A few weeks ago in worship, my congregation allowed me to forego a traditional sermon. Instead, after the scripture was read from John 3:1-21, I came out in one of those ridiculous Bible character costumes that have no doubt appeared in many churches. Taking a seat on a raised stool, and introducing myself as Nicodemus, I simply invited the congregation to ask me any questions they would like about my conversation with Jesus that night we’ve all heard about. They were given advance notice that this was coming, so many of the questions were thoughtful and specific. When someone finally asked, “What does ‘born again’ mean?” it was a generous move, teeing me up for something I surely had prepared for. (As pastors reading this might imagine, it took at least as much preparation as other sermons.) One of the most important questions to be answered is Nicodemus’ relation to Jesus: is he a believer, a follower…or not? I’ve become convinced that not only does Nicodemus hold back from sharing all that he believes about Jesus, but that the concerns and constraints that accompany his position in religious leadership work against whatever impulse he may have had to follow Jesus.
The Gospel of John often draws sharp contrasts between those who recognize Jesus’ identity and authority, and those who do not; this begins in its very prologue when “the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” and yet “his own people did not accept him” (John 1:9, 11).1 Themes of light are at play in Nicodemus’ visit as well: he comes to meet Jesus at night (3:2), in contrast to the woman at the well who encountered Jesus at midday (4:6). At the tail end of Nicodemus’ discussion with Jesus, our evangelist does not narrate the conversation’s end or Nicodemus’ departure; John turns to the gospel’s audience and comments amidst soaring theology that “all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (3:20-21). Does this cast Nicodemus as one who loves darkness, meeting Jesus only at night? Or as one who, despite living in darkness, comes to meet Jesus, the Light of the World?
Nicodemus’ first words to Jesus suggest he thinks quite positively of 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” (John 3:2). And, after Jesus’ death, Nicodemus comes alongside Joseph of Arimathea to anoint Jesus’ body for burial (19:39). Yet amid the narrative, when others have even sent Temple police to arrest Jesus, Nicodemus cloaks any support he has for Jesus in a question, suggesting only that the law required him to be given a hearing (7:50-51). And in fact, when one looks closer, questions that mask his true thoughts seem to be Nicodemus’ most natural form of speaking.
Back in that nighttime visit, Jesus had answered Nicodemus’ greeting saying “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (3:3), though the Greek word (ἄνωθεν; ä’-nō-then) could also mean again or anew. Nicodemus’ response is memorable, asking “Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” (3:4) Perhaps we can find some humor imagining his confusion…but why would he leap to a farcical interpretation of what Jesus was saying? Jesus, in fact, twice calls him out on this, saying “Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above,’” and “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?” (3:7, 12)
Nicodemus holds a position of leadership in his religious tradition. Surely he’s familiar with the interpretation of scripture, and the use of metaphor to convey spiritual meaning. Do we really imagine that Nicodemus is such a literalist that he would hear Ezekiel 36:262 read in worship and object, “But my heart is still beating! How could it be made of stone and need a transplant?” If not, then surely Nicodemus could have come to an understanding of Jesus’ words about being “born again” that gave a more generous interpretation than literally re-entering the mother’s womb. If there is a misunderstanding, the quality of Nicodemus’ question suggests “this misunderstanding is aimed at the identity of the Johannine Jesus rather than at his message.”3 If his questions (here as well as in John 7) are in fact disingenuous, how might that change our hearing even of Nicodemus’ first greeting of Jesus?
Our evangelist may have counted on his audience being familiar with a well-known character trope of the time: that of the “dissembler”: a sometimes deceitful character, most defined by “the twin traits of lavishing praise and claiming ignorance.”4 Plato’s Socrates functions as a dissembler and the hero (because despite his flattering comments, those he speaks with are fools in the end), but more often the dissembler is simply a false friend. When John introduces Nicodemus first as a Pharisee and a “leader of the Jews” (literally, ruler of the Jews; 3:1), those are identifications that often function as clues for identifying opponents of Jesus (John 5:10-18, 9:13-34, 19:38, etc). We can certainly lament the way that such use in John’s gospel, among other New Testament texts, has led to anti-semitic readings despite the facts that Jesus and the disciples were also Jewish, and Jesus often agreed with Pharisees theologically (as on the topic of resurrection, in contrast/opposition to the Sadducees). But for an audience primed with those clues, even Nicodemus’ greeting of Jesus may have come across simply as the flattery of a dissembler. He’s clever enough to speak something that could be counted true as a technicality, hollow in meaning: All human beings are made by God, and nothing can be done apart from the presence of God (Psalm 139).
