Nicodemus

Although I’m not yet ready to make a commitment to this every week, I’ve been thinking that since I’m doing a lot less preaching these days I might offer some thoughts during the week on the upcoming readings for Sunday. The world doesn’t need another Biblical commentary and surely not one from me. But maybe some homiletical ruminations can be of help to those preparing sermons and to those preparing to hear sermons. With this in mind, I’ve been thinking about Nicodemus, who makes an appearance in this Sunday’s Gospel Reading in John 3:1-17

I want to say three things about the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus. But there is a larger point before doing that, which comes at the end. Even sports fans with no Biblical literacy know what John 3:16 says. But together with John 3:17 it is worth pondering in these shrill and polarized times: we are told that God so loved the world. We are told that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but to save the world.

The world in Greek is a familiar word to us in English as well: it’s cosmos. God doesn’t only love all the people of this world. God loves the planet. God loves all creatures, great and small. God loves the whole creation. The sun and moon and stars that God created in the beginning. God loves the whole cosmos and the incarnation is not about condemnation but salvation. 

When a church preaches condemnation, it’s not focused on Jesus anymore. Full stop. If God does not condemn the world, then who do preachers think that they are when we do it? As former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry put it, if it’s now about love it’s not about God. If it’s not about saving the world, healing the world, repairing the breaches in this world, it’s not about God either. If it’s about condemning God’s world, then it’s not of God.

Three details to notice about this encounter between Nicodemus and this upstart rabbi from the northern hills of Galilee.

First: notice that it’s nighttime when he comes to Jesus. It’s quite possible that Nicodemus doesn’t want his respectable neighbors to know the company he’s keeping, so he avoids coming to Jesus during the daytime when he is likely to be seen. He chooses the cover of darkness for this meeting. He comes nevertheless, apparently because he is drawn to Jesus, seeing that the signs Jesus does are clearly of God. But he is tentative.

Second: Jesus tells Nicodemus that if you want to grasp all of this you must be born from above. At least that’s how the NRSV puts it. But the Greek is ambiguous; it’s anothen And anothen has three perfectly valid interpretations.

If you look this verse up in an NRSV Bible (and not just on a Scripture insert) you will see a little notation after “born from above” that offers an alternative: “you must be born anew.” If you are an NIV Bible-type, then you’ll read, “you’ve got to be born again.” But there, too, you’ll find a little note from the editors that says, in tiny little letters, “you’ve got to be born from above.”

So which is it: born from above, born anew, or born again? Yes!

Now I point this out because perhaps some of you have been approached on a street corner (or maybe even at Thanksgiving Dinner) by someone who only reads the NIV translation and then asks you if you have been “born again?” And sometimes when that question is asked it feels like there is a specific way we are supposed to respond. It means you are supposed to have a datable moment in time when you became a Christian. It can sometimes seem as if the answer, “I was raised in the Church and have always known Jesus and I have had many moments of little conversions along the way rather than one big one” is not the right answer.

But if you listen to this text I think you will see that that aspect of a particular kind of Christian ideology has very little to do with this encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus.

That’s American evangelicalism, not what the far more nuanced Jesus says.

Nick initially misses the point—he hears “anothen” in a literal way and connects it only to a literal return to the womb, to being literally born again. Which Jesus says is silly. Jesus then clarifies by saying that what he is really talking about is being “born by water and the spirit.”  That is Baptismal language, which is one reason that the lectionary puts this reading into the context of Lent. Because Lent is all about Baptism.

In the early church, Baptism only happened at the Easter Vigil, after a long period of preparation. Lent was that season for final preparation before being buried with Christ, in order to be raised with him into a new resurrected life. So this is liturgical/sacramental language—and I think it’s way past time that Episcopalians and other liturgical Christians re-claim it as such. We don’t need to pick a fight or insist we have the whole truth, only that there is indeed sacramental language here, in this text. And that Jesus seems to be saying that if you are baptized by water and the spirit then you are born anothen—regardless of what some may tell you about that. By water and the spirit we are born anothen—dying with him in order to be raised again to the new life of grace. And then the journey of faith is living into that reality, one day at a time.

