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A couple of weeks
ago I was talking with some folks here at LMC who were reminiscing about the
first time this congregation called a woman pastor. Pastor David Miller, who many of us here knew,
had served this congregation for several decades and before him, Pastor Bruno
Nueman for many, many decades. When
Pastor Miller retired, the candidate that the call committee put forth and
eventually called now over 15 years ago was that of Pastor Susan Swanson, a
woman. While the congregation was deeply
faithful, the idea of calling a woman pastor was unsettling for some—not
all—but some folks. On paper, people of
course knew that the church had been ordaining women for many years, but in
practice, it was an unsettling step to take to think of calling a woman pastor.
In our gospel
story today, Nicodemus is unsettled. He is a pharisee: a religious leader, a
respected, successful and confident man in the community. He is curious and spiritually open. He is
also logical and orderly in the way he thinks.
And he is unsettled.
Late one night,
in the anonymity of the night, he goes to find Jesus. Jesus has just had a very public and furious argument
with the pharisees in the temple where he threw a bunch of tables over and
dumped coins to the ground during the Passover festival. Not long before that, he had turned water
into wine at a wedding and everyone was talking about it. As a religious
leader, Nicodemus would have known all of this…and as a religious leader he was
probably expected to tow the party line.
The party line which said that Jesus was bad news. None the less, Nicodemus
is curious and unsure and he secretly goes to find Jesus in the dead of night.
Was he provoked
by the scandal Jesus had caused in the temple? Maybe, I don’t know. But he starts
asking questions. Jesus answers him by saying that he must be born again. Nicodemus
is like, “What do you mean born again? I
am an old man. How am I supposed to re-enter my mother’s womb?” I kind of imagine
Jesus coming back at him like, bro, that is not what I mean. You come asking me
these heavy questions in the middle of the night, what kind of answer do you
expect?
That retort
aside, I think of Nicodemus’ comment, “I am an old man.” Yes, clearly, Nicodemus
cannot be literally be born again, but I wonder if a part of it also had
to do with old age being the best part of life. Especially in Jesus’ time, the
wisdom of age was so very valued. “Old”
was the best. Nicodemus is established and mature. He is settled. God is orderly in his head. Why
would he want to dump it all out and start over? As they continue to talk there
in the dead of night, it is clear that something about who Jesus is and the miracles
he has done are pushing Nicodemus to the edge.
He is unsettled. Although Nicodemus
might have already had a foot out of bounds when he came to find Jesus, as they
talk, Jesus starts pulling him into uncharted territory. Wilderness territory. Nicodemus’ final
comment to Jesus in the story is, “but…but, how can this be?!” It’s like Nicodemus
says to Jesus, “Wait a minute. I’m settled. I finally have it figured it out and
you’re asking me to think again? Yes.
Precisely. After all, isn’t this
what Jesus is always asking people to do?
To think again?
My heart goes out
to Nicodemus. I can think of moments in
my own life when my understanding of God cracked through some carefully created
boundary that I had constructed (or someone had constructed for me). When one of my very dearest friends came out
to me as gay in college, I had just never thought deeply about the theology of inclusion or exclusion of
GLBTQIA folks. But that hours long conversation that I had with my friend blew
the roof of my house, and you can bet that I thought deeply and was born into a
new space after that.
When I lost a
pregnancy years ago, something in my heart quietly started crumbling and one
day I turned my head and realized that I couldn’t sense God. In fact, I couldn’t quite sense anything. And I spent a good, long, unsettled while in
the wilderness straining to hear something.
My heart goes out to Nicodemus as he struggles to find his way.
I think of the
church, the wider Lutheran church on this international women’s day, and our
struggle 50 years ago to ordain women and 11 years ago to ordain openly GLBTQIA
folks. Before those collective decisions to ordain these pastors were made, there
were long periods of wilderness wandering for the church. I
think of the Christian church’s struggles today. Sometimes, it seems like the wider Christian
church can be more set on condemning instead of loving and it’s
unsettling. I think of our society right
now where it seems like we are bewildered, edgy, unsettled and in the
wilderness.
What happens when
our understanding of who God is outgrows the language or the liturgy or the
ideas that we’ve always held close and cherished? What happens when we leave the feeling of
certainty and step into the wilderness unknown?
Artist Brian
Andreas, creator of “The Story People,” wrote of two people sitting together and
one of them says to the other,
“I
don't know how long I can do this…I think the universe has different plans for
me. [and the friend says] we sat there in silence & I thought to myself
that this is the thing we all come to & this is the thing we all fight
& if we are lucky enough to lose, our lives become beautiful with mystery
again & I sat there silent because that is not something that can be said.”
Jesus asks Nicodemus to let go of something
certain and step into the unknown. To step into a space where the mysterious
power of God changes water into wine and brings sight to a blind man. A
mysterious space where the living word is made flesh and dwells among us.
In a sense, Nicodemus
tentatively wanders in the wilderness for the rest of the gospel of John. While the first time he first finds Jesus is anonymously
at night, he later makes an unexpectedly courageous cameo during a heated
moment when some of his fellow religious leaders suggest that Jesus should be
arrested. “Wait a minute!” Nicodemus
says, “shouldn’t Jesus have a hearing before being judged?” Then finally, when
Jesus is crucified, it’s Nicodemus who brings an extravagant amount of spices
and myrrh and helps Joseph of Arimathea bury him.
The happy ending
to this story would have been for Nicodemus to totally have gotten it, hook,
line and sinker that Jesus doesn’t just do these miraculous things with God’s
power, but that Jesus actually is God and God’s full power. Instead, Nicodemus wanders around the edges, always
throwing his big questions at the sky.
What I do know for sure is that out there in the wilderness, Jesus
loved Nicodemus. What I do know for
sure, is that here in our wilderness, God so loves us. God loves the world. This world—with all of our chaos, and
anxiety, and pandemics and personal stress. God is in the midst of it, active,
alive and loving it.
God who watches
over us will not slumber or sleep
The Spirit stands
beside us as our protective shade
So that sun will
not harm us by day,
Nor the moon by
night.
The Lord will keep
us
will hold our
life.
And will keep our
going out
and our coming in
from this time on
and forever.
As it turns out, God
is a total fool for love who will love us like we have never been loved before.
God will dissolve our hearts with love if we let him--even in the midst of our
biggest questions and uncertainties. To believe in, to cherish this mystery that
we are so loved by God is to live differently.
To live a God shaped life. Marcus Borg wrote that the word “believe” means
something like the word “belove.” Belove. To give one’s heart to God. To cherish
God’s heart and know that God cherishes ours.
And, though we may be unsettled, to know that God loves this world—this crazy,
imperfect world--in ways that are unfathomably beyond our imagination. In the
wilderness, may we let go and give our hearts to God.
Prone to wander
Lord I feel it
Prone to leave
this life I love.
Here’s my heart
oh take and seal it
Seal it for thy
courts above.
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