May I speak in the Name of God Who is: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our cherished history as a covenant people includes many experiences of those who seek God and in our sacred Scripture we hear how they discover Him in unexpected ways. Our Gospel lesson is one of those stories. We find enthusiasm, prejudice, and extraordinary insight all in one short narrative. Phillip’s encounter with Jesus was dramatic and life-changing full of extraordinary excitement and enthusiasm, so off he ran to find his friend, Nathaniel. But upon finding out where Jesus came from, Nathaniel’s response is not very promising, “Can any good come out of Nazareth?” He is very skeptical that the Messiah would come from such an obscure a place (much like we might say, “Can any good come out of Pacoima?”) But Phillip is unperturbed by his friend’s lack of enthusiasm. “Come and see,” he says. He offers no defense of Jesus’ hometown, just an invitation to personal encounter.
Phillip risked rejection when he tackled Nathaniel. He risked embarrassment. Today, in our culture, he might be accused of being too evangelical or a fanatic, trying to force his religion on others. Yet Phillip seemed sure that if he could just get Nathaniel to meet Jesus, he would be convinced that even if this Jesus was the son of Joseph from Nazareth, he was also the person long hoped for.
Whatever Nathaniel’s thoughts are when he arrives on the scene, bewilderment replaces skepticism. Jesus sees him and makes this odd observation about him, “Behold an Israelite, indeed, in whom is no deceit!” A stranger’s introduction does not usually include sweeping pronouncements about one’s life. Nathaniel is puzzled and says, “How do you know me?” With an explanation that probably leaves us as puzzled as Nathaniel, Jesus answers, “I saw you under the fig tree before Phillip called you.” Sort of like saying, “I’ve seen you around,” or “I had my eye on you. And that’s all it took for the skeptic to abandon his doubting posture; he proclaims, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” From where did this confession and insight come? Nothing but an encounter with the divine could explain this sacred recognition.
In I Samuel we are given another strange first encounter. Young Samuel is put in the care of the aging priest of God, Eli, by his mother. While being mentored by Eli, Samuel is attentive and responsive to Eli’s requests and instructions. So when Samuel hears his name being called out at night he thinks it is Eli calling him again and again and runs to him. Finally, Eli realizes that this is not just a young boy troubled by dreams, but a child whom God is calling. Samuel will be established as God’s prophet and as a child begins to learn under the direction of Eli how to listen and respond.
Samuel does not recognize God’s voice at first and Nathaniel questions the quality of a man of inauspicious origins. Both are portrayed as truthful, and the child-like innocence of Samuel is also reflected in the description of Nathaniel as an Israelite in whom there is no “deceit.” Both have a purity of heart that allows them to open their eyes to see God. Yet Jesus questions Nathaniel after the young man’s enthusiastic recognition, “Do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these… Truly you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” Nathaniel may have been surprised that Jesus recognized him at all, but then Jesus says in a manner of speaking, “You think that’s amazing? You ain’t seen nothing yet!” For us the idea of angel traffic between heaven and earth may seem quaint and sweet. But to Nathaniel, it was something much more profound since he was well aware of the story from Genesis of Jacob’s dream, where Jacob saw a ladder or stairway reaching to heaven with angels going up and down. This image of angel movement points to the connection between heaven and earth, the connection between God and us. However, the image Jesus uses does not include the ladder or stairway as the conduit for the angelic movement, but rather it is the Son of Man. He is the connection between heaven and earth, the connection between God and God’s people. This is very good news, indeed!
This the One we celebrate this season as our Emmanuel, God in man made manifest. This connection to God means we must always be open to “new-ness” that is to being renewed, to seeing anew every day the needs of God’s people around us, to being open to the new directions our spiritual lives may go if we but dare to open our eyes to the movement of the angels, to be a pilgrim people. The great classical Anglican divine, Richard Hooker, described all worship as our encounter with angels ascending and descending.
Jesus calls us to be “Nathaniels,” whose prejudice about others can be changed by a genuine encounter with the Lord. Such an encounter challenges us to engage people in the totality of their being, whatever their race, background, class, wealth, poverty, gender, sexual orientation, or anything else we use to define others. Encounters with God are often unpredictable. They catch us by surprise, interrupt our regular patterns and challenge our assumptions. Samuel’s first experience of God’s call and Nathaniel’s first encounter with Jesus are unsettling, but both open into promise of deeper relationship and greater vision. Skepticism and inexperience are not barriers when they are accompanied by truthfulness and transparency.
Perhaps Jesus had Nathaniel in mind when He later taught in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
Amen.
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