New Testament Reading
John 3: 1-15
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Judeans. 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.
Sermon
There is a striking passage in The Autobiography of Malcolm X in which Malcolm X recounts an encounter he had with a young white woman. He had spoken at her New England college about the history of slavery and the ongoing racism of whites. In his book, he surmises that following his speech the woman must have taken the plane to New York that left right after his, because she soon tracked him down at a Muslim restaurant in Harlem. He reflects that never before had he met someone so deeply affected by hearing him speak. He writes, “She demanded, right up in my face. ‘Don’t you believe there are any good white people?’” He remembers that he “didn’t want to hurt her feelings,” so he told her that he believed in “people’s deeds” and “not their words.” The young white woman then exclaimed, “What can I do?” Malcolm responded, “Nothing.” The woman “burst out crying” and ran out of the restaurant.
I sometimes wonder what happened to that woman. Did she believe Malcolm? Did she just go back to her college dorm room and do nothing? Did she feel condemned to a life of wallowing in shame as a white person? Did she give up any hope that she or other white people could one day turn against racism in an authentic and effective way? Or, maybe, she turned her attention elsewhere and soon largely forgot about the experience. Maybe her life became consumed by a crush, a career, or a cause that didn’t make her feel hopeless and ashamed.
Then, again, maybe the experience made her more determined to fight racism. Maybe she planned to prove Malcolm wrong. Perhaps, her conviction and resolve to do something deepened. Quite possibly she could have been one of those white northern students who went south in 1964 as part of Freedom Summer to work for the registration of black voters. She could have been one of those students who risked violence and even death by going south. She could have been one of those who inspired civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer to later say that Freedom Summer was “one of the greatest things that ever happened in Mississippi.” Hamer recalled that previously there had been people who “wanted change,” but “hadn’t dared to come out.” It was after Freedom Summer that in her own words “people began moving.”
This past week I read some of the writings of those who went south for Freedom Summer. Two of them spoke of the role their faith played. One of them was Pam Parker. She was 20 at the time and needed the written permission of her parents to go. Her “parents were terrified” for her safety. Still, she felt that her parents “couldn’t do anything else” but support her, because, after all, she “was following their beliefs and values.” About her feelings at the time, she wrote, “If they denied their permission, they would refute all they professed to believe about God and justice and love.” Parker retained a copy of a speech she delivered two weeks before leaving for Freedom Summer. In Solebury, Pennsylvania, she spoke to the congregation at the small country church in which she was raised. She began her speech by recounting her experiences the previous semester as a white student attending Spelman College, a black women’s college in Atlanta. She said, “I went there brimming over with life and energy and love for everyone. I was rejected as a northern, white do-gooder.” She experienced the difficulties of communicating across race and across mistrust and misunderstandings, yet she managed to stick with it. She used that experience to deepen her empathy for her black peers and to discover the value of true friendship among those willing to befriend her. She also writes that “somewhere along the way” she “learned how to forgive—to forgive not just others” but herself as well. She stuck with it, and there she stood before the congregation of her childhood acknowledging that her decision to go to Mississippi would cost her more than money. It would cost her in suffering as well. “How much it will cost me in suffering,” she said, “I cannot tell, but I have no doubt that I will receive more in terms of my growth as a human being than I could ever possibly give no matter what happens.”
Before going to Mississippi, she attended an orientation session in Oxford, Ohio. There she heard Bob Moses, a legendary civil rights leader, speak. At the time, the bodies of three young activists—Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner—had not yet been found. They were “missing,” but Moses knew this meant they were “dead.” He talked about how hard it was for him to send the students knowing this and “not knowing how many of” them “would die.” Then, “speaking softly, his eyes on his shoes,” he said, “All I can say is that I’ll be there too.” When Moses finished speaking, a woman from the back began singing, “They say that freedom is a constant struggle….”
