Born Again, Again

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Lent II, Year A
March 8, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
He said he was “born again.”  In 1976, Jimmy Carter, the democratic nominee for president spoke about his faith in ancient, but loaded terms.  His declaration sent news people toward theological dictionaries, biblical texts, and histories of the movement.  Remember that back then, the term news media was not operative.  The news was consumed as print, morning or evening, or as a half-hour broadcast from trusted people like Walter Cronkite.
 
Carter had been Governor of the state in which I lived.  He had a buttery smooth accent, a big, toothy smile, and a great American story.  He was a Naval Academy graduate who had served on a nuclear submarine.  When his father died, he came home to Plains, Georgia, and made his family’s peanut farm successful.  His mother, Lillian, had joined the Peace Corps at the age of 68 and had worked tirelessly for desegregation in South Georgia.  He had taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church regularly.  He seemed to be an antidote to the Washington machine of connected cronyism and whatever unsavory webs of power and influence that Richard Nixon had spun.
 
When he was elected narrowly, the world met a different kind of American.  In the middle of the Cold War, he favored peace initiatives over parallel armament.  He established cabinet level departments of Energy and Education. The great scandal of his inauguration was that, during the parade, he and his wife, Rosalind, got out of the car on Pennsylvania Avenue, walked and (gasp), held hands!  Can you imagine?
 
By all counts, Carter’s presidency was a mixed bag.  His idealism and relatively liberal ideas, for the times, failed to take hold.  Later, Walter Cronkite dubbed him the smartest president he had known, but not all that effective.  In the end, his one term ended with the sweeping Reagan revolution, and history is still figuring it all out.
 
I once heard Carter speak in Atlanta the late 90s.  He was generous and humble.  He told us that being President was not his greatest call in life.  He said he believed God had called him to grow beyond that office and use his influence to serve causes of peace and justice.  And boy has he.  He is a well regarded international peace broker, he has helped Habitat for Humanity become a national and global force for decent housing, and he and Rosalind have leveraged their own fortune to eradicate the guinea worm in Africa: a disease that caused blindness and formerly incapacitated roughly 3.5 million sufferers.  It is now 99.9 percent gone.
 
Carter maintains that he is still a born again Christian, despite the baggage the term carries.  At the age of 95, and having confounded cancer twice, he still teaches Sunday school every other week at Maranatha Baptist.  His still speaks of his faith as the principal guiding light in his life.  While many others who call themselves born again adhere to more strict and fundamental tenets, Carter does not.  He has evolved in his acceptance of women as faith leaders and his acceptance of those who are gay as full members of the body of Christ.  Not long ago, as his congregation disaffiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, Carter held that he was born again, again, citing the call to be inclusive, welcoming and understanding in the name of Christ.
 
The whole concept and language of being born again comes to us in the story of Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus under the cover of night.  Nicodemus is a trusted religious and political leader that finds Jesus compelling, but cannot quite go all with him, at least in public.  He brings his intellectually learned mind to a conversation, trying to understand.  Jesus talks about the wind and its mysterious comings and goings.  He speaks of the mystery of himself as God’s body for the world.  He challenges Nicodemus to get out of his head and stop seeing life as a dual reality where faith and reason are mutually exclusive.
 
And here we get the football poster, most quoted of all bible verses: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  The born agains love to quote John 3:16, but equally or more important to our born againness is John 3:17:  “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  Therein lies the heart of the call and the challenge for us to fling open the doors or our faith.
 
Getting born is precarious business in this world.  And for anyone who has been present for birth, it is equal parts difficult and miraculous.  I remember the delivery rooms of our children as sacred spaces of being part of something and being witness to something all at once.  The idea that it can happen to us again defies logic, but also makes complete sense to anyone whose life has been changed through instances of impact, brilliance, or light.  The work of saving us has already been done.  We are reborn when we get that, accept that, and live into it with a whole and full heart.  Sometimes, we have to get born again, again.
 
We can only surmise what Nicodemus did with all Jesus gave him to ponder and practice.  While he receded into the darkness, Nicodemus appears again when Jesus is on trial and advocates for them to meet the man in person.  Perhaps he hopes they will see what he saw and cut him loose, but he could not stop the tide of recrimination. And finally, he stepped out into the light and went to the cross, witnessing the tragedy and helping Jesus get a proper and relatively extravagant burial along with Joseph of Arimathea.  Like most of us, he was a work in progress.
 
While some may have taken over the title of being born again Christians, and given that title baggage and stereotyping, it is an apt descriptor for all of us to embrace.  Rightly taken, it is not a ‘one and done’ proclamation we make about ourselves, rather a grace filled opportunity to keep our faith and practice lively.  And perhaps we can look through the Jimmy Carter kind of lens, appreciating that God is not done with us, and God is not done with the world.  Jesus Christ is born again and again and again in us, as we rise and stand for him and with him, today.  Amen.