New Tricks

Genesis 12:1-4 & John 3:1-17
Second Sunday in Lent

As many of you probably already know: I have a dog, a cat, three children, and a degree in psychology.  This to say: around my house, I’m always working some angle of the behavioral part of my undergraduate degree.  There are rewards and there are punishments (we call them “consequences”), and they are all designed to keep everyone healthy and getting along.  

If you also have an undergraduate degree in psychology, you know that the crowning achievement comes when you can teach a rat to push a button to get a treat.  People have asked me, “Brian, does your degree in psychology help you in your ministry?” The answer is “no”; that’s not how God works; that might be how religion often pretends it works, but a life of faith is vastly more than learning to “pushing God’s buttons the right way.”  But my degree in rat training has taught me this: the phrase “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is probably not true.  

As far as I know, you can actually teach an old dog a new trick.  Even better: people can learn new tricks at any stage of life, old or not.  We are God’s people; created, valued, and loved.  We are not seen by God as dogs.  In fact, according to our Scripture lessons today, we are loved so much that God is teaching us new tricks all the time; even if we're old!  We don't know how old Nicodemus was, but he certainly calls himself old; and looking at Abraham, God doesn't establish this covenant with him until he's seventy-five!  So yes, it does seem that God may have a trick or two for us whatever our age.  

I love alliteration—the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words.  Some well-organized pastors do it on purpose: I’ve seen sermons or even an entire sermon series put together like that.  When I do it, it’s usually an accident that I don’t notice until later.  That being said, I totally meant to have a “T” theme going lately: two weeks ago we heard about the Transfiguration of Jesus; last Sunday we heard about his Temptation; and this week the theme is Trust.  Abraham's whole story—as he is called to leave his home and family to an unknown land—is really about trust.  And I think that it’s trust that leads Nicodemus to seek out Jesus as he is called to be reborn.  

And “trust” is really what those “new tricks” God has for us are all about.  Because, if you are going to teach your old dog a new trick, your old dog better know you pretty well.  Learning a new thing is all about the proper motivation (again, you can thank my work with rats for that little insight).  

For example, I’ve taught my cat a new trick; she’s not an old dog, but she’s certainly an relatively-old cat.  She has something of an eating disorder.  She was not a kitten when we got her, so it might stem from early trauma.  With some cats, you can just leave out food and they’ll eat when they’re hungry.  If you did that with my cat, she would eat all of it and then come crying that afternoon because her dish is empty.  So, we feed her a measured amount twice a day… and apparently the first thing I taught her was tell time, because she never lets me miss it.  And when I put the food in her dish, she attacks it like she’s never eaten before.  So, to keep from getting my hand bitten off, I’ve started doing this new thing: I will kneel down near her dish, holding her food in one hand and holding out my other hand off to the other side of my body.  She has learned that, if she wants the food to be dropped into her dish, she needs to push her head into that hand (a little like pushing a button).  My point is: if you can, with the proper motivation, teach an old cat a new trick, you can probably teach an old dog… and maybe even us.  

When Abraham was seventy-five, God asked him to leave just about everything he knew behind: God told him to go to a new, and unknown place and begin a new life.  For a person (of any age) whose identity was grounded in specific place, among a specific people, and with a well-worn way of life, this was a risky move.  Think about the trust it must have taken to obey what God said to do.  Even more than that, we talk about Abraham's faith, but what about Sarah?  One day Abraham announces that God has called them to leave their country, their land, and their family, and she doesn't seem to say a word about it.  If your spouse came home and announced that God had called you to just up and leave our life here, you’d probably look into having some “special medicine” prescribed, right?  But again, what is important is Abraham’s motivation.  I hate to say it to you faithful church-goers, but I don’t think it was his religion.  

Like I said, I also have a dog.  If you also have a dog, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve had a rather extended muddy-season this year… which has led to us having a somewhat strained relationship between me and my dog.  I wish I had the behavioral psychology skills to teach her to wipe her feet when she comes in the house.  Instead, after I notice the mess she’s making I'll start yelling, “Ah! Crate! Crate! Crate!” (It’s what we call the mudroom.)  Her response is almost a religious response: she’ll look at me with her head and tail down, looking guilty, as she trots back to her proper space.  She assumes she’s in trouble, but the truth is, sometimes she has no idea what will make me happy.  

Now my guess is, she'll get less “religious” as she gets older.  I think that, as she becomes an older dog, she'll learn something better: she’ll start getting to know me.  She may never learn how or why she should wipe her feet, but she may learn that it's not okay to run around the house with dirty paws.  You see, even better that teaching an old dog a new trick is letting an old dog get to know you; and in that knowledge, trust you even when it doesn't understand why.   

Abraham goes when he’s sent; not because he’s crazy, not because of some religious duty, but because he’s heard his Master’s voice—because he has a relationship with God.

One of my favorite parts of the Lenten season is hearing about the practices and disciplines that people take on.  No one here requires you to so it shows a person's honest desire to deepen their relationship with God.  These practices and disciplines, among other things, are ways that God can help us to become these kinds of old dogs.  These things deepen our relationship with God, and by that deepened trust, we find a deeper obedience.  

In away, Nicodemus seems to have a similar “old dog” attitude Abraham had.  He comes to Jesus under the cover of night with curiosity: Jesus has just violently shaken things up in the temple; he called people names and knocked them around; he made a mess of their fellowship hall.  So even though Nicodemus doesn’t seem to want anyone to know about it, he’s also not quick to call Jesus a criminal.  And why do you suppose that is?  I think its because his “old dog” relationship with the Master put him in an awkward spot: on the one hand he hears something familiar in what Jesus is saying; but on the other hand, this guy is dangerous; this Jesus could get him into trouble.  

But with obedience that almost defies logic, he goes to hear more from this dangerous teacher.  And of course his obedience pays off.  He obeys and finds an even deeper knowledge of the God who so loved him that he would send his own son.  He obeys and finds a deeper relationship with a Creator who is not interested in condemnation, but salvation and relationship.  And although Nicodemus seems to have a hard time getting his head around the metaphors, I think he learns from Jesus some things he may have already suspected.  Because it seems that this “old dog” already knew how to trust in the Master.  

I suppose what I appreciate most about these “old dogs’” stories, even more than that their obedience paid off in their own unique ways, is that it couldn’t have been easy for either of them.  The “new tricks” of trust and obedience that they were learning, must have been difficult and confusing.  But no more so than the “new tricks” of trust and obedience that we are called to learn throughout our lives.  As we seek godly ways of dealing with illnesses, loss, broken relationships, disappointments, and global tragedy and unrest, we see that it’s not a simple thing to trust that God knows what God is doing and to simply obey.  

And so we seek to trust like “old dogs.”  I think Lent teaches us something about this trust.  If we take on this journey—ending at the foot of the cross—then we seek to discover that God can be trusted; that the promises of God are always kept.  Of course the empty tomb at the end of Lent’s journey is the last word, but I think it makes more sense when we first seek this other, more difficult Lenten journey.  

So as we continue to travel through this season, let us, like Abraham and Nicodemus, listen to the ways that God is calling us to learn new tricks.  Let us make this difficult journey and learn that our trust can only continue to grow, as we follow where our Savior leads us.