Nicodemus & Jesus: an elderly theologian discusses gynaecology

Today a Twitter conversation ended up in my promising to blog my sermon on the Samaritan woman Jesus met by a well.
But before I get there, I need to post last week's sermon. Stick with me if you can - the two are linked.

John’s gospel has some lovely ironies in it. One of my favourites is that in chapter 3, Jesus is in conversation with an elderly male religious scholar. In chapter 4, which we will be reading next week, he talks to a woman who has had at least five relationships, and who was a bit of a social outcast.
He talks theology with the Samaritan Woman, and he talks gynaecology with the religious scholar.
Poor old Nicodemus is doing his best. He is very open minded, compared to many of his colleagues, and he desperately wants to know if Jesus is genuine. But he’s afraid of what others will think, so he comes to Jesus at night.
Next week, we meet someone who comes to Jesus in the day, but she’s also coming at the wrong time, because everybody else fetched their water in the early morning. Because she was an outcast, she had to wait, and come in the heat of the day.
So two very different people both come to Jesus at the wrong time and get the right answer. I won’t say any more about the Samaritan Woman, I’ll save her for next week, but now it’s time to look at what Jesus said to an old man about childbirth.
Childbirth is a messy and painful business. So I’m told. What would I know? We were discussing it over the meal table the other day, and my daughter Ellie was wishing that humans laid eggs, because that sounds a lot less painful. I think if I was female, I would entirely agree.
When the Bible talks about it, it emphasises the pain and the danger involved. And before medical advances and painkilling drugs, that’s exactly what it was. But the Bible references to childbirth aren’t overwhelmingly negative – they talk also about the joy of bringing new life into the world. But it’s a joy that’s tinged with sorrow and anxiety. One very significant woman in the Bible dies in childbirth – Rachel, as she gave birth to Benjamin, Jacob’s youngest son, and years later, at one of Israel’s lowest ebbs, another woman dies in childbirth and names her son Ichabod, which means “the glory has departed,” so prophesying that Israel were enduring dark days indeed.
Jesus himself, later in John’s gospel, expresses the agony and the ecstasy: “Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” He’s telling his disciples about his impending death.

Subtext

So when Jesus chooses being born as a metaphor for becoming a Christian, it’s got a whole shedload of subtext that Nicodemus would have been aware of.
What is subtext?
I think I'll let Mitchell & Webb explain.
So Jesus is saying, Yes this is a wonderful thing, but it’s going to be disruptive. Things are not going to stay the same, Nicodemus, this will be hard.
Perhaps Nicodemus can’t cope with this straight away, and so he takes refuge in not understanding what Jesus is talking about, prompting the discussion about being born of the Spirit, about the wind blowing where it wills, about or need to let go of control over what God is doing, and try instead to catch the breeze of the Spirit and be blown along in his direction.

Vision

We’re making changes at the moment – modifying our building to make it more welcoming, more suitable for our vision. Change is never universally welcomed, and perhaps some of us feel uneasy about what has been done. But it is important to remember why we are doing it. Two years ago, as we went through the Mission Action Planning process, one image grabbed us, and caught our imagination.

It was this – the image of an open door, and the light from within spilling out. It’s an invitation, which is for us to walk in and find all that God has got for us, but also that we might become like that to our community, the sort of place that people can come in to and find a welcome, find a home, find the love of God. We identified that we are a welcoming church, and we want to build on our strengths, build on what God has given us already. We want to do better, we want to be more welcoming, more including, to make it still easier for new people to come and fit right in.
So we need to remember that vision, and shape our building and our life together to fulfil the vision. We want to be blown along by the breeze of God’s Spirit.

Nicodemus – got some things right

But I don’t want to be too harsh on Nicodemus, because he he has gone out on a limb here, And it seems that he was convinced by Jesus. He is a secret supporter of Jesus for the rest of the story. He is not able to prevent the Jewish Council arresting Jesus and condemning him to death, but he does argue against it. And after Jesus’ death, he comes out and organises his burial, together with Joseph of Arimathea. So he moves a long way, if not quite all the way, as far as we see him in the story.

Conclusion 

What are we looking for in church? Can we be more like Nicodemus, ready to look out for God’s new movement, ready to listen, ready to move, at least a step, towards what God intends? Perhaps we can.