All Saints Lutheran Church
Pastor Tim Johnson
June 15, 2003

This may sound contradictory to you, but the longer I stay in ministry, the less I understand about preaching. In fact, I know less about preaching today than I knew ten years ago. Back then, while I was a seminary student, I could tell you what constituted a good sermon. All I had to do was ask one of my homiletics professors. Today, I'm not so sure they knew all that much. Why does a sermon "work", why does it achieve positive results, when by all rights it ought to fall on its face and die? And why does a sermon not work when it has all the right stuff, just the right blend of humor, stories, examples, and only lasts twelve minutes? I just don't know.

On a good week, when there's been ample time to do all the research and word searches and Internet surfing through the preaching resources (and there are lots of them), the preacher feels pretty comfortable with the end product. Then Sunday comes, as it always does, and you're about six minutes into this gem of a sermon, and you look around at the congregation and see blank expressions on every other face. That is an "Oh, NO!" moment for the preacher.

You know what those oh-no moments are. It's that split second that occurs just before the latch catches on the car door when you've just noticed your keys dangling from the ignition. "Oh, no!" You see it, but it's too late to do anything about it. "Not again!" you moan. "How could I have done that?"

For the preacher, it's "Why in the world did I choose this text to preach on? It's John 3:16, for crying out loud! They've heard nine jillion sermons on this, and 99.9% of those sermons were probably better than this one! What could I have been thinking?"

Sometimes sermons backfire, or roll over and play dead, or just limp off into well-deserved obscurity. Sometimes they just totally miss the mark and fail to connect. What's even worse, sometimes sermons work and the preacher doesn't know why!

Sometimes you have a busy week, with meetings, meetings, and more meetings. Folks are in the hospital, there's a newsletter to get out. You really mean to spend more time on the sermon, get to work on it earlier in the week, but all of a sudden it's Friday or Saturday, and Sunday's a ‘comin. You do your best and hope the congregation will love you anyway.

You pull out a couple of old stories or sayings, offer reminders about the unending love of our savior God, challenge people to share their faith and their love with people who most need it, and then feel as thankful as anyone else when you hear yourself saying the final words of the sermon—Amen.

Then the service is mercifully over and you're standing in the doorway, prepared to say, "Well, everybody has an off day now and again. I'll do better next week, you'll see."

And Joe Jones grabs your hand, and his eyes are all misty-looking, and he's having trouble getting his words out. Finally he manages to mumble, "You don't know what those words meant to me today."

And his wife is right behind him, and she says, "You know, I'm going in the hospital Tuesday for surgery. After hearing your sermon, I'm ready for anything that happens."

The more I understand, the less I know. And I know less about preaching today than I did five years ago, MUCH less than I knew ten years ago. And yet...

There was an article in a magazine, in which the writer had asked a group of committed Christian activists, people who were known for their work on behalf of social justice, what factors contributed to their commitment to put themselves on the line for justice. Nine out of ten listed preaching as either number one or number two on their list. They were there because God worked powerfully through a sermon they had heard.

It seems rather strange. After all, sermons are just words. They float out over the congregation, they echo and fade, and the silence resumes. Just words. Just preaching. Just mystery. And yet, clearly, there is power there. Hmmm. The more I understand how it works, the less I know WHY it works!

Nicodemus had obviously been listening to Jesus. But the more he thought he understood, the less he actually knew. Now, you wouldn't be able to tell that just from looking at him. Outwardly, Nicodemus is the picture of confidence and self-assurance. The first words out of his mouth give him away: "Rabbi, WE KNOW..." Maybe you can see what he's doing. He's setting the ground rules for this conversation they're about to have. "Let's have a teacher-to-teacher discussion here, Jesus.

It seems to me to be all about control. Nothing is to be left to chance. WE know..." he says. And what exactly does Nicodemus know?

He THINKS he knows the source of Jesus' power and the goal of his ministry.

He THINKS he has God all figured out and nicely packaged in a neat little box, how God can and cannot act in the world. He knows about people, knows that they are born to grow old and die.

He THINKS he knows all this. But something, maybe something he heard Jesus say or saw Jesus do, has confused him, has caused him to wonder if he really understands everything he knows about God.

Nicodemus came to Jesus that night looking for a formula, a tried and tested set of rules to add to the church's already lengthy list of rules. The writer of the Gospel of John portrays Nicodemus as a sincere man, a devout man, who obeys the law and exercises responsible leadership in his community. But at the level of faith, there is something tentative about Nicodemus. His vision is blurred; he can't see things as they really are in the eyes of God. So he comes to Jesus for help in understanding this mysterious kingdom Jesus has been preaching about.

