No Secret Disciples

But Jesus did not entrust himself to them, because he knew them all, and had no need for anyone to bear witness about the One, for he knew what was in a person. There was a person out of the Pharisees, Nicodemus by name, a ruler of the Judeans. He came toward him at night (John 2:24-3:2).

Out of the night, out of the Pharisees, comes "a person," Nicodemus by name, to inquire of Jesus and the Johannine community. Like a member of Congress sneaking into a Quaker meeting, or a cardinal visiting a base community in Latin America, Nicodemus' curiosity gets the better of his discretion, if just for a moment. This man of official authority, of institutional power and standing, comes to take his turn at the perennial question: Who is this Jesus?

HAVING ESTABLISHED Jesus' authority through his powerful acts at Cana and in the Jerusalem temple, the fourth gospel unfolds a series of encounters between potential disciples and Jesus: Nicodemus; the disciples of John (the Baptist) back in the wilderness; an anonymous Samaritan woman at a well; a royal official in Cana of Galilee. The entire range of Palestinian theological geography is represented in these stories. In each, a person is challenged to give up notions about God and authority that arise from their previous commitments and cultural status, and to take the concrete step of joining the Johannine community as a sign of true faith.

Our study will focus primarily on the contrast between Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. To catch the social significance of these stories, it will be helpful to introduce a pair of Johannine literary techniques through which the gospel conveys its meaning.

The conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus in 3:1-10 is in the ancient form of chiasm. A chiasm is a symmetrical pattern of text, usually in five parts. The first and last parts form a parallel, as do the second and fourth; the central portion becomes the focus of meaning. 3:1-10 illustrates this technique as follows:

a) verses 1-2: we know you are a teacher

b) verses 3-4: unless you are born anothen ("again/from above"); Nicodemus asks, How is this possible?

c) verses 5-6: unless you are born of water and Spirit

b.1) verses 7-9: don't marvel at "you must be born anothen"; Nicodemus asks, How is this possible?

a.1) verse 10: you are a teacher and don't know?

The contrasting imputations of "teacher" are the frames of the chiasm. The inner parallels are the questions of being born anothen, a Greek word that means both "from above" and "again," as well as Nicodemus' repeated question, "How is this possible?" These parallels frame the center of the scene: Jesus' "amen, amen" statement that a person must be born of water and Spirit to enter the reign of God. Nicodemus fades from the scene without change in either his understanding or his status. It is up to us, the readers, to discern the meaning and challenge of Jesus' central words.

The second literary technique, a favorite of the Johannine author, is illustrated in this passage as well as in the encounter with the Samaritan woman. It is that of misunderstanding between "heavenly" and "earthly" levels of discussion. In this case, Nicodemus is confused about being born anothen. He interprets the ambiguous term at the "earthly" level: Can a person go back into their mother's womb?

In the Samaritan encounter, the woman is challenged by Jesus' statement about "living" water, and takes it in a similarly "earthly" manner. Throughout the gospel, characters (and readers) will be offered richly ambiguous statements that force the listeners—and sometimes the translators!—to make choices with life-and-death consequences. With each misunderstanding, the fourth gospel creates another opportunity to lead us further on the road to membership in the Johannine community.

Love in Action
Let's return to the Nicodemus encounter. We immediately should associate Nicodemus with the "persons" whom we have just been told Jesus does not trust (2:25). He has come at night, and is clearly a representative of someone, since he speaks in the first person plural: "We know that you are a teacher come from God."

Is this "we" the Sanhedrin, the group of "rulers" of whom Nicodemus is identified as a member? Or might it be a group of "secret disciples," wannabe Christians who are afraid to come out of the closet and confess their faith in the light of day? Perhaps Nicodemus is a representative of officialdom everywhere, who cannot really accept that an ordinary person might have truth to share.

We are not given a clear answer in this passage, but later appearances of Nicodemus provide important clues. In 7:50, Nicodemus shows up again, described as "one who had come to Jesus before, and who was one of them." Maddeningly, we must ask again which "them": the Johannine disciples or the Pharisees with whom Nicodemus is found in this later scene? In this second episode, Nicodemus speaks up in response to the angry and blood-seeking Pharisees' retort to their own police who have failed to arrest Jesus, "You have not been misled too, have you? Not one of the rulers or the Pharisees have believed in him, have they?" (7:47-48).

