Sermon preached by The Rev’d Neil Fernyhough, February 17, 2008 (Second Sunday of Lent).

Readings: Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17

“The wind blows where it chooses.” – Jn 3:8

It was a beautiful, clear day in late June. The snow was melting from the higher reaches of the Marble Mountains of northwestern California, right by the Oregon line. My backpacking companions and I had ascended about 600 metres from the parking lot, and were enjoying a break by a small, still lake. Seated on a rock, I gazed around the meadow, where a galaxy of tiny alpine flowers were set to bloom. Ringing the meadow, snow-capped peaks glinted white and blue in the sun. From several of them, silver strands of waterfalls spilled silently, a living movement of light. Apart from them, and the occasional chirping of birds, all was still – except for a gentle breeze constantly breathing. The wind blew where it chose, and I didn’t know where it was coming from nor where it was going – but everything around me seemed born of the Spirit.

We are all acquainted with these moments of absolute calm and peace; moments when our sense of self, of being a solitary, self-contained individual dissolve. Suddenly we feel the vibrancy of life pulse through us – we feel a part of all that is, indeed of all that has been. We sense that we are like a stroke of paint on the canvas of creation; or a single neuron in the mind of God. What makes us distinct is the part we play in a larger story. The story is not about us, but without us, the story is incomplete.

One hundred years ago, William James wrote a book called The Varieties of Religious Experience. In it, he notes that, regardless of an individual’s faith tradition, the mystical experience is always the same – this sense of losing oneself in an infinite and eternal ocean – which can be both calming and scary at the same time. This sudden awareness is so real, that the only possible response is to trust it, to put one’s faith in it as surely as you put your faith in your senses. When the spirit blows, the experience of God you feel breathe through your body is simply that clear, that obvious.

The response to such an experience is faithfulness. And we see the stimulus and response moving through Abraham, Paul, and soon (we are led to believe) Nicodemus. Abraham is called from tending his father’s herds to move to a strange land, claim it as God’s own, and be a blessing to the nations. Paul is called, not only to repent of his persecution of the followers of Jesus, but to lead them, bringing Gentile outsiders into the fold. But what is Nicodemus called to do? Jesus invites him simply to see the kingdom of God. Jesus tells him that if he will only allow himself to feel the Spirit and to respond to it, God will transform him. Jesus wants him – and us – to know that it is that clear, that obvious. To see, feel, and respond is to be reborn and to be reborn constantly – not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

Now, we may be tempted to be as dubious as Nicodemus about such a claim. Yet, I’m confident that only a few minutes of reflection will be enough for you to recall instances when you decided to take a risk and step out in faith. In some of those instances, that choice for risky faithfulness made all the difference. The path may have been a difficult one – but it changed you, it pushed you to grow, it gave you greater understanding of God and the story in which we all have a part.

Today we begin a series of Sundays reflecting on stewardship and sustainability by considering our place in God’s created order – the environment. When we stand on mountaintops, or by lakes, or wander through woods and fields, or look up at the blanket of stars in the night sky; we can’t help but feel the Spirit breathing in and breathing out of all that is. It is no wonder, since the Spirit is the breath of Creation. Yet when we consider that every second an area the size of two football fields is deforested; or that almost half the people on Earth do not have access to clean drinking water; or that the 3.5 billion litres of oil that humans burn each and every day is pumped into the wind which blows where it chooses, creating carbon dioxide levels that are higher than at any time in the last 750,000 years – what are we to say? “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God’s people on Earth”? No. Not now. Not in Lent. Not in this season of solemn penitence. Not when we seek to right a disordered relationship with the Creator. Now, we say, “Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One – have mercy upon us.”

Guilt and regret alone is useless, in a practical sense. It is paralysing. It is a response of fear – and not faithfulness. Faithfulness – risky faithfulness – is to step into the clear, open air of God’s redeeming gift of grace in the sheer miracle of being – to feel it blowing, and to respond. Righting our relationship with our Creator means, first, genuine contrition; and second, positive acts of restoration. And that’s why there’s a suggestion box and a pad of paper sitting in the narthex. What ways can this community of faith act as builders of the realm of God, through positive acts of environmental stewardship and sustainability? And, while we’re at it, what two or three things are you or your family going to do to respond to the experience of the endless breath of the Spirit, exhaling as you inhale, pulsing your blood, giving you life, letting you love? How do you respond? How do we respond? How different would our lives look if every breath was a moment of thanksgiving?

In retelling the story of this encounter of Jesus, John wants us to know that we are Nicodemus. Like him, Jesus invites us to be alive to the fact that the Spirit blows through our own lives, and through the life of this community. We are part of a larger canvas; we are agents of the mind of God. We, individually and as a community, have an obligation to respond in faith – to make the leap of risky faithfulness and travel with God to new places, new mountaintops of experience. And, as we travel, the intimacy will grow, the bonds will tighten, and every breath indeed will be a moment of thanksgiving – unforced and unbidden.

When doors close, new doors open. When paths peter out, suddenly our eyes are open to new ones. When we feel that life has offered us all it can, out of nowhere we are invited to journey into the unexpected. When we say “yes,” when we pass through the doors, plunge down the pathways, embark on new journeys, we take the leap of risky faithfulness. We plunge into that eternal, infinite ocean of which I spoke – that scary, yet calming ocean. As we jounrey through this wilderness season, as we consider avenues of stewardship and sustainability in all facets of our lives, my prayer for us is that we will be open to the movements of the Spirit, that we will see the kingdom of God, and that we will boldly take our part in its never-ending story. Amen.

© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2008