June 7, 2009 + Unpredictability as Good News (John 3:1-13) + Frank Alton

As we begin the month of June in which so many weddings take place, I am reminded that one of the things I love about performing weddings is the opportunity to meet with couples for pre-marital counseling. I love getting to know them and to see how they relate to one another. For the second meeting I ask the couple to prepare a genealogy of their family. It’s not that I think it is so important to know where they come from. I do it to help all three of us discover insights into what matters to them, how family dynamics have made them who they are, and how that information might help them to see certain features of their lives as gifts rather than curses, and to see other features as behavior patterns they can choose to change.
Recently I met with a couple that told me they had argued a lot about religion and they didn’t like what happened when they did that. They wanted something different to happen, but they didn’t know how. I decided to ask them how they experienced spirituality. In spite of the fact that my question was about spirituality, the initial answers for both came back in terms of religion. She talked about what she believed, which usually comes across as what we know. He spoke about his problems with institutional religion. After I pointed out that they were both responding with mental constructs about religion, I asked them if they knew when their spirits were being nurtured. She began to tell us about the moments in her union organizing when a contract has just been signed and the workers are celebrating. In those moments she has the feeling that she is connecting to something greater than what is actually going on. I said, that is spirituality. He then spoke about why he loves astrophysics. He has told his friends that when he dies he hopes that he gets to travel through the universe to see all of the nebulae up close. He loves working with the mathematical models around astrophysics, because he feels connected to something bigger than himself. I told him, that is spirituality.
I think the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus was similar to that. Nicodemus knew that he was missing something, and he saw in Jesus a possibility for finding it. He, too, started with religion, and was caught off guard when Jesus spoke about spiritual experience. But Jesus took him seriously and pushed him far beyond his comfort zone, because he saw in Nicodemus someone who was willing to risk leaving behind the truth as he knew it to explore something new. It is often said that Nicodemus meets Jesus at night to avoid being seen in this illicit liaison. But could there be an alternate interpretation? The rabbis taught that the Torah was best studied at night when it was quiet and the distractions of the day had subsided. Could Nicodemus be using his precious study time to expand his search beyond the standard texts? Could Jesus himself become the book into which Nicodemus delves, mining every word for wisdom and understanding?
Immediately Jesus ushers this seeker into a realm of wisdom that is more complex, deep and rich than anything Nicodemus has known. Using language that is poetic, metaphorical, suggestive and imaginative, Jesus talks of being born from above. Like most of us, Nicodemus responds in his best left-brain, legal-scholar, word-parsing mode: “we know you are a teacher from God.” He sees tricks, dead-ends and practical impossibilities. It is all he knows how to see. Yet Jesus persists from his right-brain, heart vocabulary, with fertile images of wind, spirit and expansive love. He confronts Nicodemus with the uncomfortable truth that “you do not understand these things.” We don’t know how long Nicodemus dwells in this liminal space between what is familiar to him -- the world where his status is recognized and esteemed and his worldview reliable -- and this new world of life everlasting on the wings of the wind of love. But we do know that the Word-made-flesh becomes Nicodemus’s text, and the living water of the Torah an ever-expanding pool of wisdom. (Patricia Farris) Knowing and not knowing – both are important for being a complete human being. Not knowing is necessary for discovering new knowings. I think that is what Jesus was essentially saying about not knowing where the wind comes from or where it goes. Religion can be an especially opaque kind of knowing that gets in the way of spiritual knowing. The “not knowing” invites us to make his story our story.
I spoke at the beginning of this year about the role of chaos, another word for unpredictability. I quoted Margaret Wheatley who said that in the West “we have resisted chaos. We believed there were straight lines to the top. If we set a goal or claimed a vision, we would get there, never looking back, never forced to descend into confusion or despair. These beliefs led us far from life, far from the processes by which newness is created. And it is only now, as modern life grows ever more turbulent and control slips away, that we are willing again to contemplate chaos. The destruction created by chaos is necessary for the creation of anything new.” (Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science, p 119) In other words, only unpredictability creates the abyss in which we can recreate ourselves. That is the first piece of good news about unpredictability.
Margaret Wheatley goes on to say that life achieves order from clear centers rather than imposed restraints. This is the other side of unpredictability. Another Margaret – Margaret Boden – wrote that, “Unpredictability is not enough. At the heart of creativity lie constraints: the very opposite of unpredictability. Constraints and unpredictability, familiarity and surprise, are somehow combined in original thinking.”
I believe this is why we have the dance between religion and spirituality. Religion is about restraints. The word itself comes from the Latin “ligar”, which means to bind, fasten or tie. Even science has concluded that is not a bad thing in itself. But when a constraint – whether it be religion or a scientific theory – becomes more of an externally “imposed restraint” than a “clear center” around which our lives are oriented, then it ceases to be life giving. One way to discover our clear center is to ask ourselves, “What is it that would be so attractive that it would hold my behavior within a boundary and keep me from wandering into formlessness?”
