00:00:00:00 - 00:00:15:20 Rev. Trudy Welcome to Perspectives, a podcast where the clergy women of the First United Methodist Church of San Diego share their musings on Scripture, theology, and what it has to do with us. 00:00:15:22 - 00:00:36:23 Rev. Brittany Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Perspectives. I'm Reverend Brittany and I'm here with Reverend Hannah. And this week we're going to be talking about Divine Gifts, which is a new series that we'll be going into. And this day, we're going to be talking about the Divine gift of surprise. And we're going to be studying the Gospel of John, chapter three, verses one through nine. 00:00:37:01 - 00:01:03:09 Rev. Hannah Yes. And before I start reading this, I wanted to remind you and everyone that this is the last gospel written. It is among the four, some two generations after Jesus' time, and it's pretty refined, anthologized. So keep that in your mind as you hear the story: "There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a Jewish leader. 00:01:03:11 - 00:01:33:08 Rev. Hannah He came to Jesus at night and said to him, 'Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could do these miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.' Jesus answered, 'I assure you, unless someone is born on you, it's not possible to see God's kingdom.' Nicodemus asked, 'how is it possible for an adult to be born? 00:01:33:10 - 00:02:03:22 Rev. Hannah It's impossible to enter the mother's womb for a second time and be born, isn't it?' Jesus answered, 'I assure you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Don't be surprised that I said to you, you must be born anew. 00:02:04:00 - 00:02:26:13 Rev. Hannah God's Spirit blows wherever it wishes you are. You hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going. It's the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit.' Nicodemus said, 'How are these things possible?'" Question mark. 00:02:26:14 - 00:02:40:01 Rev. Brittany Question mark. You know, I struggle with John's gospel, a little bit, of all four of them. 00:02:40:03 - 00:02:41:00 Rev. Hannah Tell me about. 00:02:41:00 - 00:03:12:18 Rev. Brittany It. I just struggle with them a little bit. John's gospel feels like it has a very high Christology, which means that Jesus is very high and lifted up, very lofty above the people in many ways. And to me, it like edifies His divinity, but doesn't really give any substance to his humanity in this for me. And so, I'm working on John. And he, I don't feel the same way about John that I do about Paul. 00:03:12:18 - 00:03:15:23 Rev. Brittany But Paul and I are in a gracious relationship now. We're working on it, Hannah. 00:03:15:23 - 00:03:19:10 Rev. Hannah You get to the point. Yeah. Give John some grace. 00:03:19:12 - 00:03:39:11 Rev. Brittany I'm gonna give him some grace, because, yeah. But I think that if I had been a person hearing John's gospel. Right. And I just kind of put it into perspective of, like some of the evangelists that we see outside and they hand out the street pamphlets about Christianity. That's kind of what I think about John a little bit. 00:03:39:11 - 00:04:08:07 Rev. Brittany It's a little, heavily on the "be saved, hurt, or die" kind of thing. And that feels a little intense for me in my modern-day interpretation. But I do have grace for John because he does have really good things to say. So, as we get to talking about Nicodemus, what's happening in this text, which is interesting to me, is that Nicodemus is a Pharisee, and the Pharisees are staunchly against Jesus. 00:04:08:07 - 00:04:30:04 Rev. Brittany They are staunchly opposed to Jesus. They don't understand why he's there. And the Pharisees are the religious leaders, right? So they're the ones who are in charge of making sure that the religious institution is running as it should be, right? Business as usual, tradition over people, right? And Jesus has a very different understanding of the Scriptures, right? 00:04:30:08 - 00:04:51:22 Rev. Brittany Jesus reads the same Scriptures, but He feels them differently, and His interpretation of them are a little bit different. And so, when Nicodemus, as this Pharisee, comes to Jesus and has this question, many people may think that he's coming to antagonize Jesus, right? But there's something about it that feels a little different than how the Pharisees typically approach Jesus. 00:04:51:22 - 00:05:12:13 Rev. Brittany Right? Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the nighttime, right? Verse two says, he came to Jesus at night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you were a teacher who has come from God. For no one can do these miraculous signs that you do unless God is with them, right? And so for me, Nicodemus coming at night, he's coming away from the crowd, right? 