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Trinity Sunday John 3:1-17

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Trinity Sunday John 3:1-17 “Making the Trinity Personal” Richmond’s First Baptist Church, May 30, 2021 Trinity Sunday John 3:1-17 When I first told the story of Nicodemus to my son, it was very familiar to me, and being a storyteller, I thought I told it pretty well. He was four years old. When I finished, he said, “Mom, why does Jesus give the Pharisees such a hard time? They were just a group of boys trying to follow the rules.” Suddenly schooled by a four year old, I knew I wasn’t telling the story right. I had to go back to the beginning and think it out for myself. Maybe I’d got the story wrong. I mentioned this to Rabbi Jack Spiro at dinner at Richmond Hill one night. I learned as a girl in Jerusalem that to talk to people of other faiths invigorated my own and deepened my respect for others. My Muslim and Jewish friends did not need me to be Muslim or Jewish. They need me to be a good and thoughtful Christian. Rabbi Spiro said that my four year old was right to be dismayed. The Pharisees were a learned and respected group. Jesus himself may have been a Pharisee. The Apostle Paul certainly was. The Pharisees set the foundation for lively rabbinic study as we know it today. I had to go back to this story with fresh eyes--never a bad idea when it comes to scripture. I have been fascinated by the story of Nicodemus ever since. The way I now see it, It was a dark yet cloudless night. Jesus was finally alone and standing off by himself. This was exactly what Nicodemus hoped for as he made his way toward him, not even sure what it was he was seeking. It was impossible to get Jesus alone during the day. Oh, there were conversations as the crowd moved across the hills of Galilee--people would step out of the crowd to try and one-up Jesus. But, Jesus, a consummate rabbi himself, would have the last word over and over again. People came from miles away to be part of this. This banter would have been familiar to Jesus and Nicodemus. They lived in a culture of Rabbinic rabble-rousing --one upmanship with an audience that sharpened both wit and skill. In that tradition “It is written” would have been the throw down for a ready comeback. The crowd’s eyes would dart back and forth between the two in dialogue--and everyone had a team favorite. Make no mistake: rabbinic debate was a spectator sport. Even the body language would say it: Stand back. Watch. Learn. Nicodemus would have been able to stand his own. He is described as a leader of the Pharisees-- but debate is not what he is after on this dark and cloudless night as his sandaled feet make their way purposefully over the cobblestones. He is compelled and propelled to seek Jesus. By what? By Whom? He was not in it for the ready win. He wants to know more; he has lost interest in trying to be right and has a deeper thirst for more. Nicodemus sees Jesus standing alone, perhaps even waiting for him; Nicodemus is walking away from the grandiosity and toward curiosity. He is willing to go back to the beginning of what he knows, opening his mind and heart. Nicodemus gets right to the point. Perhaps they’ve spoken before. This doesn’t feel like this is their first conversation. Could they have studied Torah together? He strips it all down to the basic truth as he understands it: “Jesus, you come from God.” And Jesus responds. “No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.” Now this is very important: Jesus is not saying “Nicodemus, you don’t get it.” I think it is very likely that Jesus is saying, Nicodemus, you DO get it: If you see this, you have glimpsed the kingdom of God. Nicodemus is trained to argue this from every side. “How can anyone be born after growing old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” This is not a naive question. But on this night he lays down the skills of rabbinic rhetoric and listens to the still small voice within that led him across those cobblestones to Jesus. We can go back to the beginning of what we know and stand under that dark and cloudless sky with Nicodemus, willing to untangle our certainty and opinions. This is how we are born again. Every time we turn back toward God through prayer or honest conversation, every time we are willing to learn and listen and shift our point of view, we are born anew. And here stands Nicodemus, letting go of the need to be right. He trades certainty for deeper understanding. They talk as old friends, and perhaps they were. “Do not be astonished,” says Jesus. “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,” he seems to be saying, “You don’t need to have this all figured out. You do not need to have all of the answers. Just stand here with me.” Jesus closes the conversation tenderly with words meant to be embracing and inclusive and loving, then and now--words that are bread for the journey and manna in a desert of doubt: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” These are words of invitation and affirmation and inclusion. “Nicodemus, you see me. You know me. You already have what you seek. You have the answer you are looking for.” Nicodemus was not looking to get it right. He was working to get it real. And on that night when Jesus was waiting, it was real. ******* We can’t pretend that the Pharisees were the only ones to get lost in the tangle of right answers. The problem persists through the centuries to right now. Leo Tolstoy is known by many of us as the author of War and Peace, but you may be surprised to know that he was a deeply thoughtful Christian imaginatively exploring his faith in stories. He wrote a story about a bishop who got lost in the theological answers he’d been taught in seminary. This bishop was traveling at sea with some pilgrims. The wind was favorable and the weather fair. As the bishop strolled on the deck, he came upon some pilgrims who were listening to a fisherman. He was pointing at something in the distance. When the bishop asked about it, the pilgrims said he was telling a story about three hermits who lived alone on an island and did nothing but pray. The bishop asked who taught them to pray? When no one could satisfactorily answer this, he summoned the captain and said he would like to go visit these three men to make sure that they knew how to pray properly. The captain discouraged this. “We will lose too much time if we do that, and besides it is low tide and the shores are rocky, we will have to anchor and wait while you are rowed ashore. The bishop simply would not be dissuaded: “I will pay you for your time--and what is a delay compared to the souls of these three men?” The island came into view and the three men could be seen on the shore with their arms raised up to heaven. The boat jolted as the anchor was dropped and the sails furled. A skiff was lowered for the bishop and his oarsmen. The hermits stood on the shore and greeted the Bishop. “Greetings,” responded the bishop, as he introduced himself. “I have come to instructyou in prayer. Now tell me what it is that you know about prayer. “Not much,” said one, “We pray like this,” and the others joined in, “We are three and you are three, have mercy upon us.” “Well this is encouraging,” thought the bishop to himself, “they know something about the Trinity,” “Now tell me what it is that you know about the Trinity, said the bishop. “Oh we know nothing about the trinity,” said one. “We know nothing about much at all,” said the second. And the third said, “We just raise our hands in prayer to God and we pray this: “ We are three, and you are three, have mercy upon us.” “Well I think I need to teach you about the doctrine of the Trinity,” and he did. And then he said, “I need to teach you the Lord’s Prayer.” And he did, Well… he tried. This proved to be a little trickier. It took awhile. The Bishop spent hours and finally, as the sun was setting, and he was convinced he’d done the best he could, he allowed the oarsmen to row him back to the boat. He thanked the captain and the other pilgrims for waiting. He felt good about what he’d done. Long after the others went tobed, he stood on the deck looking out at the sea. As he marvelled at the way the moonlight seemed to cast a path on the sparkling waves, he was startled to see three figures moving toward him on that path of moonlight.
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