Roger L. Ray, pastor
March 20, 2011 Lent 2
John 3:1-17
The first great philosophical writings came to us from the hand of the Greek thinker, Plato, in the 4th century B.C. And Plato did every undergraduate student for the past 24 centuries the incredible favor of writing in the form of dialogues, conversations which took place between both famous and fictional characters of ancient Greece.
Sometimes his dialogues described actual historical events and sometimes the entire setting and characters were made up in order to examine a particular idea. But because he wrote in the form of a play he was able to convey subtle meanings in the choice of settings and characters. For example, Plato personally despised the Greek playwright, Aristophanes, because Aristophanes had written plays in which he ridiculed Socrates which helped to turn public sentiment against Socrates leading to his execution. So, whenever Plato uses Aristophanes as a character in a dialogue you can bet that any lines coming from Aristophanes are not to be taken seriously.
More subtly, however, things like a conversation which is taking place between two characters who are walking, if they walk through a respected area of Athens, which Plato considered to be the capital of all great thought, then you can give what the characters are saying added weight. If they walk outside the city walls of Athens, among the common and uneducated people, you can take it for granted that this is pretty weak material.
Students of philosophy have always known to take the setting of a conversation very seriously in interpreting the dialogue. It took Biblical scholars several more centuries to realize that we should look at Biblical narratives in a similar way.
The authors of our four gospels described the sermons, conversations and miracles of Jesus in a way to help us to understand the significance of both who Jesus was and what he said and did. How they presented that material and in what order and in what circumstances affects the message itself.
The gospel text before us today comes from this very well known conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. It is very important to notice that this dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus in the third chapter of John is set in juxtaposition to the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in the fourth chapter of John. The settings are like mirror images of one another, a set of opposites. Nicodemus was a highly respected religious leader, the Samaritan woman was a non-Jew who had a horrible reputation.
Neither conversation may be an account of something that actually happened. John uses Jesus, the Samaritan woman and Nicodemus the way that Plato uses the characters in his philosophical dialogues.
Reading John's accounts in this way, it is important to notice then, how John sets this up in the first verse and a half:
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2He came to Jesus by night
It was entirely appropriate for Jesus to speak publicly with Nicodemus and yet he came to Jesus in secret. In the text we will read next week, from the 4th chapter of John, we see the contrast. It was totally unacceptable for a Jewish man to talk to a woman who was unescorted and yet they did so privately in an open setting.
In both dialogues, Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman keep trying to talk about surface issues, religious ideas which are out there somewhere but not of great personal importance.
Jesus kept taking the conversations deeper, confronting them with the most important truths about their own lives. We say that honest gospel preaching is "speaking the truth to power." Saying the things that people don't want to have said, what they want to pretend isn't true, naming the elephant in the room that everyone tries to pretend doesn't exist. Jesus confronts Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, in very different ways, with their need for total transformation.
Nicodemus slips around at night to question Jesus privately. But the way John writes it, Nicodemus doesn't even get to get a question out of his lips.... Notice how, in verses 2 and three that Jesus cuts him off and answers a question which has not yet been asked.... As if Jesus already knew the real reason why Nicodemus was there:
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.' 3Jesus answered him, 'Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.' 4Nicodemus 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?'
John has really written a brilliant dialogue here. Nicodemus is something of a tortured soul. He is a member of clergy.... A sort of church official, with power, standing, resources, respect.... But in his own heart he is pretty sure that he is a fraud which is OK as long as everyone around you is also a fraud.
But then Jesus comes to town and, darn it, it seems like Jesus isn't really a fraud. He is not an official. He does not have standing in the church. He has no job, no money, no title and, by all reason, he shouldn't have any power and yet people flock to him and make him important even though institutional religion had shut him out.
John doesn't tell us much about Nicodemus but the text is heavy with implication. John doesn't have to tell us because we all know him, or someone like him. Did he come out at night to see if he could find an Achilles' heel? Was he looking for a way to prove to himself that he didn't have to take Jesus seriously?
In the philosophical study of logic we call this the "ad homonym" fallacy. If you can't refute what the teacher is saying, try to find some way to attack the personal life of the teacher. This is what false piety almost always does.