00:05:12:15 - 00:05:33:01 Rev. Brittany He's doing this in the secret, right, in the shadows of the night. Kind of coming to Jesus to ask this question. So, I don't feel like he's totally antagonizing Jesus, but I do feel like he's using a little bit of his hermeneutic of suspicion. He's skeptical of what Jesus is talking about, but he wants to know for himself, right? 00:05:33:01 - 00:05:57:11 Rev. Brittany As not to one cause a scene. And I also think, it provides him this intimate one-on-one opportunity to talk to Jesus, as opposed to in the broad daylight when he's being surrounded by so many people. And could he really get his question answered, or have that relationship built with so many people around in the day? 00:05:57:12 - 00:06:20:05 Rev. Hannah And yet, have you ever experienced something like this? You're one on one with someone, in a dark, dark night, having a serious conversation, and the points never meet. And I see that in verses three and four. And Jesus tells: "unless someone is born anew, it's impossible to see God's kingdom." And he asks, "how is it possible?" 00:06:20:07 - 00:06:42:14 Rev. Hannah So we're doing missing the point. What are you trying to be born again or a born anew? According to this version, it's impossible to enter the mother's womb again, right? For a second time and be born. So, Jesus is talking about something and he's missing the point. And in retrospect, I, this time, I was reading this text. 00:06:42:14 - 00:07:14:21 Rev. Hannah I was like, I bet Nicodemus and Jesus and John the writer are all bilingual, if not trilingual. Nicodemus is fluent in Greek and Hebrew, but he is stuck with this womb imagery with the word "born again" or "born anew." And in Greek it says "anothen," which means which can mean "born again" or "born anew" or "born from above." 00:07:15:02 - 00:07:58:06 Rev. Hannah Oh, okay. The origin of your birth. And Jesus challenges Nicodemus with this wordplay. So to be born from above, born anew. But Nicodemus is hitting born again or born anew. And Jesus is challenging Nicodemus to move beyond the surface meaning of this word, to a deeper one. So birth is not about physical birth from water but also a spiritual birth that your spirit is renewed and it comes from above. 00:07:58:08 - 00:08:35:02 Rev. Hannah And it's not only a time of birth, it's also the place from which the new birth is generated. So I think in their bilingual or trilingual communication, they're missing meanings because Nicodemus, because he knew, he knew. He thought he knew so much, he was so certain. And his use of those languages and his certainty and knowledge hinders him from seeing something new and surprising in this conversation. 00:08:35:17 - 00:08:38:12 Rev. Hannah I think that's why they're doing this. 00:08:38:13 - 00:09:00:02 Rev. Brittany Yeah. I feel like Nicodemus is talking very literally. He's thinking very literally. And Jesus is like wanting him to think higher and think figuratively and think beyond. Right. Think with the Spirit of God versus like, "of course, of course, you can't go back into your mother's womb, Nicodemus. Like, of course you can't. So I must be talking about something different." 00:09:00:04 - 00:09:03:17 Rev. Hannah There's gotta be second meaning or third meaning in the dictionary. 00:09:03:18 - 00:09:06:08 Rev. Brittany It must be right. 00:09:06:10 - 00:09:37:12 Rev. Trudy Hey, it's Reverend Trudy. Thanks for tuning in for this week's Perspectives. Be sure to like, follow, and subscribe, and all those other things. You know what you have to do so that you can get the latest episode as they go live. And if you're really enjoying the conversation, I invite you to help support this ministry. You can give online at fumcsd.org/giveonline. 00:09:37:14 - 00:09:47:16 Rev. Trudy That's fumcsd.org/give online. Thank you. 00:09:48:03 - 00:09:48:07 Rev. Hannah well. 00:09:48:07 - 00:10:11:21 Rev. Brittany When Jesus says in verse five, "I assure you, unless someone is born of water and of the Spirit, it is not possible to enter God's kingdom. Whatever is born of the flesh is the flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is the Spirit." This is why I have a problem with John a bit, right? Because when we take John's, when we read this, this text, this recopy rather, it can be used right? 