We KNOW You Are …

We Know You Are … (1,195)

July 2nd, 2011

He thought he knew. His piece of pride was in possessing the insight to be aware of what people were and what they weren’t.

His name was Nicodemus. He came to see Jesus by night—probably convincing himself that he was too “busy” to do so by day, but actually, mainly because he feared criticism from his business peers in pursuing this vagabond messenger. He began his conversation with Jesus by saying, “We know you are … “

People think they know. We live in a generation where folks are convinced that each one of us was “born” a certain way—just like Nicodemus thought he “knew” who Jesus was, the same thing applies to how we deal with one another in this time and place.

I was listening to an interview with Lady Gaga—by the way, an extraordinarily talented young woman with great energy and depth—and she was promoting her new song, Born This Way. It fascinates me that individuals who insist on their own uniqueness, and would take great offense if you told them they had to do something against their will, will suddenly acquiesce to the notion that their genetic code and DNA disposition has launched them in a defined direction. Are we really “born” some way? Are we really hatched from the egg encoded with personality, talent, attitude, flaws and gifts?

A lady came up to me the other night and said, “It must be wonderful to be born with such talent!” I quietly objected, saying, “I don’t think I was born talented. I think I just had a tenacious gene that made me believe I had the right to try things.”

She disagreed. After all, she knew what I was—just like Nicodemus knew what Jesus was. Answer me this question: how can we be independently-minded individuals and still be bound to chromosomes which force us to be something we may not want to be? Does that make any sense to you?

And of course, then there’s the hypocrisy. We live in a society that now believes that people are “born gay” but they are certainly not “born fat.” So it’s considered rude to ask a homosexual to cease his practices, but quite appropriate to yell at fat people on television shows for being obsess, and to mock them for their blubber. Am I crazy here or are we dealing with a double standard? If some young man is hardwired to be gay, why isn’t some young woman hardwired with a metabolism that makes her obese? Fascinating, don’t you think?

Well, I will tell you what Jesus told Nicodemus, who thought he “knew” how everything was, and how we’re all “born” to be certain things. Jesus told this night visitor, “You must be born again.”

Wow. That scripture has a whole new significance now, doesn’t it? Even though our first birth was somewhat thrust upon us by the passions of parents and the cycle of life, the only thing we can guarantee that belongs to us is the decision to pursue a second birth. This time it’s MY choice. This time it’s MY decision. This time I will sit down and selectthe aspects of my family that I relish and those which I wish to decline. I will understand myself enough to embrace the parts of me that increase my prosperity, and reject those things that leave me destitute of human expansion.

I will take authority over my own life by choosing to be born again.

I appreciate Lady Gaga’s sentiment; I wouldn’t change anything about her. I just wonder if she could escape the pre-conception that she is locked in to the conditions of her birth. Might there be anything she would want to change?

I think fat people who don’t want to be fat should be allowed to be born again. What do you think? I think people who are gay who want to walk away from that life should be given the opportunity to be born again. I think people who grew up in a hate-filled environment, with a pre-disposition to violence, should be given a chance to be born again.

Does this make me seem bigoted against any one of these groups? I hope not. I just think it’s ridiculous to talk about freedom without giving people a choice to be something different than what their parents decided they should be through the joining of a sperm and an egg. How can God say He loves me if He doesn’t let me change? How can God give me free will if I’m inexplicably linked to a genetic double-helix?

We all think we know. We all think we are either the blessing or the victim of our birth. It is wonderful to have a spirituality available to us that gives us the capacity of being born again. I not only take advantage of it every day, but it is the source and the intensity of my worship.