For those following John closely, Nicodemus’ greeting actually holds clues to other intentions that Nicodemus may have in visiting Jesus. When we hear of “signs” done by Jesus without context, it would be understandable to imagine healing the sick and casting out demons; in the other gospels, Jesus is routinely performing such miracles. But in John, this can only point back to Jesus’ demonstration at the Temple, driving out animals with a whip and pouring out the coins of moneychangers (2:13-21). Those public demonstrations are the “signs” that seem to precipitate Nicodemus’ visit. When confronting Nicodemus’ questions, and after reminding him that as a religious leader, he should know better, Jesus shifts the conversation to treat both himself and Nicodemus as representative of opposing groups: “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?” (3:11-12) Though the English obscures it, here Jesus is speaking in the plural, addressing “you all,” to include Nicodemus in a larger group who do not receive testimony, not just of Jesus alone but Jesus’ movement. What does Nicodemus, “ruler” of the Jews (which I take to mean that Nicodemus served on the Sanhedrin), think of Jesus’ sign-act at the Temple? As becomes more apparent later on (John 11:47-50), the council may have been concerned that a movement like Jesus’ disrupting the status quo could lead to retaliation from the Romans. They would surely have been familiar with the history of the Maccabean revolts, and given the hopes swirling around Jesus, probably feared that another attempt at violent resistance to outside rule would end in a similar or even more disastrous manner. When Jesus, who “needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone” (2:25), treats Nicodemus as belonging to an opposing group in vv3:11-12, it fits the scene well to understand Jesus having the Sanhedrin in mind.
It would be possible, then, to imagine that Nicodemus came at first as one opposing Jesus and that his later appearances show that Jesus had been compelling, bringing him to a different response. Especially at Jesus’ burial, Nicodemus’ actions with Joseph of Arimathea appear more faithful than those of the Twelve (19:38-39). But while Joseph is specifically named a “secret” disciple, Nicodemus is not–and the two of them may only feel safe to take such actions because they were not identified as followers of Jesus. Furthermore, if Jesus had been successful in changing Nicodemus’ mind during that nighttime visit, why would our evangelist not tell us of the result? In the chapter immediately following, Jesus’ dialogue with a Samaritan woman leads to a great many in her city professing, “we know that this is truly the Savior of the world” (4:42). In contrast, the conversation with Nicodemus trails off as the narrator takes over, and speaks of those who are “condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (3:18).
There is an alternative way to make sense of Nicodemus’ ambivalent depictions: his actions make perfect sense if he sees good things in Jesus’ teaching but has heard and potentially shares the council’s concerns about crowds rallying around a Messianic figure, perhaps in an earlier and less extreme form than in 11:45-50. Jesus’ self-identification as “Son of Man” (as in John 3:13-14, potentially some of the last words of Jesus’ direct dialogue with Nicodemus) invokes Daniel 7:13-14 and would bring to mind Messianic hopes and expectations. If Jesus’ Messianic identity were already contested, Nicodemus’ visit and questions can be read as an attempt to suss out the direction of Jesus’ movement and whether it would lead to violence with Rome–not entirely unlike how representatives were sent from Jerusalem to investigate John the Baptist (John 1:19-28). Speculation could be carried further into imagining Nicodemus volunteering to visit Jesus on behalf of the Sanhedrin because he was more fascinated or attracted to Jesus than others on the council. But setting speculation aside, Nicodemus’ response to Jesus (Unlike Caiaphas’) is what could be expected of religious leaders today: they may sharply disagree with an emerging influential voice, and yet respect some of the good in their ministry, oppose their unjust arrest, and pay respects in the event of untimely death (even as those more vulnerable to suffer the same fate might not be appearing publicly). This was the perspective I tried to take in my first-person sermon acting as Nicodemus and fielding the congregation’s questions. In my rendition, “I” was the kind of person who wanted to let Jesus have his little demonstration, then quietly set things back up in the Temple afterward–and use that disturbance as leverage reminding the vendors to keep it down, the way that institutions can often absorb criticism and claim to make adjustments without really making significant changes. I would have been happy to absorb some of Jesus’ teaching, especially where Jesus seemed to agree with Pharisees more than other factions, and wouldn’t have objected to a general call for spiritual rebirth and revival. I liked Jesus for his charisma and hoped that he would get past his radical phase–before he ended up causing an uprising that brought Roman vengeance upon us. But given the extent that Jesus was at odds with established leadership that I was still part of, and that he seemed to consider his movement more important than the whole institution of the Temple (John 2:18-21), “I” was not on Jesus’ team.
