Our New Testament reading for today comes from the gospel of John and picks up following the testimony of John the Baptist that Jesus was the Son of God. This marks the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry and he was just beginning to be followed by disciples. However, many who encountered Jesus did not immediately believe or recognize him as the Messiah. Hear now a reading from the first chapter of the gospel of John beginning with the 43^rd verse:

John 1:43-51

43The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." 44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45Philip 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." 46Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." 47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!" 48Nathanael asked him, "Where did you come to know me?" Jesus answered, "I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you." 49Nathanael replied, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" 50Jesus answered, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these." 51And 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."

Come and See…

I love being around children and part of the reason that I love them so much is their willingness and ability to let things amaze them. Moments and experiences that seem to become “ordinary” over time can become amazing again, through the eyes of a child. Trips to the museum or the zoo – even simple things like a stroll around the block… are always met with exciting discoveries and miracles. There are urgings…Come and see! Come and see! Come and see this amazing thing that I have found.

In our text for today, Phillip extends this same invitation to Nathanael. But Nathanael obviously had become hardened to the possibility of something amazing. But like a child with a new discovery, Phillip presses him, saying…Come and see!

Sure enough, when Nathanael meets Jesus… Jesus recognizes him. Jesus’ foreknowledge quickly convinces Nathanael that Jesus truly is the Son of God and Jesus assures Nathanael that he will see things even greater than what he had just seen.

When Phillip first came to Nathanael to tell him that that they had found the one about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Phillip mentioned that Jesus was from Nazareth. Nathanael quickly dismissed the possibility that Phillip had actually found the Messiah if the one they found had come from Nazareth. After all, Nazareth was a town of about 200-400 people. It was economically dependent upon the capital of Galilee. It is never mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures and had no associations that gave it special status. Nathanael was sure that that the Messiah would certainly come from a more significant town than Nazareth!  

How often do we do this? We assume we know, when we don’t.  We make assumptions. We limit the possibilities.

During the second summer of my seminary career, I served as a hospital chaplain, where each day proved to be a very long day. One day a man came in about ten minutes before the pastoral care office was going to close. He was dirty – obviously he had been working or maybe even living outdoors. He was thin and his hair was messy and his face looked tired. I could feel my shoulders drop in defeat and exhaustion as he approached the administrative assistant and politely asked to speak with a chaplain. She turned towards me. I smiled a half-hearted smile knowing that he was going to ask for things I did not have to give him: money, food, a bus pass. The only service we were really able to offer was the use of a phone. I took a deep breath and asked him what I could do for him. He tentatively asked if we could talk and though somewhat grudgingly, I agreed. We found a quiet place in the corner of the hospital chapel and our conversation began. He told me his story – an amazing story really and at the end he simply said, so I was wondering if we could pray together. I work on Sundays and haven’t been able to go to church, but I have read a lot about the importance of relationship in the scriptures, so I thought it might be important to pray with someone else. Would that be alright?

From the moment he walked in the door of the pastoral care office…before he even said one word, I assumed I knew what he wanted. I assumed simply by looking at him that I knew something about him. I was wrong. What if I had avoided the situation? What if I told him I was headed out the door?

What he wanted was prayer and wouldn’t you know that as we prayed together, he prayed for me, too? I left the hospital that day feeling full…feeling renewed…knowing that God was at work in the world and especially at work in our interaction with each other. But I also felt guilty. I knew I had judged before I took the time to get all the facts. I had preconceptions about this person I didn’t even know and they could have prevented me from seeing what was right in front of me.

This is not the only time in my life that I thought I knew something when I actually had no idea. We do this with people we encounter. We do this with God. Samuel did this – hearing a voice calling him in the night, Samuel assumed that the only possibility was Eli. Again and again he answered the call, only to discover that Eli was not calling him. Eli perceived that it was the Lord calling and he told Samuel to respond by saying, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

What are our preconceptions of God? How do we understand how God acts in the world in which we live? How often do we set limits on what we think God is capable of? How often are we confronted by the divine in our lives, only to pass it off for something else? How often do we miss things that are amazing?

Nathanael is not the only disciple to question the identity of Jesus or to doubt that Jesus was the Messiah. This is actually a pretty common story, especially for the gospel of John. Stories of those who did not believe…or those who doubted…who then were made to believe through the actions of Jesus. The Samaritan Woman…the feeding of the five thousand…Jesus walking on water…the blind man given the ability to see….and on and on. The gospel of John ends with these words, “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

And yet, even though we are given these examples in scripture, for some reason we still aren’t always able to see when we are confronted with the divine in our lives. Like Samuel, we aren’t always able to understand when we are being called by God.

The good news is that even when we are unable to see or to hear…when we are unable to perceive… whether it is because we don’t know the Lord, like Samuel, or if it is because we have set our own limits on what God is capable of doing, we know that God is persistent and when we don’t recognize God’s call the first time, another call will come. Even when we give up, God does not give up on us.

In 1958, a young man was sitting and signing autographs of the first book he had ever written. A woman came up to him while he was autographing and simply said, “Are you Martin Luther King?” With his head still down signing a book he replied, “Yes.” The woman then stabbed him in the chest. Martin Luther King was rushed to a hospital where doctors found the blade was right on the edge of the main artery of his heart. The New York Times delivered the news about Martin Luther King the next day and said that if he had merely sneezed, he would have died. After an operation and several days of recuperation, Reverend King was allowed to move about the hospital in a wheelchair and enjoyed reading the mail that came in.

Ten years later, in the last speech he ever gave, the night before he was killed, Reverend Dr. King recalled this experience and the experiences of his life.

Remembering the letters and telegrams he received while he was in the hospital, he said  “I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what that letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply,

Dear Dr. King,

I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School.

While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I'm a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.”

The Rev. Dr. King goes on in this speech to say that he too is thankful that he didn’t sneeze, for if he had he would have missed out on the many years and major accomplishments of his ministry and the ministry of many, in the civil rights movement. If he had sneezed, he would not have accomplished what God had called him to do. Reverend King ended his speech by saying that he didn’t know what was going to happen next and he recognized that there were still difficult days ahead. He said, “It doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land! And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!”

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke regularly of God’s call upon his life. In this his last speech, he mentions being invited by God to come and see…to look out from the mountaintop and see the Promised Land that lies ahead. Rev. King was opened to the limitless possibilities of God.

Many of us have a holiday tomorrow from work or school. On Martin Luther King Day, we recognize the efforts of a man who felt called by God and listened to that call even in the midst of what must have felt like insurmountable opposition. It might have been easier to say…this is too much….this is bigger than me…I can’t possibly make a difference. But I imagine it was only with God’s persistence that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. continued to answer the Lord who invited him saying, “Follow me.” As a disciple who believed in Jesus Christ and the justice that he stood for, Martin Luther King invited others in, saying…come and see. We have not yet arrived in the Promised Land, but perhaps we will only see it if we are looking.

And so we are all invited…over and over again…by a persistent God who loves us…to Come and See …the glory of the Lord, which will continue to reveal itself to us in new and amazing ways. And we have a choice. We can make assumptions and limit our understanding of what God is able to do…or we can posture ourselves towards God and God’s action in the world in such a way that says, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost….Amen!