John 1:43-51
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found the one of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And 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.”
Last week, within the hour following worship, two people who know me pretty well (even better than I realize sometimes) texted me to ask if I was okay – that I seemed “off,” even angry during worship. As much as I hate to give off such a vibe when leading worship, I can’t say I was surprised. I blame part of it on this mask. My eyes don’t smile, dang it, and there’s not much I can do about that!
But the larger truth is that – as many of you know or can imagine – I’m feeling as overwhelmed about life in the world these days as the rest of you. And sometimes I forget that and don’t realize how it shows as much as I wish it didn’t. And it was a hard, holy, deeply meaningful thing to realize that two people who care about me could see me – even through the mask and over the internet – in that way. And that they cared enough to let me know what they saw.
And then I read about Jesus collecting disciples in John’s Gospel. And that constant command or invitation or double-dog-dare, whatever you want to call it: “Come and see.” And I thought differently about Nathanael this time around, because of it.
When Philip tells Nathanael to “come and see” this Jesus, Nathanael is like, “Yeah. Whatever. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (I imagine Nathanael rolling his eyes, stubbing out his 1st Century cigarette if there was such a thing, and reluctantly following his friend, even though there were 37 other things he’d rather be doing than going to meet some knucklehead from Nazareth.)
But I like Nathanael for that question and for his skepticism, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” And I think Jesus liked him for it, too. Because when Jesus approaches him he seems to applaud Nathanael for it. Jesus says, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” “Here’s a guy who isn’t afraid to say what he’s thinking.” “Here’s a guy who isn’t afraid to be suspicious – even about ‘the Lamb of God,’ or about the ‘one Moses and the prophets wrote so much about.’”
And when Nathanael wonders how in the world Jesus knows so much about him already, Jesus says that he saw him, sitting under a fig tree sometime before Philip introduced them.
And, no one knows exactly what Nathanael was doing or what made Jesus notice him sitting under some fig tree on that particular day. But it sure meant something to Nathanael that Jesus saw him there – really saw him, apparently. Maybe he was waiting for work or taking a lunch break. Maybe he was rehearsing a difficult conversation he needed to have with his parents or his wife or his kid. Maybe he was grieving a loss. Maybe he was praying for God to send him a sign of some kind. Maybe Nathanael wasn’t doing anything and just marveled at the notion that Jesus had seen and noticed and remembered him at all.
Whatever the case, “seeing” and “being seen” seem to matter to Jesus. And it mattered for Nathanael. And I think it matters to the rest of us, too. I know it mattered for me last Sunday after worship. We all want to know that we matter. That our words and our thoughts matter. That we’re not alone in this world. We all want to know that someone, somewhere cares enough about us to worry when we struggle and to celebrate when we succeed. To be seen and heard – really seen and heard – is to have our value and worth confirmed and to know we matter to someone other than ourselves.
So, it mattered terrifically for Nathanael to know – even in spite of his skepticism – that he had been seen by Jesus. It mattered so much that he followed that knucklehead from Nazareth and became his disciple because of it.
I heard someone this past week talking about what happened at our nation’s Capitol, in Washington, D.C., on January 6th – the violent, hate-filled, murderous riot or insurrection or attempted coup or terrorist attack, I mean. I’m still not sure what we’re supposed to call it. Maybe it was a little of all of those things.
Well, this pundit was talking about the likes of those who stormed the Capitol that day – and about what it is or was that inspired them to go to such crazed and ugly extremes. Without mention of voter fraud or election corruption or any political issue in particular, really, this guy suggested that somehow – over the course of the last four years – the President convinced a whole lot of rural, white, lower and middle-class Americans that he had “seen” them in a way that no one else had “seen” or “heard” or “cared” about them before.
He suggested that a particular demographic of our population had been – or was convinced they had been – ignored and dismissed and disregarded by the likes of Hollywood and the “mainstream media” and by politicians and political parties heretofore so that when Donald Trump seemed to “see” them, their allegiance to him became so complete and so total and so blind, so as to become dangerous and destructive and deadly, even – as we all saw it become a week-and-a-half ago, when these people – the rioters – were under the impression that no one was listening to their side of the story anymore.
And it made me think about something Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is famous for having said once: that “a riot is the language of the unheard.” “Riot is the language of the unheard.” (It’s important to know that King wasn’t condoning or celebrating or advocating riot or violence in any way. And I’m certainly not, either. In fact, when King said that “a riot is the language of the unheard,” he was simply acknowledging the Truth of that while holding fast to his own commitment to remain non-violent at all costs as a man of God, as a follower of Jesus, and as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement in this country.)
So, I think there’s a lesson still to be learned from Martin Luther King, Jr. – and from Jesus and Nathanael in this morning’s Gospel – about the unsettled and unsettling times we’re living in. Because we have work to do – all of us – when it comes to seeing and hearing one another in our country these days … because I think we’ve stopped seeing and hearing one another in so many ways that matter and that could make a difference in all of this.
Obviously, those waving their Confederate flags and sporting their “Camp Auschwitz” hoodies need to “come and see” for themselves what oppression and injustice really look like. They need to stop and listen to the stories of their Black and Brown, Jewish and Muslim neighbors, just for starters.
Obviously, Democrats and Republicans need to “come and see” and hear and listen to the Truth that exists on both sides of the imaginary aisle we pretend separates us so much of the time.
Obviously, the mob mentality and violent uprisings that threaten our safety and disrupt our democracy need to be condemned and stopped and held accountable so that they no longer look like a reasonable solution for anyone to engage – no matter what it is they’re protesting.
And what seems obvious to me – but not to everyone, I realize – is that we also need to stop pretending it’s okay, or even preferred, to steer clear of hard conversations about politics and religion in order to keep polite company. It’s this kind of taboo, I think, that has allowed a disconnect between how we vote and how we behave and what we profess to believe, as Christians, in so many ways. (It is silence on the part of too many Christians – and this sort of caveat against discussing or mixing ‘politics and religion’ – that allows “Jesus 2020” banners to hang in such close proximity to a gallows and a noose during the same insurrection.)
And please know that I’m looking you. And I’m looking in the mirror, too.
Because those of us who think, pretend, and have convinced ourselves that we are above and beyond and better than all of this, might just need to crawl out from under our own fig trees, let ourselves be fully seen by Jesus for a change, and “come and see” for ourselves, again, what Jesus has been trying to show us all along:
The stuff of courage that speaks Truth to power, I mean.
The stuff of mercy and forgiveness, which makes room for the stuff of repentance…
Repentance which, when done faithfully and fully, implies confession and contrition and change…and that leads to the stuff of self-sacrifice and humility and the need to offer and to receive grace upon grace.
Because if and when we gather the courage to practice that kind of faith – to see one another and to let ourselves be seen – even in all of our cynical, skeptical, broken, and sinful ways (like Jesus saw Nathanael)…
If and when we dare to engage honest, faithful, vulnerable conversations about all of it … then something might change; then justice might be served; then hearts might soften; peace might win the day; and we might start following – more faithfully – the Jesus who died so that we might love one another – and love our enemies, too – in a whole new, life-giving, earth-shattering kind of way.
And then – then, then, then – we might see something like Jesus promised so long ago to Nathanael and those first disciples. We might see the heavens opening, and the angels of God ascending and descending, in our midst and upon the Son of Man; which is another way of saying, if you ask me, that things will be more “on earth as they are in heaven.”
Amen
