Sermon for January 18, 2009 The Second Sunday of Epiphany John 1:43-51 A. Garrison Keillor once told an amusing anecdote from his youth about the trauma inherent in the choosing-up of sides for neighborhood baseball games. Trauma, that is, if you were not the best athlete on the block, of which I certainly was not. There were two boys, as Keillor tells it: Daryl and David. They were always the captains, exercising their prerogative as though by divine right. When the team selection began, Daryl and David would first, in turn, pick the popular boys, the natural athletes. Then came the painful part: how would the rest fare: "After the popular ones got picked," Keillor tells it, "we stood in a bunch looking down at the dirt, waiting to see if our rating had changed any from yesterday. They took their sweet time choosing us; we had plenty of time to study our shoes. Mine were Keds, black, though white ones were more popular. Mother said black wouldn't show dirt .... Nine boys to a side, four already chosen, 10 positions left, and the captains looked us over. They choose their non-athletic friends fast ('Brian!' 'Bill!' 'Duke!' 'John!' 'Bob!' 'Paul!' 'Jim!' 'Lance!'), and now the choice is hard because we're all so much the same: not so hot — and then they are down to their last grudging choices, a slow kid for catcher and someone to stick out in right field where nobody hits, except maybe two guys, and when they come to bat, the captain sends the poor right fielder to left, a long, ignominious walk. They choose the last ones two at a time, 'You and you,' because it makes no difference, and the remaining kids, the scrubs, the excess, they deal for as handicaps ('If I take him, then you gotta take him'). Sometimes I go as high as sixth in the selection process, usually lower. Just once I'd like Daryl to pick me first. 'Him! I want him! The skinny kid with the glasses and the black shoes! You! Come on!' But I've never been chosen with any enthusiasm." B. Fortunately, Jesus' process of choosing disciples is much less cruel, but much more mysterious (at least to the mortal eye), as this morning's passage of Scripture shows. Jesus' call to discipleship seems to see the big picture of the coming Kingdom much better than we can even begin to perceive. Our reading today is about the calling of two people who became disciples of Jesus. One was Philip and the other was Nathaniel. We don't have any other Gospel record of Nathaniel, since he is not listed in the naming of the disciples in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Some Biblical scholars speculate that he was Bartholomew, but this is pure speculation. No matter, it is the calling that is important here, and how that calling affects each disciple. First of all, Jesus finds Philip, and invites him to become a disciple. He obviously accepts, because Philip seems to have had something of the missionary instinct. He immediately goes to tell his friend Nathaniel about meeting Jesus. Now Nathaniel, the other man in today's reading, doesn't seem to be as eager to follow Jesus at first blush as did Philip. He appears as a skeptic. Despite Philip's fervent declaration concerning Jesus, namely, that He is God's chosen Messiah, of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, Nathaniel is clearly disturbed by an entirely different matter. You see, Jesus is from the village of Nazareth. Philip's contention that Moses and the prophets wrote about Jesus of Nazareth is inconceivable, because such a prominent Old Testament figure, to which Philip alludes, could never come from that town under any circumstances. Nazareth is, after all, an inconsequential village with no notable personages. And besides, Nazareth in Jesus' day had a reputation of being a little, well, shall we say, rough. Consequently, when Nathaniel hears about Jesus' hometown provenance, he sarcastically replies, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" This, I suspect, is not an uncommon feeling. My mother, the southerner, used to say, in effect 'Can anything good come out of any place north of Charlottesville?' She was horrified when I moved to NOVA in 1985. We all have places that we associate with inferior people. Philip is not dissuaded by Nathaniel's objection. Instead, he simply overlooks or ignores the criticism and invites him to "Come and see", an invitation that Nathaniel accepts. It is the same invitation Jesus Himself extended to Andrew and Peter in the preceding verses. When you get right down to it, the call to discipleship always involves personally feeling the power of God to forgive and transform. Jesus' opinion of Nathaniel is even more interesting than Nathaniel's response to Philip's plea. For when Jesus sees Nathaniel coming towards Him, He says of Nathaniel, "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit." The word in the original Greek can also mean "cunning,' 'guile,' 'treachery,' or 'trickery'. Nathaniel shot from the hip. He said what he meant and meant what he said. In short, Nathaniel was not a phony Israelite. Now remember that the word Israel originally meant "one who strives with God." Although it may not sound like it, Jesus is complimenting Nathaniel for his honesty and his faithfulness to Jewish traditions, even though they were obviously wrong. And Jesus is complimenting Nathaniel for accepting Philip's invitation to meet Jesus, even when he was skeptical. God can deal with our doubts. Remember, it only takes a mustard seed-sized amount of faith to move