Third: this isn’t the last time that we see of Nicodemus. On Good Friday, in John’s telling of that day’s events, he comes with Joseph of Arimathea to claim to corpse of Jesus. The text says that Joseph, a member of the Council, “was a disciple of Jesus.” It doesn’t make that claim of Nicodemus, only that he came with Joseph and that he brings “a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds of weight.” (John 19:39) Together, Nicodemus and Joseph take Jesus’ body and bind it with linen cloths and with the spices, following the burial customs of the day. In broad daylight. That suggests to me that Nicodemus was listening and that he was changed for good by this nighttime encounter.

Be Salty! Stay Lit!

As some of you already know, I grew up in this  congregation. Others may be wondering, who is this guy and  why is he here this morning? Or, I didn't even know   Jimmy Simpson had an older brother... 

My name is Rich Simpson. My wife and I live in Worcester, Massachusetts. My mother, Peg Cox, turned eighty on Thursday, and her family all gathered to celebrate her last night: four kids, our spouses, the grandchildren and their partners, and six great-grandchildren. I was baptized across the street at St. Paul’s Lutheran, where my mom actually grew up. My dad grew up further down Church Street at Cole Memorial Baptist Church. In 1968, my family moved to the south side of Scranton for my dad’s work, selling insurance for New York Life. My parents went looking for a church and eventually landed at Elm Park United Methodist Church.

And that is how the Simpsons became Methodists. What is interesting to me in this story is not that a young couple went church shopping when they moved to a new community. That happens all the time. What’s interesting to me is that five years later, when my parents moved back to Hawley (now with four kids) and we moved in just across the street at 404 Church, which had an office in the back for my dad’s work, they remained Methodists. It would have been easy enough to return to either St. Paul’s or Cole Memorial and perhaps there was even a little family pressure to do so. I don’t know. But my parents had become Methodists and back in Hawley they remained Methodists. By my calculation, my mom has been here now for over fifty years, many of those in the choir.

Gail Wintermute was the pastor when I was growing up here. His wife Milly was my piano teacher. It was she who first said (probably realizing concert pianist was not in my future) “Richie, have you ever thought about becoming a pastor?” I emphatically told her that I had not. Yet after college I applied to Drew and this congregation sponsored me and it was here that I preached my very first sermon, which I’m sure those of you who were here then remember word-for-word. After graduating from Drew I was ordained at Elm Park in Scranton, where my parents’ journey had begun.

I want to get to today’s sermon, so I’ll spare you the rest except to say that a point came for me when I felt more at home in the Episcopal Church. I had nothing against the Methodists who had done right by me and certainly nothing against this wonderful congregation. I took inspiration then, and still, from John and Charles Wesley, whom I would remind you were both Anglican priests. But I felt, for various reasons, that I’d grow more into the full stature of Christ as an Episcopal priest than as a United Methodist pastor, and so I made that move in 1993. At the end of December, I retired after 32 years ordained as an Episcopal priest with 5 years prior as a United Methodist past. 

Let's talk about the Sermon on the Mount. It’s hard to know for sure exactly which hill Jesus and his disciples climbed that day. The Sea of Galilee is surrounded by hills, and it could have been any one of them. More likely, it wasn’t just in one place on one day. Matthew, after all, is reconstructing what we call “the Sermon on the Mount” some fifty years or so after these events took place and Jesus probably went away with his disciples to escape the crowds more than once. So maybe they went to various places around the lake, or maybe they did have one favorite spot. Either way, he taught them over time, and they remembered what he said. Eventually the disciples passed those teachings on to the second-generation disciples and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote it all down.

