a sermon preached for University Presbyterian Church, Chapel Hill
by Anna Pinckney Straight
January 22, 2012
Psalm 139, 1-6, 13-18
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them--they are more than the sand; I come to the end--I am still with you.
John 1:43-51
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me."
44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
45 Philip 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."
46 Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."
47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him,
"Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!"
48 Nathanael asked him, "Where did you get to know me?" Jesus answered,
"I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you."
49 Nathanael replied, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"
50 Jesus answered, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You will see greater things than these."
51 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."
It's not like the other call stories, this call issued to Nathanael by Philip. In these early days, the gospels have a very specific pattern: followers are called by Jesus, and they go. Nathanael, here in the 1st chapter of John, gets a different script.
Philip has been found by Jesus, and he is now a disciple of Jesus. Consistent with the pattern and sign of Jesus, Philip now shares the same invitation he has received. He invites Nathanael to come, too.
Nathanael is not quickly swayed. He ponders. He questions. He retorts. "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
Maybe there is a good-natured rivalry between these towns.
Maybe Nathanael is drawing on a deep understanding of scripture, telling him that Messiahs don't have earthly fathers and Nazareth is not the chosen town.
Maybe he's just being sarcastic.[1]
Whichever the case may be, Philip's response is as good a lesson in evangelism as can be found in the Bible. He doesn't argue with Nathanael. He doesn't try and prove him wrong. He invites. "Come and see."
Come and See.
Come and see, Philip tells him. Only, it's more like Come and Experience. Come and perceive. Come and understand.[2]
And that's different than we normally do things, isn't it?
Normally we do our research first, move second. We're people who See. Then come.
Before you purchase a vacuum cleaner, you ask your neighbors. Consult consumer reports. Read the reviews on Amazon.com,
Ron Popeil, Tony Little, will tell you in their infomercials, try before you buy. No risk guarantee.
And I'm guessing that it's not only parents who know when and where to find the best samples in Harris Teeter, Whole Foods, or Trader Joes.
Test the water. Learn all that you can. Look before you leap.
Maybe this is the way to proceed when purchasing a vacuum cleaner or a new kind of bread.
But faith? Community? Salvation?
Philip, because of Jesus, reminds us this morning, with faith, we don't need to, we don't get to, know it all before we have to declare whether or not we are all in.
Come and See.
That's all the invitation Nathanael gets.
Maybe Philip didn't want to risk spoiling the great truth with too many words.
Maybe the truth was bigger than Philip, a new disciple himself, could find words to describe.
Or maybe Philip just knew. Knew, as Peter Gomes describes it, "Discipleship is not a secondhand experience. It is not a matter of authority unless it be that authority of one's own experience. Thus the last of these calls to discipleship, the last of these findings before the public ministry of Jesus begins, is based upon an invitation to investigate and see for oneself. Faith is not a matter of argument and is rarely the result of clever debate"[3]
Come and See. That's exactly what Nathanael does.
He goes. And he meets Jesus.
Jesus, who greets him with "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!"
It's worth noting that Israelite is not a term used frequently by John, and its usage here carries with it a sense of honor and respect for who Nathanael is. Did he truly have no deceit? Why was this the opening description? We don't know, the text gives us no more clues. What we do know is what happens next.
After his exchange with Jesus, Nathanael goes from skeptic to disciple. Because he isn't greeted by an indifferent Jesus, he is greeted by a God who knows the hairs on his head, who can call him by name. Who made him, wonderfully and fearfully. Who saw him under the fig tree.
Nathanael's response is quick and clear "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"
It is a proclamation of faith, and it is more. For in the Gospel of John, to know who Jesus is to follow Jesus. They can't be separated. Or experienced apart from each other. To know Jesus is to follow him. To be a part of Jesus' community of followers.
Gail O'Day writes[4]:
"The decision to be a disciple is inseparable from the decision one makes about Jesus' identity.... As each new disciple comes to Jesus, the decision to follow Jesus is made in response to a statement about Jesus' identity. Unlike the synoptic call narratives, where Jesus promises the disciples a change in their own lives, the focus of the call narratives in John is unwavering Christological. The call narratives begin with the identity of Jesus, and any change for the disciples begins with recognizing and claiming Jesus.
