The Rev. Allan Sandlin, associate rector> click here for the Scripture for the day
Out of breath, Philip runs up to his friend, Nathanael, and can’t hold back a minute longer: We've found the One Moses wrote of in the Law, the One preached by the prophets. It's Jesus, Joseph's son, the one from Nazareth!
Raising an eyebrow, Nathanael seems skeptical: Nazareth? You’ve got to be kidding. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
I like Nathanael. I like that he wants more than enthusiasm, more than an emotional, gushy introduction to this supposed Messiah. I like him, but he also makes me a little uncomfortable because his question isn’t just a doubting question. It’s a bigoted question. His question judges someone on the basis of where he comes from, who his people are.
Philip might have argued with Nathanael, but he doesn’t. Instead, Philip simply invites him to come and see. Come and find the answer for yourself. Come and see, discover who this person is for yourself.
That’s where I started with this sermon. I found myself drawn to those three words, wanting to invite you once again to come and see Jesus. Come and see Jesus in the unexpected person sitting next to you in the pew, see Jesus in the stranger you meet on the street or in a colleague at work. Come and see Jesus in the wondering questions of children, in the wisdom of our elders. Come and see Jesus in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.
That’s a sermon I’ve preached before. That’s where I thought we’d be headed this morning.
But keep reading. It’s not just Nathanael’s response that catches our attention this morning. The story doesn’t end with the invitation for him to come and see.
In fact, it’s Jesus, not Nathanael, who sees first. Jesus spots Nathanael coming toward him and says, out of the blue, without prompting “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Here's a real Israelite, not a false bone in his body, Jesus is saying.
Say you were out for a walk in the park with a friend and your friend introduced you to someone, someone you’d never seen before and instead of saying “Nice to meet you” that person said “I know more about you than you know about yourself”…you might be just a bit suspicious. Jesus’ greeting prompts Nathanael to ask “Where did you get to know me?” Who have you been talking to about me?
And Jesus’ answer is as perplexing to us as it was, no doubt, to Nathanael. “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
Something about those words takes root in Nathanael and he changes his mind about Jesus. The one who had been skeptical, even bigoted in his initial response to the idea of Jesus, now meeting him face to face, recognizes him and proclaims him to be Son of God, King of Israel.
The recognition is mutual. Jesus sees Nathanael and recognizes in him a faithful, honest man, someone who could be trusted. And Nathanael sees in Jesus someone he can only begin to name, something divine, someone who invites him into a future he can scarcely imagine.
All in all, it was a strange first meeting.
We read about another surprising first encounter in the lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures this morning. It’s the middle of the night and the child Samuel is lying down in the temple keeping watch. His teacher, Eli, is in the next room, trying to get some sleep. Samuel keeps hearing someone call his name and three times he gets up, goes to Eli and presents himself, ready for service. “Here I am, for you called me.”
Eli must have assumed the boy was dreaming until finally, Samuel came to him for third time. Eli’s eyesight was failing him but he was also losing his spiritual vision and thus he didn’t see what was going on right away. It was only after Samuel’s 3rd visit that he realized it was God calling the boy.
Samuel needed Eli to interpret, to help him understand the call from God. And God is about to give this young boy who is both truthful and confused some very adult responsibilities.
Author and social ethicist, Christine Pohl, directs our attention to the similarity of experience between Samuel and Nathaniel.
On their own, neither (Samuel) nor Nathanael is able to interpret these strange encounters. Samuel doesn’t recognize God’s voice and Nathanael is puzzled by Jesus’ inauspicious origins and then by his extraordinary capacity to know and see.
But both of them are portrayed as truthful...the childlike innocence in Samuel is reflected in the description of Nathanael as an Israelite in whom there is “no deceit.” No cunning, no spin…just a purity of heart that helps open their eyes to see God. (1)
Those words describe our leading characters in this morning’s lessons. But they also remind me of Martin Luther King…a man who told the truth, with no cunning, no deceit, no spin…he had a purity of heart that opened his eyes and all of our eyes to see God.
This past Thursday, January 15, was Martin Luther King’s birthday. He would have been 80 years old. That’s hard to imagine. We remember him as that young man of 39: passionate, courageous and strong. In churches across the nation and indeed around the world today, we honor Dr. King in our prayers, in our hearts and in our songs.