Writing more than 30 years later, Parker says that when she speaks in schools about her “experiences as a white activist in…Freedom Summer,” she is often asked if she “was afraid.” She hates this question, but a sister of hers who is a schoolteacher helped her to understand that what the kids are really asking is how she transcended her fear. In response to this question, she writes:
Yes, I was afraid. But I also felt part of something greater than myself — a movement. At meetings an awesome collective spirit gave us all courage, especially when we sang. If my life were shortened, I felt it would have been worth it to know the black and white activists of the freedom movement and to stand among their number. I also was a devout Christian and believed I was doing God’s will. I didn’t expect God to protect me from harm, but I truly believed [God] would be with me helping me to endure whatever happened. If my dying or being beaten or jailed would help save the United States from the sin of racism, I was willing.
Another student who traveled south in 1964 was Fran O’Brien. She was recruited for Freedom Summer at the Northwest Conference for United Campus Christian Fellowship, where she was attending as a representative of Pacific University. She recalls, “All weekend I had been very vocal about the necessity of ACTING on Christian principles, not just talking about them.” A recruiter for Freedom Summer forced her to confront whether she would live up to her talk. Her moment of conviction, however, did not occur until later that weekend when she watched the movie “Judgment at Nuremberg.” In the movie, a judge from the United States “asks his German housekeeper what it was like to live under Nazism. She replies very defensively: ‘We didn’t know…We are not political…We are just little people.’” Fran realized at that moment that she was being “challenged to do more.”
For her, sending in the application for Freedom Summer was “an act of faith.” She too would hear the speech Bob Moses gave about the three who had died and the danger the students were in. Nevertheless, she recalls:
Yet at no time did I doubt I should be there. Sometimes I wondered why; often I wondered what I would do and how on earth I could possibly be useful… [but] It did not occur to me I might have made a mistake in coming. I KNEW I was meant to be exactly where I was. That is faith….There is a saying, “God doesn’t call the qualified; [God] qualifies the called.” I discovered the truth of that during training.… Many times in the years since Mississippi I have caught myself thinking, “I can’t do this!” only to find out that I can. Not everyone can do the same things — and how boring it would be if we did! But everyone can do something. God planned it that way.
For many, 1964 was a time of changing course. White students all over the North heard a call they couldn’t ignore. Despite the wishes of parents and despite their own fears, they found themselves carried by the Spirit into a movement that would change their lives forever.
The experience of Nicodemus was not far from the experience that led white middle class students from the North to join the civil rights movement. Nicodemus was a member of the privileged elite in Jerusalem. Jesus was a rabble-rouser from Galilee. He had just created a commotion by cleansing the temple. With a whip made out of cords, he drove out the sellers and moneychangers. He poured out their coins and overturned their tables. As a religious leader, Nicodemus was an unlikely convert for Jesus’ movement. Like the rich man who asked what he had to do in order to get into heaven, Nicodemus could have run away crying when Jesus confronted him with how hard it would be for him to be born anew. If we had kept reading from the Gospel of John, we would have discovered that Jesus called on people to do good deeds made known in public. Nicodemus couldn’t simply be a secret admirer who visited Jesus only in the shadows of night. He had to be born again in the Spirit and let his deeds be seen in the light.
We don’t know much about what Nicodemus later did, but we do know that he was willing to later use his position of power as a religious elite to mitigate the persecution Jesus faced. We do know that in some way he joined the movement. He was there after the crucifixion. When others were despondent with grief and perhaps feeling disillusioned, he honored Jesus by giving him a royal burial. It seems to me that the question Nicodemus provokes us to ask this season of Lent is will we be there? Will we stick with Jesus during his journey to the cross? Will we be there in the intermittent time of uncertainty between the cross and the resurrection? The good news for us is that if we can stick with Jesus, if we do not desert him in the garden, at the cross, and by the tomb, then we will find ourselves living in the Spirit, then—despite whatever obstacles or fears we might face—we will find ourselves fully alive in the transcendence of God. Amen.