Let us pray: We are grateful, O God, that we may come to you with answers and questions, with hopes and fears. Open us to words that can change us. Open us to new life that beckons us. Open us to see we are loved by you in Christ. Amen.

    A number of people, including some of the people here today gathered in this same place last Tuesday evening to hear Daryl Sexsmith tell the story of his canoe trip on the Mackenzie River last summer. It’s Daryl’s story to tell and I am not going to attempt to recount it here, except for a mention of one of the discoveries he related as he reflected on the journey.

    Daryl left Yellowknife this week to pursue a calling to work in the area of Wilderness and Spirituality. It is only natural that during the slide show on Tuesday he would address the same topic as he told the tale of his encounter with the Deh Cho - the big river. The trip that he and Jay Morrison completed in July was not only a story about their connection with the river, but very much their connection with the people who live and work beside and on the river. When asked about the role the river plays in the spirituality of these people, Daryl described his perception that the practical and spiritual nature of the river can’t be separated.

    I thought about Daryl’s words as the worship committee met this week to discuss the remainder of our worship in this Lenten season and as I reflected on that encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus that we heard described in our gospel reading this morning.

    As you’ve already heard described earlier in this worship service - the image we chose for this second Sunday of Lent is one which portrays two ends of a continuum - the “small picture” image of a lantern - providing just enough light for a step or two around us - and a “big picture” image of maps and direction finders which help to point the way on a larger scale. They are both important.

    I thought about these contrasts in connection with other river courses - the Deh Cho - no river is bigger in our country and little Cottonwood Creek - a little tributary of the Athabasca River which flows along the north edge of the Jasper town site. Both make their own contributions in “little picture” and “big picture” kinds of ways - some of the contributions are only different in scale and others are quite different in nature.

    The reading from Genesis this morning told the story of the ancestors of the Hebrew people - Abram and Sarai and their journey from Haran to a new land promised to them by God. One of the things I perceive from my reading of the Hebrew bible is a deeply embodied spirituality among the Hebrew people. It was impossible to separate body and spirit for they were part of each other - there was not a spiritual realm and an earthly realm - it was all part of being human. I had it described to me once in this way - that someone who understood spirituality in this way could quite easily say - I feel something with my kidneys, or my lungs are full with God. We do the same thing, but it takes an unexpected connection to demonstrate it to us. Who among us would not say that we feel things in our hearts - that’s perhaps the most lasting body-spirit connection to come out of that Hebrew understanding of the flesh and spirit association.

    Into this we introduce the Greek understanding of body and spirit separation. In this understanding, it is possible to be born of the flesh but not of the spirit. Despite all the wonderful insights that Hellenic understandings and philosophies have brought to us, this is one that I find hard to accept, and yet it is very prominent in the scripture record. In fact you might say that the Christian scripture emphasises the separation between body and spirit as a requirement. It is this theory, I believe which leads to John’s gospel story about Nicodemus - a story of questions and answers - understandings and misunderstandings. I can’t believe for a moment that Nicodemus was as dense as he is described in the story. I feel about the story in much the same way as I feel about the famous Who’s on first comedy sketch by Abbot and Costello - everyone except for the foil,  Lou Costello  - gets it. And in the story of the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus - the writer lets everyone but Nicodemus get it. So not a dumb Nicodemus, but a literary effect to emphasis a point.

    I can’t believe that Jesus - a Jew - would have so clearly separated the spirit from the flesh. So, it must be John - the most spiritual of the gospel writers - who wanted to emphasise this separation. This interpretation has confirmation in the fact that Nicodemus only appears in John’s gospel.

    Of course, the Nicodmeus story has had lasting influence on the Christian faith as the progenitor of the “born again” strand of Christianity, and John’s gospel and the verse that was part of our reading this morning John 3:16 is the verse most often quoted by those who claim their identity as members of the “born again” crowd.

    As I think about this verse, I am reminded of a pin I received once. It had “John 3:16" on it, but the way the 3:16 was written it looked to me like the pin said “Big John”. I thought, how perfect, that’s exactly how “Born Again” Christians think about the gospel writer - Big John. It was only after closer inspection that I realised that the 3:16 was in fact the chapter and verse!

    Now don’t get me wrong - there is much in the story of the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus for us to discover. As a story about being open to the spirit there are few scripture stories as compelling. As a story about artful and insightful dialogue it is wonderful. I just am not convinced that the spirit and the flesh are as separate as John would have us accept.

    In the same way that Daryl Sexsmith described no separation between the physical and practical assets of the Deh Cho and the spiritual regard in which it is held by the people who live by it (and the ambiguity of that statement is intended) I believe there is no separation between who we are as physical beings and spiritual beings. I also believe we live in an age where the spiritual has been suppressed - perhaps because it has been so easily separated by the kind of thinking we encounter in much of the Christian scripture. In the mind of writers in the Christian scripture - the spirit is different from the flesh. Their intention was good - to lift up the spirit as an important dimension of life but the result was unfortunate - allowing the spiritual to be hived off and even easily suppressed.

    Over the past few years I have been gradually connecting with my own ancestral spiritual roots - namely the celtic tradition. As I journey into these roots I experience many of the same kind of connections that I see in the Hebrew understanding of the inseparable weaving of body, mind and spirit and which is also part of what I know of the spirituality of the people who have lived in this land for thousands of generations.

    I am moved by the earthiness of these understandings of spirituality which cannot separate who we are as flesh and blood human beings and people of the spirit. I’m not sure I knew it at the time, but I think that’s what I meant three weeks ago when talked about the day to day journey in the valley of Lent - not a journey of darkness of the soul, but a journey of day to day living in the flesh and in the spirit. And like the lantern which only lights the way a few steps at a time - I hope we are gradually making our way. Amen.