If you are a true disciple, Nicodemus, now is the time to speak up! Instead of witness, though, Nicodemus offers due process,"Our law does not judge a person unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing." Our law: Nicodemus remains identified with the Torah, in contrast with Jesus, who a few verses later will refute the Pharisees by referring to "your law" (8:17).

Nicodemus appears once more, at the end of the story, as Jesus hangs dead on the cross. He arrives on the scene with Joseph of Arimathea, described as "a disciple of Jesus but in secret for fear of the Judeans" (19:38). Nicodemus is in turn described as "the one having come toward him at night the first time" (19:39). The two Judean rulers bury Jesus in "accordance with Jewish burial custom" (19:40).

Now Nicodemus' position becomes clear. He, too, is a "secret disciple in fear of the Judeans." What he has not come to understand, even at the end, is that being "secret" is diametrically opposed to being a "disciple," just as reliance on Jewish law is the opposite of being "born anothen."

Jesus' solemn statement in 3:5 and the following elaboration demand open and public commitment to the new community, a commitment as different from Nicodemus' allegiance to the law as is heaven different than Earth, flesh different than Spirit. Baptism—birth in water and Spirit—then, as now, means making public one's loyalty to the gospel over all other claims of authority and power.

Nicodemus knows only too well that this would mean giving up not only his status as "ruler of the Judeans," but also his entire socially acceptable world. The choice is stark: join the Johannine community and enter the reign of God, or remain in the night, revealing one's love for the darkness (3:19).

For the fourth gospel, faith is not a matter of doctrinal adherence. Rather, the challenge to Nicodemus is grounded in the praxis that flows from community commitment. Darkness covers "foul deeds" (3:19). The person who comes to the light, in contrast, "is doing the truth" (3:21). For the Hebrew mindset, "truth" was a matter of one's unfolding life, revealed as comprised of "foul deeds" or of "love."

There is no Sermon on the Mount in John by which this contrast is elaborated in great detail. Rather, there is what liberation theologians call "the fundamental option": either for God, shown by self-sacrificing love (15:13), or for the Evil One, shown by deeds of murder and lies (8:44).

Nicodemus' law, brought to the people by Moses from God, has become in Jesus' and the Johannine community's time an instrument of control and death (19:7). It stands in clear opposition to the Johannine community's faith in the presence of the Spirit that gives life (6:63). Nicodemus—and the others he represents—are called to give up their allegiance to "religion" and reclaim their faith in the God of love. It is this challenge to which Nicodemus twice responds, "How is it possible?"

At the opposite end of the social spectrum from the official teacher of Israel is the woman at the well in Samaria. While Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, "it is necessary" for Jesus to go to Samaria (4:4), and he encounters the woman at the sixth hour, around noon, when the light is at its peak. Where Nicodemus was named and his status as ruler made explicit, the woman is anonymous, and has no status whatsoever. Whereas Nicodemus and Jesus share a social world, Jesus and the woman represent cultures of deep mutual mistrust and hostility.

At the Well
Several aspects of the social context should be taken into account to appreciate the radicalness of Jesus' actions. First, Jews and Samaritans had been mortal enemies since the argument over who would rebuild the temple after the Babylonian exile six centuries earlier (see Ezra 4). Like Irish Protestants and Catholics, only cultures of a common ancestry can develop a depth of hatred that can last over a huge span of time. Although Samaria lay directly between Galilee on the north and Judea on the south, pilgrimaging Jews would go across the Jordan and around Samaria rather than set foot in enemy territory. Jesus' "necessity" required bridging a huge chasm.

Second, the initiation of a conversation between a woman and a man who had no good reason (such as commerce) to interact was unheard of in first century Palestine. Jesus' disciples were shocked at this but did not have the courage to ask why their master was acting in this way (4:27).

Finally, we learn that not only is this woman Samaritan, but she bears the additional alienation of having had five husbands and a sixth man with whom she now lives (4:18)! This might explain why she drags her bucket to the well in the sweltering heat of midday, rather than at the usual times of early morning or late evening. She cannot even be seen by the other water-drawing women of her village, so deep is her ostracism. She is an outcast who wishes only to be relieved of the burden of coming to the well each day (4:15).

