This homily is a short “starter” homily that encourages the assembly at our 5:00pm liturgy to add their own insights and reflections in conversation with the preacher. Gathered in a circle in the early evening, we enjoy this evening Eucharist as a more intimate form of worship on the Lord’s Day.
Preached on the Feast of the Holy Trinity (Year B), May 26, 2024, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by Laurel Tallent.
Christ and Nicodemus by Fritz von Uhde
Over the past few months I have found myself in conversations with people, many younger than me, about our role in our communities as we get older. What does it mean to be an elder? What will the people that I mentor need from me? What do I need?
Isaiah and Nicodemus, two elders in their own communities, are both faced with situations beyond their considerable mortal experience, and in the process reveal eldership that breaks our modern, conventional expectations of elders. They are faced with mystical ideas, and they rise to the occasion with faith, utilizing what skills they have to understand them, and help others understand.
In these conversations I’ve been having, especially with other queer people, there is always a point where we are silent, we are speechless, because there is always a point where we have to reckon with what we have lost. We are thinking about how many black and indigenous elders - queer and otherwise - the world has been deprived of because of the virulent violence of Whiteness and colonialism. There have always been queer people, so we are thinking about the queer grandparents and great, great, greats beyond count that we have lost due to generations of erasure. We are thinking of the negligence of a government that didn’t care about young people who would have - should have - aged alongside my parents here. The creative challenge of becoming a queer elder, or in finding one, is inextricably tied to the loss that created much of the challenge. In that creative challenge, I find an example of eldership in Nicodemus.
Nicodemus, a rabbi, a member of the governing religious body, a head of a rabbinical school, is undoubtedly an elder in his community. He is mentioned glowingly both in the gospel of John and in the Talmud. While we have accounts of Jesus and other religious leaders confronting one another in front of congregations and on the street, Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night for a conversation. Nicodemus is considered a saint in a few traditions, so there are plenty of depictions of him to choose from. One that I particularly like has Jesus standing arms out as if in the middle of a long explanation, body half towards Nicodemus, half towards a window, which captures the sense that this conversation is split between the immediate audience and a universal one. And Nicodemus looks up at him, head on his fists, listening. I picture Nicodemus as engaged, not convinced, but not dismissive. It recalls Jesus’ day at the temple, in Luke, where his youthful wisdom and questions were both welcomed.
We’re told that Nicodemus recognizes something legitimate about Jesus, and I think that the privacy of this conversation shows his good faith to earnestly investigate. Nicodemus’ question, in response to Jesus’ description of re-birth sounds sarcastic, but is still a sign of good faith: “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” He is using Rabbinic dialogue to press an impossible situation onto a statement in order to pick out what is actually true. When I was talking to Liz about this, she mentioned that this is similar to the practice of motivational coaching - “You do not care about quitting smoking, and your family encourages it!” provides a platform for the patient to vehemently disagree, and to connect with and articulate their motivations to quit smoking. Nicodemus isn’t “just asking questions” to get a rise out of Jesus, to mock him or to silence him. He is using the tools that he has - as an elder - he is inviting Jesus to use those tools alongside him, so that Jesus is able to communicate his mission and role outside of himself.
At the core of Nicodemus and Jesus’ interaction, I see Nicodemus giving Jesus a gift. To know you are the Son of God is one thing, but how could Jesus find the words to clearly communicate what that meant? As fully human, Jesus inherently needed the support and coaching that an elder could provide. John’s first three chapters show us that Jesus has friends-slash-students who have some ideas, and one very eccentric, insightful cousin who sees him for who he is, his true identity. In the meantime, Jesus performs a miracle, he turns over tables, but I don’t read him as having a clear grasp of his mission. These are the three statements Jesus makes in John before his conversation with Nicodemus: “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these”, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace” “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days” I read these statements as the Son of God recognizing his power and his identity, but they aren’t capturing the mission of the Word becoming flesh. I don’t think Jesus is ready to teach that yet. So what a gift, to be coached by the teacher of Israel.
