read John 3:1-17 | Genesis 12:1-4a
commentary | Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow
In December of 2021, our family, four generations strong,
remotely surrounded my grandmother through our screens and said our goodbyes.
There she lay, prone on a hospital bed, her family bathing her with words of
love, gratitude, and permission to let go. Soon after our call, she was removed
from life support and succumbed to complications from COVID. In the days and
weeks to follow, my heart ached and broke over and over again, not only for our
family, but for so many others whose future had one more empty chair.
Not a year later, I too found myself lying prone in a
hospital bed suffering from complications from COVID. While I was able to avoid
being placed on a ventilator, for days I was unable to walk on my own or
complete sentences of more than a few words. Fully vaxxed, a breakthrough case
of COVID had my family again terrified that heartbreak and sorrow would soon
make their mark and that the empty chair would be mine.
My grandmother, friends, colleagues, and thousands of others
did not make it back home, but I did. To this day, I give thanks for my life
and hold dear the questions that it has forced upon me as I venture into a new
life, a new beginning, and, in many ways, an experience of being born again.
After my release, it became clear that long-COVID would have
a grip on me for the long haul. With great trepidation, I made the decision to
leave the church I was serving. During that discernment period, the battle in
my mind raged. On one side, the voices of toxic productivity and misplaced
martyrdom were causing me to doubt what I was feeling, and screaming at me to
push through it. On the other side, persistent whispers reminded me that I need
not progress to a physical or mental crisis before tending to my health,
prodding me to choose to heal before my health made the choice for me. Contrary
to so many cultural cues, I thought, “I choose me today, so we may all have a
better tomorrow.”
The beauty of holding the question about being born
again—raised by Nicodemus side-by-side with the promise of a thriving future
made to Abraham—speaks to my soul and what it means to start again. I made the
choice to start over or to be born again, not out of the immediate urgency of a
crisis, but out of a yearning for what could be.
I grieve the loss of the ministry that would never be for
that particular calling, but I know that it was the right act for me and for
the community if either of us is to thrive in the future.
As you think through these two narratives: being born again
and being promised an expansive future, ask yourself, “Do I believe in the
possibility of new beginnings?” And, when the opportunities are revealed before
you, “Will I be willing to step into the promise of what may be?”
Reflect: Do you believe in the possibility of new
beginnings? Will you be willing to step into the promise of what may be?
*reprinted with permission from A Sanctified Art
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