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SERMONS

Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 18, 2009

By The Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky

1 Samuel 3:1-10
Psalm 139:1-5
1 Cor. 6:12-20
John 1:43-51

I got to meet the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church last week! It was very cool! I got to meet with her because I’m a member of the Mississippi deputation going to the next General Convention, which will take place in July in Anaheim, California, suspiciously close to Disneyland. During that meeting with the Presiding Bishop, I was privy to a conversation between her and an African American woman in our group, who is a retired college professor, and a very active Mississippi Episcopalian. This woman said to the bishop, “I never thought the day would come in my lifetime when I would see a woman elected presiding bishop of my church!”  She continued, “Nor did I think I would ever see in my lifetime an African American elected president of my country.” Her eyes were shining with tears as she spoke, and I realized that, for her, these events were deeply personal, and close to her heart. Regardless of your political affiliation, and regardless of where you stand on the spectrum from liberal to conservative, it strikes me as important to acknowledge the historic nature of events happening right under our noses – the tenure of the first woman in the history of the Episcopal Church to serve as the highest-ranking bishop among all our bishops, and the inauguration of the first African American president in the history of our nation. 

I will say this: both the presiding bishop and the president-elect have their work cut out for them!  They have something else in common, in addition to their respective historic “firsts” – both come into office at terribly difficult times in the lives of the people and institutions they serve. Even as we speak, whole dioceses and parishes are trying to pull away from the Episcopal Church, and the economy feels like it is in some kind of unprecedented freefall.

Hope seems to be in pretty short supply, and cynicism often rules the day. But it is into this “time of trial” (BCP 97) with its particular difficulties that two people have been called to accept the burden of leadership – one for a church in conflict, and the other for a nation in distrress.And as each move forward with the burden of leadership, each need our prayers, now perhaps more than ever. So I ask you, when we get to the Prayers of the People, and we pray for our presiding bishop and for our president-elect (who by next week will be our president) to pray diligently and sincerely for our leaders both in the church and in the government, that “where there is doubt,” they may sow “faith;… where there is despair,” they may sow “hope; where there is darkness,” may they sow “light.”  (BCP 833)

But I know the temptation in these times. The temptation is to remain cynical – to look at the national government and the institutional church and say, “Can anything good come out of Washington?” or “Can anything good come out 815 Second Avenue?” (815 Second Avenue is the address of the Episcopal in case you didn’t know.) Why shouldn’t we just expect more of the same? More conflict.  More gridlock.  More disappointment. The sense that “there’s nothing new under the sun….” (Stone 2)

Yet, that’s where I find that there’s a point of connection with our gospel for the day. Because when Philip comes to Nathanael and tells him about Jesus of Nazareth, and how he’s the one foretold by Moses and the prophets. What does Nathanael say to Philip? “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Let me back up a little bit. In John’s gospel, Jesus has only just been baptized in the River Jordan. (1:29 ff.) He has begun to gather a group of disciples, and, by now he’s got two: Andrew and his brother Peter. (Jn. 1:35-42) Now Jesus has come to Galilee, and continues to look for disciples. The first one he finds in Galilee is a man named Philip. All John’s gospel tells us is that Jesus “found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’” (1:43) And that is presumably what Philip did.

Because very shortly after Jesus found Philip, and called him, Philip finds a man named Nathanael, and tries to share some of his excitement at having found the one Moses and the prophets talked about. But Nathanael’s first response to Philip seems to me to be fairly dripping with cynicism and jadedness (Stone 2): “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nazareth is, of course, Jesus’s hometown, and Nathanael has nothing good to say about the small town of Nazareth. “We all know Nazareth!  It’s a place for losers and always has been.”  (Stone 2) Nathanael doubts anything good can come out of boring old Nazareth.

So Nathanael has just rained on Philip’s parade – Philip has come to him all excited about this guy Jesus, and Nathanael’s response is a big So what? Who cares?  When was the last time something good came out of that dump, Nazareth?

Now, if I had been Philip, maybe I would have tried arguing with Nathanael. Maybe I would have tried to convince him that he was jumping to the wrong conclusion about Jesus.  (Bartlett 263) Or maybe I would have just given up -- just thrown up my hands in Nathanael’s direction and said, Hey, if you don’t want to hear what the excitement’s all about, I’ll tell somebody else! But Philip didn’t do either of those things. Philip didn’t try to win Nathanael over with a bunch of words, and he didn’t throw up his hands in despair and walk away. Philip refuses to let Nathanael’s cynicism be the end of the story. Instead, Philip says just one thing to Nathanael,  “Come and see.”  (1:46) So off they go, to find Jesus. And as Philip and Nathanael walk towards Jesus, even before they get to him, Jesus sees Nathanael coming and starts calling out to him. (1:47) Nathanael seems kind of stunned that Jesus, whom he has never met, seems to know some stuff about him. And before you know it, Nathanael confesses that Jesus is “the Son of God” and the “King of Israel.”  (1:48-9)