mountains. Upon hearing Jesus' assessment of his character, Nathaniel offers no rebuttal — neither genuine nor pretentious. Instead of contradicting or dismissing Jesus' appraisal, Nathaniel simply asks, "Where did you get to know me?" Jesus' reply, however, is incredibly enigmatic, "I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you". But how does this sighting shed light on Jesus' prior claim that Nathaniel "is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit"? Since no entirely satisfactory answer is obvious, scholarly speculation about Nathaniel's activity under the fig tree abounds. For instance, one suggestion is that Nathaniel was studying the Scriptures. A second option is that he was confessing his sin to God in prayer. But regardless of all that, Jesus' statement obviously reveals that He has supernatural knowledge of Nathaniel, and that has a real effect on him: "Rabbi," he says, "You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" Nathaniel's passionate declaration forcefully demonstrates that there is no deceit, treachery or trickery within him. He is a person of integrity whose unsolicited confession indicates that he has truly abandoned his prior skepticism regarding Jesus the Nazarene. Nathaniel is only at the beginning point of his faith walk, but already he understands much about Jesus. Accordingly, Jesus' question — namely, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?" — implicitly acknowledges that Nathaniel believes. For, not only did he "come and see" Jesus, he "received him," "believed in his name," and was given "power to become [a child] of God". And as a child of God, Nathaniel "will see greater things than these". In particular, he "will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." The "You" Jesus uses here is plural in the Greek, indicating that not only will Nathaniel see greater things than this, but so will the rest of us. The reference to "angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man" is an allusion both to the Book of Daniel and to the Book of Genesis. Specifically, and most importantly, the reference is to Genesis 28:12. In this passage, Jacob camps out in a place later to be called Bethel, and has a dream that on the very spot upon which he is sleeping, angels are ascending a descending a Heavenly ladder, moving between Heaven and earth. Jacobs ladder, as this has come to be known, is actually a place where Heaven and earth connect, allowing people access to God. Jesus is saying here that He Himself is that place where the earthly and the heavenly, the divine and the human, the temporal and the eternal, meet. In sum, because he believes, Nathaniel will see the fullness of God's glory on earth, "the Word [who] became flesh and lived among us". Faith in Christ brings salvation, eternal life, and access to God. C. So to get back to the topic at hand, even though the people called may be different, the message is always the same. Jesus is the Son of God, who takes away the sins of the world. That's the Good News. But here's where the rubber of this passage hits the road of life -- just as Jesus called both the excited missionary Philip and the doubting Nathaniel, Jesus calls all kinds of people to be His followers. Just look at the twelve apostles. Peter was a fisherman. Judas was a traitor. There was a tax collector and a terrorist also in His company. There was that other doubting fellow Thomas. Jesus called them all, because each has specific gifts that can be used uniquely to advance the Kingdom of God. Jesus knew their heart, and He knew what each would do after He was gone, as leaders of the Church, led by the Holy Spirit. He called the specific people He needed for the specific task He had in mind. It may not make sense to the mortal eye at the present time. It may not even make sense to the person called into discipleship. But God knows what He is doing, and God is in charge! The same is true when Jesus calls we modern day disciples. When people say they want to be like Jesus, it doesn't mean they want to be His twin. We want to have the mind of Christ, sure. We want to put God and others ahead of self. We want to walk by faith and not by sight. But when we become a disciple, we don't lose the uniqueness of who we are. We're not called to acquire a new personality or a new skill set (though we may need to clean up the personality we already have and brush up our skill set), but only to put ourselves at God's disposal. When Jesus calls us to follow him, he does not ask us to cease being the unique persons that we are and become his twin. Rather he calls us to open ourselves to be God's persons. We should strive to be like Jesus in loving God and loving our neighbor, but we have to do that through our own talents, abilities, hang-ups, shortcomings and insights. Our prayer should be something like, "O Lord, take who I am, all that I've got and use it for the kingdom. Where I fall short, mold me as you want me to be." I like the story of the young woman who wanted to go to college, but her heart sank when she read the question on the application blank that asked, "Are you a leader?" Being both honest and conscientious, she wrote, "No," and returned the application, expecting the worst. To her surprise, she received this letter from the college: "Dear Applicant: A study of the application forms reveals that this year our college will have 1,452 new leaders. We are accepting you because we feel it is imperative that they have at least one follower."
