The Christian Gumshoe
Sermon by Carol Hockett, Lay Speaker, given May 3, 2012.
Text John 3:1–17
After her recent stroke, Mary Conklin settled in for what was to be a month of rehab
at the Cayuga Medical Center. Elizabeth Mount was among the first visitors and
asked Mary if reading aloud might be something she would enjoy. Mary responded
immediately and enthusiastically. She loved a good mystery, and Dick Francis and
Tony Hillerman were among her favorites. Lorna Herdt provided a stack of the
requested writers and we were good to go.
The book club’s first effort was a Dick Francis selection called Bolt. Elizabeth Mount
read part of chapter one. Susan Spear tag-teamed on the opening chapter. I read
chapter two. Mary Anne and Ed Oyer alternated chapters three, four, five, and I
returned for chapter six.
Although Mary loved both the visits and reading, I think you may have noted a small
flaw in our system. The narrative, especially in a mystery, becomes a tiny bit
frustrating when you don’t read every chapter. No pun intended, but when I
returned to the hospital for chapter six, I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know who did it
or why they did it or when they did it, and I completely missed the romance that
Rebecca alluded to! I’ll spare you the gory details, but all I really knew was that I had
two dead horses on my hands.
It occurred to me that I desperately needed Elizabeth and Lorna and Mary Anne and
Ed and Susan and Mary to get the whole story. In a very real sense, faith can be a
mystery without community.
Everyone has a piece vital to the understanding of the entire story. Without the
extraordinary gifts of the group, all you’ve got (or all I had) were the dead horses.
Although I have a soft spot for noir tough guys like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe,
my real favorites are the English mysteries of the 1930’s and 1940’s, penned by the
likes of Josephine Tey and Edmund Crispin, Cyril Hare and Dorothy L. Sayers.
I prefer my detectives to be as far from real life as possible—clever and literate, in
evening clothes, and (hopefully) sporting a monocle. And, this is key, for me, as little
violence as possible. Of course, I’m fine with poisonings and pushing aristocratic
dowagers down the stairs but I like to limit the bloodshed.
In addition to writing countless mysteries featuring the urbane Lord Peter Wimsey,
Dorothy L. Sayers was a woman of deep faith and diverse interests. Sayers taught
herself Italian and translated Dante’s Divine Comedy, and was a prolific writer on
Christian theology. An intriguing resume but maybe not as far apart as one might
think. Perhaps Sayers saw that at its center, the life of faith is one of detection.
The very best detectives seem to share methods with the faith seeker:
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Observational skills
Patience
Often solitary
Keen awareness—“being present”
Understanding of human frailties and failings
The ability to examine a situation from countless perspectives
The need to be a “connoisseur of clues”—which are important and which are
“red herrings”
Often we’re casing what Alfred Hitchcock referred to as “maguffins”—something the
main characters chase with utter desperation only to find it wasn’t that important at
all.
One way of looking at today’s passage, the dialogue in John 3 between Jesus and
Nicodemus, is as an attempt to solve a mystery. It’s not a crime of course but a
deeper and far more important mystery. On one level Nicodemus is puzzling over
Jesus’ mysterious declarations? What does it mean to be born again when one can’t
re-enter the womb? What does it mean to be born not of the flesh but of the Spirit?
That’s one level to puzzle over, but the second may be even more important. Jesus
isn’t having this conversation with just anyone. Nicodemus is a Jew and Pharisee, a
highly respected teacher of religious text and a member of the Sanhedrin, the
highest legal and judicial body of the Jews.
Now if anyone seems a shoo-in to see the kingdom of God, wouldn’t it be
Nicodemus? Perhaps Jesus is also saying there’s a new world and we’re playing by a
different set of rules. Education, social position, money, status won’t get you an
automatic in.
Like the Dick Francis book, maybe the mystery can’t be solved alone either. Perhaps
the answers to Jesus’ mysterious declarations are only found through living the faith
and living it with others.
The secular mystery is quite happily a very tidy affair. It’s complete and finite. We’re
going to get all the answers, preferably in a well-appointed drawing room and
surrounded by the usual suspects.
The sacred mystery though is another matter. It’s sprawling and as untidy as our
lives, and INFINITE. It will take a lifetime and more to unravel, but we’re all on the
case together.
Amen
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