00:10:11:21 - 00:10:43:17 Rev. Brittany As though baptism is the only way that people can come to know God. And that's very Christian, Christo-centric, with the very high Christology. Right. And so it, I have to always remind myself that John is talking to a very particular context, but we need to be careful of the ways in which we use baptism as this act of justification for so many things without paying attention to. 00:10:43:19 - 00:11:07:15 Rev. Brittany Because let me tell you what John Wesley said, okay? John Wesley said, you only need to be baptized one time, okay? Because there's still work to be done in baptism. Okay? You need to be baptized in the heart. The heart needs to be baptized, right? So going into these acts of ritual, sometimes for Christians, at least in my experience, is that we get so tied to the ritual that we forget the meaning that comes behind it, and why we do those things, right? 00:11:07:15 - 00:11:10:18 Rev. Brittany Because we've just been so routinized with this. Yeah. 00:11:10:19 - 00:11:40:01 Rev. Hannah So following the verse, I think I want to save, John a little bit. Right. I'm not a man savior, but let me save him. So after that verse about the Christological, Christo centric, usage of the baptism image, Jesus says, it's not John. "Don't be surprised that I said to you, you must be born anew." 00:11:40:03 - 00:12:11:18 Rev. Hannah And then he talks about God's Spirit blowing wherever it wishes. Yeah, I feel like you hear it sound and you don't know where it's coming from or where it's going. It's the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit. So, whereas John might have been centralizing Christ in this rewriting of the story, Jesus was also saying "you don't know where the Spirit is moving." 00:12:11:18 - 00:12:47:10 Rev. Hannah So He's actually deconstructing the center and dispersing it everywhere. And here again, this is another reason why I think they are more than bilingual. So this time, they use the word "pneuma" in Greek, which means when you translate that into Hebrew, that has two meanings. It can mean "wind" or "the spirit." So we hear the double meaning of the same words again, like "ruach" in Hebrew. 00:12:47:12 - 00:13:23:04 Rev. Hannah So with that wordplay, Jesus or John is saying, this is the Spirit's movement. The movement of the Spirit is a mystery beyond your knowledge or my control, beyond any human knowledge and control and like you have to relax a little bit. Yeah, Nicodemus, you have to relax a little bit. Your preconception of what's possible is preventing you from embracing what Jesus is offering you right now. 00:13:23:06 - 00:13:29:22 Rev. Hannah So it feels like, do you mind if I share a little bit of my personal story? 00:13:30:00 - 00:13:30:15 Rev. Brittany Share it. 00:13:30:19 - 00:14:07:20 Rev. Hannah Okay. I come from this biblical, Bible-based Christian family. Close to Southern Methodist or Korean Methodist. So, I inherited this faith as the way they interpreted it. So, I was full of it as I was growing up, and I knew for certain for sure where those verses are and what they meant. I didn't have any room in my mind or in my heart to receive anything new or surprising. 00:14:07:22 - 00:14:41:01 Rev. Hannah But as I was going through college and seminary, and as I use my reason to embrace my inherited faith, I needed, I knew something had to be gone. So, I needed to empty out some space from my brain and from my mind and from my heart. I had to let go of my certainty about certain things that I learned, and I was trained in, to hear the words fresh. 00:14:41:03 - 00:15:15:10 Rev. Hannah So, there was the process of letting go of what I know, and deconstructing my previous knowledge to hear the words fresh and reconstruct and reclaim the faith of my own in the space of the inherited faith. And I always wondered if that's what Jesus meant here. The movement of the Spirit. Yeah. Surprises you when you empty yourself of your knowledge. 00:15:16:09 - 00:15:20:07 Rev. Hannah And be open to hear something different. 00:15:21:08 - 00:15:48:23 Rev. Brittany That's good, because Jesus tells Nicodemus, "well, you're a teacher." When Nicodemus ask these questions, Jesus is like, "listen, you know, you're a teacher, right?" And I think that sometimes we have this understanding as Christians, right, that we know, especially when we've been and when and raised in it. Right. Entrenched in it. Right. I went to divinity school and I just thought I was the most non-judgmental Christian walking around until I sat in my classes. 