This is a rich and complex Gospel we are given for our consideration today. We have this wonderful account of Nicodemus coming to Jesus to ask him some questions. We have this very convoluted conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus that develops into a monologue by Jesus that has all to do with being born completely and radically new, being born a second time, being born from above, all of which Nicodemus does not get, and if our society's usage of this phrase "born again" is any indication, the majority of Christianity does not get it either.

Episcopalians aren’t big on sin. I don’t mean we aren’t good at it, erring and straying like lost sheep…I mean we don’t put sin at the center of the way we pray or at the center of what we believe! We do make liturgical and pastoral decisions that reserve the center of our Episcopal identity for God’s love, mercy and compassion—the image in which we’ve been made. For The Episcopal Church, faith means learning to trust completely that deep down, at the heart of things, God’s way of loving us is unconquerable and indelible. Our Lenten theme of repentance is about turning again and again back toward God’s love, knowing God never turns away from us.

Last week the theme of the lessons was "Come and see" -- the potential disciples, in the story in John's Gospel, said to Jesus, "Rabbi, where are you staying," and Jesus said, "Come and see".... Today's reading from Matthew's gospel is also about being called - and in fact the whole structure of the Bible really depends on these hundreds and hundreds of stories in which people are called by God in one way or another. Today the theme is follow me. Jesus encounters Peter and Andrew fishing by the Sea of Galilee and says that to them -- follow me - and then he calls James and John -- and "immediately," we are told, they just get up from what they're doing and follow.

Ralph Whitlock, a columnist for the British newspaper the Manchester Guardian, once described a nativity play that brings the playfulness and mystery of God to life in a wonderful way. It is a reminder that Epiphany, the season that celebrates the manifestation of Jesus’ divinity, is but a deepening of the implications of the Christmas story. Whitlock’s own epiphany came in an East African village, where with a seasoned companion he witnessed a manger scene acted out in a village around an old mission compound, miles out in the bush. The story goes like this: