"Your whole structure must be changed"

A sermon preached with the people of Lordstown Lutheran Church in Lordstown, Ohio.

Last week, The New York Times published a story revealing the rampant and unapologetic employment of migrant children in brutal and dangerous jobs. “In interviews with more than 60 caseworkers, most independently estimated that about two-thirds of all unaccompanied migrant children ended up working full time,” the story said.

Children, who had come here escaping violence and extreme poverty, packaging the cereal I eat every day. Children, working night shifts in commercial laundries. Children, working in meat plants, construction sites, and commercial bakeries.

I thought my country was a place where child labor was not a problem. I thought allowing child labor on any measurable scale was a line – at least one line – we would not cross. Not here. Not in the United States. Not in 2023. I was wrong.

I have been born again.

In this morning’s gospel reading, we find Jesus in Jerusalem. He has come for the Passover, and he has been making waves – turning tables and predicting the temple’s destruction. And people are “believing in his name,” because they see signs of God’s presence in what he has been up to.

And in the midst of all this, a respected leader named Nicodemus has also come to believe. And he has come to Jesus for a conversation. “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person,” he says.

And Jesus responds, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above… you must be born from above.”

To be a citizen of that kingdom of reversals that Mary sings about, Jesus preaches about, and John the Baptist urgently warns us is so very near; you must be born from above.

You must be born again.

When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King preached about this gospel story, he said, quote: “instead of just getting bogged down on one thing, Jesus looked at him and said, ‘Nicodemus, you must be born again.’ In other words, ‘Your whole structure must be changed." End quote.

Your whole structure must be changed. This is what it is to be born again, King said.

And then, calling for our whole nation to be born again, King presents a litany of the ways in which its structure should change. A litany of what he calls “divine dissatisfactions.” A litany of power structures that will be reversed in the coming kingdom.

Like so many of King’s words, so much of this speech has been edited, picked over and taken out of context in order to domesticate his message. But King was not looking to make us feel good. He was making visible our intertwined white supremacist, economic, and military structures. He was calling us to look at them, and to change them.

He was calling us to be born again.

How did I not suspect my Cheerios, and other quick and cheap conveniences, were brought to me with the help of child labor? How did I not spend more time wondering what became of unaccompanied minors crossing the border? Why did I believe my own story about my country based on middle school history books, when I know my country to be xenophobic, economically exploitative, and cruel to the poor?

I have been born again.

I am now a person who wonders, every time I open a box from my pantry, whether it was closed by young hands. A new “divine dissatisfaction” has been revealed to me.

This isn’t the first or last time this will happen. These structures are revealed to us so many times. And most of the time, I realize I benefit from them.

So. Is it my job, or our job, on our own, in our lifetime, to dismantle all of these exploitative structures? No. God doesn’t actually need our help with the constructing the coming new world of great reversals. The kingdom will come, with or without our assistance or approval.

But, what we can and we should do is allow ourselves to see them. Not to look away. To allow ourselves to feel the pain that comes with that looking. And then to act as a citizen of the kingdom of God would.

In this case, we can support legislation for a path to citizenship, a border management system that allows children to be with parents as they seek safety and protection, and to provide legal counsel to unaccompanied immigrant children, preventing participation in the so-called “shadow economy.”

And we can and we should always tell others what we see.

Allowing them to be born again. And again.  

This work might not be popular. It might cause rifts in friendships and in families – distance from beloved institutions.

Because it can mean being real about structures deeply embedded in institutions we love – including our country and our church. 

But it will also mean living into this world of holy reversals that is to come – even catching a glimpse of it. This world where child laborers sit on thrones.

“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” Jesus says.

If you have a few minutes during this second week of Lent, maybe you’ll think about it.

When have you been born again?