Second Sunday in Lent
Year A
RCL
Leaving the Familiar and Starting Over
By +Brian Ernest Brown, CWC
There is a profound human desire within all of us for security. We like to know what is coming next. We build routines, we stick to familiar paths, and we create comfort zones because uncertainty makes us deeply uncomfortable.
Yet, if you look closely at how God interacts with humanity throughout scripture, God rarely allows people to stay tucked away safely in their comfort zones. God is almost always inviting people to pack up, move forward, and step into the unknown.
We see this disruptively clear pattern begin with Abram in our reading from Genesis. Abram is seventy-five years old. He is settled, he has a home, and he has a set routine. By all human standards, his time for massive life transitions should be well in the past.
But God shows up and says to him, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
Notice that God does not give Abram a map. God does not provide a ten-year plan, a brochure, or even a final destination. God just says, “Go to the land that I will show you.” The destination is revealed only after the stepping out happens. Abram is asked to leave behind everything that gives him an identity and security, relying entirely on a promise.
This terrifying, exhilarating invitation to start over is exactly what trips up Nicodemus in our Gospel from John.
Nicodemus is a leader, a Pharisee, a religious insider. He has spent his entire life studying the rules, climbing the theological ladder, and building an impeccable reputation. He is the ultimate expert on how things are supposed to work.
But Nicodemus has a problem. He sees something in Jesus that doesn’t fit into his neat, orderly boxes. He is fascinated, but he is also terrified of losing his status, so he comes to see Jesus under the cover of night. He wants a private conversation where he can maintain control.
Jesus looks right past Nicodemus’s polite flattery and drops a spiritual bombshell: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of heaven without being born from above.”
Nicodemus takes this literally and objects. He asks how an old man can possibly enter his mother’s womb a second time. He is asking a practical question because the idea of starting over from scratch is deeply threatening to him. He has worked so hard to become an adult, an expert, a finished product. To be born again means becoming an infant. It means being completely dependent on someone else. It means admitting that all his degrees, badges, and status cannot save him.
Jesus explains that this second birth is not a physical restart, but a spiritual relocation. He says the Spirit blows where it chooses, like the wind. You cannot trap it, you cannot control it, and you cannot predict it. To follow Jesus means letting go of your need to control the itinerary and learning to ride the wind of the Spirit.
This tension between trying to control our own destiny and learning to rely on God is exactly what Paul is wrestling with in his letter to the Romans.
Paul uses Abram, now called Abraham, as the ultimate example of faith. He asks a very logical question: How did Abraham get right with God? Was it because he followed a flawless checklist? Was it because he earned his way into God’s good graces?
Paul writes that if Abraham was justified by his works, he would have something to boast about. But that is not how grace works. Paul says that to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.
This is a massive shift in perspective. If our relationship with God is based on wages, then we are always trapped in a cycle of anxiety. We are constantly checking our spiritual bank accounts, wondering if we have done enough, suffered enough, or prayed enough to earn our spot.
But Paul reminds us that Abraham was blessed simply because he trusted the promise. Faith is not about working harder to earn a wage. Faith is about opening your hands to receive a gift you could never possibly afford.
So, how do we find the courage to step out into the unknown like Abraham? How do we find the willingness to become vulnerable like Nicodemus?
The Psalmist gives us the exact answer in Psalm 121. It is a song sung by travelers, pilgrims walking up the dangerous, winding roads to Jerusalem. They look up at the hills, knowing that bandits and dangers could be waiting around any corner. They ask:
“I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”
The Psalm does not promise that the road will be flat, easy, or completely safe. But it promises that the one who keeps you will not slumber. The God who calls you out into the wilderness is the same God who stands beside you as your shade, protecting your going out and your coming in, from this time forth forevermore.
As we continue our journey through Lent, Jesus is standing at the threshold of our comfort zones, asking us the same question He asked Nicodemus. He is inviting us to stop trying to manage our own righteousness and to trust the radical, life-giving love of the Father.
This is the context for the most famous verse in the whole New Testament, which concludes our Gospel today: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
God is not standing over you with a clipboard, calculating your wages or waiting to condemn you for your hesitation. God loves you enough to meet you in your darkness, just like He met Nicodemus at night.
Where is God calling you to step out this week? What is the familiar, comfortable landscape you are clinging to because you are afraid of the unknown? It might be an old way of thinking, a grudge you use for protection, or a habit of self-reliance that keeps you from truly trusting others and trusting God.
Hear the invitation of the Spirit today. Drop your need for a perfect map, step out of the dark, and trust that the God who calls you across the threshold will keep your footing sure every step of the way.
Amen.