So this is thesequence:  Philip comes up to Nathanael all excited about Jesus. But Nathanael dismisses him, saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But Philip doesn’t give up on Nathanael. Philip literally takes Nathanael to Jesus. He and Jesus talk, and boom, Nathanael gets it. And you know what occurred to me? It was Philip’s activity in approaching Nathanael,and, after initially being brushed aside, inviting Nathanael to come and see Jesus that made it possible for Nathanael to become a disciple! If Philip had been put off by Nathanael’s cynicism -- if Philip had  given up after Nathanel’s first reaction, this never would have happened. Philip had to persist in the face of doubt and cynicism in order to help Nathanael make his way to God. Philip invited him, encouraged him, and physically brought him to see Jesus, and Jesus took it from there. Philip was the human mediator between Jesus and Nathanael, and his persistence paid off. Doesn’t this give us a pretty direct suggestion of how to go about passing along the good news of Jesus Christ? I mean, when we encounter folks who aren’t churchgoers or who don’t believe that Jesus was any big deal, the very best thing we can say to them might simply be: Come and see.
                                                                                                            Come and see.
 
After all, Nathanael thought he knew what this man from Nazareth was all about  But it took meeting him and speaking with him for Nathanael to see that this man was the son of God. And I think that cautions us as well -- I think we often think that we know who Jesus is, that we’ve got God all figured out, but this story suggests to us that Jesus does not always fit into our “preconceived categories and expectations” -- that the revelation of God in Jesus Christ still has the power to surprise us. (O’Day 533)

We might ourselves one day be called to play Philip to another’s Nathanael. We may be presented in our lives with an opportunity to physically bring a cynical someone to church, just as Philip brought Nathanael to Jesus. Come and see. Come and see. Because remember that it wasn’t Philip’s brilliant oratory that finally convinced Nathanael that there was something to this Jesus business. (Bartlett 265) It was three simple words.  Come and see. That’s all – just three simple words. That was how the kingdom of God spread in Jesus’s day – and that’s how it spreads in ours. (Anderson 20) Come and see, and let God do the rest.

There’s one other thing in this gospel that seems worth noting. At the end of this passage, Jesus says to Nathanael basically “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”  (1:50) Jesus says, if you were dazzled by what you’ve seen me do, today, stick around; there’s more to come. The last thing Jesus says to Nathanael is: “Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”  (1:51) I thought this was kind of an odd thing to say, so I looked it up. Jesus is referring directly to the story of Jacob’s ladder. Remember that story from Genesis,  (Gen. 28:1-10) where Jacob falls asleep and has a dream in which he sees angels “ascending and descending” on a ramp or ladder that strentches from heaven to earth? (Bartlett 263) Jacob’s ladder becomes a symbol for the connectedness between God in heaven and humankind on earth, and John the gospel writer wants us to see that Jesus is identifying himself as an avenue for that connectedness between human beings and God. Jesus Christ is “not merely [] a messenger from God, but [] the means by which human beings can have an authentic encounter” with God. (263 & 265) He “is the ladder between heaven and earth…” (Bartlett 263, Cook 102) And that’s a great metaphor for us– Jesus is the ladder between us and God; he is the access point between heaven and earth; he is “God’s very own eternal Word [] made available to us…in the life” of Jesus of Nazareth. (Bartlett 264) So that means that the answer to Nathanael’s question, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” is YES. (Stone 3). Amen.

Works Cited

Anderson, Cynthia. “Living by the Word.” Christian Century January 13, 2009.  20.

Bartlett, David L. & Barbara Brown Taylor.  Eds.  Feasting on the Word. Year B, vol. 1. Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.

Childs, James M. “The Season of Epiphany.”  New Proclamation. Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2002.

Cook, Stephen L.  New Proclamation, Year B. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008.

Craddock, Fred B., et al. Preaching Through the Christian Year: Year B. Valley Forge:  Trinity Press, 1993.

Keim, Paul. “Call me.” “Living by the Word.” Christian Century January 11, 2003.  6.

Koester, Nancy. “The Season of Epiphany.” New Proclamation. Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 1999.

O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” New Interpreter’s Bible. IX. Nashville:  Abingdon Press 1995.

Powell, Mark Alan. Epiphany. Proclamation 6, Series B. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.

Stone, Lance. “Something new…”  Sermon for Epiphany 2B. Disclosing New Worlds website, wolsblog.com.

This line is a paraphrase of a line in Lance Stone’s sermon for Epiphany 2B. (Stone 2)