We are told that Martin was a reluctant civil rights activist and even a reluctant preacher. He was embarrassed by the enthusiastic singing and shouting at the church he grew up in, Ebenezer Baptist Church, of course, and didn’t imagine that he’d grow up to be a preacher. His encounter with God must have been a surprise to him. But that encounter or rather, those encounters, I suspect, propelled him into the activist ministry that led to changes in the law and began to change American attitudes toward race.
And helped prepare the way for January 20th, 2009…
No matter how you voted, this is a remarkable thing that’s about to happen. 40 years after Martin Luther King was assassinated, an African-American, a man whose mother was a white Caucasian woman from Kansas and whose father was a black man from Kenya is about to become the President of the United States.
And whatever your hopes for him, whether or not you think you will agree with the decisions he will make and the actions he will take, we join together today in praying for him and for our country.
Our soon-to-be President has challenged all of us in a particular way that relates to the gospel this morning. He has called for a renewal of the Martin Luther King National Day to be a day of service. In 1994 Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act, designating the King Holiday as a national day of volunteer service. Instead of a day off from work or school, Congress asked Americans of all backgrounds and ages to celebrate Dr. King's legacy by turning community concerns into citizen action.
So, tomorrow President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden and their families will lead the way, volunteering to work in the Washington DC community. They will set an example for the nation: it will be a day for Americans of every race, every religion, from every corner of our country to give an hour or a morning or a day in the service of others. Not just a day off from work, but a day on, a day on in service of those in our beloved community who are in dire need of help and not just tomorrow.
Closer to home, I look around and see my friend at Holy Trinity who volunteers time working to prevent teenage suicide. And I think of those among us who work to provide clean water for Haiti and who teach children in Honduras to make rosaries to sell and those who will travel to New Orleans in a few weeks to help with the re-building effort there.
I remember the woman who regularly checks in on her lonely neighbors in the retirement community where she lives, offering a little company, a smile and always, a prayer. And the Holy Trinity family who brought in a trunk load of groceries to help restock the shelves at DEAM after Christmas.
If you’re looking for a place to volunteer some time tomorrow, here’s a website for you to visit: just go to mlkday.gov and you’ll find good options right in your neighborhood. I read on that website this morning that there are more than 11,000 projects happening tomorrow across America, more than double last year’s number. Americans will make it “a day on, not a day off” by delivering meals, refurbishing schools, reading to children, cleaning up neighborhood parks and much more.
Some of you have been to one of our Welcome Table services and you’ve experienced how we’re trying to connect our worship—come and see—with the work God calls all of us to do—go and serve. As we feast on bread and wine, as we taste God and are drawn into the mystery of this feast, we also have the opportunity to do something, to offer something for others within the context of worship.
For example, at one service recently, after receiving Communion, the congregation moved to tables set up along the edges and made sandwiches to be distributed to the homeless.
In Communion, we receive the gifts of God for the people of God and we ponder what our gifts will be back to the world, back to our city, to our communities.
Here’s the thing: our life in Christ only begins when we come and see. Don’t get me wrong.
Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, if you’ve been at Holy Trinity all your life or if you are new to Holy Trinity or especially if you’re new to the Christian faith, we invite you to come and see. Come and see because God is waiting for you at this table.
But once you’ve experienced God’s love here in Communion, offered freely with no strings attached, how can you keep from wanting to pass it on to someone else?
Today we can all aspire today to follow in the footsteps of Samuel and Nathaniel, open and receptive to God’s surprising call, to come and see.
And we can be inspired by Martin Luther King and Barack Obama to go and serve.
Some of you have heard this invitation to Communion often used in the Iona Community in Scotland:
This is the table,
not of the Church, but of the Lord.
It is to be made ready
for those who love God
and those who want to love God more.
So, come,
you who have much faith
and you who have little,
you who have been here often
and you who have not been for a long time,
you who have tried to follow and you who have failed.
Come,
because it is God who invites you.
It is God’s will that those who seek him
should meet him here.
That’s the come and see invitation.
Today we would add:
And having met the Holy One in this place,
go with strength and courage to seek and serve others
in the name of Christ.
Amen.
(1) from The Christian Century, ”Living by the Word” January 18, 2009
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