Nathanael isn't simply committing the present moment; he is pledging his entire life.
And it is only the beginning. For Jesus, after all of this has been said, tells Nathanael there is a still more ahead... You think this is great, Jesus asks? Just wait.
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."
I'm not proud of it, but too often in my own life I place myself with Nathanael's first response. Looking for the clever comeback. The retort that conceals my own fears.
I aspire to Philip's wisdom, and Nathanael's action, for when he sees the truth, and lets go of everything that has come before. Who, seeing the truth, is willing to follow.
Nathanael moves from skepticism to confession to the possibility of experiences beyond his imagining. Not because of his wisdom or power or greatness, but because of God's power and greatness, because of the love and mercy of Jesus Christ.
What was it about being seen under the fig tree that causes Nathanael to see, truly see? I suspect it is that Nathanael isn't simply greeted by Jesus, he is found.
Found, from the word heurisko, used five times in these three verses. It's translated "to find," Lutheran pastor Brian Stoffregen suggests that when they "find" Jesus, it isn't like locating something that has been misplaced, it is more like "an unexpected, non-anticipated surprise of Jesus breaking into their minds."[5]
When we find Jesus, it is really Jesus finding us.
"What Nathanael saw when he raised his eyes at last and looked up into that face we do not know," Frederick Buechner writes, "and we do not know either what you and I will see if such a moment should come for us when we too shall stand before his justice and his love at last with all of our secrets laid bare. But I believe, for us, as for Nathanael, it will be a face we recognize because at some level of our being it is a face we have always known the way the birds of the air know from a distance of a thousand miles their place of nesting, the way the trees of the forest, even in winter, are rooted deep in the promise of spring, We will know him when we see him, and, more crucial still, he will know us."[6]
Today, I wonder:
How is it for you? Where in your life, where in your faith are you being invited to come and see?
Where are you now- where is your fig tree-and where are you being invited to go?
Where have you accepted the invitation, and where are you hesitating?
And, who do you know who is waiting to be found, who is waiting to be invited, to hear the words, "Come and See." We're not only Nathanael in this text, we're Philip, too.
And the invitations we offer can be just as simple. We can't convince someone of faith. We can't browbeat someone into being found by Jesus. We can invite, Come and see. Come and see the grace which I have experienced. Come and see this thing, this place, and these people, which change my life.
Come and see. It's an invitation issued to all of us, and one we are to share. Who do you know who is waiting to be invited?
Come and see. Come and see.
[1]Peter J. Gomes, "John 1:45-51: Expository Article," Interpretation, 43, 3, July, 1989, 282-286.
"What Nathaniel has heard, however, makes him suspicious, for he knows that Nazareth is not the site of great expectations. "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" The question is a famous and a fertile one, giving rise to a wide variety of critical comment. C. K. Barrett says it sounds like a scornful proverb, but there is no evidence to suggest that it is. Others point to a local rivalry between Cana and Nazareth in which Nathaniel as a son of Cana would have taken partisan pleasure in debunking the claims of Nazareth. Luther thinks the question impertinent and Nathaniel a dunce and calls him "a silly old sheep." Others, however, including Augustine, suggest that Nathaniel was a much better student of Scripture and prophecy than Philip and therefore knew that the Messiah long expected would be neither the son of Joseph nor a native of Nazareth."
[2] Strong's Concordance
http://concordances.org/greek/1492.htm
Retrieved January 21, 2012.
[3]Peter J. Gomes, page 283.
[4] Gail R. O'Day, "The Gospel of John," The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. IX, Nashville:Abingdon Press, 1995, 534.
[5] Brian P. Stoffregen Exegetical Notes at Crossmarks
http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/john1x43.htm
Retrieved January 18, 2012.
[6] Frederick, Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life
in Sermons, New
York: HarperCollins, 2007, 111.
http://books.google.com/books?id=9YMdCjoFeiwC&lpg=PA111&dq=What%20Nathanael%20saw%20when%20he%20raised%20his%20eyes%20at%20last&pg=PA111#v=onepage&q=What%20Nathanael%20saw%20when%20he%20raised%20his%20eyes%20at%20last&f=false
Retrieved January 21, 2012.
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