This sermon was preached on the Second Sunday in Lent at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles. You may view a video of this sermon here.
Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.
Many of us woke up this weekend to headlines that feel destabilizing—news of violence, power shifts, and uncertainty in the world. I don’t pretend to have geopolitical answers in this sermon. But I do know this: when the world feels unsteady, we return to what is steady. And sometimes what steadies us is not analysis, but encounter.
So, let me tell you a story.
Father Nick couldn’t sleep again. It wasn’t the peaceful kind of insomnia the internet recommends deep breathing for. This was the kind where your mind becomes a committee meeting and every thought files a report.
He lay beside his wife, Miriam, who possessed the spiritual gift of falling asleep even when his anxious energy hummed through the mattress like a second heartbeat. She could feel it, though. She always could. She had stopped trying to fix her spouse. Sometimes the only way a person gets honest is when the house is quiet enough to hear their own soul.
Father Nick stared at the ceiling fan tracing slow circles—wondering if it might hypnotize him to sleep. But thoughts turned to the parish calendar, which was already full—vestry meetings starting in prayer and quickly turning into budget conversations, pastoral visits he’d promised but hadn’t yet made, Sunday’s liturgy waiting to be shaped. And then there was the invisible list:
Did the sermon land? Did I sound too political? Not political enough?
Are pledges down? Why did that parishioner look away when I spoke of forgiveness? What happens if people stop coming?
Father Nick was a dutiful pastor. That was the compliment people gave him.
“He’s faithful.”
“He works hard.”
“He keeps things running.”
And he did keep things running. Prayers, bulletins, sacraments, emails—like someone appointed not only to the cure of souls but to the cure of logistics.
But beneath all the competence, something felt hollow.
Not dramatic emptiness. Quiet emptiness. The kind that comes when you’ve been pouring yourself out for so long you can’t remember what it feels like to be filled.
In the dark he remembered his ordination—the bishop’s hands heavy and kind, the prayers like thunder and honey at the same time. He had believed he was being given a life rooted in God.
He also remembered something Bishop Stough, the old bishop, used to say with a half-smile: “The longest journey you’ll ever make is about eighteen inches—from your head down to your heart.”At clergy retreats that sort of statement sounded folksy. At 2 a.m., it sounded like diagnosis.
The next morning Father Nick stood at the kitchen window with his coffee, watching dawn spread like slow mercy across the neighborhood. He caught his reflection in the glass—jaw clenched, shoulders slightly hunched, as if bracing for the next request.
He had meant every promise he made to Miriam—slower evenings, laughter not interrupted by phone calls. But the church needed him. The people needed him. And, if he was honest, he needed to feel needed.
Later that day he met with other clergy at a regional gathering. Paper cups of coffee. Polite jokes. The unspoken competition of who’s busiest. Someone mentioned another church across town—the kind with professional lighting and a brand. The kind where it became harder to tell where the Kingdom of God ends and party platforms begins.
“They’re growing like crazy,” someone said carefully. The tone shifted. Not hostile. Not admiring. Just uneasy. Father Nick felt something tighten in his stomach. Not because growth was wrong. Not because creativity was evil. But because he knew the temptation.
He knew how easily growth in numbers could start to outshine spiritual growth. How influence could start to feel like faithfulness. How being impressive could masquerade as being holy. And he knew how easily a pastor could begin preaching not for transformation—but for approval.
Later that afternoon he walked into his own parish hall. Volunteers were setting up for a newcomers’ event. Banners. Postcards. Welcome items for visitors. All well-intentioned. All harmless. And yet something in him whispered: it would be so easy to make this everything. To drift. Not through greed, but through anxiety.
That evening, after dinner, Miriam watched him pace back-and-forth in their living room. “You’re going to go see him,” she said.
“See who?” he asked, though he knew.
“The Teacher,” she said. “Not the one in your sermon notes. The real one.” He tried to laugh, but it came out thin.
“I don’t even know what that means.”
