Murphy’s Law – “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
Sailors have their own version of Murphy’s Law – in fact, there are two laws: they are called Deal’s Laws of Sailing:
- Deal’s first law of sailing is this: “The amount of wind will vary inversely with the number and experience of the people you have on board the sailboat.” In other words – the more people on the boat the less wind there will be.
- Deal’s second law of sailing says, “No maSer how strong the wind is when you leave the dock, once you have reached the farthest point from the port from which you started, the wind will die.”
Anyone who is a sailor can attest to the validity of these laws. And I think all sailors will agree that once the wind stops blowing, there is nothing you can do to get it going again.
When you are sailing, you are completely at the mercy of the wind. The wind can disappear suddenly, leaving you stranded at sea if you have no motor.
Sailing makes you aware of your dependency.
It is very much like receiving God’s grace – you by your own efforts cannot cause God’s grace to come upon you any more than you can cause the wind to blow.
That is Jesus’ message to Nicodemus in today’s gospel. You can’t cause God’s grace to come upon you.
God’s Spirit moves where it wills and the receiving of the Spirit is God’s work in us – not something we do for ourselves. As Thomas Manson, an American religious leader, once said, “We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”
And that, I think, is what Jesus is trying to teach Nicodemus in today’s gospel.
And to understand why, we have to understand Nicodemus. He was:
- a Pharisee – the strictest sect of the Jews regarding the law
- a ruler of Jews
- probably a member of the Sanhedrin, a group of 71 men who made up the equivalent of the Supreme Court and the legisla]ve body in Judea.
- very religious
- knew the Torah (what we call the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures) by heart
- drawn to Jesus – probably heard about water to wine at Cana and healings
- careful, sneaking out at night to meet with Jesus
He wants to know the secret of Jesus’ spiritual power. He says, “No one can do the signs that you do unless God is with him.” How has Jesus harnessed God’s power? Jesus knows what Nicodemus wants to know and so he begins to tell him the secret. You might say that what he does is to try to teach Nicodemus how to sail. (Jesus was, after all, a sailor.)
What Jesus realizes is that right now Nicodemus has a rowboat spiritually. That’s what author David Takle calls it. In rowboat spirituality we:
- persist even when it’s hard
- go to conferences
- we study
- we memorize scripture
- we do all the right things
- we try to help as many people as we can
- we row harder
- we do more
- we beat ourselves up because we are not dedicated enough
- we try to be perfect
- we use willpower
We are trying to please God by trying!
But Jesus is invi]ng Nicodemus to switch it up; to embrace sailboat spirituality instead.
In sailboat spirituality:
- the wind does most of the work
- our only work is to align the sail with the wind
- we allow the wind to take us where it will – maybe where we’d never go on our own
- instead of trying to do what we think is the right thing to do, we allow God to work on our hearts to change us
- instead of trying to use willpower to overcome contrary feelings and inclina]ons, we allow God to transform us from the inside out
In sailboat spirituality, if the wind dies down as Deal’s Law says it will, we rest and wait un]l the Spirit makes her next move.
I learned the joy of this with my friend Dennis on his Hobie Cat; sure enough, just like Deal’s Law promised we were stranded; and I discovered there was nothing more wonderful than the peace of bobbing about on the waves, soaking up the sun, while we waited for the wind to gust again. Rest is good – even in the spiritual life.
The wind blows where it chooses, Jesus tells Nicodemus, and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
The spiritual life is best lived not rowing but sailing. Not with hard work and willpower, but with learning the skill of sefng our sail to catch the wind. That’s what the spiritual disciplines are for:
- centering prayer
- the labyrinth
- the rosary
- fasting
- prayer
- reading spiritual books
- studying scripture
- coming to Eucharist
- Chris]an Education
- small groups
These are all the ways we learn to set our sails so that we can catch the movement of the Spirit in them.
And that is Jesus’ invitation to Nicodemus and to us today: Give up your oars – put up your sail and let the wind of the Spirit do the work.
In the words of Christopher Cross’ song, “Sailing”:
“Well, it’s not far down to paradise At least it’s not for me
And if the wind is right
You can sail away and find tranquility
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see
Believe me”
“Sailing – takes me away to where I’m going…”