Since the fourth century, however, pilgrims who have traveled to the Holy Land have claimed one particular place as the Mount of the Beatitudes. Whether or not it was originally the holy place, it has without a doubt become a holy place as pilgrims from north, south, east and west have gone there to pray for at least sixteen hundred years now. It is what is sometimes called in the Celtic spiritual tradition, a “thin place” where the hills are alive and Jesus’ words echo down through the centuries.

The current church on that site was built in 1938 and is run by the Franciscans. It’s a quiet and peaceful place that overlooks the lake, and as you look down the hill you can see so many of the places prominent in Jesus’ ministry, including Capernaum, where he made his home. The gardens at that Church of the Beatitudes are meticulously kept and you can walk and think and pray.  It’s quite conducive to “considering the lilies of the field” and the “birds of the air.” So whether or not it is the place, I can attest to you that it is holy ground. I’ve been there ten or so times now, including once with your former pastor, my step-father, Marty Cox. 

On that warm afternoon I spent there with Marty there nearly twenty years ago, there was a large group of Chinese Christians who beat us there. Their spirituality was not nearly as contemplative as our group’s. In fact they seemed downright boisterous! But as I watched them posing for a group photo, I was profoundly conscious of the fact that it cannot be easy being a Christian in China, and clearly being able to come as a group to the Holy Land made their hearts glad; and that made my heart glad too. It made me aware that in Christ there is no east or west, and that the one holy catholic and apostolic faith we confess isn’t just about our own personal spiritualities.

Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… Today’s reading is a continuation of that time apart, as Jesus continues to deliver the Sermon on the Mount to his disciples. As Matthew tells the story, Jesus saw the crowds and was trying to get away…so he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. It is to them—and by extension to us—that Jesus goes on to say the words we heard today:

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

“You are salt. You are light.” Pastor Andy asked me if I had a sermon title for today and I did not. But Facebook has mostly got me down with their analytics and I got an ad a couple of days ago based on this gospel passage for a tee-shirt. It said, “Be salty! Stay lit!” Matthew 5. So there’s my sermon title – to help you remember this sermon. Be salty. Stay lit!

Elsewhere, Jesus uses the image of yeast as well. The Church is like leaven that makes the whole loaf rise. All of these are little metaphors, metaphors of smallness. If you want to make a loaf of bread you don’t just start opening up cakes of yeast. It doesn’t take that much. A little bit of yeast is all it takes.

Ditto with the salt. The late, great Lutheran Bishop, Krister Stendahl was fond of saying that Jesus told the church to be the salt of the earth, not to make the whole world into a salt mine! His humorous words suggest that our mission is not to make every person on the planet a Christian. Rather, Jesus challenges those of us who claim him as Lord to act like Christians. Because “if salt loses its taste, then what good is it?” Be salty!

Perhaps the most powerful of these metaphors, at least for me personally, is the call to be light. The Church is called to be a light that shines in the darkness, a beacon. You don’t need me to come here from Massachusetts to tell you about the darkness of the world. This world is God’s world and it is filled with beauty. But it can also be a pretty scary place: a place or wars and rumors of wars, of violence and degradation. Sometimes it can feel like someone has shut out the lights. Even darker still is the dark night of the soul. There are times in our lives when the darkness seems too overwhelming; and it’s not that external darkness, but the internal kind, that we most fear.

And yet: here are Jesus’ words, echoing down through the centuries from that Galilean hillside to this time and place. We have two choices when the world is dark: we can curse the darkness or we can let our little lights shine. And even though we are prone to forget it sometimes, one little candle in a darkened room really does change the whole space. What was scary and dark can, in an instant, become a holy and luminous place. One tiny little flickering candle can guide us on our way and it helps others find their way as well.

As I said, these metaphors for being the Church are about small things: yeast, light, and salt. And I think that is truly good news. Even in that first setting, Jesus is away from the crowds and with just the twelve. Jesus doesn’t start a mega-church; he forms a dozen disciples. Don’t ever doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. The fact that you and I are here today is proof that it can be done, and it isn’t done with smoke and mirrors. It’s done one little step at a time, one day at a time. With God’s help.

