Sunday, June 7
Trinity Sunday
First Sunday after Pentecost

Focus Theme
Mysterious Encounter

Weekly Prayer
Holy God, the earth is full of the glory of your love. May we your children, born of the Spirit, so bear witness to your Son Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, that all the world may believe and have eternal life through the one who saves, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

Focus Reading
John 3:1-17

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

All Readings For This Sunday
Isaiah 6:1-8 with Psalm 29 and
Romans 8:12-17 and
John 3:1-17

Reflection and Focus Questions
by Mark Suriano

Focus Questions 1. How do you think of "faith"? Is it about content, or is it a way of believing, or perhaps a way of being in relationship with God? 2. Why do you think Nicodemus came to see Jesus in the dark of night? What sort of questions arise in the night? 3. Can you relate to the figure (the "type") of Nicodemus? Have you come to faith slowly, over time, or in a dramatic, sudden experience? 4. What does it mean, to you, to be "born again"? 5. How does our understanding of God's activity influence the way we act in the world? Text for Meditation God so loved the world that God gave God's only Son, / so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. For ideas on how to meditate with the Bible, read our article on Praying With the Bible

In his book on the emergent church, How (Not) to Speak of God, Peter Rollins includes a reflection on what he calls "Heretical Orthodoxy" and invites his readers to consider a third way, somewhere between what he sees as the dual idolatries of absolutism and relativism. In thinking about this divide he invites the possibility of moving from the idea of orthodoxy as "right believing" to seeing orthodoxy as "believing in the right way." It is a subtle shift to be sure but one that can have powerful implications for understanding that the Christian faith is about a way of believing rather than a means of believing things about the world.

When we approach the figure of Nicodemus in the Gospel of John, we see a person who is confronted with what he believes about the world. In fact, he finds the things that Jesus is doing—the "signs" evident in the first part of the Gospel of John—to be oddly intriguing if not utterly disturbing. What he sees raises deep questions for him, the kind that will keep him up at night wondering what it all means. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel (Genesis 32) he will find his nighttime worries lead him to an encounter with one who will change not only what he believes but his very way of life as well.

It is early in the Gospel of John and Jesus has recently taken a whip to the Temple precincts and predicted its destruction (2:14-22). (As is typical for John, the Temple's destruction has a double meaning that the disciples, after the resurrection, would understand as applying to Jesus as well.) Unlike the other Gospel writers, John uses the cleansing of the temple as the way Jesus begins his ministry and introduces himself to the public. It also set the stage for how skeptically Jesus would approach those who believed because of the signs (2:23-25) and his ability to "look into people's hearts." By the end of Chapter 2, the incident in the Temple has set the stage for what is to come, most specifically the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus.

Hungering for something more

It is important to remember that Nicodemus is a type or kind of believer. As imperfect as he is he is a person who, given what he has seen of Jesus, struggles to understand. His questions are not hostile, nor are they dismissive. He comes to Jesus "at night" (3:1) and addresses Jesus consistently as "Rabbi." Like a good rabbi, Jesus poses questions, riddles almost, to Nicodemus urging him on to deeper understanding. It is Jesus who almost seems like the antagonist—he is, after all skeptical of people's motives—but Nicodemus stays with the line of questioning like a person hungry for something more.

Yet, as Randall Zachman points out, Nicodemus comes to Jesus because of the signs, thereby raising Jesus' suspicions. Further, he comes only because he and the other teachers only affirm Jesus as from God because he fits in with their prior understanding and interpretation of the Law of Moses. The result is that Jesus pushes Nicodemus by telling him that he must be born again and born from above. In order to begin to understand who Jesus is, Nicodemus first has to see and experience him from other than his comfortable place and preconceived notions.

How can we be "born again"?

In his own fumbling way, Nicodemus expresses the kind of confusion we can all feel when we stumble over our own preconceived notions of who God is or how God acts. Who among us would not wonder that because of our age (or perhaps our well-aged notions of God and the world), it is impossible to think about being "born again"? We are not so unlike this "teacher of Israel" that we may not meet the questioning Jesus with a defensive skepticism. This would all be true if the point of the exchange were our ability to change our minds, however, Jesus is offering Nicodemus an even more awesome possibility, that the Spirit can come and blow through our preconceived notions and tightly wound ideas to open us to the possibility of new life.

The word Jesus speaks is that Nicodemus must be born "anothen"—a Greek word that can mean either "from above" or "anew." We might want to do battle with the word and decide that we prefer one meaning over another, but what would happen if we admitted that the word means both those things? Henry G. Brinton suggests that we ought to explore the invitation to Nicodemus as speaking about both a time of birth ("anew") and the place from which the new birth will come ("from above").

