Abram was seventy-five when God told him to go.
Nicodemus was long established when Jesus told him he must be born again.
New birth is not punishment for failure — it is rescue from stagnation. It is never too late for God to be the making of us.
A sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Lent (Year A)
One goes, another comes.
It is Abram who goes.
It’s Nicodemus who comes,
Carefully, at night, to see Jesus.
For both, it’s about being born again.
Abram, we are told, was 75.
75.
By that age you’d expect him to be set.
If you’re not settled by 75, when will you be?
He’s established, formed and known.
Then he hears God say:
GO.
Leave your country.
Leave your people –
the people who made you who you are.
Leave your father’s house.
Leave everything you’ve ever known.
Even, in a way, leave your whole identity.
This man is Abram. That is who he is.
Abram is the “exalted father” –
“high father” – that’s what his name means.
And yet he has no child.
He sets out as Abram.
He sets out before anything has changed.
Before the promise is visible.
Before the future is secure.
And only later does God give him a new name:
Abraham – father of a multitude, father of nations –
the one through whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed,
and from whom, to this day,
Jewish, Christian and Muslim families
trace their story
and count their blessings.
It is Abram who goes.
Then there is the one who comes,
out of the dead of night he comes,
emerging from the shadows of
darkness and despair comes Nicodemus.
We don’t know his age, but he is no youngster.
He is old enough to have made his mark.
He is a Pharisee – a serious student of the Torah.
He is a member of the Jewish ruling council.
He is a teacher of Israel.
In fact, he is a person of substance,
and has spent a lifetime becoming someone.
And yet, he comes to Jesus and says:
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.”
Jesus tells him,
“No one can see the kingdom of God,
unless they are born again.”
“You must be born again.”
There we have it.
Abram is seventy-five.
And Nicodemus is no spring chicken.
Both are too old, humanly speaking,
for new beginnings.
Their story matters to us.
The two of them, they are both settled.
Abram is settled geographically, socially, economically.
Nicodemus is settled intellectually, religiously, institutionally.
Neither of them is wicked.
They’ve just grown old.
And we can become rather settled in our ways when we get old, can’t we?
Sometimes we are just tired.
Sometimes we get fixed in our opinions.
Sometimes we know our lines too well.
Sometimes we have become experts in being ourselves.
Some of us have had a lifetime of building ourselves,
making something of our lives,
with a lifetime of defending ourselves,
and the castles of our achievements,
Probably just like Abram and Nicodemus.
Perhaps we are too settled.
Settled in habits.
Settled in grudges.
Settled in roles.
Settled in the versions of ourselves we defend.
Perhaps, we too, need to stop that.
These scriptures spell out the good news
that we can stop that
and that we can be born again,
that we can stop all of that
so God can be the making of us.
New birth is not punishment for failure.
It is rescue from stagnation.
Nicodemus is right to ask the question,
“How can someone be born when they are old?
Surely they can’t enter a second time
into their mother’s womb to be born!”
We cannot make the new start ourselves.
We cannot birth ourselves.
It is God who makes the new start.
It’s God’s creation story.
In our own creation story
the firstborn stands secure.
The firstborn inherits.
The firstborn has position.
The younger is “spare”.
But in God’s story
it’s the younger who carries the promise,
the one born last – as we see in Abraham’s own family.
It’s younger Isaac, not older brother Ishmael.
It’s grandson Jacob, not Esau.
It’s Ephraim, not Manasseh.
The line of blessing doesn’t follow seniority,
it follows grace.
The last born is the new born.
The first born is always the older one,
relatively speaking.
The first born is the settled one,
just like Abram, just like Nicodemus,
just like all of us.
And the first born is never the new born,
unless willing to be born again.
The Gospel of John tells it different to the other gospel singers:
“No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
The other gospel writers say it like this:
“Noone can enter the kingdom of God
unless they become like a little child”.
The newborn are the last and the least.
They come with nothing.
They’re not dressed up with status or with achievements.
The newborns are never first.
Nicodemus is first.
He is first in power – he’s on the ruling council.
He is first in knowledge – he’s the teacher.
He’s the first in religious competence
But if he is to see the kingdom of God,
if he is to understand the way of God,
he must become new,
he must become small enough to receive
He must become, in a sense, last.
And the same with Abram.
He was established, named, known,
but becomes the stranger,
and the beginner again.
Abram was seventy-five.
Seventy-five.
That’s the age to qualify for lifetime achievement awards.
We spend our lives making ourselves,
our opinions,
our reputation,
our security,
our case before others.
Seventy-five.
It’s never too late
for God to be the making of us.
If Abram can begin at seventy-five,
and if Nicodemus can learn again
after a lifetime of teaching,
then none of us are stuck.
No one here is “too formed”.
No one is past beginning.
No one is past beginning.
And if we need one more witness —
there is Saul.
Certain.
Certain he was right.
Certain he knew God.
Certain he was defending the truth.
Established in his learning.
Established in his zeal.
Established in who he was.
And then —
stopped.
On the road.
Thrown down.
Blinded.
Led by the hand like a child.
He who saw so clearly
cannot see at all.
He who led
must now be led.
He who was first
must become last.
God does not improve him.
God remakes him.
He too must be born again.
Seventy-five.
It’s never too late
Abram was my age when he left it all.
I am still at that age when I don’t know,
when I don’t always like how I am,
when I need to hear “stop that”,
so that I can begin as the new-born,
as the last.
Heaven forbid I ever get settled in the way I am
and the way we are.
The amazing thing about God’s grace
is that we can always start again.
God so loved the world,
loves the world too much to leave it settled,
too much to leave us stuck,
so much as to come to us in the night,
to call us out of what we have made of ourselves.
Let us pray.
Lord God,
Father of Abraham,
giver of new birth,
We pray for the first borns among us —
for those who have grown established,
respected, secure.
For those who know their lines too well.
For those who have built lives
and learned how to defend them.
For those of us
who have become experts in being ourselves.
Make us willing to become small again.
Make us teachable.
Make us new.
And we pray for the new borns —
for the fragile beginnings,
for tender faith,
for hesitant steps into the unknown.
For those setting out not knowing where they go.
For those coming in the night with questions.
Breathe your Spirit upon them.
Guard what you are bringing to birth.
Carry to fullness what you have begun.
For you so loved the world
that you did not leave us settled,
but came among us
that we might be born from above.
Make us new, Lord.
Amen.
It is never too late for God to be the making of us.
Grits and Grains 