When I was the pastor of the Floris UMC over in Herndon, we desperately needed to build a new facility. The old one was just too small. We planned to build on a larger site, and we got our building plans and our permits ready. But we didn't have the money!! Oh we had savings, but it wasn't enough. And because this was right in the middle of the recession of the early 90's, banks were tight with their money, and bank door after bank door was slammed in our face as we tried to get a construction loan. Well, it was about that time that Dave showed up. He and his wife and young family were new in the area. He worked for the Rural Electrical Co-opt, in which his job was to help small businesses get the money they needed to grow. All of a sudden, God's plan came to light. In a meeting one night, as person after person was wringing their hands wondering what we could do, Dave suggested that we sell bonds. How do we do that, one person asked. Well, Dave knew how, and with the help of an outside firm, we set up the program, and in five months we raised over $1,000,000! You see, Dave had the God-given gifts. And God put him in just the right place to use those gifts to help advance the Kingdom. E. My friend Ken Kinghorn, who teaches at Asbury School of Theology, has identified no less than 27 spiritual gifts in the Bible. These gifts include preaching, teaching, administration, speaking in tongues, encouragement, discernment, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, and so forth. A lot of people I have known in the Church have said to me, "Keith, I don't have any gifts!" But each one was wrong. They just hadn't seen them yet. God has given each of us gifts and abilities, and charged us to use them. I think one of the tasks the Church has is to help people discover their gifts, and then help them put them to use to the glory of God. Dr. Kinghorn has come up with a highly effective spiritual gifts inventory, which helps people discover their gifts. But we don't have to even go that far. Ask your Christian brothers and sisters what they see your gifts to be. Prayerfully ask God to show them to you. The important thing is that we use our gifts, and not let them lie fallow. Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, tells about the Roman aqueduct at Segovia, in his native Spain. It was built in 109 A.D. For eighteen hundred years, it carried cool water from the mountains to the hot and thirsty city. Nearly sixty generations of men drank from its flow. Then came another generation, a recent one, who said, "This aqueduct is so great a marvel that it ought to be preserved for our children, as a museum piece. We shall relieve it of its centuries-long labor." They did; they laid modern iron pipes. They gave the ancient bricks and mortar a reverent rest. And the aqueduct began to fall apart. The sun beating on the dry mortar caused it to crumble. The bricks and stone sagged and threatened to fall. What ages of service could not destroy idleness disintegrated. God doesn't call us to be identical twins to Jesus. He calls us to use our different and special, God-given gifts for the service of others and for the glory of the Lord. God don't make junk!! We all have a place in God's Church. Some might be leaders. Some followers. Some might be public speakers. Some might like to work behind the scenes. We simply need to remember that Christianity is not a spectator sport. God is calling each one of us to use our talents to do something!! I wonder what it could be!! Amen. Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA 20177 703-344-3569 |
Monday, March 16, 2009
Different Faces/Different Spaces
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