June 7, 2009
Grace Church
Rev. Robert E. Hensley

Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29; Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17

      Let us pray.  Eternal God, Creator of the universe: there is no God but you.  Great and wonderful are your works; wondrous are your ways.  Thank you for the many splendored variety of your creation.  Thank you for the many ways we affirm your presence and purpose, and the freedom to do so.

      We pray that you would forgive our violation of your creation.  Forgive our violence toward each other. 

      We stand in awe and gratitude for your persistent love for each and all of your children: 
Christian, Jew, Muslim, as well as those of other faiths and other Christian denominations.  Grant to all and our leaders attributes of the strong: mutual respect in words and deeds; restraint in the exercise of power; and the will for peace with justice for all.

      Eternal God, Creator of the universe, there is no God but you.  Amen.

(Concluding prayer from "Ecumenical Prayer Service for Peace," held at the Ecumenical Centre, Geneva, Switzerland, March 2003, during the time of the developing crisis in Iraq. The prayer was written by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clergy.)

      I want to begin this morning with a few words about our common life and witness with our ecumenical partner, the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  One of our mutual goals is a model of ecumenism called “full communion.”  Both the ELCA and The Episcopal Church take seriously our call to act ecumenically for the sake of the world and not for ourselves alone.  Our common understanding is that Unity does not mean that two churches merge; rather, in reaching consensus, churches also respect difference.  In this way, full communion is when two churches develop a relationship based on a common confessing of the Christian faith and a mutual recognition of baptism and sharing of the Lord’s Supper.  (See The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral 1886, 1888; BCP, Pp. 876-877). 

      Full communion between our two denominations means also that we may jointly worship, may exchange clergy, and also share a commitment to evangelism, witness and service in the world.   One of the central documents for Lutherans is the Augsburg Confession. Article VII of the Augsburg Confession states that “the true unity of the church” is present where the Gospel is rightly preached and Sacraments rightly administered. The ELCA and ECUSA are committed to this model of full communion as an authentic expression of Christian unity.  

      Currently, the ELCA is leading the way in full communion relationships with five churches.   In addition to ECUSA, the ELCA enjoys full communion with the Moravian Church, the Disciples of Christ, the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church.  At our General Convention this summer, we will be voting on full communion status with the Moravian Church, as well as The United Methodist and Presbyterian Churches. 

      Our common understanding of Unity and Diversity sits very well with most Episcopalians and Anglicans.  It is also a good model for this day as we celebrate the Holy Trinity, Trinity of Persons in Unity of Being. 

      I was reminded this week of a story told of a little girl who was asked to write an essay on “birth”.   

      She went home and asked her mother how she had been born.  Her mother, who was preoccupied at the time, said 'the stork brought you darling, and left you on the doorstep.' 

      Continuing her research she asked her father how he had been born.  Being    in the middle of something, her father similarly deflected the question by saying, 'I was found at the bottom of the garden in a cabbage patch.  The fairies brought me.' 

      Undaunted, the girl went and asked her grandmother how she had arrived.    'I was picked from a gooseberry bush', said grandma.  

      With this information at hand, the girl wrote her essay.  When the teacher asked her later to read it in front of the class, she stood up and began, "There has not been a natural birth in our family for at least three generations..." 

      It has been said that there are four stages of life: Childhood, Adolescence, Adulthood and then "Gee you look good!"  

      Those of us in this latter category may be the victims of the one ism that is so easy to ignore: ageism. It is not hard to detect the behaviors of racism and sexism but ageism is a subtle bigotry that has serious side effects.  

      Most of us would deny quite vocally that we are guilty of ageism. We do not discriminate in the work place against the old, and we are quite willing to help a gray-haired lady across the street – even if she doesn't need any help, thank you very much. 

      So, there you have it!  We are probably all of us ageists. But there is good news. A new study suggests that real age is not the same as chronological age. 

      For us men, if we consume more than 10 servings of tomato paste per week, you may be younger than you think you are.  For women, if you have been battered by a divorce, you may be older than you think you are.  

      If we brush and floss faithfully, we may be as much as 6.4 years younger than we think we are!  

      How can this be? An age is an age is an age, isn't it? In the no-nonsense words of Nicodemus, "How can anyone be born after having grown old?" (John 3:4). As much as we may want to turn, twist and torque the hands of time, we just simply cannot do it, can we?  

      Then again, maybe we can. At least according to Michael F. Roizen, M.D., author of RealAge, a book with an age reduction program that promises to help us live and feel up to 26 years younger than we are (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).  