I recently wrote to our state's senators to object to the proposed defunding of the Planned Parenthood programs in America. Education and treatment regarding sexually transmitted diseases, appropriate education in contraception and women's health issues are under attack in this congress. This is a matter of great importance to millions of young women.
One of our senators responded with a form letter which was written to appear very pious, posturing as being morally opposed to abortion while, in fact, gutting the programs which have the best track record of preventing unwanted pregnancies.
This is the religious game that Nicodemus was playing.... Sounding pious while playing dumb. Jesus knows that Nicodemus feels like a fraud and he is trying to offer him a way out.... A way to start over, to begin again.
But then Nicodemus falls back on another favorite religious fallacy.... The fallacy of literalism. Jesus is trying to say something profound, something life changing, something liberating, but Nicodemus, by imposing a literal interpretation on his words, tries to make him sound ridiculous...... "a grown man can't crawl back into his mother's womb can he?"
Literalists in religion use the Bible the way most of us use a toilet plunger. You only get it out in the most unspeakable moments to deal with issues you don't want to see or think about. A literalist will point at a biblical text condemning homosexuality which is buried in texts about not eating cheese with meat, or eating shrimp, or wearing blended fabrics..... but they will never allow you to be a literalist about anything which condemns them..... only about what condemns people that they would rather flush down the toilet anyway.
You don't use a literal interpretation of the Bible in order to understand the Bible, you use a literal interpretation to hide the meaning, to twist it, to change it.
The scriptures teach us to love, to forgive, to show compassion and tolerance but in the hands of a literalist the Bible justifies wars, racism, sexism, it gives you permission to turn your backs on the poor and to judge even your own children.
As often happens in a dream, or in Plato's dialogues, certain characters show up only to represent an idea, to utter a line, and then they disappear. In the midst of the conversation, John just stops talking about Nicodemus and Nicodemus disappears from the reader's mind.
He has served his purpose. He represents religion which is textual, based on rules and beliefs, but is devoid of spirit. Surely it is not Jesus who concludes this passage, suddenly speaking of himself in the third person as if he were Bob Dole or something. It is John interpreting what we have seen by putting Jesus beside someone who represents institutional religion. And what does John say? Look at verse 17:
17 '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. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.'
There is a tremendous amount of pressure on the church to fold itself up in the darkness of literalism or of ad homonym, to act pious but stay out of the way....To sound religious without ever shining the light on anything of importance.
You hear me say things like that and you may be inclined to think that I am overstating the case but let me ask you this.... Why isn't there a loud and obvious anti-war movement among religious people in America?
There were some rallies, some songs being sung, a few signs being carried back in 2002, maybe a little in 2003. We are now engaged in a war that is on the verge of its tenth anniversary. Are we tired? Were we mad when it was George Bush's war but now we complacent because it is Barak Obama's war? When a liberal is awarded a Nobel Prize for Peace and then uses the podium to mount a defense of pre-emptive war, does the church then forget about everything that Jesus said?
Where has the voice of the church been as services to the poor have been cut? Unemployment assistance, affordable housing, Planned Parenthood, nutrition programs for poor mothers and children..... how is it that the rich can take a mortgage tax deduction for their second and third homes, their vacation homes but we can cut homelessness assistance programs because the federal budget is in trouble?
And who talks about this? Is it the church? Who are the famous preachers in America now talking about the war, talking about poverty, talking about racism and sexism? I marched with hundreds of people on Martin Luther King's birthday through town to hear a speech about how we should all volunteer more for community service.
Does the NAACP think that Martin Luther King got shot for organizing boy scout troops to pick up trash beside the highways?
No, men and women, do you know is talking about war, and injustice, about tax inequality and housing and health care? Comedians. The best preachers in America today are Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert and Bill Maher. And they don't have very nice things to say about the church and, frankly, why should they?
We have a Congress that can outlaw Yard Darts because they are dangerous but they can't outlaw semi-automatic weapons and if you can't laugh at a Congress like that then you.... Well, how did John say it..... "people loved darkness rather than light"...... yeah, that stings.
But I don't mean to sound too negative about all of this.... Not that there is not a lot of darkness enshrouding religion these days.... But there is a solution.... We can be born again..... we can decide to step out of the darkness and into the light. We can learn to love the truth and hate the lies..... we can kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
