Do We Hear, Do We See, Do We Respond?
A bit of a reminder of where we are in John’s gospel before our reading today. Boy does he pack a punch in the first chapter. We went from ‘in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God’ to John the Baptist in the wilderness baptizing and testifying that Jesus is the messiah, beloved Son of God. John instructs his disciples to go follow Jesus. Several do, including Andrew, who also finds his brother Peter. Jesus then comes to Galilee and bids Philip, who lived in the same town as Andrew and Peter, to ‘follow me’. Philip does – where will Jesus go next, gathering disciples along the way? Let’s listen for God’s word from…
John 1:43-51 {NIV}
43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip.
47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” 48 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
49 Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” 50 Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” 51 He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”
When my mother was dying in the hospital, I went and bought a fig tree. I proudly called to tell her about the precious new tree I had planted that would always remind me of her. Hmm, she gently replied. Mom was a complex mix of her upbringing to be a Southern Lady, her education in psychology at UT, her computer science career as a pioneer for women in her field and her master’s degree in literature with a focus on the work of Faulkner. She was passionate about the church and social justice blazing a trail to feed hungry children creating a Kids Against Hunger program at her church and in speaking out for justice especially in the areas of same sex marriage and race.
Why would I go on and on about my mom – other than I think she was pretty amazing? Only to explain a bit more of why my vision of remembering her with a fig tree might be puzzling to her. In my dreams and memories of her and her father, my Pawpaw. I always cherish the lazy days behind my grandparents’ house under the giant fig tree basking in being the center of attention from my Pawpaw hearing his stories and having him listen to me no matter what I wanted to share. Under that fig tree, I felt seen. Mom carefully shared that she really just couldn’t stand figs – her memories of this same tree came with an overwhelming amount of figs prepare every way imaginable ad nauseum - yuck she said. Still, I love my fig tree and remember mom and her parents as I bring in the sticky fruit on the hot days of Texas summer. I love that gardens and fig trees are in the Bible – it helps me relate to many of the illustrations and stories, parables of Jesus. It brings the human-ness of Jesus closer to home, as close as running my fingers through the rich soil in a garden plot or trimming back a vine, scattering seed in a wildflower garden.
Yet with this passage, I got stuck. Philip finds Nathaneal and tells him the one they have been waiting for is found, the one prophesied is here. Nathaneal in his skeptical fashion was like - ‘out of Nazareth? Nothing good could come from there. Philip simply says, “Come and see.” Jesus greets Nathaneal, but when Nathaneal asks - how did you know me, Jesus says – I saw you under the fig tree. Before you were called.
We often use this scripture as a call story, and it is that, but I think that it is more of a seeing story. Nathaneal sees Jesus but doesn’t quite get it until he realizes that Jesus saw him, sees him – even when we aren’t aware, we are seen. Remember God calling to Samuel in a dream. Samuel keeps thinking that he is hearing Eli. He knows there is a voice there, but he doesn’t hear it- not really. Samuel is good intentioned, but he misses God speaking thinking the voice must be something else, he doesn’t hear to know what he is called to. But upon a more careful reading notice that it wasn’t just speaking Samuel missed. The Lord came and stood there. God is standing in the room – Samuel had to slow down to not only hear the call but to see God. If he didn’t see God in the room, he was certainly not going to see God in others or in himself.
This short season between Christmas and Lent is epiphany – it is all about seeing God revealed to us, that aha moment when we are challenged by God in others and maybe even more challenging is the God working in us, in our very selves. Do you see God bursting into our world? Do you see God in YOU when you look in the mirror? That is the great revelation of epiphany – Jesus broke into the world into our human nature, and now through the Holy Spirit, God is in us asking the hard work much like he asked Samuel to speak truth to power for justice for those who have no power. As The Reverend Dr. Karoline Lewis says of the epiphany, “…God entered into our world, no longer satisfied just to be with us but now has to be one of us.” She continues, “… when that happens, we change too. Our humanity changes. Suddenly, who we see ourselves to be can be no longer remain the same because we have seen God in who we are. That just has to change the perception of ourselves.”
We are now the tools for God breaking into the world. Knowing this in our gut, holding it in our hearts is less a matter of seeing Jesus, as we might be led to believe with the call to ‘come and see’ response and more, more of the KNOWING that God sees us. Faith is understanding this and a careful balance of not rushing hastily but compassionately responding in service and discipleship with all we have. As the officers we elected to serve the upcoming year learned this week, we are called to pray and serve with energy, intelligence, imagination and love. We respond to God with this type of service.
How do we respond? Like the figs I harvest each summer, dreams are sticky messy things. I find it a bit reassuring that we have the all-too human examples of Samuel in our Bible to know that God sees us and keeps trying and works through many and varied types of people. When we might freeze in inaction, these leap from the page so we see the call to US!
Fittingly this weekend, remember the words of The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr who often used dreams in his speeches and sermons, “One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying. A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves. On the one hand, we proudly profess certain sublime and noble principles, but on the other hand, we sadly practice the very antithesis of these principles. How often are our lives characterized by a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds! We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism.”
He dared to dream big in the name of justice and he dared to share those dreams. How can we rebuild the bridges Luther was talking about between the saying and the doing? Make a difference where you are. The text where Nathaneal asks Jesus doesn’t actually say ‘how’ do you know me but ‘where’. Maybe this makes more sense of a fig tree weirdly popping into the scripture at this juncture. From where do you know me? God sees us where we are! God knows us right where we are because God breaks into us in many ways to open our eyes and ears as often as we need. God even breaks into the ugliness and misery our world and nation are in today. God wants to be with us that much.
Look at the concluding line of this reading where Jesus tells Nathaneal – you believed because I saw you under the fig tree. “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.” This seems like a mysterious turn just as strange as the fig tree to you ears. It would have been very familiar to hearers because of the parallel to Jacob.
Genesis 28: 12He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it[c] stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying…. 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” Jacob named the where - the gate God used to the world, named it Bethel. And later after wrestling, God renamed Jacob Israel. These were places, important places where the people remembered seeing God. They remembered being found by God where they were. They remembered being seen by God in the world around them and through a people.
John uses this parallel along with the more obvious abundance of names jumping out and describing Jesus – Rabbi, Son of God, King of Israel. John helps us connect the dots. It is in Jesus that God comes into our world. It is in being human that God is not just with us but of us. The final you talked of in this last line of our scripture reading switches from singular to plural. Why a grammar lesson at the very end of a sermon?
Because here, Jesus is speaking to all of us. Asking us all to see and reminding us we are seen. As The Reverend Dr. Alyce McKenzie says, “The Good Shepherd knows his sheep—he recognizes who we were meant to be, children of God (1:12), in the tangle of our current lives. The goal of the gospel is to equip us to recognize his life within ourselves and the world.”
No matter where you are, God sees you first and patiently waits for each and every one of us to catch up and catch fire with compassion serving together for justice, mercy and love. As with Samuel, God has been with us all along – knowing this how - can we help but respond in ways little and big. As with Nathaneal, whether it is a literal fig tree or not – no matter where we find ourselves, do you see God in you? God sees you right where you are, right there.
The sticky mess of the fig blesses us with sustenance, a lifegiving fruit rooted in the dirt and soils of humanity and a God who is part of that humanity with us, for us. Are your dreams of a treasured family memory – of people together in love? Of feeding hungry children around the world? Of equality and dignity for all races? Where do you see God breaking into the world? Catch up – Jesus is calling, dream big. Our child-like imaginations only have but to catch up and remember God sees us. Do you see, do you hear? Respond. Share the dreams, build the bridges. Where is God? God is here, seeing us, in each of us. Amen.
Comments