A reading of the holy gospel according to John. A certain Pharisee named Nicodemus. Now please notice how this word pharisee has come to have such a poor meaning in English at least. And yet, notice, there was a pharisee named Nicodemus. So a certain pharisee named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, what is that, came to Jesus one night and said to him, rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from god, for no man can perform signs and wonders such as you perform unless god is with him.
Now this is a Jew, a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin speaking to Jesus. So when we generalize about the Jews, the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, remember Nicodemus was one of them. So our lord answered this good man, I solemnly assure you, no one can see the rule of god unless he is begotten from above. And Nicodemus replies, how can a man be born again once he is old? Can he return to his mother's womb and be born all over again?
Jesus replied, I solemnly assure you, no one can enter God's kingdom without being begotten of water and spirit. Flesh begets flesh. Spirit begets spirit. Do not be surprised that I tell you, you must all be begotten from above. The wind blows where it will.
You hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone begotten of the spirit, and this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. If you didn't know this was from Saint John, you would certainly guess it, wouldn't you? However, it certainly does bring out a point that causes me some slight confusion.
There are many things in life which cause cause me slight confusion. I've mentioned this on other occasions. I went to the door one day answering the bell, and there stood a young woman who introduced herself as, I am a reborn Christian. Well, that's the first time I had met a reborn Christian in the flesh. So I suppose I welcome the opportunity of seeing what a reborn Christian looks like.
Well, she looked like a normal human being. Now I know to some extent what people mean when they say I am a reborn Christian. I know what they mean, but I don't like it. I don't like it at all. What do they really mean when they are reborn Christians?
You are born a Christian with baptism. That's what the text says today as clearly as it could possibly be said. Now what happens after that to call you a reborn Christian? I know, and I don't like it. It's some kind of a religious experience, and that's the best word I can use for it.
It's not very satisfactory, but I don't know anything better. Religious phenomenon, that doesn't tell us very much either. But what happens is that that people who have been good practicing Christians, President Carter is one of them. In all faiths who have been baptized and therefore certainly have received the holy spirit. They have been made children of god.
They have been introduced to the supernatural order. They have become not adopted sons, but sons of god by baptism. Divine grace is theirs. All of this by baptism. Any valid baptism does it.
Given by anybody with a proper intention, does it? Now what's this reborn business about? Well, you know you know probably more about it than I do. I am scared of it. First of all, it isn't normal.
Well, neither was Einstein normal in a way. He was above the norm. It isn't ordinary. It isn't commonplace. Is it to be expected, is it a is it a criterion of a truly dedicated devout religious life?
Is it or isn't it? These are the things that disturb me substantially. What does it add that baptism didn't add or give you or contribute or create? What does it do? I'll tell you what it does.
It puts a premium upon feeling, upon sentiment, upon emotion. Now I know when I talk like this, people say, oh, you downgrade the emotions, you downgrade the past. I certainly do nothing of the sort. I don't downgrade them at all. But I don't upgrade them to put them on a on a level with man's intelligence and his will.
That's for sure. I know too much about the emotions and the passions and the sentiments to put them any place except where they belong. And the the the great danger of this is that people come to expect this as a test of their religious life. For example, I don't go to mass anymore. Why don't you go to mass?
I don't feel good about it. I don't get anything out of it. It just bores me. See? In other words, it's just like buying a ticket to go see a show, and the show doesn't entertain you.
You don't feel better when you came out, so you feel what to use. I'm not gonna spend $4 and a half to see another show. Is that what worshiping god is? Do you go to god for what you get out of it, or do you go to God because you ought to, because you should go, because he is God and you are his creature? You just you know, all of this stuff I know I'm kind of biased and prejudiced against it.
I admit that right off the bat. But the point is I've seen so much of this stuff, and I say, go back to Christ. You can't make much of a mistake there. I believe. And look at the religious experiences he had.
One that was great and luminous and happy was on Taber, wasn't it? And he told his disciples who shared in it, don't tell anybody about this. But when he went into the Garden Of Gethsemane and sweated blood and begged his heavenly father to be freed of what he had to do, he didn't tell anybody not to tell anybody about it. It became public knowledge. Now that's where that's where faithfulness to God put Christ and put him on the cross.
Is that fulfillment? You hear people who marry people. You hear people in the priesthood. You hear people in the religious life saying, oh, I don't know. This life doesn't seem to fulfill me.
Yey gods. I just see red when they say that. Who says we're supposed to live for self fulfillment? Who said that? Oh, I know where it comes from.
Alright. But woe to us when that gets down in our heart and that becomes our standard of living. I'll tell you what it means to. It takes a young mother who abandons her children and her husband because she says, I'm not being fulfilled in married life any longer. So she takes off.
And I'm not theorizing. And I'm not talking about the continent of South America or Africa. This happens. I know two cases recently where men left their families, young married men. They said, well, I I just don't feel right about being married any longer, and it doesn't mean anything to me.
They walked off to fulfill themselves. Who said that that was a standard of a Christian life, self fulfillment, except as a Christian. And you don't have to be reborn to do that. That was your vocation with baptism. Now I those who have religious experiences, and I use that word in quotation marks, there's nothing I don't I accept it.
I don't deny it or reject it or praise it or anything. I say that's that's just to me what that altar rail is there. I don't know what it is, but there it is. I but I do say this. I think it's dangerous.
It is not a standard. It's not a norm. It's not a rule. It's not something we should expect. It's not something on which we should evaluate our religious life.
And above all, it is certainly not something we should wait for and expect to happen to us. What most truly happened and what was most important in our lives has happened. We have been baptized, as Jesus said, with water and the holy spirit, And now it's up to us to fulfill up to us to fulfill with god's help that vocation. In the name of the father and of the son and holy spirit. Amen.