Nicodemus models authentic curiosity, not just as an aspect of Rabbinic dialogue, but a curiosity with the ideas that Jesus was bringing to the table. Jesus’s term “born again” was not novel, it has a Jewish origin. In the practice of the day, Nicodemus had already been born again as many times as possible for a man of his status and age. Per Pharisaic Judaism, he had been re-born four times; with his bar mitzvah, through his marriage, when he became a rabbi, and when he became the head of a rabbinical school. In Nicodemus’ question, I hear a continued interest in being transformed, regardless. He isn’t waving Jesus away saying “I have already been re-born”, or “I’ve learned enough”.
But the all-knowing elder is one we’re familiar with. The one who has no patience for youth’s exploration of identity, or the formation of their ideas. They’d rather everyone just grow up already, because arriving at one’s full potential is the only acceptable move. Liberation theologian Dr Willie Jennings points us to the enmeshment of Christianity and whiteness as a poison that deforms our understanding of maturity. If Christian life is about being born again and formed into that newness, Whiteness distorts that formation after re-birth into an individual’s trajectory that peaks and reaches a final destination. Jennings says “Whiteness offers us a relationship with the world that is one dimensional, where we take from it what we see fit, caring for it only within the logistics of making it more productive for us”. Whiteness twists our practice of eldership into a horrific drive, where elders invest only what is necessary to bring about the optimal productivity of those they counsel.
“You hold the office of teacher of Israel and you still don’t know this?” So early into his ministry, Jesus is standing at the intersection of disappointment in elders who do not understand him, and surprise that they do not understand him. Jesus’ frustration isn’t just over their rejection, but their inability to see a larger vision that he is deeply attuned to and unable to communicate effectively. Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel, is an effective elder to Jesus in this moment not because he’s invested in Jesus’ having a successful ministry, not just because he has the tools that Jesus needs. Nicodemus is a gifted elder because of his curiosity and pursuit of being made new, over and over again.
The ultimate product of this conversation is Jesus articulating God’s sacrifice for the people he loves. It makes sense in the context of John, the gospel that is so tender and so deeply in love. But I’m not focused on the productivity of the conversation. Instead I want to lift up John 3:16 as a snippet of an incredibly important and sacred interpersonal experience: Nicodemus became Jesus’ elder. The Word became flesh and lived among us. The Word became flesh and couldn’t find the words. Nicodemus became Jesus’ elder, and helped him find the words.
Our elders don’t have to look like us, or be like us to meet our needs. As a white person, I know that it is incredibly important that I find, learn from and be transformed by elders who do not look like me, who do not think or love like me. It’s not only personally important, but imperative to the mission of disentangling whiteness from Christianity, and finding our way to a truer maturity than the one whiteness offers.
There’s no “representation” for the unique son of god. But Nicodemus and Jesus’ shared identities as teachers clearly plays an important role in their conversation. They discuss like rabbis, Jesus alludes to Nicodemus’ identity as THE rabbi. I wonder how Jesus’ mission was uniquely shaped by his identity as a rabbi. I wonder how Nicodemus’ teaching was transformed in his own, unexpected, precedent-breaking 5th re-birth.
I am thirty three. I am not of a traditional “elder” age, but I feel the world’s hunger for it. I see it whenever I am clocked by a young trans person, like my wife’s co-worker’s teen, who spent multiple hours hovering around me at a health fair. Myself and other queer and trans people in my life are hungry to have elders that look like us. But gosh darn it, more and more queer kids keep showing up, and they have that hunger for elders too. The reality of our world has called many elders into that role before they feel ready. I do worry - I am trailed by whiteness’ expectations of maturity, the expectation that we reach that peak of productivity before we are called to eldership. You are too. In this matter (as with many others) the burning coal has been placed on our lips. God has met us and called us into something that doesn’t imply our perfection or full potential. We have been called clean and sent out.
Regardless of your age or identity - how do you see yourself being called into eldership? What does Nicodemus, Isaiah or Jesus, model for your practice of eldership?