead in the crowd, I saw a small sign with lots of words:

If you care about the water because it is a thing, you are an environmentalist. If you care about the water because it is a person, you are indigenous.

It was a born again again moment for me. The Native Nations did not gather because they want to reclaim the water and the land. They came to Washington DC to let it be known that land and water are valuable in and of themselves, not just for what they can give humans; they are their own persons. This is a very different world view than what I am accustomed to. I will need to be born again again to truly understand and embrace water this way.

Each year during Lent and Easter we take a special offering that connects with our theme in worship. Our theme this year is “restore.” As we are finding out in the Time for Children, there are lots of ways that restoration can happen. We usually give our offering to organizations that serve people in need, locally, nationally or internationally. The worship committee decided this year to give our offering to Anacostia Watershed Society, a local non-profit that works to restore our local watershed – the Anacostia River and its many tributaries.

There is a piece of me, that very person centered pastor part, that wonders if we really shouldn’t give the money to an organization that serves people. I find myself looking to justify why we are giving to a secular organization that works to restore a river. But then I hear the statement from this congregation’s Green committee: “God seeks the redemption not only of people but of all the earth… Creation itself calls us now, urgently, to rededicate ourselves to covenant with it and with God for our mutual renewal.” And I see the sign at the Native Nations March. If you care about the water because it is a person, you are indigenous. Can I learn to think of water not as a thing but as a person? Can I be born again again?

I wonder if part of the reason faith doesn’t necessarily get easier as we get older is because faith, like birth, is a process: a process that the one being born does not – and cannot – control. Like Abram, who is called to a land that will eventually be revealed, we are called to a process that is out of our hands. If we say yes to being born again again, we may find that there is some pushing and squeezing, and we get a little misshapen. Birth is a humbling process for those being born and for those watching and assisting; it is natural and it is messy and dangerous and not always predictable. Should being born again again be any different?

Sometimes preachers make it sound like being born again is a simple, individual choice we make. But birth is a process one does not want to experience alone. We do not seek to be born again again alone or only for ourselves. We are born again again in a faith community so that “the world might be saved” – saved from pollution, saved from racism, saved from selfish greed, saved from prejudice that kills. We seek to be born again again understanding that we are part of the promise God gave to Abram, “all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

There is no end to the ways that people with education, money, property, and all the other things that give power, need to be born again again. But it is not just so that we can get to heaven. It is because “God so loved the world.” It is because we are a part of that world and when we say we want to follow Jesus, we seek the reign of God: the reign of God here, now, in this world, not just “in some heaven, light years away.”

What is born of the flesh is flesh;
what is born of the Spirit is Spirit.
So don’t be surprised when I tell you
that you must be born again – again.