Take note that Nicodemus comes in from the dark, seeking more light. "What do I have to do? How is this possible?" And Jesus responds with surprising images. Re-birth. Spirit. Wind. "You want to get into the kingdom of heaven, Nicodemus? It's easy! All you have to do is be born from above."

Now, in fairness to Nicodemus, the words for "again" and "from above" may have sounded a lot alike. And they were probably speaking in low tones, maybe even whispering. So when Jesus said "born from above," Nicodemus thought he said, "born again." "How is that possible?" Nicodemus asked, and rightfully so, "How can an old man be born again? Is that some round-about way of saying it can't be done, that there's just no hope for an old codger like me, and that too much water has passed under the bridge?"

"No," says Jesus, "I didn't say ‘born again,' I said ‘born from above.' If you want to see the Kingdom, you have to be born from above, from the Spirit." Jesus says to Nicodemus that life in the kingdom is a gift given by God, from above, unearned and unachieved. No set of rules, no formula, is going to get you there.

"You must be born from above. Flesh is flesh, but spirit is spirit." What God wants to do with us is a renovation, a top-to-bottom overhaul. And by the way, the "you" here is in the plural, so what Jesus most likely said was, "Y'all must be born from above."

We misunderstand the meaning just as Nicodemus did (maybe even more so). We are a nation of high achievers, do-it-yourselfers, and pragmatics. What do we have to DO?

•  Is there a technique that produces the best results?
•  Is there a "Christianity for Dummies" book I can buy and read about it?
•  Is there a web site I can visit that has illustrated directions?
•  Is there a fresh wind of the spirit blowing anywhere today?

I think about all those times in our lives when there is that subtle movement of the Spirit in our lives. Maybe in worship, when in some mysterious way all of a sudden some burden is lifted from you—you may not even know why—the sermon, the confession, the songs or hymns, the prayers.

•  Or those times when you feel prompted to reach out in kindness to someone you otherwise have left unnoticed.
•  Or when you feel the courage to take a leap of faith in your life.
•  Or when you feel your heart moved to forgive someone who has wronged you.
•  Or when you feel the urge to be ridiculously generous with your resources—and you find yourself just giving from your heart—freely, and you end up with some inking that there's real freedom in living for others.
•  Or you say yes to an invitation to help serve a meal at Our Saviour's or spend a day working with the Habitat for Humanity crew or you agree to teach Sunday school or confirmation, trusting that God will provide. Wow—there's really something about letting the Spirit move you out of your comfort zone and into his kingdom zone.

After all, isn't there something in the end absolutely astounding about the fact that we can't control the wind? It just blows where it wills. And, no matter how much we may want to contain and explain and seduce the Spirit to behave as we want the Spirit to behave, it also blows where it wills.

The challenge is for us to be open to it and to be responsive to it. Faith is not only about our understanding, as much as it is about our letting go and letting God. It sounds so trite, but it is so powerfully life-giving and free.

I began by sharing about preaching, and the fact that in some ways I know less about it now than I did ten years ago. I know that it is my task to be faithful in sharing the deeper meanings in the text, and to try to allow God to move me as I prepare to share with you. And, I know that it is ultimately up to God to move where God wants to move.

But there's a part of it that's yours. I wonder how many of us, before coming to worship, spend time preparing our hearts and minds and ears for what the Spirit may be saying to us. After all, we're preoccupied with a lot of tings. It's enough just to get here sometimes. But I think, still, that we owe it to God and to ourselves to ask and then listen for what the Lord may be saying to us. If we're too tuned to other things, we may wrongly assume that God is silent, when it just might be that we've not taken the time or paid the attention to tune into and open ourselves to the Spirit.

There is an old story about a Native American who was walking with his friend who lived in downtown New York City . In the middle of a conversation one day, on a crowded street, the Native American stopped and said, “I hear a cricket.”

“Oh, you're crazy,” his friend replied.

“No, I hear a cricket. I do! I'm sure of it.”

“It's the noon hour. There are people all over the place, cars, horns, noise. I'm sure you can't hear it.”

“I'm sure I do.” He listened attentively and then walked to the corner, across the street, and looked all around. Finally, on the corner he found a shrub in a large concrete planter. He dug beneath the leaves and found a cricket. His friend was astounded. But the Native American said, “No. My ears are no different from yours. It simply depends on what you are listening to. Here, let me show you.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change—a few quarters, some dimes, nickels, and pennies. And he dropped them onto the sidewalk. Every heard within a block turned. “You see what I mean?” he said as he began picking up his coins. “It all depends on what you are listening for.”

What are you listening for? Remember—you, me, this church—must be born from above.

Amen.