When my brother and I used to show up for youth group here, led by Pastor Wintermute, sometimes it was just the two of us. Occasionally we’d invite a friend or two along so it wasn’t just the two of us. But you know what? It was enough. It took hold in our long lives. I know you’ve heard my brother share his story. Like me and my sisters we are all indebted to the faith we learned in this little church and that extends to our children and our grandchildren.

From day one of his public ministry around that Sea of Galilee, from the moment he called Peter and Andrew and James and John, Jesus was asking a small group of ordinary people to do extraordinary things, with God’s help. He called them apart to teach them how to be light and salt and yeast by loving God and loving neighbor. By respecting the dignity of every person, regardless of social status. By doing justice, and loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.

And of course that work continues to unfold, here and now, in this place, among us. That is the message, the “good news,” that we are entrusted as members of Christ’s Body to pass along to the next generation. To be witnesses to the wonder and promise of abundant life in Jesus Christ. We are called to be faithful, one day at a time, in small ways.

You and I are not called to do great things. Let me say that again because I think sometimes that is what paralyzes us as followers of Jesus. If you can’t preach like Peter it’s ok. If you can’t pray like Paul, it’s ok. You can tell the love of Jesus, sometimes with words but always by doing small things well, the things that are right before us.

These are hard days to be a follower of Jesus but let me quickly add this: there are no good old days when it comes to that. Be salty. Stay lit. Don’t underestimate that when we act like Christians we are changed, our congregation becomes alive, and our neighbors notice.

What we discover, or at least what I have discovered over almost four decades as an ordained minister, is that when we focus on the small things then together we can accomplish even greater things than we had imagined. This is why the Church doesn’t need superheroes. Just saints—the kind you meet in shops and in lanes and at tea, the kind who are fishermen, and doctors and teachers, classmates, snow plowers and secretaries and insurance salesmen. If you can’t preach like Peter that’s not a problem. If you can’t pray like Paul, not to worry. Just be you, and tell the love of Jesus.

You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Don’t worry about doing big things. Just pay attention. Just keep listening to Jesus, and doing the work that God gives you to do today; wherever you may find yourself.  God will take care of the rest.

And Go Pats!

 

 

Do Not Be Afraid

It has been claimed that the Biblical imperative, "fear not" or "do not be afraid" comes up 365 times in the Bible. The pastoral advice that grows out of this reality is that we are encouraged every day to be strong, to be brave, to be loving in a world that is often frightening. 

It's not true, however, at least not literally true. (See this helpful article if you don't believe me.) It does come up a lot, however, and that is the larger point to be made. 

The antidote to fear, which leads to dis-couragement, is to be en-couraged to love. This takes us to the heart of the Biblical promise, that to love God and to love neighbor leads to full and abundant life. Fear, on the other hand, leads to death. 

It's helpful to reflect on two Greek words, I think: paranoia and metanoia. Metanoia is usually translated into English as repent - it's also a big Biblical word. It's about a change of mind. Paranoia is when we are out of our minds - when we revert to our reptilian brains and response to danger in a binary way: fight or flight. 

Fear is a part of life. We teach our children and our children's children to be careful in a world that can be quite dangerous. We try also to teach them to face their fears, whether or not we happen to be people of faith shaped by the Biblical narrative. We want to en-courage them; not dis-courage them. 

But I've come to believe that keeping people afraid is a path to gaining and keeping power. This is the way of fascism, rather than liberal democracy. You can sow fear to gain control of people. And I think this is where we are as a nation right now. Perhaps the only thing right now that people on the right and left have in common is that we are afraid, and acting out of that place of fear. We are, surely, afraid of different things. But in our fear we become reactive and polarizing and binary. We lose our capacity to think creatively, and to love our neighbor as self, 

I've stopped watching cable news almost completely over the past year. I don't know if this is the right thing to do for anyone else. But I came to believe that I was not more informed in doing so, only more frightened on a daily basis. I now receive my news via print journalism almost exclusively. 

