And I Was Born Again

March 16^th, 2014          “And I Was Born Again”      Rev. Heather Jepsen

John 3:1-21

          We will spend the season of Lent in the gospel of John, reading stories of Jesus’ encounters with the interesting and complex characters of his day.  Like those he meets, the Jesus of John’s gospel is also interesting and complex.  More God than man, he shows great knowledge and control, often turning from the scene he is playing and looking directly at the reader of the gospel to preach his message. 

          Nicodemus is a wonderful character, drawn to Jesus and yet afraid.  He stays on the margins throughout the gospel, never fully committing to following Jesus into the light.  I think this is the experience of many of us.  We live our faith lives on the margins and in the shadows.  Sometimes we are fully invested in church but keep it a compartmentalized part of our life.  We are there most Sundays but we would never tell anyone else about why we go or what we find there.  Sometimes we are on the margins even here in worship.  We come every few months and sit on the edges.  Like Nicodemus, we are hesitant to even dip our toes into the waters of faith. 

          The wonderful thing about the grace and love of God is that we are constantly being called forward.  We are constantly being born again into new lives of faith, into new levels of gestation.  Over and over we are born again, born anew, from above, in water and the spirit, and it is wonderful and it is beautiful and it is holy.  I know that this is true because it happened to me . . .

          I did not grow up in the church.  Unlike my children and their blossoming understanding of God and faith, talk of the divine was totally foreign to my early life experience.  At the age of 12, when a young girl’s life is already full of drama and change, is when my mother first took me to the local Presbyterian Church.  To say that I was surly and slow to warm up to the idea would be an understatement.  But, being a good girl who always does what she’s told, I went through confirmation class and was baptized at the age of 13.  And I was born again.

          Fast forward into my high school years and that awkward pre-teen evolved into an even more awkward and surly teenager.  Constantly in overalls and bright red Doc Marten boots, an adventurous look even in the 90s, it didn’t take me long to reject the church and the faith.  I was smart enough to understand sermons and talk about love, but not foolish enough to turn a blind eye to the hate and hypocrisy I saw in church goers.  I rightly named it folly.  And I was born again.

          I went to college, studied music, made my way a young woman in the world.  I read about Buddhism and dharma, the Tao Te Ching and Bahagavad Gita, basically anything that wasn’t Christianity.  I soundly rejected all talk of church and Jesus.  And then in an avalanche of circumstances that were anything but, I found myself at the bedside of my Grandmother as she was dying.  Strangely, this awkward overly dramatic young woman, who believed in nothing but dirt and worms at death, was the only confident and comfortable person in the room.  I held her hand, I talked to her, I rejoiced in her transition, her clear process of journeying to a new life and world.  And I was born again.

          I wrestled with that most uncharacteristic experience, and wondered what it was that had drawn such behavior out of me.  I fought and fought, I analyzed, and discussed, and above all I wondered.  Who was I?  What was the world?  What if all those dumb stories about God were true?  And finally, I prayed.  My humbled heart was met with what I can only call a multi-sensory experience of the divine.  Like Moses at the burning bush, I saw things, I heard things, I felt things, and I was changed.  God planted in my heart in that moment the deep, deep knowledge that I was created to be a pastor.  And I was born again.

          I wrestled and fought.  I sought out faith and rejected church after church.  I found a Presbyterian place to call home.  I finished my Bachelor’s degree and hung out for a while.  I applied to seminary and turned acceptance offers down.  I drug my feet and cried.  I preached my first sermon and cried.  And I was born again.

          I finally found my place in San Francisco, and I continued to fight.  I took up drinking as a hobby and did everything I could to seem un-pastor like.  I was only 23 and not ready to be an example for anyone, let alone for everyone.  I got a tattoo and died my hair, and partied every day until I was broken and sad and tired.  Like the Jesus character says in the movie The Last Temptation of Christ - I felt like God was an eagle digging his talons into my back.  I hated God, I hated my call, I hated my life.  Finally I shook my fist in rage at the divine and let it go.  And the great love of God absorbed all my pain and anger and disappointment and denial.  And I was born again.

          I got married, I finished school, I took my first job, and it was everything I feared it would be.  I had supporters and friends but for the most part, the church didn’t like me and the church didn’t want me.  First of all I was a woman.  And I was smart.  And I didn’t know my place.  And I was honest about what I thought and believed.  And I came to understand that the call was everything I had feared it would be.  That just like Jesus, I would be strung up and crucified because the people love darkness and hate the light.  And I prayed that God would call me away.  But God did not.  And I was born again.

          I had babies there, and there is nothing a female pastor can do that is worse than having a baby.  Like any good church, there were wonderful people there who showered me with love.  But when I returned from my first maternity leave is when I had the biggest fight, the biggest split.  Secret session meetings and big donors leaving were the signs of the end times.  It was Armageddon and I felt responsible.  And again I cried and prayed for God to call me away.  But God did not.  And I was born again.

          Eventually the money ran out, and the Presbytery minimum pastor’s salary was the biggest chunk of the budget, and all the facts were there so that that finally was the call to go.  I wrote my paperwork and I talked to churches and I got this strange recommendation for a place in Missouri (where is Missouri?) and the paperwork printed off the computer and I sat in a sunbeam in my office in Washington and read about First Presbyterian Church in Warrensburg.  And I was born again.

          I came here and met the PNC and we had some great dinners at Lucille’s house and talked about past heartaches and dreams for the church.  And I was born again.

          I came here to finally preach (on the gospel of John) and meet you and blow balloons with Amber and Anna for a children’s sermon and we said yes to each other and ate some cake.  And I was born again.

          I put my harp in a box, moved my family across the country, and prayed I would sell my house, (which I haven’t).  And I was born again.

          That’s my life, in the light: a wife and mother, an awkward girl, a soul on a journey with God.  For some odd reason this is my path: to not be like Nicodemus, hiding on the edges in the shadow, even though that is the person I may want to be.  Instead God called me to be this person, standing in the literal spotlight, telling the truth about who I am, who God is, and the world as I see it.  Like you, I was chosen to be born again, and again, and again; into faith, into hope, into love.  I believe that this is what Jesus was talking about.  That we would come to the light, and that we would be born from above, of water and the spirit.  We can’t explain it, but we know it is true. 

          That’s my story and you have yours.  And I believe that all of our lives are holy.  All of our lives are journeys of faith; even if we only ever dip our toes in the water.  God is dancing with us, molding us, changing us, calling us further along the path, always.  And then we are born again.  Amen.