Just and loving God, we join in prayer on this Memorial Day Trinity Sunday, paying tribute to all those who have lost their lives in war and other conflict and division, and uniting in prayer that we may see your image in all our human family and work for a just and enduring peace honoring all humanity in our troubled world. Amen
Save a Seat for Nicodemus
While the celebration of Trinity Sunday and Memorial Day together is a coincidence on the calendar, it’s also an opportunity to highlight some important connections. Memorial Day is a national day of prayer remembering the sacrifice of our servicemen and women and lifting up our connection to each other as human beings. Trinity Sunday is the day we remember the mysterious relationship among the three persons of God — our mysterious one in three/three in one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. The holy and undivided Trinity.
Our God is a relational God, modeling in divine interrelationship relationship and interconnection for us. Relationship and interconnection is an essential component of our humanity, necessary not only to our emotional health and fulfillment, but also to our physical health. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy recently called for action to address the public health crisis of loneliness and isolation in the United States, laying out the framework for a national strategy to advance social connection. Loneliness and isolation lead directly to the social and political ills of racism, sexism, and suspicion of difference of any kind, news echo chambers, identity politics, and radicalism — that is, the basis for most conflict both at home and abroad.
Loneliness and isolation also have a critical effect on our physical health. Loneliness and isolation lead directly to depression, and its close self-medicating cousin, addiction, as well as other even more violent and horrible forms of self harm. In a study of over eighty years of data, The Harvard Study of Adult Development found that human connection may be the single most critical determinant of long-term happiness and health. Did you hear that, Emmanuel? Not eating yogurt or avoiding wine, coffee, or red meat. Not even exercise and plenty of sleep. Nope. In studying over eighty years of data, the single most critical determinant of long-term happiness and health is human connection.
Community is Not Optional
You know I’m not just being flippant or silly when I say that the community we are building here at Emmanuel is not optional. It’s not extra, or just “good to have.” No, community is essential to our very being. Church saves lives. You heard it here. British journalist Johann Hari states the antidote clearly. After reviewing available research into the underlying causes of addiction, Hari concluded that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it’s connection. So why is our human need for connection — to God and like God with each other — so difficult for us to see and act on?
If church saves lives, and we all know that, why aren’t we all crowded in here every chance we get, dancing in the transepts, aisles, and pews like last Sunday night at Swing into Spring, a night that was connecting and life-giving to us all? Because it’s hard to consider holiness in what is unfamiliar to us — different from how we’ve always done things before. Nicodemus reminds us in our gospel reading today what it’s like to be a faithful or even just a faith-curious person on the outside looking in to a different Way. We see this as Nicodemus follows Jesus, trying to learn, but wrestling with his own context, background, and words. The way Nicodemus’s story is often told, he is an example of a member of the existing establishment who just doesn’t get it — who doesn’t understand the new life Jesus is offering. We know from John’s gospel that Nicodemus is a rabbi and a Pharisee — the very learned Jewish sect during Jesus’ time that knew, observed, and taught the law.
Nicodemus
Nicodemus was also a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council and tribunal of judges that decided matters of law and took appeals from lower courts. It’s interesting that Nicodemus comes to see Jesus at night to discuss one of Jesus’ teachings. Many scholars point out that night is a big theme in the gospel of John, indicating those who are not able to see the light that Jesus offers. But this point of view paints Nicodemus as kind of a bad guy — or at least someone who is slow to take in the ideas Jesus puts in front of him — such as being born again in the spirit through baptism.
I wonder how Nicodemus felt as the new guy — the one following Jesus who was really curious, but nervous and cautious too. I wonder if he came at night because he knew it was really risky for him to be seen by others who were on the Sanhedrin — which was like the Supreme Court in ancient Jerusalem. As a member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus would have had many responsibilities. I wonder if he had to work all day, and night was the only time he could get away from his day job to ask the most private and close questions of his heart. I wonder if he just felt more relaxed at night — away from the office and his Sanhedrin colleagues. Maybe he felt more able to have a quiet, private conversation with Jesus at night — in the shadows or by candlelight — to ask the questions that were on his mind. Nighttime is often when important issues are discussed and understandings are reached. Nighttime is also a time that opens us to imagination and dream — a freedom of mind often inaccessible to us during the day. In any case, Nicodemus approaches Jesus respectfully. He calls him Rabbi, because they both were rabbis, or teachers. He immediately says that he knows Jesus has come from God, because no one could do the deeds of power Jesus has done apart from the presence of God.
Jesus’ answers to Nicodemus are among his most famous teachings: Nobody can see the kingdom of God unless they are “born again,” Jesus says. And God so loved the world that he gave his only son to save it. Those words remain widely cited — think of all the John 3:16 signs at sporting events and along highways. But Nicodemus himself remains in the dark as to their meaning after that nighttime conversation. To be fair, Jesus’ words ARE difficult to understand. I can pretend to myself, watching Nicodemus struggle, that I would be quicker than he was if I’d walked into that conversation with Jesus as the new guy that night. Jesus says right away that no one can see the kingdom of heaven unless he has been born from above.
Nicodemus runs to catch up, asking Jesus how a grown person could, in a literal way, be re-born from one’s own mother, making sure that he understands Jesus must be speaking figuratively about rebirth through the Holy Spirit. This is where I want to give Nicodemus some props. It’s easy for us to see that Nicodemus is on the wrong track — that Jesus is talking about the Spirit — because we’ve read the Gospel of John before. Besides, we’re only listening in on this story. We’re not in the hot seat like Nicodemus, but instead are watching this scene play out from a safe distance. We don’t have to worry that Jesus will turn to us next, exclaiming in surprise — and only maybe just ironically — that “a teacher of Israel” does not understand the concept of spiritual rebirth. We’re not really at risk personally in this narrative.
So where is the good news for us in this risky nighttime conversation that ends with Nicodemus speechless? FIRST, Nicodemus gives me courage. He reminds me that it’s really hard to see the holy in what is different and unfamiliar. SECOND, and more important: Nicodemus’s story with Jesus doesn’t end here. Nicodemus shows up twice more John’s gospel, and these times during the day, so we can see he’s connecting to Jesus, getting more comfortable with an unfamiliar holiness. Nicodemus is mentioned a second time in John 7, trying to make sure Jesus has a fair trial by reminding his colleagues in the Sanhedrin that the law requires that a person be heard before being judged. And finally, Nicodemus appears in John 19 after the apostles have fled. Nicodemus walks up Golgotha with Joseph of Arimathea in full view of the Jewish and Roman authorities on Good Friday, bringing about 100 Roman pounds of myrrh and aloes to bury Jesus, despite the fact that embalming was generally against Jewish custom and preparation of bodies for burial was always the work of women — wives and mothers.
This Nicodemus’s progression: He starts in the dark, asking questions, trying to figure it all out, and taking wrong turns at first. But he stays curious and open to seeing God’s holiness in a new way — the way that God so loved the world. As we connect and flourish in relationship God and each other, save a seat for Nicodemus. Some day you may be really glad he saved one for you. Amen