Sermon - "See for Yourselves"

 January 18, 2015

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”    Nathaniel’s response to Philip is understandable.  Philip has just announced that he has found the messiah, the one about whom Moses and the prophets wrote, Jesus  from Nazareth.  But there’s a problem.   Nazareth was an insignificant agricultural village.   And not only do the prophets and Moses never mention Nazareth – the village is nowhere mentioned in the entire old testament.   The messiah from Nazareth!?  Such a thought runs counter to Nathaniel’s and Israel’s expectations. 

Charles Campbell writes of a conversation he had with his lesbian friend, Renata.   She told him about a recurring dream in which Jesus comes to her home, and he comes to her in a very surprising way.    She said “Jesus identifies so profoundly with me and my experience, as an outsider in certain areas of my life, that he actually comes to me in my dream as a lesbian.”   Jesus the lesbian.      How many of you have ever thought of Jesus that way?    

You may have heard of the sculpture of the homeless Jesus sleeping on the park bench, or the rendering of Jesus as the crucified woman.   

These may be surprising images for us.   But probably no more surprising than Philip’s announcement concerning “the Messiah from Nazareth”   if the Messiah is from Nazareth, then he comes from outside the tradition, outside orthodox theology, outside all official expectations.   Coming from Nazareth, Jesus comes in unexpected freedom, rather than under human or institutional constraints.   He comes to judge and redeem our traditions, our theology, our expectations, rather than fit neatly into them.  

Philip’s pronouncement is surprising indeed.  

And Nathaniel’s response is : “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” 

Philip’s  reply to this question is, “come and see.”   

“See for yourself,” Phillip says.    And what else could he say?  After all, he couldn't cite any of the scriptures to prove his point, for none can be found to support his assertion.   He couldn't refer to the teachings of the elders, for none of them foresaw the possibility.  

He couldn't call on the religious authorities for support; they would think he’s crazy.   So all he’s left with is, “come and see.”      “Don’t take my word for it, accept the invitation and see for yourself.”   

He implies, “I cannot give you my belief, but I can encourage you to inspect, explore, and experience for yourself.”  

It’s certainly not my place or my intention to impose  my understanding about Jesus upon you;  although I am glad to share that from time to time with you. and it is not the way of the united church to demand that you believe one way and one way only regarding Jesus; rather you are invited to come and see for yourselves.   You are invited to come and risk the adventure of discipleship, to risk an encounter with an outsider, and on that journey to learn who Jesus really is, really is for you.  

One of the striking features of our gospel reading is the sheer multiplicity of words about Jesus.   Listen once again, “...the one about whom Moses and the prophets wrote....Jesus, son of Joseph,...rabbi....son of God,, King of Israel, the human one or in other translations, son of man.”     The multiplicity itself is a gift to the church and to the world today, when the narrowness of talk about Jesus is so often paired with an insistence that the narrowness is all there is to say.   Such narrowing happens in many ways.   Jesus is made into no more and no less than best friend, or great teacher, or radical revolutionary, or word of god, or prophet,  or God incarnate and on and on.  

The many words about Jesus in scripture resist any such reduction.  They pile up past the testimony of any one person , beyond any one, simple identification.

So, we are invited, as was skeptical Nathaniel, to “come and see for ourselves.”    And the remarkable thing is that Nathaniel goes.   Despite his scornful comment about Nazareth, despite his skepticism, Nathaniel takes the first step of discipleship; he goes with Philip to meet this Jesus of Nazareth.  And Nathaniel  is not disappointed.  During  a single, short conversation with Jesus he becomes convinced,  rather too naively and quickly perhaps, that this one from Nazareth is indeed the one about whom Moses and the prophets wrote.  

For Nathaniel, the person of Jesus, the unexpected one, begins to define the nature of the messiah, rather than the traditional expectations defining and limiting Jesus.

Jesus meets Nathaniel, and Jesus often meets us, outside our expectations and traditions and presuppositions.  Jesus, the word made flesh, comes to us in freedom and will not be bound by our institutions and our orthodoxies.  “Come and see,” Philip says to us.  “See for yourselves.”  and if we go, like Nathaniel, we just might be surprised.  

