In today's Gospel Nathanael's skeptical question "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" echoed in what our President essentially asked days ago in a meeting over a DACA comprise. He asked in what he labeled himself as "tougher language" essentially the same question "Can anything good come out of Haiti? Can anything good come out of Nigeria? Can anything good come out of Africa?
Nazareth was a backwater, a place with a bad reputation, not the sort of place where the right people lived at the time. Do you hear the echoes of judgment coming down through the ages? And, of course, the answer to each and all these questions must be yes. The answer to be understood through Jesus (and by our faith that all men are created equal) is that the merit of any individual cannot be established by past, place or position.
Bonhoeffer once wrote "God became human so that humans could become truly human and humane." Unfortunately we cannot imagine an end to the new and old man made distinctions people try to make but we can recognize when and how these distinctions contradict God and the gospel. Initially Christians were called people of The Way' (της οδου). Jesus pointed out the way by which these contradictions can be resolved in his answer to Nathanael's question:
"Come and see"
This week Pastor Ray began his Epiphany sermon series on living into our baptism. Today the sermon was focused on the topic: To Live Among God's Faithful People. This makes me think of Martin Luther's question "What does this mean?" and leads to the question "Who are these faithful people?" Pastor Ray reiterated something in his sermon this congregation knows very well. Oregon is a state where, when the population is surveyed will respond as spiritual but not religious.Living among God's people should not be limited to a particular place or people. We can find our way to a church building and the people in it. If the Promised Land were physical we could travel there. When the Promised Land is not a physical place the boundaries are different. Here again our John reading is enlightening because "Come and see" is the answer not only to Nathanael's question but is an answer to how the disciples respond when Jesus asks "What are you looking for?" Their answer to him is "Where are you staying?".
This works on two levels. Ostensibly, they want to know where Jesus is staying because it is getting late in the day and they too need a place to stay. But since the Greek word translated as “stay” is menô, a word that also signifies a permanent remaining or abiding. "Where are you staying?" essentially asks where Jesus permanently abides, reflecting the innate desire of any disciple is to be in Jesus’ presence always.
The two disciples do not know this yet, but ultimately the place where Jesus resides is with his disciples, as he says in the Farewell Discourse (John 14:23 and John 15:4). In the meantime, Jesus invites them to “come and see,” an invitation that at one level means to go and look at where he is staying but at a deeper level is an invitation to approach Jesus with the openness to see him through the eyes of faith.
Spending time with Jesus transforms them, as seen in the change in titles they use to refer to him. At first they call him “rabbi,” a title of respect to be sure. But when the disciple identified as Andrew speaks of Jesus in verse 41, he refers to him by the more significant title of “Messiah.”
Another aha moment was the multiple times found as a word is used in reading, We learn Simon Peter found his brother Simon and tells him "We have found the messiah." Next Jesus found Philip and Philip found Nathaniel. Today found is the clue that something besides travel takes us to the place where Jesus resides in those who find the Promised Land.
And when we find the Promised Land we live among God's faithful people where we are promised that we will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
well said
ReplyDelete