My congregation seemed to enjoy that interaction, puzzled at seemingly ambivalent attitudes for and against Jesus, until I indicated that I did not, in fact, follow after Jesus’ entourage as he left Jerusalem. At that point, a seminary student of the congregation, Stephen Flores, asked simply, “What would it have taken for you to actually join Jesus?” I knew from earlier conversations with Stephen that he’s influenced by the Nicodemus scene in The Chosen, where Jesus more directly invites Nicodemus to come with him. While John does carry on without telling about Nicodemus departing, it’s easy to imagine Jesus may have given such an invitation. But on that Sunday morning, inhabiting the character of Nicodemus, I came to a conclusion I hadn’t prepared in advance: “I don’t think there’s any way I would have been ready to follow Jesus unless I had already left the council I was serving on first. Being on the Sanhedrin, I just couldn’t have done that…”
Now, I generally shy away from drawing bold lines separating who does or does not count as a “believer” or a “follower” of Jesus, even when thinking of people I know much more deeply than a character with a total of four lines in a text from two thousand years ago. But following through from study that convinced me John our evangelist would put Nicodemus on the “not” side of such a line, and after trying to imagine Nicodemus not as a simple ally or opponent of Jesus, but as a leader with the kinds of concerns church leaders have today, Stephen’s question led these trains of thought to their logical conclusion: the greatest obstacle to Nicodemus wholeheartedly embracing Jesus’ call may have been his position in religious leadership. So after taking off the costume, I was left with new questions leading me into discomfort: By following a call into pastoral ministry, have I locked myself into an institution in such a way that, like Nicodemus, I might end up “inoculated” against the movement of the Spirit, if it were time for God to do a new thing? Do my habits as a religious leader reflect the disciples who left their lives to follow, or look more like Nicodemus who maybe felt he couldn’t take Jesus up on the invitation to “come and see” and “follow me”?
One of the ways that I think a local congregation can nudge its leaders off the mark is to conceive of everything in terms that make the church institution “the big picture” that other things have to fit into. Let’s consider a situation from recent years: In some congregations, across the summer of 2020, it was considered a disruption of worship when members mentioned the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd–or simply the renewed wave of #blacklivesmatter protests.5 In other congregations, these same events led to the formation of never-ending book studies as a means of raising awareness and helping many white folks feel like they’ve now positioned themselves on the right side of the issue (and history). One regular online participant with our congregation is involved with us precisely because her previous congregation responded with the former, and ours with the latter. And yet…don’t both of these tracks share an odd assumption? In either take, the church is made out to be the “bigger picture” as an institution: the church either rejects the conversation or sets the stage so that it’s playing host to the conversation. Some pastors are expected (outrageously, in my opinion) to throw the topic out, others to help host the book club. But are we encouraged to leave the church building behind and join a movement beyond the confines of our sanctuary, where there won’t be church folks acting as greeters or door guards (if there are doors at all)? When I brought my son to a #blacklivesmatter event near us, I was participating not as a pastor but as an ally and a father who wanted my son to see and to understand what he could of what was happening in our country.
One interpretation of Jesus’ tossing Temple tables is that the vendors’ and money changers’ location in the Court of the Gentiles was part of what moved Jesus to anger (although that is more clear in Mark’s gospel than in John’s6). Perhaps Nicodemus is friendly to that concern as he visits Jesus shortly afterward; perhaps he’s furious that Jesus would prioritize Gentile concerns. Does his position in religious leadership make him more or less free to say anything about it? In Nicodemus’ situation, I imagine that he’d be free either to help publically run Jesus out of town or to host a scriptural discussion session about what is permitted in the court of the gentiles. The Sanhedrin could probably endorse one of their own doing either of those, but not to join Jesus’ movement and follow him to Galilee and back.