During my my first year here at Augustine, just a short time before Christmas, i found myself very bus one day and  didn't allow time to go out to get lunch and I hadn't brought a lunch with me.    So I wandered into the guild hall where the oak table lunch program was nearing its end.   I went over to the volunteer who had been serving lunch and asked if there were any sandwiches left over, explaining my situation.     She said something to the effect, “well, there’s no need to go hungry.   There are plenty of sandwiches left over.”  And she kindly gave me one.      A few days later, on the last day that Oak Table would be open before its Christmas break, I was informed that a guest of Oak Table had left something for me.     It was a box  - a Christmas cheer board box of food.   I knew well the person who had left me the box for he had been a regular member of West Broadway community ministry in my years of service there.  

I decided I’d keep the box in my office, and the frozen chicken that came with it in the Oak Table freezer, with the intention of speaking to him after the holiday break.   Eventually, in early January, I  got a chance to speak to him.  I said, “Someone brought to me your Christmas cheer box saying you left it for me.  I think there must be some mistake.”    He responded, “no mistake, pastor.   I heard someone say you were hungry, so I wanted to help out.” 

for me that day Jesus was present in a most unexpected way  -

In the love and care of this person for me, and in his truly sacrificial giving to one whom he perceived was in need.      Such holy moments, such glimpses into the divine, happen regularly in community ministry.    That is not always apparent to people.     It is not a place where they expect to meet Jesus; many think community ministries are just social services without any real connection to the faith.    I remember one time being interviewed by a reporter when I was working in community ministry.    He was clearly thinking along these lines.    He kept pressing me to articulate how such social ministry was anything but peripherally religious.   Clearly his attitude was that the church of Jesus Christ is defined only by preaching the old-time gospel , Sunday worship, and encouraging ‘family values.’    At one point he rather arrogantly said,  “well this place is doing some good things for the people who come here; but quite frankly I ask you, where is Jesus in all this?”  

I admit I tried to articulate an answer that would satisfy him, but after blubbering inanely for a while I finally said, “You know, you just have to be here for a time. 

You just have to see for yourself.”    “Come and see” said Philip to Nathaniel, and some people do not see because they will not come to those places where one can get an angle of vision, where one can see the grace of Christ at work in the world.

Notice that in the gospel text the invitation of Philip to ‘come and see’  and of Jesus to ‘follow me’  have no preconditions attached.   The invitations don’t say, “Come follow me once you have sufficient understanding, once you have settled all of the great questions, once you can prove you are worthy enough or good enough, or once you had achieved a state of spiritual perfection or discernment.    The invitation didn't propose any moral hoops to  be jumped through.   We receive our invitation and we accept that invitation not because we must, but because we may.     

“Come and see,” Philip says.  And Nathaniel immediately responds and believes.  But that is not the end of the story.  For Jesus, amused at the quickness of Nathaniel’s belief, promises much more to come:  “you will see greater things than these....you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the human one.”  This is a mysterious promise.  

At the very least Jesus suggests that Nathaniel will come to know him as the one in whom heaven and earth meet, the one through whom god is made known.  

But Jesus’ words remain a mysterious promise, and we shouldn't try to interpret them too fully.   Rather we are to follow Jesus and see for ourselves.   Follow me, says Jesus, and you will come to know even more fully who I am and even more fully the abundant life I bring.  

he invites us to join him in all the fullness, the goodness, and the grand purposes  of all that God has in store for us.    Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Major Resources:

“The Sermon: An Approach” by Charles Campbell in Word & Witness, Vol. 97:1, (Year B), pp.43-44.

Editor:  Paul Scott Wilson.   Liturgical Publications Inc. New Berlin, WI>  1996.

“Invitations” by Peter J. Gomes in Pulpit Digest, January/February 1999, pp. 35-38.

Editor: David Albert Farmer.    Logos Productions Inc.   Inver Grove Heights, MN.

“Sermon Nugget” by Thomas G. Long in Emphasis, Volume 29, Number 5, p. 38.

Editor:  Teresa Rhoads.    CSS Publishing Company, Inc. Lima, Ohio.   2000.

“Homiletical Perspective”  by Ted A. Smith in Feasting on the Word, Year B,Volume 1, pp. 261-265

Editors: David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor.  Westminster John Knox Press.

Louisville, Kentucky.  2008.