This birth, generated by the Spirit, is a God-initiated transformation. In fact we might even see the reference to "water and the Spirit" as an expression of the same idea. Perhaps the "water" reference is an allusion to the baptismal waters in which people were born anew as they awaited the Spirit. (You can see similar patterns in Luke/Acts; see the readings for Ascension Day). Can it be that we, baptized into the church, are also in these days after Pentecost awaiting the coming of Spirit who will recreate us from above? Can our congregations, and the individuals that comprise them, be born again from above by the same God who was with Jesus and is with us now as Spirit, a God who constantly re-creates us by opening our minds to new understanding?

Who is this Jesus?

The passage quickly turns from a dialogue with Nicodemus to a monologue by Jesus. The last half of the reading doesn't involve Nicodemus at all but becomes an articulation of who this Jesus is who has already created a stir by clearing the Temple. He has authority because he came from heaven and will, in the end, return there. He is the one who will be "lifted up" and, like the healing image of the serpent in the desert, he has come so that the world might be saved through him. By borrowing the image from Numbers 21:9, Jesus equates this salvation with the healing of the world, the purpose of his being lifted up—both on the cross and in glory as John's theology would suggest—is so that we might be made whole and entire.

As a type of believer, Nicodemus is a powerful figure in the Gospel of John. Although he first comes to Jesus at night—presumably out of fear, but also a symbol in John of his lack of understanding—he returns twice more in increasing daylight—and understanding—as the one who defends Jesus at his trial (7:50-51) and as the one who would prepare Jesus' body for burial (19:39). In the end his is a story of a person whose faith gradually dawned on him. Far from being the instantaneous conversion (as many who claim a "born again" experience as a singular event might say) he took a while to come to faith and to eventually be the one who would not abandon Jesus near the end of his life. While individual instances of conversion are powerful, what we have in Nicodemus is a person whose life was spent in coming to faith. In our own lives, the same Spirit may also take its time, gradually bringing us from fear to faith and from timid acceptance to bold witness.

In the end Nicodemus was able to "believe in the right way," and was given the gift of transcending what he thought he knew to being the one known so closely by God that he was redefined in the process. When we open the scriptures to this passage from the Gospel of John, we open ourselves to the possibility that we will encounter a God who will redefine us and transform our believing as well.

Notes on Trinity Sunday

Some authors see in this passage early signs of a Trinitarian understanding, even though all of them are clear to remind us that the theology of the Trinity is a later concept. Henry G. Brinton, drawing on Kenneth E. Bailey, sees a strong connection between the threefold response of Jesus, introduced each time in the text by "Very truly, I tell you...." as reflective of the three distinct persons of later Trinitarian theology. The reading, however, is not concerned with how God is in relationship but what God does, how God acts: God Creator, God Sanctifier and God Redeemer. Walter Brueggemann and others simply note that while none of the texts for the day can be seen as being about the Trinity, each of the texts "is associated with Christian reflection on the Trinity, and also reveals something about human speech in relation to the Trinity."

While the Gospel reading for the day, and the other texts as well, help describe the activity of God, it would do violence to the scriptures to "proof text" our way into credal statement. The way we know the God of whom the bible speaks is by our experience of how God acts on our behalf. Like the writers of the Gospels we speak of a God who comes to us as a Creator, Sanctifier, and Redeemer. Each of these is a rich, and sometimes problematic, relational term that begs for exploration. On Trinity Sunday, it might be helpful to explore the high concept of Trinity from the perspective of how we know and experience God in relationship and how we have known God to act in our lives and in the world. Who is this God who has made us and remade us in love? What does the life of God say to our lives as we seek wisdom and inspiration to live in communities of love and witness?

The Reverend Mark J. Suriano is pastor of Old South Church United Church of Christ in Kirtland, Ohio.

For further reflection

Hafiz, 14th century
I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing Light of your own Being.

George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans), 19th century
It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

Galileo Galilei, 17th century
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.

Weekly Seeds is a source for meditation and prayer based on the readings of the "Lectionary," a plan for weekly Bible readings used in Protestant, Anglican and Roman Catholic churches throughout the world. When we pray and study the Bible using the Lectionary, we are praying and studying with millions of others. We invite you to continue the conversation on our "Opening the Bible" forum at http://i.ucc.org.

Weekly Seeds is a service of the Congregational Vitality Initiative, Local Church Ministries, United Church of Christ. Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version, © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The Revised Common Lectionary is © 1992 Consultation on Common Texts. Used by permission. The Ancient Christian Devotional is © 2007 by Thomas C. Oden and ICCS, and is published by InterVarsity Press. Used by permission.