Similarly, congregational leaders today are rarely encouraged to step away from their roles for periods to focus on ministry that doesn’t have a church label on it–and pastors feeling called to do so have to navigate that constraint. As one creative example in my district, before the pandemic, the Trotwood Church of the Brethren had an arrangement with then-pastor Jennifer Keeney Scarr which included supporting her service one month of the year with Community Peacemaker Teams (fka Christian Peacemaker Teams)7 in Colombia. That clean break once a year is perhaps less common than churches facing the necessity of negotiating with pastors for less than a full-time schedule throughout the year. The Church of the Brethren has a grant-funded program for “Part-Time Pastor, Full-Time Church,” created in response to the reality that nearly 75% of pastors in the Church of the Brethren are part-time or “multivocational.”8 In the resources shared as learning from this program, however, when “circuit riders” who visited these multivocational pastors reflect on the challenges of that kind of ministry, and leaders from congregations they serve discuss the reasons they no longer have full-time pastors and how that has changed the congregation, the majority of the conversation centers on the needs of these congregations as institutions (and then the needs of their pastors as individuals): financial constraints force congregations to hire part-time; ministry teams form out of necessity to get the work of the church done; pastors needing to make a living depend on an additional occupation, and then have to negotiate with the church the boundaries of their divided time.9 This emphasis seems to imagine the “multivocational” pastor as though living a fragmented life, partially serving a congregation, and partially following some other call in their private life–a boundary that they have to defend against their congregation’s potential impositions. What if part-time pastors were imagined as following one call, and rather than finding themselves picking up an additional occupation out of necessity, were encouraged by their congregations to follow Jesus’ call both in ministry with the congregation and with the community? If we believe neither that Jesus could have been contained within the religious institutions of his day nor that our congregations have a monopoly on the Spirit’s activity in ours, won’t we need to launch both leaders and laypersons beyond the church walls when the time comes?10
Moving from the congregational to the denominational level, there are even more constraints of different kinds placed on leadership. In many cases, these may be aids to following in Jesus’ way (codes of ethics generally exist for good reason). But whenever God might choose to work beyond the expectations of our religious institutions–such as in the time of Nicodemus, when Jesus disrupted the status quo in the Temple–some factors would make it harder as one in leadership to acknowledge any new thing God is doing. At least within the Church of the Brethren, denominational staff and leaders are expected to refrain from partisan opinions in an interest to represent the whole–although, given the range of positions on hotly contested issues, the same statement may be considered openly liberal by some and clearly conservative by others. As a result, some of our denominational staff are constantly looking over their shoulder for the voices quick to take offense, call for consequences, or cross into abusive harassment when they make comments even on their personal social media.
Dana Cassell, formerly the program manager for the Thriving in Ministry Initiative for the Church of the Brethren Office of Ministry (directing the programs mentioned above for multivocational or part-time pastors in the denomination), has reflected in her blog about that experience for her.11 Several months after resigning from that denominational position, Cassell indicated having “more brain space, more creativity, more compassion, more curiosity, more innovative energy to share with people who are already doing curious, innovative, creative, compassionate work.”12 Reaching out for this piece to ask her what specifically that work was, Cassell replied that while serving in denominational leadership, she wouldn’t have felt free to “celebrate spending time at a neighborhood food hub led by a disabled black woman and a queer Lutheran pastor,” because a considerable portion of her mind and her emotional energy was always consumed with the question, “who’s going to be upset if I say this?”13 While the ongoing controversy concerning same-sex relationships makes hesitance about making public a partnership with a queer minister easily understandable, I take Cassell’s other reference to additionally call out racism, sexism, and ableism at play in the church. Indeed, in a post several hours after our conversation, Cassell speaks her heart even more clearly:
Over and over again, the choice is set before us to choose to honor the dishonored, believe the maligned, center the marginalized – or not. The denominational structure I left is designed to forbid people within it from making this choice. The system asks every individual who functions within it to “represent the fabric of the whole church” and give equal weight to both poor and rich, abuser and abused. But that is the exact opposite of what Jesus asks of us. I don’t think it is possible to “represent the whole fabric of the church” and follow Jesus’ commands. It’s not just difficult, it is actually impossible. Jesus says “blessed are the poor, the hungry, the reviled” AND “woe to the rich, the over-filled, the highly respected.” We get called to honor the ones who are without honor in the world, and reminded that in God’s realm, the last are first and the first are last.14
Having resigned from her leadership position in the larger institution, Cassell is now at a very different place than Nicodemus. Whether or not we might think Nicodemus understood himself to be a follower of Jesus, we only hear of Nicodemus defending him from within the veil of procedural questions, and lavishing care on his body only after his death. Whether or not readers are inclined, as I am, to agree with Cassell’s discernment of Christ’s presence as most acutely present in the faces of those alongside whom she now feels free and energized to serve–Black and Brown folks, LGBTQ folks, folks of varying ability and every gender–we can hear that she is committed wholeheartedly, no longer afraid who may be upset by the way she joins the Holy Spirit in disrupting the status quo. That’s the way that I want to live in ministry for Jesus’ name: wholeheartedly.
