STARTING  OVER  AND 

OVER  AND  OVER  AGAIN 

INTRODUCTION

 The title of my homily is: “Starting Over and Over Again.”

I’d like to reflect a little bit on the basic theme of conversion – or starting over and over again.

Today’s gospel continues the story of Nicodemus from the 3^rd chapter of John. The obvious theme that keeps hitting me is the one we’ve been hearing: being reborn, starting over and over again.  

But the nuance I’d like to stress is not one conversion or two conversions, but one’s whole life as a series of many conversions, so called on-going conversions.

 I  LED THREE LIVES

When I was a teenager in the 1950's  there was a book and later a TV series, staring Richard Carlson, years ago, that was called, “I Led Three Lives.”

I only remember that he was a spy as well as a counter-spy – with the name, “Herbert Philbrick.”

That title, “I Led Three Lives” hit me as I reflected on this theme of conversion and starting all over again and again. We live and lead many lives.

Conversion is moving towards the best life we can life – to move towards what the Marine advertisement says, “To Be all we can be.”

THE NATURAL

Then there was the book and later the movie, The Natural. It had a scene that fits right in here loud and clear.

Glenn Close, plays the part of Iris Gaines. She is standing by the bedside of Roy Hobbs, played by Robert Redford. He just told her how much he messed up his life. On the way to spring training to join the team that signed him, he met this mysterious woman in black. He saw her once. Once. 

That obviously changed the path of his life. 

He had a very promising baseball career and he is shot by her. Glenn Close is standing there listening to him tell this story  in a hospital room. And she says, “I think we have two lives.  The one we live and learn from and the one we then do the rest of our life with after the learning.

Hopefully, we live and we learn and then live.

PATTERNS

But looking at my life, thinking about issues which I need to change, and grow from, eating patterns, sleeping patterns, work habits, prayer habits, etc. I see that there are many conversions, many ups and downs in life.

POEM CALLED NICODEMUS

Here is a poem - called "Nicodemus" - which I wrote way back for a book of night prayers. 

NICODEMUS

(John 3:1-21)

This time

in the wind,

in the night,

I stand at the door, Lord,

and knock once again.

I come,

empty and afraid,

asking, seeking, knocking,

hoping you will open up

your door to see me once again.

I enter

with fears and doubts,

questioning whether

it’s really worth it

to start my life all over once again.

I’ve been

reborn too many times.

There have been too many conversions.

Why should I rise this time

knowing that I’ll probably fall once again.

And yet, Lord,

after each fall

this urge to come back to you,

the way, the truth and the life,

stirs in me once again, like the Wind.

PROBLEM

One conversion can often be great.

There is the honeymoon and the infatuation period. Then there is the struggle and often disillusionment period that follows.

And then if we fall again, that second conversion, doesn’t have the bells and the whistles, and bragging rights, that the first conversion had.

I would think there is a vast difference between a second marriage or a third marriage - compared to a first marriage.

THE LORD DOES NOT GET ANGRY

Today’s gospel talks about the wrath of God and I often feel antsy when I mention that while reading the gospel.

One writer, speaking of the text says what’s going on here is projection of our inner feelings onto God. The text has a anthropomorphic sense. God is not a God of wrath - but we are.

One person described the after-effects of sin as,  “The recoil of sin upon the sinner.”

When we sin, we get angry at ourselves, not God.

When we sin, we damage ourselves at times over relationships with each other.

So the recoil in on self, the wrath is on the self.

GENEROSITY

 Rather the Lord is generous.

Today’s gospel talks about God  not being cheap.

He does not ration out his spirit.

He pours out new life on us. So go to God and ask, seek, knock.

DESERT STORY

I found a good example of the surprise side of God’s love. It’s about the copious redemption of God. All we need to do is cry out of our depths for his overflowing, over abundant redemption.

Here’s the example, “Two hundred miles northeast of Los Angeles is a baked-out gorge called Death Valley – the lowest place in the United States, dropping 276 feet below sea level. It is also the hottest place in the country, with an official recording of 134 degrees. Streams flow into Death Valley only to disappear, and a scant two and a half inches of rain falls on the barren wasteland each year.

“But, some time ago, an amazing thing happened. For nineteen straight days rain feel onto that lone dry earth. Suddenly all kinds of seeds, dormant for years, burst into bloom. In a valley of death, there was life.” p. 61 in ed. Floyd Thatcher, The Miracle of Easter, p. 61, Word Books, Waco TX.

CONCLUSION

Now, we might ask, well why doesn’t God pour down water on that desert all the time?

I don’t know.

But I’d rather see the story as an example that I can bloom, I can blossom, over and over again.

I can call on the Lord and be saved.

If we are really honest, God is calling us to conversion, to blossom all the time, Death valley doesn’t I can.