The Wind Blows Where it Chooses
Nicodemus, a leader of the people. Nicodemus, a religious scholar. Nicodemus, a well-respected teacher of the law of Moses. This man came to Jesus in the darkness of night to learn, to ask questions, to understand.
There was another man who came to us in the darkness of night who was not a religious scholar. He was not a leader. He was not well-respected. In fact, in came to us in the darkness of that curse in our society – the curse of homelessness. He came to us last Wednesday evening to our Lent Soup Supper Church where the lights were dimmed, the table lit by candle-light. He was the second man interviewed in the video we watched called, “Invisible People.” And, oh, how I wish I knew his name. We never learned his name which means I need to refer to him as the homeless man, but he was so much more than that.
Was he like Nicodemus – one who was seeking understanding and knowledge? Or was he like Jesus with something to give us, something to show us, something to teach us? Did he show up like Jesus with some good news to proclaim? “For God so loved the world…” Did this man, this nameless man show up to demonstrate for us what our world is really like – the world God chooses to love no matter how dark it is – so much so that he gave his only Son?”
This man (oh, how I wish I knew his name) told us he had a good childhood. In fact, he said he loved his childhood and he loved his mother, and as an adult he was a successful business man with nine years of higher education under his belt. But somehow, we don’t hear how, it all came falling down. “I lost my wife, my daughter, my house and my car all in one night.” And then he gives us a clue about the darkness he lives in when he said, “How do you go about getting help –getting clean and sober, when there is no reason to?” Then he’s thinking out aloud with us – thinking out loud with us – reminds me of Jesus thinking out-loud with Nicodemus. Thinking out-loud, Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen…”
And so the homeless man speaks of what he knows and testifies to what he has seen, “How do you go about getting help…when there is no reason to? I’m not going to give back. There’s nobody for me to give to. What do I have to give? Then he looks down at the ground as he says, “I even tried to kill myself, but I couldn’t even do that right.”
But then, as he is telling his story, something remarkable happens. The Spirit is up to something. It’s as if Jesus is speaking not to Nicodemus (as in our gospel text), but to us, you and me, as the story of the homeless man unfolds. Jesus seems to say, too, that the Spirit is up to something when Jesus says, “Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Is the Spirit, coming from above, going where it wants to go, speaking to us through this homeless man?
Listen to his story unfold. Listen to how the Spirit seems to give him words. He says, “I guess there’s still some sort of purpose for me because I’m still here.” And then his story continues, “There was a recovery meeting I went to not long ago where a guy came up to me and said to me, ‘I heard your story about three and a half years ago at a recovery home. I heard your story there. Then I heard your story again. It came into my head clearly as I stood on the Coronado Bridge right before I jumped – and I didn’t jump that day.’”
Then the nameless, homeless man says, “That was three and a half years ago. Now I sponsor six guys and they all know my story.” And then he looks right into the camera and says to you and me – to anyone listening, “Did you ever think that your life may not be yours anymore? Did you ever think that it’s not about you? If my story can save a few lives that’s enough purpose for me, and you know what, I have found purpose.”
He looked right into the camera and said, “If my story can save a few lives, that’s enough purpose for me…” It’s as if Jesus himself is looking right into the camera, and saying to you and me, “If my story can save a few lives…” If my life, if my teaching, if my healing, can save a few lives…” And if that isn’t enough, (and again, Jesus looks right into the camera and says) then my death, my death of the cross will indeed save lives…For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.”
“For God so loved the world, that God gave God’s only Son…” John 3:16. Perhaps the most well-known Bible verse and yet also the most destructive because it ends like this: “so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Destructive because it is misused as an assertion of exclusion. Too many people who hear this verse assume those who do not believe will indeed perish and will not go to heaven. “I’m a believer. You’re not. I’m going to heaven. You’re not.” But as one commentator wrote, the last time I checked, verse 17 follows, verse 16. Verse 17: “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.”
For example, do we know if the homeless man in the video believes? No we don’t. Do we know if the homeless man is a person of faith? No, we don’t, and to Jesus it doesn’t matter because it is the world Jesus loves, the whole world, not just those who pass a litmus test about whether they have faith, and, by the way, loving the world is not just a theory.
God’s love is specific, concrete, real – as real as the Samaritan woman by the well whom Jesus loved. God’s love is as real as the paralyzed man whom Jesus loved. God’s love is as real as the man blind from birth whom Jesus loved. God’s love is as real as Jesus’s dead friend, Lazarus who lay in a tomb for 4 days before Jesus brought him back to life. God’s love is as reals as Peter who denied Jesus. Despite Peter publicly letting everyone know three times, “No, I don’t believe in this guy, Jesus.” Yet, the church is built upon Peter’s faith or lack-there-of.
Jesus loved and forgave even the people who crucified him. The first words out of his mouth while hanging on the cross, according to Luke, were these, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In fact, over and over again, Jesus favors those outside the faith, the Gentiles. Jesus favors those considered less than – the poor, the Lepers, women, the outcasts, and the homeless.
We don’t know the name of the homeless man in the video, but his voice, his words sure sound like the words of Jesus when he says, “Did you ever think that your life may not be yours anymore? Did you ever think that it’s not about you? If my story can save a few lives that’s enough purpose for me, and you know what, I have found purpose.”
How do your words and acts of kindness save a stranger’s life? How do your words and acts of goodness give hope to someone you love? How does your selfless or unselfish way of life serve to lift up those who have fallen? How does Jesus’s death on the cross and how does Jesus’ resurrection give life and hope and forgiveness? “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 (it doesn’t end there) …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.”
Thank you, dear God, thank you for sending the nameless, homeless man to us. Thank you, dear God, for sending Jesus to us. Amen.