|
Born From Above and Learning to Discern the Wind
There is something profoundly human about the way this week’s Gospel begins. A respected leader comes to Jesus under the cover of night.
Nicodemus is faithful, learned, and committed. And still, he comes with questions. He comes in the dark. Many of us know that place.
We show up for worship. We serve on vestry. We care for one another. We try to be steady in an unsteady world. Yet beneath the surface there is often a deeper wondering. What is God doing right now. Where is the Spirit moving? How do we respond faithfully in a time that feels both tender and turbulent? That is the work of discernment.
When Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born from above, he is not handing him a rule. He is inviting him into a new way of perceiving. A life animated by Spirit. A life attuned to God’s movement rather than driven by fear or habit.
“The wind blows where it chooses,” Jesus says.
You cannot control the wind. You cannot schedule it. You cannot manufacture it. But you can learn to feel it on your skin. You can watch how it bends the trees. You can listen for its sound.
Discernment is exactly this kind of attentiveness. It is not cleverness. It is not anxiety disguised as urgency. It is prayerful listening. It is asking, together, what is being born among us. It is paying attention to where there is life, where there is freedom, where there is love that feels larger than our own.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus goes on to say, “For God so loved the world.” The world. The whole aching, complicated human family. And he clarifies that he was not sent to condemn the world, but to save it, to make it whole. If that is true, then discernment is not about protecting ourselves from the world. It is about joining God’s loving work within it. It is about asking how we, as St. Mary’s, are being invited to participate in that love here and now.
As your Rector, I sense in our parish what I would call quiet resilience. A tenderness. A willingness to stay with hard conversations. A desire to be faithful rather than flashy. That is not accidental. That is the Spirit shaping us.
But being born from above is ongoing. It is not a one-time event. It is a continual surrender. It means allowing God to reshape our assumptions, our priorities, even our comfort. It means stepping into the light, trusting that whatever is revealed there can be healed there.
Nicodemus begins in the dark. Yet he keeps moving toward Jesus. That is discernment. Returning to Christ again and again. Letting our questions be honest. Letting our hearts be softened. Listening together for the movement of God.
May we be a community that notices the wind.
May we have the courage to follow where it leads.
And may we trust that the One who loves the world is still breathing new life into us.
With love and steady hope in Christ,
Mo. Allison+
| 
