Jan 15 | “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (Sermon, January 14th, 2018)

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ 37The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ 39He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). 42He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ 44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ 46Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ 47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ 48Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ 49Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ 50Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ 51And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

John 1: 35-51

 

“DO YOU KNOW JESUS?”

Who in this church didn’t just have a full body shudder at that question? I ask that without making assumptions. Some of you probably didn’t have that reaction, and I’m so glad! Because there’s a reason that for many of us that question is shorthand for a horrifying inescapable interaction, utterly alien to the actual experience of meeting Jesus.

For too many people, this question is a trap, because there’s no answer that will extricate you from it. If you say “No,” prepare to be treated as not only a future victim of hell, but a victim too stupid to know how much danger you are in. But if you say, “Yes,” that can actually be worse, because then all too often you will be treated to a longer conversation where you will be led down dark theological pathways where there most definitely be dragons. You’ll be asked if you or your church is “Bible-believing,” and we all know what people who use that phrase think it means, don’t we? You’ll probably be asked if you made a personal commitment to a one-on-one relationship with Jesus, who is all too often treated as a sort of celestial boyfriend slash school principal having long walks on the beach with you while also keeping a tally of your many errors. You’ll be asked what you and your church think about women, queer folks, and non-Christians. You’ll be given sword drills, and God help you if you think it’s less important to know the letter of the law than to know the spirit, and God help you twice if you don’t even know what sword drills are.

Think of how much easier it was when, in answer to the question “Do you know Jesus?” you could say, “Yeah, that guy,” and point.

And yet I wonder if that particular occasion ever really occurred, because the story we read today, and many other stories we have read in church, show us that it was never so simple as “that guy over there.” Because Jesus was, above all things, compelling.

This tale of Nathanael cements the writer of the Gospel of John as a master storyteller. Jesus finds Philip and says, “Follow me.” And what is the immediate response? No hesitation. Part of that is John’s Jesus, who is almost supernatural in his attraction, and who knows each of his sheep by name. But I can’t help but believe that there was some truth to this trait of his, because we find evidence for it in the very fact that the Christian faith exists today, two thousand years after the fact. This person was a spiritual magnet. Jesus finds Philip and says, “Follow me,” and Philip not only thinks, “Okay!” but he runs immediately to find someone else to join him. He has to tell someone about this person.

He finds Nathanael.

Nathanael makes a very old joke, one which seems most appropriate this week in light of a certain president’s comments, and one which is still repeated today in Nazareth. Actually I was in Nazareth a year ago, and we learned that there is an answer to that question: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” “No – the good ones stay.”

City pride aside, Nazareth was such a podunk place that up until very recently archaeologists were arguing about whether it ever actually existed in Jesus’ time. It was likely just a few families, maybe no more than 200 people at the most, living together and resisting the Greek lifestyle that the Jewish puppet kings were promoting, trying their best to live a Jewish life. There were probably rebels among that crowd, Zealots and fundamentalists praying for the redemption of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Roman Empire. A sketchy profane place which surely could never produce the titanic spiritual figure that those Jewish peasants believed would be the Messiah. A sh – well, you know.

So Philip comes to Nathanael with wild starry eyes, and you can imagine now why Nathanael was skeptical. But here’s where we really get to the heart of the matter. When Nathanael asks his famous question, Philip cannot even provide a real response.

All he can say is, “Come and see.”

This is a very special phrase in John, a Gospel which is basically a Jenga tower of special phrases and words. It does not only mean “Come and see.” It has thousands of millions of strata beneath it. It should not be disentangled from another phrase which comes up a lot in John: zoē, the Greek word translated “eternal life.”

“Come and see. Come into the presence of eternal life.”

Christianity cannot be distilled into one prayer of salvation, or one service, or one set of rules, or one church, or even one important book. If Christianity is a tree, the roots are a series of thousands of charged encounters between disciples and this strangely compelling person who walked the dusty roads of forgotten towns changing lives with his words and his presence – a presence so powerful, so utterly seductive, that his followers claim it left a sort of afterglow when he had gone, like the smear a bright light leaves on the eyes; a presence that left everyone who came into contact with it inexplicably changed; a presence which filled those people with a holy wildfire that could not be contained but spilled out across the whole earth; a presence which people were willing to die proclaiming and honoring.

The story doesn’t end with “Come and see.” Nathanael comes to find Jesus, and Jesus makes his own joke: “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” This isn’t just an assessment of character. The word Israel comes from the name that God gave to Jacob, which for Greek-speaking Jews was tied to the Greek word dolos, which means “cunning,” or “crafty.” Here is a son of Jacob in whom there is no Jacob! We can read it as Jesus knowing about the kind of person Nathanael is, or Jesus making reference to Nathanael’s biting honesty in his earlier comment about Nazareth. It doesn’t really matter, because what the writer of John is trying to say here is, “Jesus is the Good Shepherd, who knows his own.”

Nathanael is perplexed that this guy not only knows him, but saw him “under the fig tree.” We’re not sure exactly why this excites Nathanael so much – does it demonstrate a sort of second sight? It’s not clear – and Jesus is right in his teasing response: “What, you believe because I say I saw you under the fig tree?” It’s true: Nathanael will surely see greater things than these – he will see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. This is a continuation of that earlier joke, referring to Jacob’s ladder. Nathanael, a new Jacob, shall not only see but befriend a ladder for angels – not in dreams, but in his waking life. Nathanael, and all of the disciples, shall find themselves always walking on holy ground.

And we children of these latter years, far removed from the dusty roads of the Galilee, will and have seen greater things than these. We see these things in our churches and in our day to day lives. We have inherited a robust faith which engages hearts, minds, and bodies. This is why it’s so important to look beyond the kind of faith that relies solely on miracles and superstition. Jesus himself pushes us past this. It’s not just about seeing people under fig trees, or performing magic tricks. It’s about affirming that the holy came down to us in order to call us upward. It’s about becoming like Nathanael, seeing angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man, the one who put on our flesh in order to bridge the gap between created and uncreated order and thereby became a channel for all creation to ascend.

It’s about being lifted up to join our ancestors, to become saints, in our earthly lives.

It’s about being invited into eternal life – on earth, as in heaven.

Do you know Jesus?

Look around you. You do.

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