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Parade of Characters: Nicodemus John 3:1 – 17; Genesis 12:1 – 4a There is a TV commercial of two women sitting in a restaurant. One is on her cell phone and obviously distressed at the conclusion of the call. “I got dropped!” she claimed. The other woman begins a confession that yes, she and her friend’s boyfriend have fallen in love and it really is better for everyone that it is finally out in the open. To which the first woman explains what she meant by “I got dropped” — that her cell phone connection had gone dead. She then proceeds to throw her drink in the face of her so-called friend. Communication is an enormous area of life and a great industry of our time. Yet, there are many moments in our lives when we think we are listening, but do not hear — when we think we are looking, but do not see. I have mentioned before that I have two brothers who choose not to communicate with each other. One is a musician and director/actor. The other is an engineer. They live in two entirely different worlds. I believe they share fundamental values, but those are expressed in seemingly different languages. It is like their worlds have no connecting points. As people break into our lives and ease their way into a circle of friendship, most of the time those closest to us are the ones where language is easy…where we don’t have to wonder what they meant when they said what they said…where we ‘get’ the meaning of their stories, and understand why they do what they do. A tendency of most of us is to avoid, or certainly not closely associate with, those whom we cannot figure…cannot understand their reasons for action or seem to be in a different stratosphere. These lines we draw are not just political, although there is that divide — so called liberal and conservative. The divide is also between so-called ‘hard science’ and ‘soft issues’…masculine and feminine…city and country dwellers…opera fans and country and western musicians…and the list goes on. Global village writers would claim that we no longer have the luxury of ‘keeping to our own.’ The world in which we live is too diversified, is too small for each person to choose like minded-folks with whom to share space and life. The reality is that the world has never been large enough, broad enough, spacious enough for people to ‘keep to their own.’ In fact, God never intended the creation to have pockets of people who think alike, look alike, act alike to be compounded together. All we have to do is look to the rest of creation and see the wonder of flora and fauna intertwined, inter-dependently existing to realize that God’s intentionality was certainly not isolated purity or homogeneity. The magic of this creation is the myriad of differences woven together. Our Gospel story today — one of fascination and intrigue — supports this premise. Jesus and Nicodemus might as well be my two brothers, talking on absolutely different planes. Poor Nicodemus has no clue what Jesus is saying. It is almost like he is Jesus’ straight man — asking a stupid question, so Jesus can make a long speech — out of which, Nicodemus picks up a clue for his next ‘not-quite-with-it’ question to which Jesus responds in more ambiguous metaphors. Nicodemus, I believe, was a man of courage. Many have asked the question why he came to Jesus at night — was he afraid, was he trying to hide his curiosity — and of course, we can only speculate. He only shows up in John’s Gospel, but he does so three times. Once in today’s text, later when he stood up against other Pharisees suggesting that Jesus should be given a fair hearing, and then later still when he brought burial compounds (100 pounds of them) to help with Jesus’ body. So, even though our first encounter with Nicodemus would cause us to wonder if he could ever understand the ministry of Jesus, we have evidence later that there was a true (although unspoken) connection between them. The Gospel of John evidently had a hard time getting into our Christian canon. Many rejected it because it diverged from the other Gospels. John has his own cast of characters, and seemingly his own intentions about teaching the faith. In his writing, John often uses allegory, and this method of putting Jesus and another character at odds with each other (not able to interpret each other) is a stylistic approach John uses well. With the Nicodemus story, the thrust or core is that faith is not going to be based on things we can touch, feel, taste and smell. The life of spirituality is going to push us outside the box we know and liberate us to an arena in which we can hardly fathom. John doesn’t just do this with Nicodemus, but, in fact, treats us to this broadening spirituality throughout his Gospel. He sees God ‘in the whole of life and regards all things as inter-related’ (p. 97. J. Philip Newell. Listening for the Heartbeat of God. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist press. 1997). This is precisely why John’s Gospel had a hard time getting into the canon and why his underlying spirituality gets marginalized. In the early centuries of the Church, one of the favorite past-times of clergy was to determine which theology was good and which was heretical. Unfortunately, a line was drawn in the sand for the church in the British Isles at a synod meeting in the 7th century when Celtic spirituality (which takes its authority from the Gospel of John) was discounted in preference to Augustinian theology, which is founded more on the inspiration of the apostle Peter. The stream of spirituality that practices listening for God in the whole of creation (and that all of creation is inherently good) was dismissed for the tradition that sees God relating to a particular people and the premise that humans were born in sin. The understanding of life as absolutely inter-related was given up for a faith that is enshrined in tradition and sacrament. That is a very simplistic and sweeping critique of a particular time in Church history, which may be of no interest to most anyway. But that division and the need to come down on either end of the spectrum continues to be a dilemma for us today in faithful living. Holding the tension — which has always existed and will always exist — is good! And it is in keeping with the way God created this incredible universe. John crafted this story about Jesus and Nicodemus to give artists hope that they will be able to converse with an engineer and not get bent out of shape because they see life in absolutely different ways. John crafted this story about Jesus and Nicodemus to give rocket scientists inspiration to keep trying to have conversations with social workers. John crafted this story about Jesus and Nicodemus so that I would be spurred on to get my brothers together for an evening of conversation and love. John crafted this story about Jesus and Nicodemus to help us all realize how much we need each other — even if we don’t think alike, look alike, feel the same way about ANYTHING. Nicodemus was truly in the dark when he encountered Jesus, but he made that first step to look for him…to seek him out. To ask what we have centuries later deemed pretty dull questions…to be the ‘fool’ in the story. On our journey toward Jerusalem…this trek we are making through Lent…may we be so bold as Nicodemus — to step out in the dark, to ask questions, to dig deeper into areas of out life we don’t understand, to dare to believe that we could connect with those whom we have previously shunned, to grapple with those we know couldn’t understand our feelings, to engage those for whom we have disdain, embrace those who look different or have a different heritage or different educational backgrounds — because in so doing we are meeting Jesus Christ along this road of life. And that will be a wonderful relationship…an incredible adventure with God…the journey of a lifetime. Because remember: God so loved the world…that would be the WHOLE world…not just part of it…not just the portion in which I am comfortable…not just the folks that think and look like me…not just this corner…but the WHOLE world….God so loves the whole world. • SW |
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