Second Sunday in Lent; 5 March 2023; Lent 1A (RCL); Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17.
The fact that modern English doesn’t distinguish between second -person singular and plural makes it almost impossible to translate John’s Gospel with it theology intact. In the KJV, verse 7 reads, “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” It’s not Nicodemus who needs to be born again/from above, but some unnamed “you all.” The passage from Genesis is God’s instruction for Abraham and his household to leave his home and kindred and travel to a new land — and forge there a new identity. In the Romans reading, we skip the verses in which Abraham receives circumcision as a sign of that new identity.
His faith then applies righteousness to both the circumcised and the uncircumcised, who receive a new identity through the faith of Christ (and in chapter 6, who receive baptism as a sign of their new life and identity). In the passage from John’s Gospel, Jesus is presumably addressing the Jews of whom Nicodemus is a leader — or perhaps us, the readers of the Gospel. We or they must be born from above, receive a new identity in the spirit, if they or we are to see the kingdom of God, and have the life of the ages.
John makes a distinction between flesh and spirit, similar to the distinction Paul makes between the two. For Paul, flesh is the arena in which distinctions are made: male/female, slave/free, Jew/Greek, and the like. Spirit is the arena in which those distinctions are overcome. The law, weakened by the flesh (the distinction between those under the law, and those outside) failed to accomplish a righteous community. The the faithfulness and obedience of Christ accomplished what the law could not, the creation of a community of righteousness.
To live in such a community, we all must be willing to surrender any identity we carry that separates one from another. I think that’s what Paul means by boasting. If we are proud of some aspect of identity, and use it to think ourselves better than some other (being white, being American, being Christian), we’ve already made distinctions, and failed at living in righteous community. Only by surrendering that identity and accepting Christ’s obedience and act of righteousness can we live the life of the ages.
Hence Nicodemus’ incredulity about entering the mother’s womb a second time when one is old. Those identities cling to us as closely as the very flesh in which we were born, and stripping ourselves of them is hard work. It’s what monastics mean by mortification of the flesh. It’s not just making our bodies miserable, it’s shedding the identities that come with our flesh, and learning to live new lives. That’s why Paul, in Romans six, says that in baptism, we are baptized into Jesus’ death. “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” Notice that Paul does not say that we are raised with Christ by the glory of God, but that we might live in newness of life — that we might begin to live that new identity as made righteous by Christ.
Being born from above means beginning to live the new life of the ages, and it’s going to take us a while to get the hang of it.