(John 3.1-17)

There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews. Late one night he visited Jesus and said, "Rabbi, we all know you're a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren't in on it." Jesus said, "You're absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it's not possible to see what I'm pointing to-to God's kingdom." "How can anyone," said Nicodemus, "be born who has already been born and grown up? You can't re-enter your mother's womb and be born again. What are you saying with this 'born-from-above' talk?" Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation-the 'wind-hovering-over-the-water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life-it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch-the Spirit-and becomes a living spirit. "So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above'-out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God." Nicodemus asked, "What do you mean by this? How does this happen?"Jesus said, "You're a respected teacher of Israel and you don't know these basics? Listen carefully. I'm speaking sober truth to you. I speak only of what I know by experience; I give witness only to what I have seen with my own eyes. There is nothing secondhand here, no hearsay. Yet instead of facing the evidence and accepting it, you procrastinate with questions. If I tell you things that are plain as the hand before your face and you don't believe me, what use is there in telling you of things you can't see, the things of God?

Nicodemus was someone who would give money to charity, spend time with people and say his prayers. He is a vicar's dream and I would love to have him in the congregation. He was wealthy and was happy to use his money for the good of the kingdom. After Jesus' death he brought seventy-five pounds of myrrh, aloes and spices for Jesus' burial (John 19:39). Anyone who is able to bring that size of a bundle of spices to anoint Jesus' body for burial shows is seriously rich. I am going to talk about money later on in the month and I am feeling self conscious already at the thought of doing so - I was brought up to think that talking about money was a subject that one avoided - you would never (for example) ask someone what they earned. I need to talk about money for two reasons: one is that we need to pay our bills and the second is that it will be the making of us as a congregation of people - where your treasure is there also will your heart be also (Mt 6:21). The sequence is telling - Jesus suggests that the heart follows the treasure (rather than the other way round). The suggestion is that if we are a giving congregation then we will be a praying congregation. Now that we have begun to gather people together we can think about what we might want to do as a congregation.

Nicodemus would spend time with people. He was energetic, curious and prepared to take a risk. He came to Jesus "by night". It was a dangerous thing for him to have done because the Pharisees (of which he was one) were plotting to kill Jesus. His friends would not have liked the fact that at the same moment, as they were beginning to plan for Jesus' execution and death Nicodemus was paying him night time visits. Later on when things started to get nasty it was he who was willing to stand up for Jesus to the Pharisees (John 7:50). People are often not only short of time but make a virtue out of being so - they use the phrase 'I am so busy' as if that offers a guarantee of significance. I would love to have some people who had the time and energy to go out and talk to people in the way that Nicodemus does with Jesus.

Nicodemus would say his prayers - I would love to have him in the congregation! As a Pharisee he would have been an upright and devout man. The word Pharisees comes from the Hebrew word meaning "separated", that is, one that is separated for a life of purity. The Pharisees were righteous and faithful and I want my congregation to be praying, devout, committed people. Nicodemus knew that there was something significant and authoritative about Jesus. He called Jesus "Rabbi." - The word, "rabbi," means teacher and it shows an initial level of belief in Jesus within Nicodemus. He was aware that Jesus had come from God because no one could do the signs/miracles that Jesus did if he weren't from God.

Be a good Nicodemus - use your money wisely: give to charity and support the church but there is still something more. Spend time with people, listen to them and find out what they have to say but there is still something more. Come to church, read your Bible, say your prayers, but there is still something more. If you are not born again of water and the spirit you will not see the Kingdom of heaven. The phrase, "born again," occurs only three times in the Bible (John 3:3, 7; I Peter 1:23 & 24). Christians use the language of being "born again" clumsily in an exclusive or exclusionary way. Sometimes they suggest that even life-long Christian believers aren't really Christian, or aren't going to be saved, if they can't name and claim a specific "born again" experience in their lives.

This is not what Jesus was intending with Nicodemus. Nicodemus wanted to make sense of what Jesus was saying but found that it did not fit with his way of looking at the world. Jesus told him to stop trying to put everything he heard into his own pre-held categories of interpretation and to learn to look at the world in a different way. Nicodemus was so entrenched within his own worldview that for him to do what Jesus was asking would have been the spiritual and emotional equivalent of being 'born again'. Are we very different from Nicodemus? We are locked into our own particular way of being in the world that to rehear the bursting freshness of the Gospel message might mean a re-birth in how we look at the world. The re-birth experience that Jesus is talking about something that happens both 'inside' and 'outside'. In Biblical terms it is John 3:16 along with 1 John 3:16. You cannot have one or the other but you always need both:

• For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

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• We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16)