"Looking Beyond the Rational" | Bishop Diana Akiyama | May 26, 2024

The two young girls were probably junior high age. They were having a sleepover. They were playing in the bedroom that night on their way to bed, laughing, joking, giggling, hitting each other with pillows, jumping on the bed, until finally the mother's voice was heard from the floor below: "Girls, it's late; turn off the light and get some sleep."

They turn off the light, they crawl into bed, speaking in hushed tones now, and as the night darkness blankets over them, their conversation changes as they start sharing stories and asking each other questions. Probing questions. Do you think you'll go to college? Do you think you want to leave this town? Do you ever want to leave? Who do you have a crush on?

The darkness of night has a quality of mystery. One can feel endangered in that darkness, but one can also feel a sense of expansiveness. Without the ability to see everything in the light of day, we rely on our other senses, and we often go inward and ask different questions. Nicodemus sought Jesus at night to ask his questions. He was a learned religious leader, a Pharisee, and perhaps had much to lose if the people listening to him, following him knew he was pursuing Jesus. So under the cover of the night sky, he and Jesus talk.

Nicodemus sounds truly confused at Jesus statement about being born "anew" or "from above." The Greek word here can mean both. And we might be incredulous at hearing Nicodemus question, but can one be returned to the womb and be born again? Even an 8-year-old would know the answer: of course not. But this question is the key to the deeper point in John's gospel. There is something entirely new and strange and truly possible in following Jesus and living as he lives, and this new way of being, of living, is not fully grasped by intellect alone.

Nicodemus was attempting to apply all his learning, his intellectual acumen, in order to understand what Jesus was teaching. He was very likely well-trained in rhetorical argument, the logic of reason. He knew how to make sense of a thing by rational means. Yet Jesus turns all that on its side with his teaching about being born of the spirit. This newness, this being born from above that Jesus is talking about cannot be fully embraced by rational means alone. To believe in God through life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, we are called to rely on more than what we can apprehend through rational means.

When I was a curate at Stanford University's Chapel, I had ample opportunity to talk to faculty whenever and however I wanted to. It's a college campus, they were everywhere. And I remember talking to one professor about faith and the role of belief in having a faith. At one point in our conversation, I said to him, "I think to have faith is to engage a kind of irrationality." He looked surprised, and not because I had made some brilliant point. He was surprised that I would actually suggest that to be non-rational or to use a sense of knowing other than logic based on physical proof, it was a respectable way to understand a thing. But Jesus is telling Nicodemus exactly that. "The wind blows where it chooses. You can hear the sound of it, but you do not know from where it comes or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Following Jesus requires that we allow the power of the Holy Spirit to penetrate our rational selves and to move us into a new way of understanding, who we are called to be, and what we are then called to do in this world. I do not mean that we suddenly take leave of our critical thinking, our rational selves, but that we understand the difference between our need to control all things by reason and rationality. And Jesus called us to loosen our grip on our human need to be in control, to allow the Holy Spirit to live and move within us and around us, to trust that she will unfold us, nurture us, and push us out into the world to participate in the fullness of God's divine plan.

We are more like Nicodemus than perhaps we'd like to admit. His understanding of Jesus's teaching is limited by knowledge based on what is known in this world, the world of the flesh, the material. And Jesus is inviting him to see beyond, as well. The Holy Spirit is not an intellectual concept. She is ever-present and unpredictable. She is as near to us as the wind, but we do not and cannot control the Spirit. It blows how and when it will. We can however cooperate with it and submit to it, and this is where Jesus is leading Nicodemus. To understand what it means to follow Jesus, to become a people of the way, we must allow the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to surprise us and guide us. We do so not in a passive manner, but with our minds and our hearts, seeking to knit together what we know in this world with what Jesus teaches us about God's reality, and to keep us centered and open to that great mystery we have been invited to receive: the Holy Spirit sent by God, because of Jesus the Christ, to remain with us always.

The confirmations and receptions and reaffirmations that we are going to be doing in a few minutes this morning are evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit living and moving through this body of Christ in preparation for this day. Who we are confirming, who we are receiving, who we are reaffirming– all have studied and questioned and deepened their knowledge about their faith, as well. They have prayed and been prayed over. So in a few minutes, we, all of us gathered, will open this body once again to the movement of the Holy Spirit.

May she inform us, guide us, surprise us, and ground us in Christ's very own, and may we trust in the wisdom with increasing joy, knowing that in God all things are fully and finally known. Amen.