The Rev. Dr. Austin Leininger
Sermon of the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany
14 January 2018
Readings:
1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
John 1:43-51
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17
“Come and See” is a phrase that we only hear five times throughout the whole of scripture. Yet the moments in which it is used are profound. Its first use in Palm 66, in the context of “come and see what God has done,” sets the tone for its four uses in John’s Gospel, which account for the rest of its occurrences in the Bible. It is used a few verses prior to today’s usage when John the Baptist’s disciples ask Jesus where he is staying and he invites them to come and see—after which they spend the day with him and remain as his first disciples. It is used by the woman at the well when she tells her townspeople to come and see the one who told her everything she had ever done—he cannot be the messiah, can he? It is used when Jesus asks where Lazarus has been laid. And it is used today in the context of Phillip extending his own calling to Nathanael, whom he sought out specifically to tell about meeting Jesus.
In each instance, this phrase signals an experience of the divine that is transformative. A deepening of what can be seen with the eye to what can be seen more deeply with the heart.
Each of our readings today relates to God’s call to us—calling us by name, and calling us from the depths of our hearts. God calls us, as our Psalmist today describes, as one who has known us since we were knit together in our mothers’ wombs, more deeply and fully than we even know ourselves. We are uniquely invited into relationship, into transformation, into life lived to its fullest—a fullness, as Paul reminds his questioning community in Corinth, that extends to heart and mind, as well as body as the locus through which we intimately encounter both God and one another.
In our first reading for today, we hear the story of Samuel’s calling and transformative epiphany. Samuel lived in a time, similarly to ours, in which visions were rare and the word of the Lord was uncommonly heard. Yet, then as now, “the lamp of the lord” had not gone out—God wasn’t sleeping or absent, just waiting for God’s call to be heard. Linguistically, Sam U El means “God has heard” and Eli (or “AeLee”) means “my God”—so the interplay between the boy Samuel and the elderly high priest, Eli, was originally ironic in its linguistic usage as Samuel is the one who initially hears, but believes it is Eli calling him, and Eli, nearly blind, finally perceives God’s call and instructs Samuel how to hear and respond to God. Setting the tone for the rest of his life, Samuel takes courage in God’s word, withholding nothing from Eli—who is said to already know what God had planned and who confronts Samuel with both the difficulty and integrity of being faithful to God’s call.
In comparison, today’s gospel—telling of Nathanael’s calling and Epiphany—is somewhat more cryptic.
Nathanael is skeptical of Philip’s proclamation that he has found the messiah. Quipping back to Philip, “can anything good come out of Nazareth?,” Philip’s response doesn’t seem like he’s trying to convince Nathanael to be a follower of Christ so much as to simply invite him to come and see what he thinks for himself.
Sight in this context, which is played with a lot in today’s reading is not simply what is seen by the naked eye, which is where it begins, but the deeper layers and levels of perception and comprehension through which Nathanael comes to conversion. He comes simply to lay eyes on the big deal Philip is talking about, but starts to see something more when he is known by Christ. His interest is piqued and he engages Jesus, seeking to see more deeply into this mystery. Jesus’ response is another layer of seeing—I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you. Without insight into Nathanael’s thinking, we suddenly experience his Epiphany moment as he proclaims Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus engages him again, challenging his level of perception, and promising not simply that he will be seen and known by the divine, but that he too will see more deeply and perceive the divine mystery for himself. From the tiny kernel of “come and see,” faith takes seed and sight becomes metaphoric for the whole Epiphany that transforms Nathanael’s skepticism into discipleship.
Nathanael is someone I can relate to. A healthy dose of skepticism in the face of what seems to be reckless hope and carelessly given discipleship is perhaps a hard earned reality of growing up in a family where faith was presented as an unquestioned, syrupy sweet, knick knack that justified privilege and success and claimed God’s favor and power in the name of a pain-free life. I don’t mean to either vilify or trivialize my early evangelical faith, but when my family fell apart, so did my faith in a God who I had been taught would take care of me so that nothing bad would ever happen in my life. By the time my friend Dave had to trick me into going to his youth group just to finally get me to “come and see,” the big deal he kept telling me about, I was well shot of the false promises of ease and shallow joy that I’d experienced of religion, and I was highly skeptical of my friend’s enthusiasm.
