Sermon - The Rev. Dr. Elise A. Feyerherm, Mar. 5th, 2023

Given our two scripture readings today about Abram and Nicodemus, we might be forgiven for thinking that Abram comes out ahead in terms of his relative courage and willingness to take on the task of following God. God says, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you,” and Abram goes, no questions asked. Nicodemus, on the other hand, approaches Jesus in secret, under cover of night so that no one can hold him accountable for the consequences of his inquiries. When Jesus tells him he must be born from above, of the Spirit, Nicodemus responds not with action but with questions that could be construed as merely delaying tactics; then he disappears while Jesus is left to continue the work of God.

We would be forgiven for holding up Abram as the only hero here. And we would also be mistaken, I think. We would be mistaken in prioritizing what is visible over what is hidden, and valuing what is immediate over the long, sometimes agonizing, and usually invisible process of transformation that all humans are called to undertake. Nicodemus is the protagonist of this latter kind of story; the story of false starts, of change that begins deep in the recesses of the soul, so deep that it is often hard to see that it is happening at all, until it breaks through with some new, green shoot of transformed life.

Nicodemus, you see, has not totally disappeared. I think he has taken the seed given him by Jesus, and I think he has planted it. As with all seeds, it takes a while for it to break down, and germinate. But germinate it does.

You see, Nicodemus appears again in John’s gospel – two more times. Near the end of chapter seven, he is engaged in conversation with those who want the temple police to arrest Jesus, resisting the group’s condemnation by reminding them of the essence of Jewish justice. “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” (John 7:51), he says. True to form, Nicodemus is still asking questions, digging in the dirt to find soil that will nurture the truth. Earlier, he questioned Jesus: “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” “How can these things be?” Now he interrogates what is born of human fear, the instinctual alarm that sounds in the human heart when what is familiar is threatened.

Nicodemus has poked his head up, and then he tucks back in underground for more than half of the story. He doesn’t reemerge until the end, after Jesus has died. This time he comes to Jesus in daylight, with Joseph of Arimathea, “bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds” (John 19:39). Together with Joseph, Nicodemus helps to wrap Jesus’ body in the spices and linen cloths, and together they lay him in the tomb. 

What has been happening with Nicodemus all this time? What is happening with the seeds that Jesus gave him? The truth is, we don’t really know. What we do know is that Nicodemus found the courage to speak challenging words to a community to which he belonged, which is never, ever an easy thing to do. And we know that he was willing to be seen in public caring for the body of Jesus, an executed criminal. We also know that he did not skimp on what he brought to embalm the body – a hundred pounds was an extravagant amount by any standards of the day. Perhaps he could afford it. Yet we can see in his actions something in the heart of Nicodemus aching to be expressed. 

What has been germinating has been doing so in the quiet, in the dark, underground, which we know is the way of germination. Even now, as we wait for spring, as the snow falls and the trees wisely keep their buds tucked in, we know that life is stirring underground; in fact, it has never ceased stirring. The roots of the trees have been whispering to one another all winter, the bulbs getting ready to push green shoots upward. Things have been happening, though we could not see them.

Such it was, I think, with Nicodemus. And such it is with us, so much of the time. Sometimes our lives follow the path of Abram: our intention firm, our will focused and strong, and the energy to move poised for immediate action. God calls, and we go, even taking our relatives with us, as Abram brought his nephew Lot. There are times in all of our lives when the transformation is visible and clear.

Much of the time, however, I think we follow the path of Nicodemus. Bewildered, unsure how to respond to the longing that Jesus kindles in our hearts, we go underground for a while, until we are shown a way to give voice to the new birth that is calling our name. And even when we do speak, it may be only a partial telling, a tentative, vague articulation that something in the world is not quite right, even if we are not quite ready to pledge ourselves to the solution.  

We may not even know ourselves that change is taking place, not until we blurt out our inchoate thoughts. We may know the change only as an ache, or a new tenderness to the blows meted out by a habitually violent and callous world. But just because we are not aware of it, it does not mean that our transformation has not begun.

This is true not only for us who are already stumbling toward Jesus, whether by night or in the day. There are people who enter our lives whose inner journey is invisible to us, whose longings and struggles we cannot imagine. For them, we might serve not as Nicodemus but, in a strange way, Jesus – a sounding board for their questions and a voice for the power of love.

Every Friday morning I meet with Boston University seminary students for Morning Prayer, spiritual practice, and Eucharist. We gather in a small chapel in a public classroom building; at regular intervals, lively and sometimes loud packs of students stream past our door on their way to and from class. One Friday, an undergraduate student wandered in during Morning Prayer and sat down and prayed with us. Discovering that this was an actual class, they were mortified at having walked in until we insisted that it was okay and they were more than welcome to stay. 

A self-proclaimed secular person with no religious exposure whatsoever, they had lots and lots of questions, not unlike Nicodemus’s “How can these things be?” We did not hide our identity or our commitments, and we had no illusions about how strange all this must sound to someone coming in completely from outside a religious worldview. And we did not have any expectation of their return. 

But return they did, week after week. They are still coming.

I don’t know what is percolating underground in this person’s soul. I don’t know that this person will come to faith in any way that we would recognize as Christian, any more than I understand the content of Nicodemus’s faith in the end. Will being part of our community bring this person to Christ? I don’t know, and I’m not sure that it matters. 

When Nicodemus defended Jesus in a crowd of religious leaders, or prepared Jesus’ body for burial, 

did he know Jesus as the Son of God, the Word Incarnate? Or had this underground transformation 

simply brought Nicodemus new courage to speak for justice and care for the outcast? That, it seems to me, may be enough.

These mysterious, hidden germinations are holy. Deep underground, as the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “God is ripening,” Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, the buried grain sends forth its green blade, reaching for the sun. We should not let the hiddenness discourage us, or convince us that we are stagnating, or not doing it right. As our Lenten journey continues, it seems to me that our task is not so much to get results, as it is to pay attention to and nourish what is germinating beyond our sight, in our own souls and in the souls of those whose pilgrimages cross and converge with our own. 

As with Nicodemus, the green shoots will make their way into the light – this is the promise of God who gives life to the world, even deep underground. Especially deep underground.

Amen.