When I was watching cable news I watched CNN primarily. I felt it was the best of three bad choices. The worst, without a doubt, is FOX, the official propaganda tool for the far-right. Truth is not a concern; only sticking to a false narrative and repeating it over and over again. Friends should not let friends watch FOX - it leads to brain decay. 

But since I've already insulted those who watch the most "popular" source of news, I'll add that I gave up on MSNBC years ago, because even though I thought they were more "accurate" they were not reporting news; they were (and I think mean to be) the counterbalance to FOX. So I settled "in the middle" with CNN. But every single day they had this "breaking news" that wasn't breaking news at all but it ratcheted up the angst. They, too, are in the fear-mongering business. 

I want to repeat that I don't know if I've made the right call and I'm not advocating that others make the same choice. I also am aware that giving up on cable news but doom scrolling on Facebook may not be the way forward. But what I have observed in my own body  is that I could feel "worked up" just by trying to be informed, and so I have made a conscious choice to be informed by various print resources. I don't even know if it's helped, but I think it has. I feel I can think more clearly; I can explore things on my own time and in more detail. I don't want to be simply "reactive" to propaganda; I want to find the truth. Amazingly, with all the information out there, this is not an easy thing to do. 

And yet, I admit to being still very afraid for our country. I look back at what I know of history and I think of what a great tool it is for those who want to hold onto power. AND, also, even more importantly, that it never works in the long run. It's the tool of tyrants but there eventually love wins, every tiime. 

So even if it doesn't come up 365 times, I think of Abraham and Sarah, asked to leave home and find a new place that God would show them in due time: do not be afraid; trust me.

I think of Moses, asked to confront Pharaoh and tell him to let God's people go. The fundamentalists of his day said he should stick to spirituality and not get into politics. But God called him at that burning bush to stand up, to get involved, to lead a liberating movement. And God said, "don't be afraid, I'll be with you." 

I think of Mary, visited by Gabriel and told that she would bear a son who would turn the world upside down. She was a teenager, and a girl in a patriarchal society. Of course she was afraid. And the angel said, "do not be afraid..."

We are afraid of different things but we will never move forward until we confront our fears and put our whole trust in God, because faith casts out fear. For me this means moving from "paying attention" to what's happening to action. We get there by way of finding courage, and hope, and an ability to seek the truth. Fear keeps us from all of these charisms. Fear leads to despair. Fear leads to death.

I have not preached since Christmas morning. But when I was preaching I realize that this was my guiding principle. I was not (and am not) afraid to speak up in a prophetic way. This blog could have been about Minneapolis and what I see happening there. I am so grateful for those who are finding their voices and also showing up there to stand together. What is happening is real, and scary. The lies being told by the administration add fuel to the fire. This needs to be said, with clarity. I give thanks for those who are doing so; they inspire me. 

But as I understand discernment, fear blocks it. Fear makes us reactive, not proactive. We need clarity, and hope, and courage, and love. I have come to believe that this was Dr. King's greatest legacy. It was also Ghandi's and many others as well, including Desmond Tutu. We will one day have to get to truth and reconciliation in this country. Those who are causing such turmoil will have to answer for their crimes against humanity, for sure. But beyond that we must find a way to reconciliation and healing. 

For me, the main thing - the first thing - is confronting our fears and then listening for the voice of God that often comes through God's messengers: do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Regardless of how many times that appears in Scripture we need to hear it every day. 

Checking In: Finding a New Normal

Technically, my retirement from active ministry began on January 1. But I had a little vacation time coming at St. Michael's and so my last service (and last post to this blog) was on Christmas Day. For three weeks now, I've been finding my way into a new chapter of life. 

People kept asking me what I'd do in retirement and I kept trying to find the right, short, elevator speech. I said I was at a stage in life where being is more important to me than doing. I said that my vocation has always been bigger than priestly ministry: I'm a husband and father and father-in-law and grandfather and son and brother and neighbor. Having more time for these several callings definitely lured me toward this new chapter. I said that I wanted to cook more like an old European lady, by which I meant that I've never liked grocery shopping for a week or more, but rather going to see what looks good and shopping that afternoon as part of the meal prep itself. 

