The Second Sunday in Lent - March 1, 2026 - The Right Reverend C. Andrew Doyle, Episcopal Diocese of Texas

Summary

In this Second Sunday of Lent sermon, Bishop Andy Doyle challenges the congregation to embrace the discomfort of true discipleship, using Nicodemus's nighttime visit to Jesus as an example of cautious faith. He emphasizes that following Jesus means allowing Him to disrupt our comfortable lives, politics, and relationships, calling us to see others through God's eyes of love and compassion rather than our own preferences. The Bishop calls for a Lenten journey of humility, prayer, and genuine transformation - being "born again" in a way that makes us better human beings who hunger for God's deliverance in a troubled world.

THE GOSPEL                                                                                                                                              John 3:1-17

 There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Artwork: Christ Instructing Nicodemus, By Crijn Hendricksz Volmarijn (ca 1604-1645) 

Transcript

Bishop Andy Doyle:

Heavenly Father, as I offer these words this morning, I beseech you to see before you a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock and day sinner of your own redeeming in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated. It is a joy to be with you on this second Sunday of Lent. And I'm making my way through a book over 600 pages. This thing is just a giant tomb. It's written by Mark Daniellewski. It's called Tom's Crossing. I told the clergy the other day, I can't recommend it yet because I haven't read the whole thing. So I'm in the middle of that. It's a 1980s cowboy story about two friends and one of them is a ghost. There are several quotes that stand out. Yeah, Western ghost story is kind of how the genre is there.

There's a number of quotes that stand out, but one of them has to do, and they are walking together. The book's called Tom's Crossing. They're walking together. And Kalin asked his friend, "For everyone, there's reserved a great journey.

Does that include the dead? For everyone, there's a great journey. Does that include the dead?" And the ghost responds, especially for the dead. This emphasizes a very profound theme about, on the one hand, one that's always kind of captured my imagination, which is pilgrimage and journey. Even beyond life, it also captures the nature of spiritual transformation. It captures for me the theme of lint, right? This idea that we're making a journey from Ash Wednesday to the cross intentionally. It is the nature perhaps of our own lives to make this journey. It is certainly Nicodemus' work in today's gospel lesson to be making his journey, isn't it? From death into life. New life is what we're told. Now, Nicodemus is a serious, learned, reputable person.

So he's unlike me completely, and most of you who I know. So let's just get it straight. This guy is a high falutin kind of a human being. And so he has a lot of risk involved in making this journey. He's heard about Jesus, right? So he knows there's something going on here. He's curious about Jesus, but he is not sure how much risk he wants to take in being seen with Jesus. Get my drift? So the world is putting some pressure on Nicodemus naturally that he needs to be careful with so that any relationship with Jesus doesn't undo his reputation. So he comes at night and he comes quietly and he invites a conversation with Jesus. Now, what's important here to me is that Jesus doesn't turn him away immediately. It's like he doesn't say, "Look, I know why you're coming to see me at night.

You're coming here because you don't want to risk too much. Kind of being cautious with me. I've probably said some things that would shake up your friends." But he doesn't do that. He listens and he lets Nicodemus ask him questions in which Nicodemus begins to figure out where he stands with this person. So right there, we have an important message right there. Jesus probably going to say some stuff that disrupts your life and especially in lint. And he's going to disrupt not just your life. He's going to disrupt all the things that your life depend upon in terms of navigating out there. Like your politics and your friends. I don't care what politics you have. I'm just telling you, Jesus is going to mess with them. He's going to mess with everything you hold dear because we as human beings don't actually want to risk too much with our Lord and Savior.

Lent says it is a time for us to come to terms with this relationship, right? Lent's a time when we're to put ourselves right with the Lord. This is a time in which we literally turn our faces towards God in a new way. It is a time in which we listen intently and we take on disciplines that God invites us to do, not so that somehow as our scripture told us about Moses, we may be seen as righteous people, but rather that we might actually come to depend upon God even more. So let me ask you today, in what way have you come to church?

