PROPERS: SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT, YEAR A
TEXT: JOHN 3:1-17
PREACHED AT ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, PASCAGOULA, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 5, 2023.
ONE SENTENCE: Lent is a season for growth and not just denial.
I suspect we have all heard St. Paul’s words, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” Those words are from his magnificent Letter to the Romans.
Have we not all experienced that tension? As Flip Wilson used to say, “The devil made me do it.”
Perhaps.
The reason may be, in many cases, an issue of maturity – or human development. I look back on my earlier years and ask myself, “Why did I do that?” It was as if Paul was inside my head.
He may have been. Or at least I was subject to his theology.
But there’s another answer – and both could be true.
Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, proposed a theory of human development early in the 20th century. It has informed our understanding of human behavior ever since. Many of our actions have to do with our stage of moral and intellectual development. Things which we would find intolerable later in life, we do quite willingly – and earlier in life.
Piaget would say it was not because of the absence of the quantity of information, but the absence of the quality of information. Quantity versus quality. We may know something to be wrong, but we do not know that that truth also applies to us.
And, as we all know, years and age do not necessarily make us wiser. We have no choice but to age in years, but, sadly, we do not all progress morally. We may stay stuck at one stage of moral development.
And here is where Piaget’s theory meets Nicodemus from the gospel lesson today.
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James Fowler was a professor at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. Specifically, he was professor of theology and human development.
In 1981, he published a book entitled Stages of Faith, which took Piaget’s theories about human and moral development and placed them in a religious context. He identified six stages of faith which described the faith of nearly everyone. Like I’ve said in other situations, I resemble that remark – though I don’t know exactly in which stage I would place myself.
The stages and their descriptions are very complex. Yet, I suspect they describe each of us. The earliest of stages – characterized by an infant or child’s engagement of the world – are very basic. The middle and later stages probably describe all of us – from those of us who see God as an old man with a white beard to one has journeyed far in life and sees God in all things.
Honestly, most of us are in Fowler’s middle stages, with a child-like faith that has been shaped by the ups and downs of life. Our life informs our faith, as does how we interpret life.
We can rest assured, though, that the person who has reached what Fowler described as Stage Six – Universal Faith, is rare indeed. I have only known a few. You would know that person as a living saint in your midst.
We are not locked in one stage or another. And one is not better than the other. But you can seek to grow in faith.
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Which is exactly what Nicodemus does in today’s gospel.
Nicodemus is a prominent man – a member of the Council, that is, the Sanhedrin. He is a scholar – a learned and respected man. His education was probably impeccable. But he wanted more. He was a seeker.
His problem was not quantity of knowledge, but quality of knowledge. He knew what he had read. He knew what he had been taught. But he wanted more. He approached Jesus to deepen his experience of God. There, he found it. And we have this passage today to witness their encounter.
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Lent is an excellent time for us to strengthen our faith – to allow our inner Nicodemus to come out. To go deeper. To see God’s presence in all our daily experiences and encounters. To find wonder and grace in everyone that we see… and in all circumstances.
Faith is a journey, not a destination. Our journey is like the theories of Jean Piaget and James Fowler – we are developing. We are not where we will end up in that journey unless we become stagnant and stale. God is seeking to work in us and open our eyes more widely – if we are open to his movement.