I didn't really say, but had in mind two other things as well...

First, commuting is hard on one's physical health. As Canon to the Ordinary from 2013-2024 my commute to Springfield was just about an hour but I also drove all across and up and down the diocese regularly. As interim rector in Bristol my commute was about an hour and ten minutes or so, depending on traffic in Providence. During the pandemic and again for these past three weeks without a commute, my days begin by walking. I've been averaging just about six miles a day since Christmas. I've also added in weight training on a more focused basis, since I keep reading and hearing about how as people age they lose muscle. It's cold and icy right now in New England so I'm doing all of this at the Greendale YMCA where I've been a member since we moved to Holden in 1998. But never have I had a consistent run like I've had these past three weeks. I had to get to work! I am usually there for about two and a half hours and since I'm an early riser, still home by 9 am or so. 

The second thing I wanted to do was more writing and reading on my own, not related to sermon preparation. I've been finding time most days to do both but I'm also still figuring out how to continue on the path of life-long learning without the discipline of preparing a sermon every week as my focus. Freedom is good, but one still needs a purpose. So I'm working on that. 

I've been busy, but not frenetic which is what I was looking for. I've been happy, which to some extent I've been for a long time; my life is very blessed. But I'm finding myself more fully present to the sacramentality of the present moment; to this Now. I'm anxious about the state of the world, to be sure. But not about my own life, at least not right now. 

And so I'm grateful. I have found in pastoral ministry that even thinking about retirement brings up all kinds of emotions for folks, lay and ordained. If you love your work, as I have, in some ways that seems harder. People who hold down a miserable job to put bread on the table feel freedom when they finally can lay that burden aside. But for many people I know, they find meaning in their work. They see it as vocational. I certainly have. But here has been the big surprise: those opportunities don't need to be tied to a full-time job. In the two weeks of January, I've been an interfaith panelist at UMass Medical School with fourth year Med students. Alongside Jewish and Muslim colleagues we have a chance to talk about big questions of meaning, of life and death, of ethics and the dialogue between faith and medicine. I've done this for almost a decade now but it felt different this year, and I felt grateful to still be doing it and I hope to continue doing it. 

I got a call from a funeral home to ask if I'd do a graveside service for a lapsed Episcopalian who had grown up in the Church but no longer had a congregation. Graveside services can be perfunctory but for whatever reason I found this one to be meaningful and I think the family did also. I also got a call from a contractor who did work on our home some time ago: his wife was nearing the end of her life and he asked if I'd be willing to visit her. I did - multiple times as she navigated from hospital to hospice and then took her last breath. I'll be officiating at her funeral this Friday. 

Honestly, as much as I love to preach, I find itinerant preaching a bit of a challenge. I'll do some of it, I'm sure - there's a need. But I'd much rather do a funeral, actually. Or a wedding. Or a baptism. 

The late Bishop of Newark, Jack Spong, coined a powerful phrase to refer to people who had grown up in the faith but then "moved on." He called it the Church Alumni Association. Members of the CAA aren't necessarily angry at the Church - they just got out of practice. They "graduated." But they do have faith, and sometimes faith seeking understanding. 

I remembered this anew in my "Tuesdays with Morrie" visits recently and I remembered it at UMass Medical School, where nearly every student in the room said they grew up with some kind of faith (not just Methodist and Lutheran and Roman Catholic but Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim...) but that it was not currently a part of their adult lives. 

I have long believed there is a deep spiritual hunger out there that churches are not meeting. I realize my last 37 years have been focused on "building up the church" and I'm wondering if this next chapter is more about connecting with people who are seeking, and have some faith foundation, but need to find ways to connect the faith they once had to the lives they are now living. Christian nationalism makes this harder, but also more and more necessary, I think. I'll keep you posted!