Have you come today to church to get your little bit of wine and bread and go then go back tomorrow to live your life the same way? Or have you come kind of sneaking out of your regular life to hear something that might change it so that you might be born again? Or maybe you're actually hoping you won't be born again, because that might be really hard, right? Y'all are looking at me like I'm talking some foreign language, right? Now come on now. You understand what I'm saying? Jesus is calling you to go where God sends you and to speak the word of God to your neighbors and your world and to live a life worthy of a God who dies on a cross for you. This is what this is about. And today I am bringing the word to you to say, "Turn sinners, it's lent and begin to live like the Lord invites you to live, which does not involve aiding your neighbor." It involves seeing each other with a great deal of love and compassion just as Jesus sees Nicodemus.

It involves understanding that in God's kingdom, all nations are gathered together, all people. It's for all people. The people that you don't like in the world, you better get used to because you're going to be in the kingdom of God with them. See what I'm saying? Because God's the one who reconciles God's self to individuals, not you with them. God's the one that brings them to heaven, not you. Our Lord died on a cross that the whole world might be saved. Now, here's what happens. Now we get a fiery preacher who's on fire because he just had a thousand people he was preaching to and he comes into my little church and he starts disrupting my life. Tell me things I feel uncomfortable about. Yes.

It is uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable to be called to be better humans than we are. It is uncomfortable to understand that God loves those that we do not live. It is uncomfortable to understand that God wants us to live together with people we do not like. It is uncomfortable for us to understand that God's economics and politics may be different than the Democratic and Republican parties. You see what I'm saying? I don't think God cares a whole lot for either one of those parties or any party, by the way, because I think God's playing a different game. See what I'm saying? I don't think God's playing a political game. I think God's playing the God game. Come unto me all you that travail and are heavy laden and I will give you fresh. Refresh you. My burden is light. The world's burden is heavy. People are going to put some stuff on you, but if you follow me, I promise it will be light and you will be saved.

This is the God's game that is happening here. And part of what Lent does is invite us to say, "Man, I have failed the Lord Jesus myself, but I want to get right with the Lord so that I might be born again in a new way so that I might see the world as Jesus sees the world, that I might see the people who sit next to me, who I live with, the people who I bump into, that I may see them not with my eyes or the lenses of anybody else in the world, but I might see them from the vantage point of Jesus upon his cross looking out and saving the world. This is what I want and hope for as I make my journey in lint. It is a most radical reorienting world changing moment.

Now, it may be that you all with me and every other Episcopalian might respond to this message by saying, "There's just too much wrong with the world." I'm not sure there's ever been a time when there hasn't been too much wrong with the world. I don't think we can find a time when there hasn't been too much wrong with the world, people. When Christians haven't said, "Dear Lord, there's too much wrong with the world." But what I know is that when Christians faith faithfully in a born again manner come to that realization that there's just too much. What they do is they get on their knees and they pray, "God, deliver me and deliver us." They grab a hold of humility and they say, "I've come to the point where I don't know how to answer this world anymore. God deliver me. " They fast.

They say, Christians say, "I will not eat on Fridays. I will not eat meat. I will do that so that I may hunger for you and understand the plight of humanity." Lent is a time when we are called as a human race and as Episcopalians especially to get on our knees and to pray, "Dear Lord, deliver us." Now, in a few minutes, because this is supposed to be a happy occasion on the second Sunday of Lend, which the two things really shouldn't be scheduled together. We're going to have some confirmations, okay? And we're going to stand up and we have all of us have the opportunity to reaffirm our faith in Jesus Christ. They're going to do it first. The confermans and receptions are going to do it first before us. And then all of us are going to get asked questions by me and we are going to face this altar, this holy space with its cross in front of us.

And we are going to proclaim who God is and how God delivers us and who we hope to be. And so I invite you in that moment to truly offer yourselves before the Lord and to say, "I would like to be a better human being. And Lord, we need some help down here on earth." And we can do that together across any other boundary somebody wants to set for us. We can come together and join hands and look at our Lord and say, "Dear Lord, help us. And I promise I believe in you and I renew my faith this day and I may not feel born again, but I want it. I hunger for it and this world needs it. And Lord, please come and be among us. Send your comforting spirit and that we can do together in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.