Nicodemus’ visit leads to what may be the most well-known verse of the New Testament: “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” (John 3:16). That is a theological core of our faith in Jesus Christ. At the same chapter and verse in a different book comes a warning: “because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth” (Rev 3:16). In the course of preparing to take on the character of Nicodemus for my congregation, study convinced me that his very position as a religious leader caused his reception of Jesus to be more lukewarm. But the significance hit home when the right question caused me to say “I couldn’t do that [join Jesus] without first leaving the council [my church job].”
As I look for “Nicodemus” today, I see similar forces as those that constrained his response at work in our religious institutions. I’ve heard from folks such as Cassell, not the only one in Church of the Brethren national leadership expressing thanks that this conversation is being had, wishing for greater freedom to speak what they discern to be truth. In ongoing conversation with Flores, whose question helped spark this paper, it’s encouraging to hear that he’s at least following his call to seminary with open eyes (ears, hands, heart, and mind), knowing what congregations can be like: at the nondenominational congregation of his youth, where he was at one point offered a position to return as youth pastor, “folks have huddled up, after something like George Floyd, and the leaders were straight-up told, ‘we’re not going to talk about this, because we might lose people and it would hurt our giving’–and you know they mean white folks…but I didn’t walk away from my other job to follow this call, and take on the risks I’ve already taken, just to be looking for a job that I would be afraid to lose, not saying what I think our Lord would be saying: unlike Nicodemus, we know who He is.”
Thankfully, in the particular congregation I have been blessed to serve, I have not yet felt like I would have to step away from my role in pastoral leadership to speak freely about where I see Christ’s Spirit at work in the world beyond our sanctuary walls. Considering my position and my call, I’m not forced to choose one or the other–as best I can discern now. This is a contrast from several of my peers, friends from Bethany Theological Seminary, who found their answers before I fully arrived at the question: When do we quit our church jobs to follow Jesus?
Caleb Kragt is a minister 2/3 time and 1/3 stay-at-home Dad. He and his wife Allie have just moved into their first house with kids age 3 and 6. Caleb and Irvin Heishman are co-pastors for the West Charleston Church of the Brethren in Tipp City, Ohio.
- Biblical quotations here and throughout from the NRSV.
- ”A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
- Michael R Whitenton, 2016, “The Dissembler of John 3: A Cognitive and Rhetorical Approach to the Characterizationof Nicodemus,” Journal of Biblical Literature 135 (1): 152.
- Ibid, 147.
- Miguel Petrosky, “This Isn’t the First Time Christians Have Opposed a Racial Justice Movement,” Sojourners, July 2, 2020 (https://sojo.net/articles/isnt-first-time-christians-have-opposed-racial-justice-movement, accessed Feb 13, 2021).
- In Mark 11:17, Jesus seems to quote Isaiah 56:7 alongside Jeremiah 7:11; this emphasizes not just that the Temple had become “a den of robbers” as in Jeremiah, but was failing to be “a house of prayer for all the nations” as in Isaiah. (Matthew has very nearly the same, but leaves off “for all nations.”) John 2:17, however, has the disciples remember Psalm 69:9–a consuming zeal for the Lord’s house that is less explanatory as to what Jesus was upset by.
- “We’re Now Community Peacemaker Teams: CPT,” Community Peacemaker Teams, last modified January 19, 2022, https://cpt.org/about/cpt-name-change.
- “Part-Time Pastor, Full-Time Church,” https://www.brethren.org/ministryoffice/part-time-pastor/ (accessed Feb 14, 2022).
- “Circuit Rider Reflections” and “Full-Time Church, Part-Time Pastors,” https://www.brethren.org/ministryoffice/part-time-pastor/resources/, (accessed Feb 14, 2022).
- Perhaps this need was less apparent a few generations ago, when hardly anyone in the U.S. admitted they had no religious affiliation, but it will be ever more clear if recent trends continue: there are now as many who claim no religious affiliation as there are either Evangelical Protestants or Roman Catholics, formerly the largest religious affiliations in the country (Ryan P Burge, The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going, Fortress: 2021).
- Dana Cassell, “to be a follower instead” September 21, 2021 (https://dana-cassell.com/?s=to+be+a+follower+instead, accessed Feb 8, 2022).
- Dana Cassell, “more margin” December 15, 2021 (https://dana-cassell.com/?s=more+margin, accessed Feb 8, 2022).
- Conversations with Dana Cassell, February 9, 2022.
- Dana Cassell, “pick a side” February 9, 2022 (https://dana-cassell.com/?s=pick+a+side, accessed Feb 13, 2022).