Note: each week, I send the congregation sermon summaries of the last week and a preview of what's coming up. My tech was off this week so there's no audio. In Lent, my focus is: Something has to die; something has to be born.
Something has to die; something has to be born.
When Nicodemus came to Jesus, it took a lot of courage. He didn’t understand Jesus, he just knew
there was something important about him.
Jesus’ insisted that the Spirit can empower people to be born
again. Nicodemus never really understood
it and neither do we. But that is the
point. When we are born again, we are
like infants. We’re out of control, we’re
dependent, and we don’t understand most of what’s going on.
What needs to die in order for you to be born again? What’s
the shield that keeps you from admitting all that you don’t know? Nicodemus teaches that when you let go of your
need to be the expert, you become open to the Holy Spirit’s life-changing work.
This week, we will hear a conversation between Jesus and a Samaritan
woman who has had 5 husbands. She’s not your typical conversation partner for a
Jewish man, much less someone holy. But she's so affected by Jesus she turns into one of his followers and tells everyone
about him. When the old disciples find
Jesus talking with this new, unlikely disciple, they are speechless. This is not the kind of person Jesus should
be talking to!
It’s easy to think of unlikely disciples as others. But what
makes you unlikely? How can knowing yourself as unlikely help you welcome other, equally unlikely people into this community of the unlikely disciples?
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