Jesus initiates this conversation by asking the woman for a drink. We have been told that he sat at the fountain "having labored on the journey" (4:6). At the end of the story, when the food-conscious disciples (4:8) have returned, he will tell them, "I sent you to harvest that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor" (4:37). The Greek text suggests the link between the exhausting work of Jesus in offering God's truth and love to the world and the mission of the disciples. But in the meantime, Jesus deals with the misunderstanding of the Samaritan woman and offers her the "gift of God" (4:10), which Nicodemus and his people rejected (3:11).

The entire scene at the well follows a structure familiar from Hebrew scripture. A man comes to a well, meets a maiden there, who goes home to tell her people about the man, eventually inviting the man to come home with her, after which a wedding ensues. This is how Isaac met Rebekka and Jacob met Rachel (Genesis 24:10-61; 29:1-20). Since we are at Jacob's well (Jacob is mentioned three times in 12 verses), it would not be surprising for first-century readers to have these stories in mind as the scene unfolds. But what a contrast between the innocent patriarchal wives and the woman whom Jesus engages!

Jesus quickly moves the discussion from his own request for well water to his offer of "living water" (4:10). As with "born anothen," this phrase has both an earthly and heavenly connotation. The exhausted woman thinks only of the earthly and wants water that flows (in contrast with the stagnant water in the well), which would obviate her need to come on this daily journey. Jesus, however, offers the water that flows as his own Spirit (7:37-38), an interpretation inconceivable to this Samaritan woman.

The conversation begins to develop into a question of who Jesus is to make such an offer. The woman starts off with the incredulous question, "You are not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you?" (4:12). When Jesus reveals knowledge of her marital history, she admits that he is a prophet (4:19), which leads her into a conversation about places of worship.

The woman introduces the question of the Messiah when Jesus denies both Jerusalem and the Samaritan sacred mountain as fit places for worship, offering instead "spirit and truth" (4:24). To Jews, the concept of Messiah centered around expectations of a national liberator, but for Samaritans, a much more fluid notion of a compassionate revealer was current. When she goes back to her village, she asks the unanswered question, "This couldn't be the Christ, could it?" (4:29).

The Samaritan townsfolk are said to have believed in Jesus because of "the word of the woman bearing witness" (4:39). This in itself is shocking. Why should these people take the word of this outcast woman about a Jewish man they have never met? The power of the woman's faith alone—the antithesis of Nicodemus' official teaching authority—is enough to begin the process of conversion that leads to the direct encounter with Jesus. Their proclamation is even more shocking in scope: "We have come to know for a certainty that this one is the savior of the world" (4:42).

From "greater than Jacob," to prophet, to messiah, and finally, to "savior of the world," a title totally absent from the New Testament outside the Johannine context. The political import of what otherwise appears to be a story about Jesus' compassion for an outcast flows directly from the meaning of this title. While "savior" alone was a title commonly given to those of power in the Greco-Roman world, the full title "savior of the world" was reserved for one person alone: the Roman emperor.

Suddenly, the entire passage takes on powerful overtones. The woman's "husbands" may stand for the five nations who have colonized Samaria since the collapse of the ancient Israelite monarchy. In this case, the current "man" might be a cipher for Rome, the colonial power with whom Samaritans would not intermarry, according to the Jewish historian Josephus.

When the woman claims to her kinsfolk that Jesus has told her "all the things which I did," the story may well be suggesting Jesus' interpretation of her colonial past, not unlike Jesus' interpretation of the past to those walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus in Luke 24. Thus, the proclamation of Jesus as "savior of the world" surpasses the expectation of a national liberator by expressing a belief that Jesus is greater not only than Jacob (the national ancestor), but even greater than Caesar, the current "man" with whom all the Samaritans live!

THROUGH the contrasting stories of Nicodemus and the Samaritans, then, the fourth gospel begins to reveal the enormous consequences of being confronted with the presence of Jesus. God's love is not simply for the Jews with whom the story began (4:22), but is for the entire world (3:16). Those who are committed to the system of national law and institutional structure may not be able to see what is at stake, but those who have been oppressed and broken are open to this newness.

Jesus' own disciples stand by the wayside in these episodes, confused and disjointed. They, like us, are left to ponder whether our understanding of who Jesus is and what he calls us to is bounded by our national myths and our religious structures, or whether we are willing to receive the "free gift of God" that surpasses all our expectations.

Wes Howard-Brook was program director of the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center in Seattle, and was a member of Galilee Circle, a Christian resistance community, when this article appeared.