I think that is what Jesus was inviting Nicodemus to ask himself. In John’s Gospel, knowing where people come from is an important part of social status. Nicodemus granted that status to Jesus by saying, “we know you come from God.” There are all kinds of ironic innuendo throughout John’s Gospel about Jesus’ origin. The truth is that Jesus knew where he came from, while very few others did. Jesus was offering Nicodemus what he offered everyone: the status of coming “from above” that trumped any other source of status or humiliation. No wonder it was easier for the poor to let go of their status to accept the status Jesus offered them?
The question, "Where do disciples come from?" may have two answers. One obvious, but shallow and insufficient answer is "Disciples are those who come to Jesus” (like Nicodemus did). The deeper answer of faith is, "from above" (anothen) and "from (ek) water and spirit". We might also offer the answer: "I decided to follow Jesus." But that ends up being a shallow and insufficient answer alongside an awareness that "God chose, claimed, and made me a child of God" – a much more accurate rendering of "having been born from above." (My growth from Campus Crusade to an awareness of God’s deep, inexplicable and “from childhood” call on my life.)
Initially, Nicodemus was too full of his own knowing; he resisted the emptiness of chaos he needed to take in the new question Jesus was asking him. I’ve heard various versions of an old story that speaks to this reality. Sometimes the person is a man and sometimes a woman, but the person sets off on a journey to find the meaning of life. Upon arriving at the home of a sage that everyone has pointed to as having the answer to the question, the sage invites the guest to a cup of tea. The seeker responds, “No thank you. I didn't come all this way for tea. I came for an answer. Won't you tell me, please, what is the meaning of life?" "We shall have tea," the sage replies forcefully. So the person gives up and goes inside. While the sage brews the tea the guest tells the sage about all the books read, all the people met, all the places visited. The sage listened, placed a fragile tea cup in the guest’s hand, and then began to pour the tea. The guest failed to notice when the tea cup was full, so the sage just kept pouring until the tea ran over the sides of the cup and spilled to the floor in a steaming waterfall. "What are you doing?!" the guest yelled. "It's full, can't you see that? Stop! There's no more room!" "Just so," the sage said. "You come here wanting something from me, but what am I to do? There is no more room in your cup. Come back when it is empty and then we will talk."
Barbara Brown Taylor makes a literary connection between this story and Nicodemus’ story: “Jesus and Nicodemus dispensed with a tea ritual, but the outcome was the same. Nicodemus came looking for answers. Jesus would not cooperate. He poured tea all over his visitor's hand and said, in effect, that Nicodemus already had gallons of answers available to him. What he needed was one drop of experience--one moment of new birth--and he could leave all his answers lying in puddles on the floor.” ("Stay for Tea, Nicodemus," Barbara Brown Taylor, The Christian Century, 1996)
I have a friend that I love very much, but who tends to be very reactive. When I say something that he understands through his own filters, he concludes something very different from what I meant. And he begins to rant. I used to try to interrupt him, but he would just keep talking. Eventually I learned to simply wait him out. As I listened, I became fascinated with the way my words could lead to such different conclusions. When he finally finished his rant, I said, “Are you done?” and proceeded to say what I meant in another way. He finally calmed down and understood.
The great Jewish theologian, Martin Buber, described this well: “Nothing in the world can change from one reality into another unless it first turns into nothing, that is, into the reality of the between-stage.” This is precisely why we need faith. Without faith we will not empty our tea cup so we can receive something new. But we have to empty it before we are sure that the tea that is being offered will actually satisfy us. Wise people have learned only by opening ourselves to the unpredictable can we become flexible enough to deal with reality as it comes. A third Margaret for this Trinity Sunday is Margaret Fredrickson. She writes that, “People who flourish become ‘beautifully unpredictable’ [because] acting in unexpected ways is necessary for growth. Nobody grows by doing the same thing every day. In natural selection random genetic variation leads to new traits, even new species. Children are not exact replicas of their parents. There’s always some random genetic combination that can lead to new skills and attributes. Similarly I think that being “beautifully unpredictable” is essential for our individual evolution. (The Science of Happiness: Barbara Fredrickson On Cultivating Positive Emotions, Angela Winter, in The Sun Magazine 05/09)
My friends, this morning we welcome the Church of Peace to share our building and enter into partnership. There is a beautiful unpredictability about the journey ahead. I invite you to discover the beauty of unpredictability as you open yourself to the discomfort of not knowing on the path to the deeper, more life-giving knowing of the Spirit, both in your personal lives and as a congregation.