As always when I prepare a sermon, I have a look at different commentaries, and it’s often quite helpful, yet this week I felt a little saddened by the fact that I read a lot about Trinity Sunday being the Sunday in the church where we don’t focus that much on Scriptures, rather we talk about an “idea” – The Trinity.
It made me feel sad because of course the Trinity isn’t an idea, the Trinity is our God – and today we are called to celebrate our God in the fullness of God’s revelation to us through Jesus-Christ. Our readings, in fact, are quite powerful, and they don’t deal with a lot of theological disputes, rather, they express a sense of awe and amazement, whether with the story of the call of Isaiah who has this glorious vision from heaven, or with the psalmist who finds the glory of God expressed in every earthly creature – and if, true, Nicodemus comes to see Jesus to inquire about his God, he does so compelled by the wonderful signs Jesus has manifested to the people.
If you have noticed, we have, at last, finished with our cycle of readings through the Farewell Discourse in John’s and we are back in the beginning of the Gospel (Chapter 3), and it’s a good place to start again – and this is actually what our Gospel deals with: starting again, being re-born. We celebrate today the Trinity and indeed, in this cycle of readings in John, we have had an overview of the way we understand God – or better – of the way God has been revealed to us: With the Father as the source of life and love, with the Son who comes to reconcile us to the Father through teaching, healing and mainly forgiveness of sins, and with the Spirit whose presence among us continues the work of the Son bringing us sanctification.
And so you see, the Trinity, it has little to do with an idea, it’s not an abstraction, on the other way around, it’s very concrete! It expresses the way God is in the process of manifesting who God is, giving us life, making God known and drawing us closer to God. The amazement for us, as believers in Christ, is not so much that God is remote for us and so different than we are, being so perfect and holy, although God certainly is, rather, the amazement is that God, being all of the above, is present to us, for us and among us.
Now, of course it calls for a response on our behalf, and to me this is what our Gospel today deals with – Jesus tells Nicodemus that he has to be re-born to see the kingdom of God. Now what does it mean exactly?
Well, let’s first have a look at Nicodemus – who he is at the beginning of the story and what is it in his character that Jesus would call him to a second birth. I actually really like that, after spending so much time on Jesus’s discourse, we are back meeting actual people in our readings, because I think it helps us greatly to make a connection with the texts – and the truth is, the more time I’ve spent looking at Nicodemus, the more I found the many ways we can relate to him.
Nicodemus is not an outsider, you see. He knows about Jesus, and he actually quite likes him and approves of his work and teachings. We see that he is curious, and he is a bit skeptic too – he has questions and he wants to have answers to his questions, he is brave enough, and he is a little scared too. He does not want to judge, and he does not want to be judged. He is full of good will and good intentions, and he also lacks real flame and passion.
Nicodemus is disciple material, if you will, and he isn’t yet a real disciple.
And so, Jesus calls him to conversion – to be reborn, as the text puts it – a well known expression in Christian churches.
And well, I find it interesting to put this expression back into context, because I don’t know what you think but to me, we have used this expression so much we don’t really know what it means anymore. Most us would think it means to give our life to Jesus, to abandon a life of sin and addictions, start attending church and read the Bible and be a good person. And there is certainly some of that, but it does not cover it all, far from that. This understanding of conversion can also make us think that it’s not something we are concerned with, being already Christians, when in fact, as I said, Nicodemus looks so much like us – It may very well still means something for each one of us – To be reborn.
The thing is, being “born again” is often understood as referring to conversion that happens once in a time, quickly and quite painlessly. But if we’re honest, yes, birth certainly occurs once in a life time, yet most of the times it’s far from being a quick and painless process. I preached last week about how Jesus calls us to make ourselves available, and sure, we cannot give new life to ourselves as surely as the baby in the womb cannot give life to themselves – the best we can do is to allow the process to take place, to not resist the Spirit of God that wants to bring us the life of the Spirit. Yet, if we have to make ourselves available, it’s not just about showing up, more deeply we have to be willing to change and to not hold on to what is old. Can you imagine a baby resisting natural birth because they are so happy in the womb? It would feel ridiculous, as Nicodemus observes. And yet, this is where we may find ourselves spiritually. We are quite happy where we are and we are not quite interested in growing, meaning mainly: interested in changing. It does not mean so much “becoming a good person” – although it can mean that too – but as I said, change is about letting go of the old – sins, anger, resentment but also despair, resignation, apathy. Jesus insists that it is a spiritual conversion, not just a moral one. In this, “good people” needs conversion too: To believe that a new life is possible, that is not cluttered by the hurt and failures of our past.
I wonder if it’s one of the reasons churches have difficulties. We’re full of good will and yet so often paralyzed because we cannot let go of what has grown old, and we don’t really believe that God calls us to a new life and that God is up to something new. We’re often more focused on traditions, filling the pews, rather than on blessing our communities and being out there in the world.
You see, one of the things that we learn when we consider the Trinity, is how much God was willing to change to meet us, by God’s incarnation in Jesus, by God’s presence in our world. God constantly discloses God’s being to meet us, in spite of the risks and the suffering. In the same way, we have to be willing to change to meet God. We have to be willing to reconsider the way we think, behave and relate to one another – This is our response to God.
And so being re-born is a much more complex process than declaring that we “give our life to Jesus” – although we need to say it quite often. But it takes a life time to give our life to Jesus. If you think about it though, isn’t it wonderful to think about our lives as a process of being born, rather than a process of growing old and dying? When I think of Nicodemus, I can’t help thinking how humbling it must have been for him, a teacher, a leader of the Jews, someone who was “somebody”, to be invited to be born anew, to let go of who he though he was to become who God knew him to be. Maybe that’s the key for us. Jesus, again and again in the Gospel, not only in John’s, asks us to become child like, to make ourselves small – and so maybe the key is humility. To be willing to receive again, to learn again and to allow this to change us. To be willing to meet God as God has been willing to meet us. In short, we have to continue to being willing to become disciples, being taught and transformed.
So, yes, on this Trinity Sunday, we need to be amazed at God’s being, but we should also be amazed at God’s works and what God wants to do with us and through us. That God calls us again and again to be disciples – and this is on what we will focus in the weeks to come.