I hope I have not gotten less passionate about my faith, but I do hope I have become less arrogant. I do not mean about The Faith, that faithful deposit "delivered once for all to the Saints," I mean about how I express that faith in my life, in this world. Mindful of that, I approached today's Gospel, and thought: "Ah yes, I remember preaching before on this." Only recurs once each three years, and I was not preaching three years ago, I was sitting - unemployed, until you called me back, thanks be to God, and to you. So it must have then been 6 years ago at least, maybe 9. And I recall I held forth, obnoxiously, arrogantly, judgmentally against Born-again Christians. Today I do not support or endorse or accept their approach, but I have become generous enough to see and genuinely admire their faith and conviction. It is their too, too self-certain, yes, judgmental, proclamation of that faith that I reject. Jesus says, to Nicodemus, and of course, then, to us: "You must be born again." OK, there it is, no wiggle room there. No exceptions. Yes, you must be born again. You must be a born-again Christian. Where I have - if not waffled, then yes, mellowed and gentled over the 6 or 9 years - is my relaxing into the knowledge, the certainty, the assurance of faith, that I have, and you have, and yes, they have, all been born again. We express it differently. But respect is called for in our differences. Respect. But not apology or surrender, or agreement. Respect and regard. Which I ask, require, of them, the self-described Born-again Christians. We all are born again. All, without exception.. All have responded to, been faithful to as bet we can be, the call of Jesus, that requirement of Jesus, for salvation: "You must be born again." The last Archbishop of Canterbury that I revered and loved, not the present one by any means, and not that former one who was hostile to anglo-catholicism, but the one before that, Robert Runcie - brilliant, effective, moderate, magnificent. A leader. A man worthy of his calling. He mentioned that when he is not in clerical garb, sometimes a person comes up to him, usually breathing fire, and asks, demands, "Have you been saved?" He mildly recalled he always says, and I bet just as mildly: "Yes." Thanks be to God. Yes. I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved. I was saved and born again in Baptism, I am saved and justified by faith, as Abraham was, and by faith alone. And I will be savedm at the endm by grace, and grace alone. He then so charitably remarked, adn doutless believed, "And they then usually depart in peace." I bet. But I thought, no, I bet they depart in frustration, and confusion about how to answer, and have moved on, proclaiming their notion of salvation to a less thorough, thoughtful Christian. We are saved. We are born again. We are, I hope at our best, modest and understated, confident about that without being cocksure, convinced of theat without being unkind. And we ourselves hope to share our faith and express it well, and openly. Or at least, more likely probably, to just show that faith, that born-again faith, quietly and effectively, rather than talk over-much about it. And less willing, less able mercifully, to shout about it, to confront, and seem to accost, even attack people with it, to demand people match it imitate it, adopt it, our approach to grace and justification and salvation, our best and most devout understanding of a faithful response to Jesus, and faithful answer and living out that requirement that we need to be, and have been, Born again. But born again only by, through, with, on account of, his grace, his faith, his justification, so freely bestowed upon the beloved, us, says St Paul, through the gift of his Holy Spirit at our baptism, wherein we were made God's children, his born-again children, - but by adoption and grace, not just naturally by our own effort or goodness or worthiness. We are born again, and by doing nothing. So like our own human beginning, when we did nothing to bring about our own natural birth. Nothing. Nothing. And because in one case, the human, nothing since nothing was possible, and in the other case, the divine, because nothing is required. It is a gift. A gift of grace, a gift of love, a gift for us. When someone more assertive than you declares to you, or others, about their being themselves born again, and our necessity to doing that as well, we can smile with that glorious archbishop as we remember, yes, it is necessary, and yes, thanks be to God, it has been done, I have been born again. And gratefully truthfully, thankfully I did nothing to achieve it, or deserve it, it was all done for me. By him. Born again, and saved, saved in baptism, saved each day, saved at the end of my life. How is this possible, I join Nicodemus in wondering, how can a man or woman do this? Jesus said to him, to me, to you, "God so loved the world that his gave us only Son to redeem you, and give you eternal life." We did nothing, God expected nothing, a gift. But now ... perhaps, yes I think perhaps, God now does expect something, that we live our lives and show our love and express our faith with that love, and so, being born again, to then, and so now, "live in newness of life". A born-again life. All of us. Together.