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Karen Hollis | May 26, 2024
Trinity Sunday
Mary Magdalene 5:4-10 The Luminous Gospels
Mary arose, then, embracing them all and began to address them as her brothers and sisters saying:
“Do not weep and grieve nor let your hearts remain in doubt, for his grace will be with all of you, sustaining and protecting you. Rather, let us give praise to his greatness which has prepared us so that we might become true human beings.”
As Mary said these things their hearts opened toward the Good and they began to discuss the meaning of the Savior’s words.
John 3:1-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?"
Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Before we pray, I invite us to think about what we were taught about this text. I was taught as a young person to dislike and push against its exclusivity with regards to other paths to God – I may not be alone here. As I continue to claim this text and wrestle with it, among the larger body of sacred scripture in our tradition, I also affirm all paths to God, including my own path through Christ. I know that my experience of life is better with Jesus, and the closer my relationship is with him, the more meaning and love and connection I find in my life. As we explore this text this morning, I invite us all to collect our thoughts, feelings, pre-judgements about this passage and set them down on the pew next to us so that we can make room for possible new ideas to consider.
As we prepare to pray, I invite us to close our eyes and feel our heartbeats once again . . . I invite us to engage this time with our hearts, as well as our minds.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and Redeemer. Amen.
Today is a Sunday of impossible concepts to understand . . . beginning with the Trinity – we usually start by naming the persons of the trinity – Father/Mother, Son, Holy Spirit or Creator, Creation, Holy Spirit. Somehow, they are distinct and somehow one. It’s a tricky, paradoxical teaching: the closer in we look, the more confusing it is; when we zoom out a bit, it is elegant and beautiful, but we still have no idea what it really is. I can’t tell you where the mystery of God ends and incarnation begins, or the difference between Christ’s presence and the movement of the Holy Spirit. It is appropriately beyond me. But there are some ways to think about it that may be helpful. Here’s one description from my seminary professor, Mike Raschko. He writes: where the Holy Spirit moves at the will of the [Creator], the Word becomes incarnate in history.1 The source of all things is our Creator . . . Creator speaks, causing Spirit to move . . . and in the movement, that which Creator speaks becomes manifest in the physical world we know. I generally find this way of thinking about it the most useful.
When our Creator speaks in relationship with us, I imagine the movement of the Holy Spirit as an invitation into collaboration or partnership. This invitation finds us deeply engaged in this world made by our Creator. We get swept up in our own work and medical appointments, in the stuff of our families and friends. And . . . deep within our hearts we know there is more than the eye can see and the mind can comprehend. We hear our Creator in grandchild laughter and at the sight of herons gliding over the water. It is part of our human nature to oscillate between connection with our Creator and deep engagement in our physical lives.
All the while, the Holy Spirit nudges, invites, cajoles us to connect in, to know God’s presence ever deeper, to see with new eyes, to walk new paths. Jesus is a master of new paths, a master collaborator with our Creator . . . he is so skilled and aligned that his very presence wakes people to new depths and truths that have always been within them.
Even the wealthiest members of the elite class,2 like Nicodemus, are drawn in.
Nicodemus comes under the veil of night to talk with Jesus. Being a religious leader, he wouldn’t want to be caught talking with this radical man of God in the daylight. The darkness is also a literary tool to tell us that Nicodemus is still in the dark, as he goes to see Jesus, the light in the darkness. While Jesus’ teaching and criticism of him are difficult and fly in the face of his training, Nicodemus is moved to wrestle with Jesus’ cryptic teaching. There is something in Jesus’ words that Nicodemus needs, something he has been lacking and opportunity for deepening with God, but there is also something – perhaps many things – in the way for him. Perhaps he is trying to understand in the same way he thinks about taxes or proceedings.
Different muscles, different neuropathways, different practices are needed to engage with what Jesus is saying. It has something to do with the persistent Holy Spirit, something to do with the breath of God we explored last week: the wind that blows through this valley, this source of renewal and new life we celebrate each year at Pentecost, and yet is as intimate as our own breath. A whole world can become available to us that wasn’t before.
Jesus teaches this path of responding to the Holy Spirit’s invitation . . . which brings us to John 3:16. I’m going to lead into it a bit: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Let’s remember that Jesus is in a conversation, he’s trying to answer the question Nicodemus asks – he isn’t making a billboard. He is trying to describe something to Nicodemus that is impossible to put into words. He brings in an image from Nicodemus’ own tradition and applies it to God’s continued work in the world. In the book of Numbers, when Moses puts the snake on the pole in the wilderness and lifts it high, the Israelites who were condemned for being too wrapped up in their physical lives to trust God, are able to look upon it and live. Jesus is lifted high both in his crucifixion and his ascension. In connecting these images – the snake, crucifixion and ascension – Jesus takes the image a step further from life (look upon this snake and you shall live) . . . to eternal life (meet Christ and have eternal life). In the way this has been handed down to us, we’re supposed to believe in Jesus now to receive eternal life in the hereafter, but Jesus is referring to something that is available to us in real time when meeting him.
The word that’s translated “believe in,” has a nuance to it in the Greek that is lost in English. It’s to place confidence in, commit to. There’s a bit more for me to work with there. It’s not just belief, but orienting our whole selves to this pathway of eternal life, which is the practice of increasing depth, hope, love, connectedness. We all experience this in different ways and to varying degrees, but it is always grounded in our own human experience. Think with me for a moment about your experience of life without God in Christ. When you are in a moment or season of turning from God, what is your life like? (just think about it) For John, “condemned” is the absence of eternal life with God, the absence of the wellspring that infuses us with life that directly impacts us in so many ways. My life is more complex, more “issue-y,” despairing, has more conflict, it’s harder to embrace the joys around me. When we turn from the light we are “condemned” to only what we see before us and we entertain things that do not come from the light.
Now, what is your life like when you accept God’s invitation to deepen relationship? Perhaps . . .
Feel held in the love of God through the most difficult things
See possibilities that would otherwise be impossible
Transform our fear and anger into a broader view of a situation
Commune with God’s enlivening and sustaining love
Bring together all the bits of ourselves into a unified oneness
These are all steps on the path to become what Jesus calls an Anthropos or a True Human Being. One who has welcomed invitation after invitation from God, and over and over again become new along this path that leads to oneness.
In the short passage from Mary’s gospel, the disciples feel the sting of the resurrected Jesus departing from them, and they sit in fear and anxiety of meeting the same fate that Jesus did on the cross. Mary stands up and speaks to them . . . and in doing so, she helps them shift from their limited human perspective to a universal view, and reminds them that Jesus taught them to be True Human beings and so equipped them for the path ahead. All of us know how difficult a shift in perspective is . . . and how challenging it is to facilitate that in others. But she did it – she was an Anthropos, a True Human Being. In this posture of spiritual unity and holding gently the stuff of our physical world, Jesus’ words to Nicodemus resonate differently and have greater context.
This is a posture that is available to all because Jesus knows the way . . . he knows how to teach it. He’s not the only one who knows . . . but in his earthly life, he answered a call to share it widely and empower a people to awaken and reclaim their agency in life . . . his original teaching was real enough and powerful enough to be passed down, albeit imperfectly, through the generations to us . . . to wrestle with, reclaim, and engage. However God works – as three and as one – surely God is present in our experience of this text, inviting us to take yet another step toward new life. Amen.
1 Raschko. A Christian Understanding of Human Nature. p. 182
2 Borg. The Heart of Christianity. p. 105