March 5, 2023

Lent 2 Year A

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; John 3:1-17

We heard it a few minutes ago: God says to Abram and Sarai, who are in their sixties and seventies - just a couple of crazy young kids - “Leave your country and your relatives and everything familiar and go to the place I’ll show you.” It’s all pretty short on details, but what happens is that Abram and Sarai pack up and head off for God only knows where. There’s a story to remember on Annual Meeting Sunday. There’s something kind of crazy and irresponsible about the two of them packing up and going like that. But what if it’s like this: Sarah just came home from work one day and Abraham said, “You know, I think I heard God talk to me today while I was dusting the living room, and God said we should pack up and go.” And Sarah said, “Where?” and Abraham said, “I don’t know, wherever God shows us,” and Sarah said, “Do we have any idea where?” and Abraham said “No.” And then Sarah thought for a minute and said, “I guess you never really know what’s going to happen, do you? We could stay here forever and who knows what might happen? It could be great; it could be a disaster.” And Abraham said, “That’s what I was thinking. We really don’t know either way, do we?” And Sarah said, “Maybe we should go?” So that’s what they did. Because they thought maybe God had told them to, and because they knew that they never really know anyway. So why not go? And they go with a promise that God makes to them and to us: You will be a blessing, a gift, something life-giving for the people wherever you are. It’s the promise that’s reliable. Who knows what it’ll look like? I don’t. But it’s a promise. Give that some thought at an annual meeting lunch table.

I don’t want to over-simplify complicated things, but there’s something Abraham and Sarah-ish in everything we do. In all those personal things, like jobs and relationships and decisions about staying or going, or just getting out of bed in the morning, or even what a country decides or a church decides and discusses at annual meetings and lunches, we never know where things will lead. We’re like the writer of that Psalm that we read together. They are setting off to wherever they’re going, we’re setting off to wherever we’re going…and sometimes it seems like we’re looking off into the hills to that future and we might find ourselves saying, “Where is our help coming from?” And the simple word as we move ahead is that our help is from our God, even if we don’t know what that will look like. And our God is in those hills or those smooooooth prairies or suburbs or cityscapes and even in that uncertainty that we see as we look ahead. Hundreds and hundreds of years after Abraham and Sarah packed up and moved along, one of their descendants named Nicodemus went under the cover of night to see Jesus, another one of their descendants. Nicodemus is having his own Abraham and Sarah moment, because he’s stepping off into an uncertain place. He’s not sure who Jesus is; he’s curious. So he steps into unfamiliar company with this unfamiliar person to see what might happen, but he doesn’t come away from the conversation any more sure of anything. Because right in the middle of it all Jesus drops a word or two about the Spirit of God, and he says that the spirit of God is just like the wind. You hear it, but you don’t know where it’s coming from and you’re never sure where it’s going. Sure, it blows from the east or from the west or the north or the south, but you can’t point somewhere and say, “The wind starts here,” and then point somewhere else and say, “the wind stops there.” That’s the way it is with the Spirit of God too – maybe we’re not supposed to know what’s going on! That’s the way it is with the people born of the spirit too – Abraham and Sarah, Nicodemus, Mary and Martha, Eilene and Drew and Kareen and Row and Ash and Irving and all of you, all of us. You never know whether we’re coming or going, because we’re blown around by the spirit of God, and who knows where God’s spirit is moving? But where God’s spirit blows, we are born again, and we see something new, and start over and see the world in a different way. The Spirit blew amongst Abraham and Sarah and their entourage and they headed off to a new place and some kind of promise. That Spirit stirred up Nicodemus to check out this Jesus he’s been hearing about. That same breath of the Spirit once moved a handful of people to start up a church in Fort Richmond and that Spirit blows among us now; opening our eyes to see the world in a new way, to see our neighbours in a fresh light, to see one another and our needs and hopes and struggles and joys in a new way, as thought for the first time. It’s that spirit that stirs us up and opens our eyes and ears and hearts to imagine a world where the kids and their families at neighbourhood schools have enough to eat. That Spirit stirs us up to see that we can learn from our neighbours and receive their gifts too. The Spirit blows and it’s like a new day and a new life, like when you get up and start a new day, or when you’re forgiven and given another chance. You just don’t know where the Spirit of God is blowing. But the Spirit of God is always the spirit of life. On the Second Sunday in Lent, and on Annual Meeting Sunday, and around tables in the basement where the meeting finally takes the form of food, you and I, our nation and our church, Nicodemus and Abraham and Sarah look to the hills. Or we look ahead to the buildings down the street, or to skyscrapers downtown, or if we leave the city we look to endless prairie that seems to go on forever. We’ll see things as we look ahead that will make us afraid or uncertain or confused or maybe just curious for now. And we’ll ask as we look ahead, “Where does our help come from?” And Jesus’ voice will come back: “The wind, the Spirit, it blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. It’s like that with all of you, you born of the Spirit people.” And God’s Spirit will blow where it will: From the hills, from across the prairies, from the heart of the city…. to people on the go or to people staying put; to people going through big changes or people stuck in the same routines. God’s spirit blows from the hills, from across the prairies, from the heart of the city, right here among people who honestly aren’t sure what’s happening next, but that’s OK.…. It’s the Spirit of something new, it’s the Spirit of God who gives life to the world, and even gives us new life on an Annual Meeting Sunday and every day.

AMEN.