Leo Tolstoy once wrote about a house. It was an old house; so old, in fact, that it was falling apart.
The man who lived in that house: he loved that old house. Never mind that it was in such a state of disrepair. Never mind that it was deteriorating more and more with each passing day. He had lived in that house his whole life. It was all he had ever known. The idea of leaving that house was unthinkable.
Yes, the walls were falling down. Yes, the ceiling was sagging. But he was determined to stay in that house.
He knew that he needed to make his house secure; so he built some supports, some braces, to hold up the walls. Both inside and out, he had wooden boards positioned to hold up the walls. He also added other supports inside – lots of them – to hold up the ceiling.
However, the house continued to deteriorate. Soon, boards from the ceiling were threatening to fall down in between the supports he had erected. So he added more supports. This, he believed, was the only way to feel secure in his own home.
This continued for some time. Whenever another section of the ceiling started to sag, he’d add more supports. It got to the point that he couldn’t see the walls of his house because of all the supports. He couldn’t even move through the house, hardly. There was no room. He struggled to squeeze himself through, all the supports.
That’s all there is to Tolstoy’s story. In fact, I’ve already embellished it some with some details Tolstoy neglected to mention. But let us go on and imagine that one day, this man was in town visiting a friend. And in their conversation, this friend said to the man: “Why do you keep adding supports to your house?”
The man stared speechless at his friend, because he thought this was a rather stupid question. Finally, he said to his friend: “Because I want to continue to enjoy living in my house, and how can I do that when the house is falling down?”
The friend responded: “How can you enjoy living in a house that you can’t even walk through because of all the supports? What you need is a whole new house. The house you’re living in is falling down. I don’t see how you can live in it at all. Your house has become unlivable. No, my friend; you need to build a new house.”
This still made no sense to the man. “A new house? I don’t understand.”
See what I mean? The man couldn’t even imagine building a new house. The idea was unthinkable. All he could imagine was trying to save his old house, which, really, was beyond saving. So he left his friend and went home, stopping on the way to buy some more boards.
How true is this story? Very true. It’s true, because it happens all the time. It’s true, because it’s happening today.
For example: today we have built our house on a foundation of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are what our “house” is made of. Fossil fuels allow us to live the way we live. They give us heat and electricity, they get us from one place to another, and they allow for the manufacturing of plastics (just think of all the things made of plastic) , and they are even used to create the fabrics that many of the clothes we wear are made of.
But guess what? This house is falling down. Fossil fuels are getting harder to find. We have to drill deeper and deeper. Oil spills are destroying our coast; big spills, like the one that happened last year in the Gulf of Mexico, and countless smaller spills, like the one that happened earlier this month in Ventura.
The house is being destroyed as we drill for oil in environmentally sensitive areas. Since our life is built around fossil fuels, we feel we need to do such things in order to feel secure.
A lot of our oil is imported, so we also find ourselves more and more willing to send our military to countries where that supply is threatened: all so that we can enjoy living in this same old house that we are so used to living in.
But how enjoyable is it if we are destroying the land and sea, polluting the air, and sending our children and grandchildren into harm’s way just so we can continue living in this house? Why do we keep adding supports to a house that is falling down? There comes a point at which the very measures we take to ensure our enjoyment and security end up taking enjoyment and security away. The supports become too many, and we can’t even move through our house.
There are those who say: “Why do you keep adding supports to this house? Why do you keep searching for ways to continue living in a fossil-fuel-based society?” But to many of us, this sounds like a stupid question. We ask: “How can we not live in a fossil-fuel-based society?”
And then our friends say: “What you need is a whole new house. The house you’re living in is falling down. It’s becoming unlivable. You need to build a new house, one that is built with safe, clean, renewable energy.”
But for many of us, this still makes no sense. A new house? A whole new society? We still don’t understand. We’re still in the dark.
It was in the dark of night that a man named Nicodemus came to Jesus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee; he was also a member of the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was a governing council that consisted of both political and religious leaders.
This means that Nicodemus was in a rather curious position. As a member of the Sanhedrin, he worked with the ruling elite, including representatives of Herod and Caesar; as a Pharisee, he emphasized religious purity in the hopes that God would free the Jews from Roman oppression.
If this is the house in which Nicodemus lived, it seemed to be a rather precariously built house. In order to hold the weight of Nicodemus’ religious obligations as well as his political responsibilities, his house needed lots of support.
Perhaps, he thought, some of this support could come from Jesus! After all, Jesus was – as Nicodemus said – “a teacher who has come from God.” Perhaps Jesus could add some support to the shaky foundation and sagging ceiling of the house Nicodemus had built for himself and his people.
But Jesus said, “No, no, no; why do you keep adding supports to your house? Why do you come to me looking for still more support for your crumbling house? This house is falling down. It’s not livable. What you need is to build yourself a whole new house. You need to build yourself a whole new life. You need to be reborn: born from above.”
Now, to get technical for a moment, the word Jesus used can be translated and interpreted several different ways. Nicodemus, who really didn’t understand what Jesus is talking about, chose the most literal interpretation. He said: “I don’t get it. How can anyone be born after growing old? How can one go back into his mother’s womb in order to be born again?”
And Jesus replied: “Do not be astonished when I say that you all must be born from above. To enter the kingdom of God, you have to build a whole new house, one that is defined in relation to God and not Caesar. You have to live a whole new life.”
But Nicodemus, who couldn’t even imagine living in a way that was different than the way he and his people had been living all these years, said: “How can these things be? I still don’t get it.” Nicodemus was curious about how one enters the kingdom of God, but as far as understanding how that happens, he was still in the dark.
The kingdom of God is the new house. Eternal life is a new type of life. It is the life of the ages, the life of the kingdom, the God-life. Whereas the opposite of life as we know it is death, the opposite of life in the kingdom is sin. Death may come, and this new kind of life does not end. However, sin – living apart from God – does keep one from this new life.
In the old life – in the old house, if you will – a person takes on flesh and enters into the world by being born of his parents. In the new life, a person enters the kingdom of God when he is “born” of his heavenly parent.
It’s not enough to go on living in your old house, and using Jesus to support that crumbling structure. You need a whole new house. You need a whole new life.
In explaining this to Nicodemus, Jesus made reference to an incident in which the Israelites found their camp infested by snakes. They kept trying to grab the snakes and pull them off of themselves and each other, but always, there were more snakes. As long as they kept up at this task, it was a hopeless situation.
But God created a whole new way. He had Moses put a bronze snake on a pole, and then anyone who would but look up at that bronze snake would be safe.
Jesus says: stop looking down. Stop pulling off the snakes, because more snakes will keep appearing. You’re just treading water, and going nowhere. You’re just adding more and more supports to a house that is falling apart.
Instead, look to me. Believe in me. Trust me. Trust in what I say, how I say to live. I know it’s hard to imagine. I know that some of what I say sounds crazy to you. Radical love, forgiveness, even for enemies; going the extra mile in showing hospitality; refusing to take up arms against your worst adversary. The things I say are so contrary to how you’ve been taught to live. Yes, I’m asking you to build a whole new house.
But you’ve got to trust me. This is the path to eternal life. This is the way to life in the kingdom. I can’t “prove” to you that these things work. You’re just going to have to trust me. You’re just going to have to believe in me.
“I will tell you this: it’s because God loves you that this new house is even possible. It’s because of God’s love for the whole world that God sent the Son, so that whoever believes in him will find this new life. No longer do you have to live in a house that is in danger of collapse. God has created a new way, a new house, a new life.”
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