Dorothy was the kindest neighbor anyone could have. This 85 year old woman was mother to everyone on the block. She made sure that everyone’s homes were secure while they were off at work, and watched people’s children as they played out in their yards so that nothing bad might befall them. It was this ability of hers to make you feel secure and loved that made me surprised when she unsettled my soul as I started to drive away to work one morning.
“Jira wait!” she shouted as I started to pull away in my rusty S10. “Can you help me move my lawn chairs inside when you get home this afternoon?”
“Sure,” I answered.
“Also, you should go to church with me this evening. My church is absolutely wonderful, and tonight might be the night that you get saved.”
“Uhhhh…” I said uncomfortably. “I already have a church. I have been a Christian ever since I was born. Thanks for the offer, but I really need to get off to work.” I tried to remark kindly while starting to roll up my driver’s side window.
“You say that you have been a Christian all your life,” she said sticking her head through my window, “but have you been born again? Have you chosen to let Christ into your heart for all eternity?”
“What a weird thing to ask,” I thought. “Have I chosen to let Christ into my life? Christ was in my life. Christ had been there since my baptism…since I can even remember. Was there ever a time that Christ wasn’t in my life.”
“Don’t confuse going to church with having Christ in your life,” she said as she backed away and waved me on to my job.
And with that, my soul was effectively unsettled. Had I missed something important about the faith? I had a choice to make? Was I going to hell because I chose to eat Lutheran noodle casseroles instead of Church of the Nazarene fried chicken?
And today this same unsettledness leaps back into my soul as Jesus tells the highly educated and devout Nicodemus that he must be “born again” or “born from above” before he will see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus is a devout Jew. He has been following God’s word his whole life. He has been doing acts of love and kindness for years and years. I feel his pain as he is told that his soul is in the dark. Had he missed something? Was there something that he was supposed to do?
Without ever realizing it, Nicodemus hits the answer right on the head. “How can I crawl back into my mother’s womb and be born again?” he asks. “You can’t,” is the answer he is trying to get at. No one chooses to be born. We had no say in the decision to come out of the nice warmth of our mother’s womb into the cold world beyond. I certainly did not choose to have my backend cut by the surgeon’s knife when I was delivered by C-section. Neither can Nicodemus or you “do” anything to be born from above or to be born again. God alone makes this choice. Jesus says, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” God’s Spirit blows where the Spirit wants, not where we desire it to blow.
My dear neighbor Dorothy was wrong. It is not I that chooses God; it is God who chooses me. I had not forgotten to do anything to be accepted as a child of God. You and I have been chosen by God to be a child of God, born from above, because God desired it. It is God's desire that all people be brought close to God's heart through God's grace. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Most of us were infants when the water’s of baptism claimed us into God’s family, and even if we were adults, do not be mistaken; it was God who drew us to the waters. We do not choose God, God chooses us.
This seems to be such a fine point, such a fine detail of the faith; who cares? Consider this question: Who lives the freer life? Who is more secure: the person who feels they must do something to be accepted and loved, or the person who knows that they are accepted and loved because they were told that fact was true? Which person has the freedom to truly be a child of God?
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