Miriam softened. “Maybe it means you’re finally tired of doing religion without feeling God.”
That landed like a millstone in water—and it pulled Nick down with it. Gasping for spiritual air, he finally decided to follow his spouse’s suggestion, to listen to his soul’s yearning.
So, Father Nick put on his coat and stepped into the night. He didn’t announce it. Didn’t schedule it. Didn’t post about it. He just went. He drove across town and parked along a quiet street. A friend had given him an address—not a church. Not a chapel. Just a place. A small house with one light on.
He knocked. A young person answered. Then, strangely recognized him. “Father Nick, come in,” the 20 something-year-old beckoned.
Inside, the room was simple. No stage. No screen. A table with bread crumbs, a half full cup of wine, a candle burning low. And there, sitting as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world, was the Teacher.
No performance. No anxiety. Just presence.
Father Nick sat down, hands clasped tight. He had rehearsed what he would say, but his prepared speech collapsed under reality.
“Teacher,” he began carefully, “we know your wisdom comes from God.”
The Teacher listened, then said:
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
Father Nick blinked.
Born from above?
His mind reached for process. For structure. For steps.
“How can anyone be born after having grown old?” he asked.
The Teacher did not mock him.
“Very truly,” he said, “no one can enter the kingdom without being born of water and Spirit.”
Then, he spoke of the wind—how it blows where it chooses. You hear it. But, you cannot control it. You cannot spreadsheet it. You cannot manage it. This wasn’t about understanding. It was about surrender to the loving power that is much bigger than us.
And then the Teacher said, not harshly but truthfully:
“Are you a teacher… and you do not understand these things?”
Father Nick felt exposed.
He knew Scripture. He knew liturgy. He knew theology.
He knew it all in his head.
But somewhere along the way, he had started wearing knowledge like armor.
The Teacher was asking him to disarm.
“How can these things be?” he whispered.
The Teacher leaned forward, moving the conversation those eighteen inches downward.
“For God so loved the world,” he said, “that God gave the Son—not to condemn the world, but to save it—to free it.”
Not to condemn.
Not to evaluate.
Not to grade.
To love it, to love all people, to love all Creation.
Something in Father Nick loosened.
The emptiness he felt wasn’t failure.
It was hunger—holy longing.
Not for better programming. Not for sharper branding.
But, for new birth.
For Spirit.
For love that wasn’t a performance review.
When he stood to leave, the Teacher gave him no to-do list.
Just presence. A look of tenderness. And a short but profound embrace.
Outside, the night air felt alive.
And that’s when he noticed it:
The wind had picked up.
Not violent. Not dramatic.
Just enough to move the leaves. Enough to make the branches whisper.
He stood there, listening.
He didn’t know where it came from or where it was going.
He only knew it was real.
And for the first time in a long time, his heart did not feel like a committee meeting.
It felt like a doorway—leading to a new life born from the love above.
And now I should tell you:
The priest in that story isn’t exactly fictional.
In John’s Gospel his name is Nicodemus—a religious leader who comes to Jesus by night. Full of respect. Full of knowledge. Full of questions.
Living in a time of political tension and religious pressure.
He comes at night because for some reason, he didn’t want to be seen.
And Jesus does not shame him.
Jesus speaks of love.
Friends, Nicodemus doesn’t change overnight.
But he moves throughout John’s Gospel account.
From night in John 3…
to a cautious defense of Jesus at a religious council in John 7…
to finally standing at the cross in broad daylight, helping prepare the body of Jesus for burial.
The longest journey you’ll ever make is about eighteen inches.
From your head down to your heart.
From managing religion
to being born of Spirit.
From performance
to love.
And when the world feels unsteady, when anxiety hums in the dark, when we are tempted to drift toward approval or control—
the invitation is not to try harder.
It is to return.
To encounter.
To let the wind move you.
For God so loved the world.
Not condemned.
Loved.
And sometimes that love doesn’t simply rearrange your calendar.
It rearranges your entire life.
