Years ago, at my ordination, the preacher complained to me about having to work with this gospel story. It’s not obviously about priesthood, or the work of the church, and Nicodemus maybe isn’t the best model for leadership.
He’s a publicly recognized leader, yes - the Pharisees were the folks who were obviously good at religion, keeping the faith in all kinds of serious ways. But he’s sneaking off to see Jesus late at night, which makes it obvious he’s up to no good.
And once he gets the conversation started he frankly can’t keep up with Jesus. He’s baffled and scrambling:
“Wait, you want me to go back through the birth canal? And there’s something about being born from wind? and that’s supposed to be godly? (sounds kind of pagan if you ask me…) Wait, what were you saying??”
You can’t entirely blame Nicodemus — Jesus is being deliberately ambiguous in this conversation. Where our English translation has Jesus telling Nicodemus that you have to be “born from above” to see God’s kingdom, he's using a Greek word that means both “above” and “again.” Like our term “hold up” which can mean either to support someone or to rob them.
Jesus probably intends both “above” and “again” - or something beyond both - but Nicodemus is making a fairly logical assumption in context. “Born again” makes just a little more sense than being “born from above,” when neither of those is a normal or practical birth. But logic just makes him more confused.
And then Jesus goes on about “wind” and “spirit.” Those are the same word in Hebrew, the same word in Greek - no wonder Nicodemus is baffled about being born of the wind, and spirit blowing wherever.
It’s not his fault, really, that he doesn’t understand Jesus. But it may be what he deserves, sneaking around to interview Jesus at night so that none of his religious leader friends will figure out he’s interested in this weird new rabbi on the scene.
Nicodemus is a model of Just Not Getting It in this story, not a respectable religious leader.
He’s a model of discombobulation.
Anybody here like to be confused? No?
There really are people who enjoy being a little uncertain, amazed, or puzzled. But for the most part, we’re taught that being confused is a bad thing - a short step to flunking tests or just being laughed at.
And yet today in the church we celebrate confusion - we revel in ambiguity, uncertainty, contradictions and complications. And math. Sort of.
You see, officially it’s Trinity Sunday. The day the church pauses to pay attention to this idea we have that God is really three distinct people —and that that equals only one God.
(And we promptly flunk Sesame Street math.)
If you don't think too hard about it, it’s fine.
We know there’s one God.
We know about Jesus, who is the Son of God;
we’ve heard of the Holy Spirit.
We pray in all those names, and praise God that way.
But if you stop and really think about it, you have to at least consider the questions:
If Jesus is truly God, why does he talk to himself so much?
If Jesus is truly God, why does he talk to himself so much?
If God is fully Jesus, and Jesus is running around on earth, who is minding the store?
How the heck is the Holy Spirit supposed to work, anyway? Where does it come from? Is anybody in charge?
And if I really believe in all this, can I still really say I believe in one God? Can I say it with enough sense to convince an atheist?
This is the day that the church sets aside to remind ourselves that those questions are real, that it’s worthwhile to be confused by God, and by Jesus, and by that unpredictable Holy Spirit. It’s worthwhile to be confused by all those things that we stand up every Sunday and proclaim that we believe. Because confusion is what makes us practice belief.
“I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe,” Jesus tells Nicodemus. “I’ve explained these things that happen here and now, we’ve talked about real experience, and you’re not practicing believing. So how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things, the things you really want to know about the Kingdom of God?”
Belief, you know, is not a question of logic; not of facts, not being convinced, not of the head,
but of the heart. Believing in Trinity, believing in God, is about what we’re willing to risk our hearts on and how we live our lives, not what we can explain.
That’s Nicodemus’ great blessing and great challenge: that believing sometimes requires doubt, sometimes requires confusion, wonder, and bewilderment, because only when we find ourselves fully lost can we fully commit to trust.
If we can do it ourselves - if we can understand by ourselves, or accomplish a task by ourselves, we’re never going to fully depend on someone else. That’s safe and natural and normal.
But to really believe in God,
to really give your heart,
we have to be face to face with the uncomfortable truth that we really can’t understand God.
Certainty isn’t trust — in fact, it might get in the way of trust — and we need to trust God with our whole hearts more than we need to believe with our whole minds.
Because that’s the faith that stands up to all the painfully unfair, illogical, odd and unpredictable realities of life. The only faith that can stand up to the way life and God both work in mysterious ways, and turn us upside down on a regular basis.
And it’s the only way to understand Jesus:
to trust before you ask, to commit before you know,
to believe by heart and action before you try to believe by convincing your brain.
Sometimes confusion really is the work of the church, the mark of a faith leader, and the best of our hearts.
So in honor of Nicodemus, will you revel in bewilderment this week?
Spend some time with the questions that make you scratch your head - about God and about everyday life. Challenge your brain and your logic with poetry, or new math, or the bizarre true things that scientists are discovering every day.
Or when life goes awry, and the inexplicable happens, just welcome it, and embrace the confusion.
Will you be baffled, this week, for God?
And risk your heart on the unbelievable, so that you may really, truly, madly, deeply believe?
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