      Dr. Roizen’s premise is really rather simple: There is a difference between our calendar age and our biologic age.  Do you recall perhaps the surprise you felt when you learned that a coworker – whom you assumed was in his 50s – was really only 43? On the other hand, think of your neighbor who looks as if she's in her early 40s, but who is really 60. "Some people are young for their age," observes Dr. Roizen. "They are physiologically and mentally as active and vibrant as someone much younger." The youthful 65-year-old woman may have what Roizen calls a "RealAge" of 45. She has learned how to slow the pace of aging by making simple but critical decisions about her lifestyle and behavior. By taking care of her body, she slows the pace of biologic aging and capitalizes more fully on her potential (xiv-xv).  

      Roizen's RealAge program – which was splashed across a full-page ad in The New York Times, and now in the form of a book, audio cassette, computer program and Web site (www.RealAge.com) – gives you a measurement system to calculate the biologic age of your body. Once you discover your RealAge, you can learn to evaluate health care decisions as diverse as putting tomato sauce on spaghetti or taking a jog, and then make informed decisions about each habit.  

• Take vitamins C and E daily for their antioxidant and anti-aging power (6 years)  

• Eat breakfast every day (1.1 years).  

• Get a good night's sleep regularly (3 years).  

• Maintain a constant desirable weight (6 years).  

• Own a dog, and walk it (1 year)!  

• Build social networks (2-30 years). Dr. Roizen has found that close friends and family members can help prevent aging from excessive stress.  

      On the other hand, if you want to age more quickly – and what person among us does? – your best bet is to have unsafe sex, work at a job exposing you to pollutants and toxins, live beyond your financial means, smoke cigarettes, drink to excess, and abuse drugs (44-52). The key to looking and feeling older than your birth certificate usually comes down to how much you abuse yourself! By the way, as an fyi, I took the online RealAge quiz, and my biological age is 58.2 years, but according to the website, my RealAge is 47.1…a net gain of 11.1 years.  I think they lie…my felt age for most of the week was about 98. 

      Unfortunately, not everyone gets it. In John 3, Jesus gives a night visitor named Nicodemus some hints about Spiritual RealAge when he insists, "You must be born from above" (v. 7). Actually, what he really says is, "You must be born anothen" - a Greek word that sounds like a fancy dietary supplement. Anothen is a word with a dual meaning – it means both "from above" and "again." To be born anothen speaks both of a TIME of birth – "again" – and the PLACE from which the new birth is generated – that is, "from above."  

      But Nicodemus' language and imagination do not stretch far enough to grasp Jesus' offer. Much of the time when we speak of being "born again" we make the same mistake that Nicodemus did: We understand Jesus' words on only one level. We focus on being "born again" to the exclusion of being "born from above," and flatten the expression to only one meaning, roughly equivalent to an individual's private moment of conversion.  

      The "born again" metaphor speaks to the new context in which we function with others relationally. As a result of this, we speak, act and think differently toward those who are around us. Being born "from above" identifies the source of regeneration. The recognition that rebirth is a divine action in us removes from us any sense of Spiritual RealAge as something we can do ourselves apart from God's work in us.  

      So what does a person who is spiritually young look like?  Well, they are open to surprises from God – unlike Nicodemus, who was full of preconceptions about what God could and could not accomplish. They are willing to let the Spirit of God blow where it chooses, not knowing where it comes from or where it goes, racing far beyond human knowledge and control. They believe that Jesus is the one who moves between heaven and earth and who brings the two together; they also trust that "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (v. 17). They trust that they have been born again and born from above so that they can live in the unending presence of God, in an eternal life that never really ages and never finally ends.  

      Or, he does some of the 175 things that Esquire says a man should do before he dies. Not necessarily number 6, "Jump out of a Cessna," but certainly number 7, "Talk to God," and number 170, "Entertain the possibility that there is, indeed, a heaven and a hell, and treat people accordingly" ("The Life List: 175 Things a Man Should Do Before He Dies," Esquire, December 1999).  

      It could be that a person with a young and vibrant Spiritual RealAge looks like, well, like you! Like you when you attend worship and listen for God's Word; when you pray every day; when you build service to others and to the environment into your regular routine; when you participate in the activities and outreach of a caring Christian community.  

      In the final analysis, all of the scientific and secular studies are unanimous: people of faith – those who have been born again and born from above – always appear to be more alive, engaged and younger than their birth certificate says they are.

Amen.