Whatever experiences Nathanael may have had leading up to the point in his life where we encounter him in today’s story, perhaps for many of us his skepticism may come as a bit of a relief. As Jesus says, here is one in whom there is no deceit—in whom there is no guile or attempt to be disingenuous, nor whom will be easily swayed. And responding to Nathaniel’s retort of “where did you get to know me,” Jesus simply answers that he saw him—under the fig tree before Philip called him. The leap from skepticism to faith, however, remains a mystery. Whether it was Jesus’ tone, or looking into the eyes of God’s own self as the Magi experienced in last week’s reading of the Epiphany, we don’t know. But whatever the cause of Nathanael’s Epiphany, he suddenly finds himself unexpectedly blurting out an affirmation of Christ as God’s son. Even Jesus, it seems, is surprised, and assures him that being seen by God won’t be the limit to his experience as one who will also see, first hand, his faith affirmed.
And here, on this Second Sunday of Epiphany, a day before The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s birthday, is where we pick up with our own stories of calling. Whether we have been heeding, or running from, God’s voice since we were four years old, or have just started listening for God’s voice today, or have yet to hear God’s call in our lives, each of us, our Psalmist assures us, is known by the One who seeks for our wholeness. And each of us is called, not in spite of who we are, but precisely because of who we are, to “come and see.” Where God’s calling will take us once we have been introduced is as unique as the gifts each of us brings to that relationship.
For The Rev. Dr. King, God’s calling was to social justice, civil rights, and a dream of equality, freedom, and fellowship that in many ways our country is still working toward realizing. Like Samuel and so many others fighting an uphill battle, Dr. King’s calling was neither easy nor painfree, yet it burned within him and would not stop until the world took notice and started to change. And even with the assassins bullet, Dr. King’s dream could not be silenced. This week, as we as Americans join together to apologize to Haiti and those from the African Continent for being referred to as little more than commodes in our president’s estimation, may Dr. King’s words and dream be a reminder that every human is a reflection of God’s face, every human is dignified and worthy of respect, care, and equal treatment.
For my own part, as many of you already know, Dave’s youth group was at Trinity Episcopal in Menlo Park, just over the hill and north of Palo Alto. There I had my own Epiphany moment, and, almost as suddenly as Nathanael, I found that the calling I’d been running away from for years was not only still a part of me, but was the only thing I could truly imagine doing for the rest of my life. In the sustaining and affirming relationships of that community, I encountered God in a profoundly new way that transformed my skepticism into renewed faith. I had found home.
Many of us came to this place because someone invited us to “come and see.” Some of us came as children, brought by our parents, some of us were invited by a friend, (some of us heard about this great community in Santa Cruz that was looking for a new priest), some of us even walked past this place for years and finally came in off the street because we saw a rainbow flag that suggested a real chance of welcome. Whatever invitation has brought us together in this place, may it be our prayer that this too be a community where we and others can find skepticism transformed into faith, where each of us may encounter God in new and surprising ways, and where we can find God’s love for all people in the welcome of a community that sees no human as a waste. Not everyone is called, as Samuel was called, to be a prophet, as Philip was called, to be an apostle, or as I am called, to be a priest. No two callings are alike; but each of us is called in a way as unique as our lives, our gifts, and the vocations in which we are called to live out God’s love.
Holy one, in this season of Epiphany, may we be reminded to listen for your voice in the unexpectedness of our lives, hearts, and relationships, and on this Martin Luther King Junior weekend, may Dr. King’s vision and dream in spire us to make this a season of exploring where and how you are calling each of us into new light and life to make a difference in our own world today.
Amen.