Giving Up Expectations

Nicodemus and Jesus

One of our readings for this Sunday, the second one is Lent, is John 3: 1-17. It includes one of the Bible's most famous verses: “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." This statement by Jesus comes in a late-night interview with a man named Nicodemus.

Nicodemus is a member of the Sanhedrin, the supreme council in Israel (this is the group that accused Jesus of blasphemy, for example.)  Nicodemus is seeking like so many today. He declares that
Jesus is “Come from God” – a saying normally used only of angels/messengers of God, so it hints at his believing in “something more.” At this point he is hesitant to commit himself and thinks of Jesus as only a “teacher.”

Nicodemus, settling in for a theological/philosophical discussion, would not have expected Jesus’ blunt retort in verse 3 about being born again. Jesus meant to challenge Nicodemus to think deeper about his own faith and about who Jesus is.

Up until then conversion referred to Gentiles converting to the Jewish faith: it would have been a very confusing concept that Jews to be born again. Nicodemus’ cheeky answer shows this.

Nicodemus knows something profound about Jesus, that he is "a teacher come from God." What is surprising to me is that this is the block that he stumbles over. It is what he knows about Jesus that keeps him doubting about who he really is: the savior come to save all, offering all people new life.

But Nicodemus' struggle is real. Our struggle to know God through Jesus is real.

 “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life" is the prized verse in this passage. But moving too quickly to this verse gives the illusion that our struggle with knowing and believing can be easily reconciled.

What if before going there, we lingered more intentionally and empathetically with Nicodemus? Perhaps if we did we would begin to appreciate the real resistance we experience when we hear God’s promises.

What if those promises seem as nonsensical to us as they did to Nicodemus? How can we possibly receive those promises if we do not, finally, understand them, not at least in the way the world is accustomed to understanding?

One clue to our question appears in the work of London-based writer, Susanna Howard. She works with dementia patients, people who, in the language of science, are largely defined by irretrievable losses of neurological function: loss of speech, loss of language, loss of identity, loss of mind.

For the past six years, she has been engaged in the art of listening to the words of people who suffer with dementia. She calls the project, Living Words:

"It can be extremely hard for words to come and we validate all words and sounds that are uttered [by dementia patients] -- words and expressions that seem nonsense can in fact be directly metaphoric, or just need to be said. For example, a person will use words that wouldn't be used in ordinary conversation: 'Everything was all packed up and plopped over with'; 'These people, in to the third act'; 'Some round here are all embers'; 'They don't say much this tribe.' In not finding the 'right' word people might use replacement words without realising."

While others often see only loss, she sees a life to be honored: “I very much believe that this is life and to be embraced -- only through engaging in the darkness do we see who we really are and glimpse what this life is." When she finished her first collection of poems by a woman with advanced dementia, the woman took her hand and said, “Now you know two worlds, the one outside and the one inside in me and you must go and tell all the people.”

It was a gift, a mission handed to her under cover of that darkness, a darkness disturbed by improbable illumination.


Prayer:

Wash, O God, our sons and daughters
where your cleansing waters flow.
Number them among your people;
bless as Christ blessed long ago.
Weave them bright and sparkling;
compass them with love and light.
Fill, anoint them; send your Spirit,
holy dove and heart’s delight.

(“Wash, O God, Our Sons and Daughters,” Ruth Duck, The UM Hymnal, No. 605)

In Christ,

Jack

Credit to Starters for Sunday and workingpreacher.org, whose work this week was influential for this entry