Many of us, at one time or another, have been victims of today's Gospel reading. That is to say, some brother or sister in Christ has demanded to know, have you been born again? Both the permission to ask that question, and the particular meaning associated with the words "born-again Christian," are interpretations of the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus. Today, I want to share with you the Biblical background of the "born again" idea; I want to sketch out for you how much interpretation and reinterpretation is present in the Bible itself; and then I want to show you how this dialogue is itself a reinterpretation, first by Jesus and then by St. John, of the prophetic message.

There are 3 basic ideas folded together in the big idea, you must be born again, or born anew, which Jesus said to Nicodemus. They all come from the prophets, who were constantly calling the people of Israel to account for having turned away from God. The first basic idea is that the people have misunderstood what God wants and what righteousness really is. Sometimes they have ignored the commandment to worship God alone, and have worshipped other gods as well. Sometimes they have worshipped rightly but engaged in immoral behavior, and other times they have tried to limit their obligations to God by focusing primarily on correct worship. In every case, the prophet calls for repentance, for re-thinking what God really wants. In God's name, Micah says, forget about sacrificing rams and offering 10,000 rivers of oil: do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. Isaiah says that God is doing a new thing, so pay attention and you will be saved. Jeremiah says that God is preparing to make a new covenant with his people, and this new covenant will be written on their hearts!

The second basic idea is that the people must be open to God's call to action. Too much clinging to the way we've always done it, and too much insistence on God's previous actions and original rules, will cause a person to be blind to God's action in the present. Nicodemus exhibits both these qualities: the very fact that he has gone out of his way to find Jesus at night, that he has come with questions, says that his mind is open: it is possible that Jesus does have a message from God. But when Jesus used the metaphor of rebirth by the Spirit, Nicodemus couldn't grasp the meaning of it: he was deeply committed to literal meanings of words, and couldn't jump from the literal to the metaphorical.

The third basic idea folded into the big idea of being born again, is that God sends the Holy Spirit into those who are open to God's call and action. This third idea should have been familiar to Nicodemus. In a prophecy of salvation, Isaiah says God will pour out a spirit from on high; the prophet Joel says God will pour out his spirit on all flesh; and the prophet Ezekiel reports that God will sprinkle clean water on the people and put his spirit within them. During the lifetime of Nicodemus, the members of the Essene community at Qumran expected that in the day of God's coming, God would sprinkle the spirit of truth on them.

When you put these 3 basic ideas together, you get a description of what happened to the disciples as they listened to Jesus. They let go of their certainties about what God wanted; they were open to God's call in the present; and then they were given the Holy Spirit. Born-again Christians seem to believe that this experience always leads to acceptance of certain doctrines, and always results in particular behaviors, such as speaking in tongues. What the born-again Christians have missed in this passage, is the emphasis Jesus placed on the Spirit blowing where it chooses. There is no single activity, or pattern, or manifestation of the Spirit that is the same for everyone. The Holy Spirit comes into each person who welcomes it, at a particular point in their lives, and at a particular point in history. For some people it is sudden energizing experience, and for many others it is a more gradual process. Some people throw themselves into Christian activities; while other people continue their daily lives with a whole new awareness of God's presence.

I invite you to reflect on your own experience: have you ever decided that you needed to find more spiritual nourishment? Have you ever started reading books in an effort to find answers to spiritual questions? Have you come back to church after many years; have you decided to get more involved at church; have you begun a new spiritual practice of prayer or meditation? Each one of these decisions is an opening of your heart and mind to God. As a result of such a decision, have you become more aware of God's presence? Have you felt the guidance of the Spirit, or received an answer to prayer? If your answer is yes, then you have been born again. Your born-again experience is uniquely yours, and not to be evaluated by anyone else. It may be a good and helpful thing to share your born-again experience, but not as a way of telling someone else that their experience should be just like yours.

Now I want to go on to my 2nd theme, which is the interpretation of Scripture. From the very beginning, people have asked what the meaning is, of God's words. Last week we saw that this began in the Garden of Eden, when Adam interpreted God's commandment, not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to mean that he and Eve should not touch the tree either. Adam expanded the meaning of the commandment. We can see a similar process at work in our first two lessons today. In God's call to Abraham, God promised to bless all the families of the earth in or through Abraham. The exact nature or content of the blessing was not specified. At least 1800 years later, St Paul recalls the promise to Abraham, and builds an argument on it. St. Paul argues that Abraham didn't do anything to earn that blessing-it was not his obedience, it was not his long journey to the land of Canaan, it was not his circumcision that earned the blessing. It was only the fact that Abraham believed what God said-it was because of his faith that God blessed him. Then at the end of the chapter, St. Paul says, we are in the same situation. We have not earned our salvation; it is only because of our faith in Jesus, that we are saved. You see what St. Paul is doing here-he is making two equations which sound good: Abraham's faith in God = our faith in Jesus and the blessing of Abraham's descendants = the salvation of Jesus' followers. St. Paul is doing a very sophisticated version of what Adam did - he is expanding the meaning of the text he is interpreting. Is a blessing the same thing as salvation? And do the followers of Jesus equal all the families of the earth? Probably St. Paul is arguing from the lesser to the greater: if Abraham's faith led to blessing, how much more will your faith in Jesus, lead to salvation.

I think Jesus was deliberately and knowingly doing the same thing-he was expanding the meaning-in a very real sense-of a central part of the tradition in which he stood as a 1st century Jew. That central part was the prophetic tradition, which looked forward to the day when God would pour out His Spirit. But Jesus was doing more than re-interpreting. Through his presence and preaching and healing, he was the channel through which the Holy Spirit was, and is, poured out. The emphasis in his preaching on NOW, today is the day of salvation, arises from these events being the actual fulfillment of the prophecies. The meaning of this gift of the Spirit is an enduring connection of the human heart to the spiritual reality that is God. Once that connection is made, whether in the 1st century, or in the 21st, we see our world and our lives differently. No longer is religion about conformity to a set of rules. Nor is religion about conformity to doctrines. True religion is about opening our awareness to see the spiritual dimension in all of reality, and it is also about being transformed in our hearts-this is the part we cannot control. If we accept the Holy Spirit, a process of transformation begins. Our values and priorities change-cooperation becomes more important than competition, giving becomes more important than getting, forgiveness becomes more then justice. When the Spirit guides us to do something we've never done before, we are more willing to take the risk, because life is no longer about success.

In closing, I want to point out to you that this dialogue that Jesus has with Nicodemus, is the first place in the Gospel of John, where we hear the teaching of Jesus, and that teaching is given to a seeker. It is also the first time we hear about eternal life. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus spoke about the kingdom of heaven. That phrase, kingdom of heaven, wouldn't have meant much to St. John's Greek-speaking readers, so he made a translation of the Hebrew phrase to a Greek phrase. Both phrases are about that spiritual dimension of reality, which is all around us, but invisible; it is experienced in time and yet it is eternal; it is indeed like the wind, yet it is as real as the ground we walk upon. And it is available to us today. Jesus offers every seeker who comes to question him, the gift of eternal life.