Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, January 14, 2024

1 Samuel 3:1-20+Psalm 136:1-5, 12-17+1 Corinthians 6:12-20+John 1:43-51

A few years ago, the then-president of the United States used an off-color term for the country of origin of immigrants and refugees to this country as a way of saying that these people are undesirable, dangerous, somehow defective. He was talking, of course, about the majority-Black countries of Africa and Haiti. Most of us, I believe, were horrified by his dismissal of entire nations based on race and economic status, particularly when he bemoaned that we couldn’t just have more immigrants from, say,  Norway.[1]

I can't imagine that anyone sitting in this room would hold such sweeping negative judgments about African countries or anywhere else, but if we are honest, we all think that we know something about someone if we know where they are from even if we have never met them. Harlem, Newark, the South side of Chicago or Boston, Dallas, Birmingham, Tulsa, San Francisco. Positive or negative, places evoke an opinion based on people we have met or images we have seen in print or TV or film.

Nathanael is no different. Nazareth?!  ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ (John 1:46). We have no idea what Nathanael knew about Nazareth or where this reaction came from. In fact, we don't know much about this Nathanael at all. He only appears a couple of times, and after the resurrection we learn that he is from Cana which is not that far from Nazareth, under 5 miles. Maybe it's just a regional rivalry, like the one between Chapel Hill and Durham or Minneapolis and St. Paul. Whatever the reason, he's not so sure this Jesus from Nazareth is anything to get excited about.

Before I get to the part he needs to be excited about, I want to back up for just a moment. We are, as you know, in the season of Epiphany, that time in the Church Year when we read stories that reveal Jesus's identity as the Messiah, the Christ. Foreigners led by a star is where this season begins, followed by Jesus's baptism in the River Jordan and the voice naming him Beloved. What is it about the story we read a moment ago that fits in with Epiphany, and why are we in John's gospel already when we just got started in Mark?

I have told you before that we get a lot of John in Year B when the principal gospel is Mark because Mark is so short. But that's not why we go to John this morning. In the old days when there was just a single-year lectionary cycle, the story of the wedding at Cana from John 2 was customarily read on this day, that time Jesus turned water into wine. With the launch of the three-year lectionary, that reading happens in year three, but we still get two other readings from the first and second chapters of John in the other years. Last year, it was John the Baptist pointing out Jesus as the Lamb of God. This year, we get Nathanael questioning Jesus's hometown.

But that's not all.

Jesus clearly foreknew who Nathanael was. He does not get upset at the shade being thrown on Nazareth. In fact, he seems amused. “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” (1:47). Jesus then makes what is clearly a reference to Jacob's Ladder from Genesis 28, but rather than angels going up and down the ladder, here they alight on Jesus, the Son of Man. Philip and Nathanael and all the rest may not truly understand who Jesus is until the resurrection, but it's pretty clear that Jesus knows who he is, and he tells them this many times in John's gospel, just as Mark does in his gospel which he launches with the words, "The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

In the scene just before the one we read this morning, Jesus begins calling the disciples. Two of John the Baptist's followers ask Jesus where he is staying to which he responds, "Come and see" (1:39). And again in today's reading, Philip says to the questioning Nathanael, "Come and see" (1:46). We encounter this phrase one more time in John when Jesus asks where they have laid the body of his friend Lazarus, he is told, "Come and see" (11:34). Jesus did come and see and raised his friend from the tomb.

It would seem that sometimes offering wordy explanations or trying to persuade people about Jesus is less effective than inviting them to see for themselves. Jesus invites us to come and see where he to be found. Philip invites Nathanael to see for himself. When Jesus came and saw, it opened a way for us to see him in a clearer light, as one who can even raise the dead.

Another thread running through all of our readings this morning is that we are called. The boy Samuel isn’t sure who it is, but old Eli knows that it is God calling him, and finally, Samuel understands that, too.

The author of Psalm 139 is known and called by God from the creation of his inmost parts.

The Apostle Paul may sound awfully grumpy in this part of the first letter to the church in Corinth, but when he tells them that they have been "bought with a price" (1:20), he is making sure that they know they are called as God's own.

And finally, we have Jesus telling Philip to "follow me" (1:43), and Philip invites Nathanael. They are called.

Come and see and follow me. If we were in the business of making New Year's resolutions around here, we could do a lot worse than opening our hearts and our minds to coming and seeing and then following where Jesus leads. Then we could go find our Nathanael and invite him along for the ride, too.

It doesn't take much - a kind word, a fair and generous worklife, checking in on a neighbor who is lonely, an encouraging word to come and see what God is up to here at All Saints.

If you want to know how to help the Church grow and thrive, it doesn't really take much more than that.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-haiti-african-countries-shithole-nations-n836946