00:15:48:23 - 00:16:09:04 Rev. Brittany And I thought, you are taking my Jesus and doing things with Him that I do not like. And so that is not what my very indecency and in order, you know, theology says to me, so you can't do that to my Jesus. We can't talk about those things. And then I realized that I had been raised in a very particular way. 00:16:09:04 - 00:16:40:02 Rev. Brittany And I, as open as I was, was as much more open I needed to be. Like, I had a lot of work to do and a lot of understanding to come to, and a lot of resolving within myself that I was wrong about some things or that I had missed the mark in some ways, and that Christ may not have been so happy or pleased with the way that I thought that I knew it all. 00:16:40:02 - 00:16:43:22 Rev. Hannah You know, you were one of those Nicodemus' in this world. 00:16:43:22 - 00:16:51:18 Rev. Brittany Absolutely. Very Nicodemus. And I'm gonna come to you. Well, I'm gonna ask you a question that the night and I'm gonna ask you a question in the daytime. I got a question. 00:16:51:22 - 00:17:16:11 Rev. Hannah I know, but hold on to your questions. I have a little more story to tell us a story. Okay, so let me circle back to the use of the Greek word "anothen" as "born anew", "born again." And these were the words we hear often in, various Bible translations. And that's something that was like beating on me too. 00:17:16:13 - 00:17:48:12 Rev. Hannah When was I born again? When was the drastic change that happened? Yeah. But then I look into the third meaning "born from the above," "born from the same origin" is telling you that you came from the same God. With the same dignity and the same worth within you. And that was a stark contrast with the identity I was given growing up by the society. 00:17:48:14 - 00:18:26:01 Rev. Hannah I'm a Korean, woman, clergy, and all of those different identities that weigh you down. In many different ways at night. Right. Right. When you're alone. And when you're with people, you lower yourself than others. Or sometimes you have to claim your position. But with this word "born from the above," Jesus is offering Nicodemus or someone like you who identify with Nicodemus myself, who claim to be religious leaders, that we are all from the same origin. 00:18:26:02 - 00:18:41:00 Rev. Hannah Right. And that's a new identity. And. So, be open to some surprises because we don't know where we are going to be, where we're headed. We are headed. 00:18:42:12 - 00:19:05:04 Rev. Brittany So yeah, it's like grace, right. It's Jesus. Is really we get to John Wesley and how I feel about good old John. You know we have the grace that meets us where we are at grace. But then we have justifying grace where Jesus says, you are worthy, you are forgiven. And then from there, we take the grace and we become sanctified because we're doing acts of sanctification. 00:19:05:05 - 00:19:24:23 Rev. Brittany Right. Acts of faith, living the works of it. And I think that that's what Jesus is calling Nicodemus to do right now. "You have these questions, Nicodemus, where you can do with them." Right. And for us, what are we going to do with them. Yes. How do we move into this wonder and surprise and accepting this divine gift? 00:19:27:02 - 00:19:29:09 Rev. Brittany Yeah. Reverend Hannah Ka. 00:19:29:10 - 00:19:33:21 Rev. Hannah I don't know if you know about this, but I get surprised each day. 00:19:33:23 - 00:19:34:14 Rev. Brittany Do you? 00:19:34:14 - 00:19:37:04 Rev. Hannah Yeah. That's beautiful. Yes. 00:19:37:07 - 00:19:40:12 Rev. Brittany What surprised you today? 00:19:40:14 - 00:19:48:10 Rev. Hannah Well, I won't answer whatever comes to my mind first. You don't wanna hear it, or you don't want to show it to others. 00:19:48:12 - 00:20:01:06 Rev. Brittany Okay, I'll give you a word about that. All right, all right, all right. Well, as someone who ... I don't dislike surprises, but I don't ... I think I like to be pleasantly surprised. 00:20:02:07 - 00:20:20:19 Rev. Brittany I don't like to be displeasantly surprised or unpleasantly surprised. Not just pleasantly. So, Nicodemus, he ends the text with, how are these things possible? And so now we have some questions for you all: Do you like surprises? How do you feel about them? 00:20:20:21 - 00:20:43:10 Rev. Brittany Second question is: Have you been surprised by God? If so, how? And: What questions about faith and life come to your mind at night when you're alone? We hope that you will join us for Tapestry as we learn more about who God is calling us to be with these Divine gifts. On Sunday mornings at 11. Hope to see you soon. 00:20:43:12 - 00:20:44:18 Rev. Brittany Bye. 00:20:44:20 - 00:21:12:23 Rev. Trudy This is a production of First United Methodist Church of San Diego. To learn more about our events and ministries and to access additional learning resources, visit fumcsd.org.