2nd Sunday after Epiphany, Year B, Jan. 15, 2012

O God of calling and questing, may we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth – come when it may and cost what it will.

Those of you who hear me preach on a regular basis know that I often comment on the reading appointments made in our common lectionary. And today is no different. In the midst of sequential readings during the season of Epiphany that are all from the Gospel of Mark, we have a passage from the Gospel of John. I don’t have the foggiest idea why. The answer often given is that the Gospel of Mark is just too short – it moves too fast. (I’ve parroted that answer myself.) But when I stop to think about it, I realize that I’ve never heard anyone in church complain that a Gospel reading (or a sermon, for that matter) was too short!

This passage from the Gospel of John seems like a commercial interruption to the Mark narrative.  Some of you remember the voice on television that used to say, “and now, a word from our sponsor.” And it’s a funny little story – this piece of the first chapter in John. I read it as straight as I possibly could just now, but in my head it sounds more like an Abbot and Costello routine. I think it was funny when John first wrote it. But did any of you listen to this story and think, “huh?” Nathanael believes Jesus is the King of Israel because Jesus saw him under a fig tree? Angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man? Does the story sound a little cryptic to anyone?

I’m sure you have, at some time in your life, done a ‘connect-the-dots’ picture – think back! When you looked at the picture with all the dots, you really didn’t know what it was going to look like. You might have had some hints – maybe parts of the picture were drawn in but it was hard to figure out how the whole thing would look until you drew in the lines that connected the dots. Plus, if the copy of the connect-the-dot picture had been generated on an old copier, there might have been extra dots on the page that made the picture even harder to figure out. That’s a little bit what this Gospel lesson from John is like.

John clearly wants his hearers to know how Philip and Nathanael got involved with Jesus. John tells us that Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He had been in the Judean wilderness at the Jordan River where he had been baptized. The Gospel of John doesn’t tell the story of the baptism, just John the Baptist’s report that he did baptize Jesus. Then two of John the Baptist’s followers, including Andrew, were curious and started following Jesus. Then Andrew recruited his brother whose name was Simon. The story goes that Jesus met Simon, took one look at him and said “you will be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter, which in our day would be translated Rocky). By the way, according to John, this all happened far from the Sea of Galilee and had nothing to do with fishing boats.

The day after he met Peter, Jesus found Philip who was from the same town as Peter and Andrew. It’s a story about connections. We tell stories about connections like this all the time, don’t we? Jesus found out about Philip because Philip was from the same town as Peter and Andrew. So then Philip goes and finds Nathanael. That’s how Nathanael got involved. So those are the first dots being connected.

The next part of the picture is Nathanael’s response to Philip’s news that he believes he has found the Messiah in Jesus, the Son of Joseph. Nathanael says, “a Messiah? From Nazareth?” Maybe he meant, “A Messiah from that insignificant town?” or he could have meant something worse – Nazareth seems to have had a bad reputation. It was a small-time community, an agricultural village with probably no more than several hundred residents. Since it was so close to the opulent new Roman city of Sephoris, it probably supplied builders and other laborers who made a living working for the oppressors. Hard to imagine that a Messiah would come from there.

See for yourself, Philip replies. So Nathanael does – and as he approaches Jesus, Jesus says, “ah – here’s a guy who doesn’t hold back – he says what’s on his mind.” It’s also a play on the name Israel (aka Jacob) who was quite the deceiver– so an Israelite in whom there is no deceit might be a bit of a dig and in a guy-talk kind of way, also a compliment.

Nathanael, first skeptical, is now incredulous. He can’t believe that Jesus knows that about him because he’s never met Jesus before. He says, “how do you know me?” And Jesus replies, “I saw you under the fig tree.” So here’s a place where the story gets confusing for any of us who aren’t sure what that means. (And none of us knows for sure what this means.) It might be that Jesus was watching Philip and maybe even overheard his skepticism. There was also a saying that rabbis debated scripture under fig trees – it’s not exactly clear what it meant – it might be something like our saying “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” or “she went out on a limb” – a tree metaphor – and it seems like it was some kind of metaphor associated with debating scripture. There was a saying that studying Torah was “gathering figs” – you know, collecting delicious and nourishing morsels.

It seems like the important thing is that Nathanael is a skeptic and a debater, who doesn’t hold back. And Jesus knows it and seems drawn to Nathanael. Now maybe Jesus’ standards are just extremely low when it comes to followers – there’s certainly plenty of evidence for that. (I mean, we’re all here aren’t we?) But maybe, Jesus knows that having skeptics in his group is going to make the journey a LOT more interesting. In any case, Nathanael is impressed enough by Jesus’ insight to exclaim that this Rabbi from Nazareth is the Son of God, the King of Israel. Or maybe he’s teasing. We don’t know. And Jesus’ response is, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.” You all are going to see heaven opened up and angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Now that just sounds weird, doesn’t it? What is Jesus talking about?

Well, any good Israelite knows that story of Jacob (the first Israelite) and Jacob’s dream where he saw angels – that is messengers – of God going up and down a ladder between heaven and earth. The ladder was the connection between heaven and earth. But what Jesus is saying is that the angels – the messengers of God – are going up and down upon the Son of Man. The Son of Man is a connection between heaven and earth. It’s not a ladder and it’s not a dream. This is John the Evangelist’s way of declaring that the Son of Joseph (human) is the Son of God (divine), which makes him the Son of Man (a title that means both “mortal” – a regular guy and also expected savior sent directly from God)[1] – in other words, a connection between heaven and earth. This time, according to John, it’s not a ladder and it’s not a dream. According to John, Jesus is the Messiah and the Messiah is connection between heaven and earth. Jesus, creating a community of love, will draw others to God.[2]

Now here’s the last dot that we have to connect to get the whole picture. If we as a church are really the Body of Christ – it is both our calling and our quest to become a connection between heaven and earth. It is both our calling and our quest to be a community of love which draws others to God through us and upon us. We are carriers or vehicles on which the messages from people and God might come and go on. As the apostle Paul admonishes us, our body – our collective body — is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is within us, and which we have from God and that we are not our own. It’s all metaphorical – and mystical in its description.

What’s not metaphorical or mystical, according to today’s lessons, are the messages. We spend a lot of time talking to God – especially in church – we are a wordy bunch. We might not experience God’s voice so often – but it’s no wonder – God can’t really get a word in edgewise most of the time. The story of Samuel suggests that what we should say to God is that we are ready to listen. And then we need to be quiet from time to time, and pay attention. We need to create more space – more silence – not just in our worship but in our lives to listen deeply.

We also spend some time – at least some of us – persuaded that we have found the one about whom the prophets spoke – the Messiah – in the person of Jesus – in the teachings of Jesus. And if that’s so, we should say to our friends, especially the skeptical ones – “come and see for yourselves.” Come and see this community of love that we are building. Come and be a part of this community of love.

So if you remember nothing else about this sermon, here’s what I want you to take with you. “Speak, God, because I am listening,” and “Come and see.” “Speak, God, because I am listening,” is what we are to say to the Holy One, as Samuel did in the Hebrew Bible lesson that we heard. “Come and see,” is what we are to say to our friends. Try it, you’ll like it!

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