Is it Time to Refocus?

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 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” [John 3:1-3, NRSV, a portion of the Gospel reading for Trinity Sunday, the First Sunday After Pentecost, RCL, Year B].

I’m not fond of buzzwords. The earth, of course, did not shake with that disclosure. It’s just that if you lend a careful ear to the discourse around you, you’ll likely hear various words du jour that are overused. One that I’m hearing a lot in recent months, particularly in legal and business circles, is disruptive.

AI—artificial intelligence—is said to be monumentally disruptive. Google, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, Tesla are all said to have been disruptive. Had it been a buzzword 120 years ago, when Henry Ford came upon the scene in Detroit, I’ll bet analysts would have looked at buggy whip makers and described the Model-T as disruptive. In a different context, many are still talking about the disruptive nature of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At least to my mind, the word/term “disruptive” generally has a negative connotation. Disruptive forces upset the status quo. They present uncertainty. COVID-19 upset the entire work force. Those assigned to “the home office” stopped going each day to company headquarters. They commuted from the bedroom to the office in the home.

Disruptive forces need not always be bad for those on the “receiving end.” I vividly recall an evening in early March 1969 when, realizing that I had been putting off research for a term paper assigned by our beloved senior English teacher, Geraldine Johnston—“Mrs. J”—I drove into town, parked, sauntered up the four or five front steps of the Gaston County Public Library, passed through the door, and was spellbound by a young girl named Jane.

As students at rival high schools, our paths hadn’t often crossed since we’d talked and danced one evening two years earlier at a Key Club gathering in Charlotte. Yet, as I saw her near the front door of the library that night—I know it sounds hokey—I immediately had the feeling that my life had just changed. Jane’s presence that evening was—how can I describe it?—disruptive.

Until that moment, I had quite specific goals. I had carefully charted a ten-year-plan of sorts. I knew where I was headed. Then suddenly, on that March evening at the public library, I realized that everything around me seemed suddenly out of focus—everything, of course, but the feminine frame before me. That’s what disruptions do; they cause everything to fall out of focus.

What did I do? Well, of course, I refocused. A year and one-half later, we were engaged. A year after that, having only completed two years of college, we married. Fifty-five years after our library encounter, I still fully recognize that it all started between us that very night. There have been other subsequent disruptions in my life. None, however, were as significant as that evening. As I’ve joked with my brothers and some close friends over the years, “Just when I thought it was safe to go the library, ….”

I suspect that Nicodemus thought it was safe to meet with a rabbi that evening. Instead, within the Gospel reading for this upcoming Sunday, Trinity Sunday, the First Sunday after Pentecost, he finds that his evening encounter with the “rabbi” Jesus is nothing like he had planned. As we read the lesson—John 3:1-17—I think we’d agree that this face-to-face must also be described as disruptive.

Nicodemus has come at night [3:2]. His meeting is under the cover of darkness. In this narrative, the Gospel writer is wonderfully obtuse. Is the darkness just because of the hour or is it also because of Nicodemus’ line of thought?

In either event, Nicodemus offers Jesus what he thinks is a compliment: “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” [3:2]. Thus, on the basis of what Nicodemus has seen, he is prepared to believe something about the upstart “rabbi” who stands before him.

Only, Jesus’ response is startling. It is—oh, how shall I put it?—disruptive. Jesus’ words are a rebuke. Jesus begins with the loaded phrase, “verily, verily, I say unto thee”—you have to love the old, classic KJV. “No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (or, as some translations render it, “born from above”; the discussion on that point is for another day).

In His disruptive manner, Jesus corrects Nicodemus. The latter has, in fact, not seen. We should be careful here to tweak Jesus’ message. Our Lord explains that Nicodemus hasn’t seen for two reasons. First, of course, he hasn’t seen because he has not been reborn. Second, but even more important, Nicodemus hasn’t seen because he has been looking for the wrong thing. Nicodemus has looked at Jesus to gain a better understanding of the man, the teacher, the healer. Yet, the disruptive Jesus invites Nicodemus into another realm. He invites the Pharisee to see instead the Kingdom of God, in all its glory and fullness, for the Kingdom, with all its power and glory, is represented—is “housed”—in Jesus. That is what Nicodemus should see.

Jesus is telling Nicodemus that Jesus longs not for followers who tag along after Him because they have seen His signs. The real Jesus is exponentially more disruptive than that. Jesus longs for those who, through an encounter with Him, are willing to refocus not only their vision, but their lives, based upon the Kingdom of God, represented as it is fully in Him.

Because of the disruptive force of Jesus, Nicodemus is disoriented, out of focus. But the Gospel story tells us that he was able to refocus. His disorientation turned to reorientation. Later in John’s Gospel his act of refocusing causes him to speak out for Jesus among his fellow Pharisees [John 7]. Still later, he will minister to Jesus at the tomb [John 19]. All that is possible because he has refocused. As pointed out by some margin notes I recorded a few years ago, when his words stumble in the presence of Jesus that night, his refocusing points him down the path of abundant life.

In what we call the fourth chapter of John, we’ll encounter another who runs into a disruptive Jesus. This time, a Samaritan woman with a past goes to the well at Noon—the hottest part of the day—so that she will run into the lowest number of people. There will be fewer to look down upon her. Just when she thought it was safe to get a drink of water, she encounters Jesus. Based on her interaction with the disruptive Jesus, the woman refocuses. She tells her encounter story to friends and family. The Samaritans come to Jesus and urge him to stay with them [4:40]. And because of His words, many more become believers [4:41].

There are many others: the royal official whose son lies sick at Capernaum [4:46], the disabled man at the “troubled” pool [5:7], the 5,000 who are fed from meager resources [John 6]—I could go on.

These other examples of Jesus’ disruptive nature speak loudly to us. Earlier today, I meandered through some additional text to gain some additional context. In one of my readings, I ran into word picture verbally “painted” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German, anti-Nazi martyr.

In Bonhoeffer’s world view, Christ is the center of everything. He is indeed the center of the universe [see Christ the Center, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, HarperOne, 2009). And yet, here using my words as I paraphrase Bonhoeffer, Jesus is a powerful disrupter. On the one hand, Christ is the center not only of the universe, He is the center of our faith. That’s what He was telling his new friend, Nicodemus, that night.

Yet, on the other hand, the Risen Christ chooses not to stand at the center, where worldly power is concentrated, where many would expect Him to take His place. Instead, He chooses to stand at the margin, on the periphery, since that’s where one will find the poor, the infirm, the weak, and the afraid. He stands there because that’s where His Kingdom can truly be seen.

The Kingdom is there. As Jesus told Nicodemus, one just can’t see it unless, of course, one refocuses.