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When
Dana and I got married she came with a really special little red dog named
Cedar. Cedar was probably the smartest
dog I’ve ever met. Dana had trained her
not only in basic obedience but also to do a lot of neat tricks. Cedar was the
life of every party, especially if there were kids. Cedar listened to Dana without fault unless
it was a hot day and there was a pond nearby.
There was no calling her back from that.
She was proof that dogs above all else just want to please the human
they feel most bonded with. You have
heard the old adage that “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. That’s not so. If you are your dog’s favourite human, it
will be willing to learn new tricks because that’s all part of their love for
their person and it gives them great joy to please their person.
Cedar
lived to be fourteen. She went deaf at
age twelve. We obviously couldn’t teach
her something new after that. But, she
knew hand signals and still loved playing with Dana. She still loved to play fetch right up to a
few days before she died even if it was just to throw something that she would
trot out to and lay down beside it. Saying
that you can’t teach an old dog a new trick, well, that’s something you should
just stoop and scoop.
But
anyway, that adage seems to be the angle that Nicodemus is taking here with
Jesus. They are discussing here whether or
not you can take someone who is old and set in their ways and teach them
something new. Nicodemus came to Jesus
as someone genuinely seeking what Jesus was offering – new life in the Kingdom
of God. He was a member of the
Sanhedrin, which was the ruling party of the Jewish people back then. Though other members of the Sanhedrin wanted
Jesus dead, Nicodemus rather found himself drawn to Jesus. He wasn’t caught up in the corrupted mess
that comes about when religion and political power start walking hand in
hand. Rather, it seems he sincerely
wants to please his God; you know, like Cedar wanted to please Dana.
Well,
the Holy Spirit like the wind was blowing him in the direction of Jesus. So, in fear of the Sanhedrin he went seeking Jesus
at night to figure things out. He
started the conversation acknowledging they all could see that God was working
through Jesus. Jesus told him, “It’s
truth, I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from
above.” And then, Nicodemus plays the
old dog, new trick card and answers, “How can anyone be born after having grown
old? Can one enter a second time into
the womb and be born?”
I’m
going to step back and again emphasize that what Nicodemus said there about
someone old being born again should be interpreted in the sense of “you can’t
teach an old dog new tricks”. This
isn’t simply an interesting little word play on birth that in the end makes Nicodemus
look thick as a brick for being too literal – How can someone pop back in their
mama. I think Nicodemus knows full well
what Jesus is talking about with respect to being born from above. He just sees himself as too set in his ways to
be able to try the new trick of following Jesus.
Part
of the problem we have when we read this passage is that we want to read into it
our Modern ideas of the birthing process that emphasize the role of the
woman. Back then, when things were more
patriarchal, the role of the father in siring a child was emphasised a lot
more. They had two different words that
we would translate as giving birth. One
was obviously for the mother giving birth.
That’s not the word being used here. The one that is used here typically refers to
the father’s role of begetting/generating the child. This means that all the emphasis on being
born in this passage should be considered from the standpoint of conception and
the role the father played. To be blunt,
I don’t think they knew about eggs and sperm back then. To them the father planted the seed that grew
inside the mother. It was as much
agriculture as biology. I apologize if
this is a little too randy of a sermon here at the moment.
This conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus
should rather be translated like this.
Jesus said, “It’s truth, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God
without being begotten/sired from above.”
The angle here is that God would regenerate or recreate or beget the
person anew. And Nicodemus’s answer,
“How can anyone be begotten after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the womb and
be begotten?” I know by now you are
confused, but this is the time to start thinking about the old adage of “You
can’t teach and old dog new tricks.”
This
same word for beget back in Jesus’ day was also a word they used to talk about
the discipling relationship between a Rabbi and his students. Rabbis were often called “Father” by their
students due to their planting the teachings of the Law and the Traditions in
their students. This leads me to think
that Nicodemus is really asking, “Can an old Elder of the people, so set in the
ways of the faith as we know it…can…I be discipled anew into the Kingdom of God.” Can this old dog of the faith learn the new
tricks of the Kingdom of God? To
Nicodemus, that probably seemed as impossible as entering the womb a second
time to be begotten anew.
They
are not just talking about how babies are born.
They are talking about having to learn a new way of being a person of
faith. Nicodemus was used to keeping the
Laws of Moses and the Traditions of the Rabbis as the way of being faithful,
but now Jesus was asking Nicodemus to follow the prompting of the Spirit of God
that was drawing him into a living and life-giving relationship with Jesus.
It
may be that many of us here can relate to Nicodemus. Most of us have “done church” all our lives –
faithful attendance, helped out, given faithfully, did unto others as we would
have them do unto us, raised our kids in church. We believe in God due to a sense of his love
and faithfulness. We have all been
through tough times and come out knowing that it was the Lord who brought us
through. And, yes, we are all guilty of
letting the way we “do church” take the place of a living relationship with
Jesus who ever-calls us to an ever-deepening relationship with himself by the
drawing of the Holy Spirit. We are old
dogs at doing church who the Holy Spirit is ever-inviting into the new trick of
a renewing…a recreating…a re-begotten living and life-giving relationship with
Jesus.
But
now, we’re tired old dogs with hardly the energy to do even the old tricks even
though we enjoy them so much when we do.
(There’s nothing like a good fellowship dinner.) Like Cedar, it’s throw me the toy and I’ll
trot after it, but I’m going to have to lay in the yard beside it for a bit
before I bring it back. It is not so
much that we’re just old and set in our ways like Nicodemus. We are old and the reality of the limitations
that aging brings to the human person are a painful reality.
Previous
generations of the church have had a deep bench of a younger generation to turn
things over to, but not this generation.
Our culture no longer “Does church” in the way it used to. Our culture is no longer Christian. The mission field is now just outside our
front door...but, we're feeling like a bunch of old hounds who can't make it much further than a good nap on the front porch. But you know, even if we are
just a bunch of old hounds and just laying on that same old familiar porch is about
all we got in us, that doesn’t mean the Spirit of God can’t come blowing through
us with new life in Christ. The new
tricks we need to learn are the same old tricks we have tried and tried to
learn over the years and they involve the devotional life. Here are three tricks for us to learn.
Practice
the presence of God. A couple of weeks back I spoke of setting up an empty
chair and letting that be were the presence of the Lord sits and then you say
what you need to say. Now take that one
step further and let that awareness of the presence of the Lord be with you
everywhere you go.
Take
up the practice of the daily reading of scripture. Read two chapters of the Old Testament, two
chapters of the New, and a couple of the Psalms. Just read.
Sometimes, you will get a sense that God is speaking to you. I would highly recommend a printed Bible as
opposed to one on a device.
Last,
pray. Make a prayer list of people you
know and love and take the time to pray for them. Then try to disciple yourself to try and pray
the Lord’s prayer as you go through the day.
The majority of us have a conversation going on in our heads that’s
usually just a bunch of ranting and worrying.
Why not rein that voice in by disciplining it to pray. Amen.
