Not Hidden From You – sermon on January 14, 2017
Psalm 139: 1-6, 13-18 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand – when I awake, I am still with you.
John 1: 43-51 Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Come, follow me.” Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter’s hometown. Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, “We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.” “Nazareth!” exclaimed Nathanael. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” “Come and see for yourself,” Philip replied. As they approached, Jesus said, “Now here is a genuine son of Israel – a man of complete integrity.” “How do you know about me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus replied, “I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you.” Then Nathanael exclaimed, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God – the King of Israel!” Jesus asked him, “Do you believe this just because I told you I had seen you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” Then he said, “I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.”
Not Hidden From You by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Such an odd little passage from John. Just before this, Jesus has been identified by John the Baptist to two of his followers as the Lamb of God. These two, one being Andrew, then accepted Jesus’ invitation to “come and see” where he was staying. Andrew brought his brother, Simon Peter to come and see that they have found in Jesus the Messiah, and here Jesus invites Philip, who is from the same town as Andrew and Peter, to follow him to Galilee. Philip finds Nathaniel, and invites him to come and see the one Moses and all the prophets had written about. Are you sensing a theme here? It’s a great passage to be used in promoting evangelism – to encourage you all to invite your friends and family to “come and see,” to share with others your conviction that you have found the Messiah, and if they doubt you, they need only accompany you to meet Jesus, if not here in church, then in another place where you have encountered the Way of Christ. This is a worthwhile message. I know there are some people here, and now on a path to getting to know Jesus, only because someone invited them to come and see. There are others who started coming as children and just never left; people who live their life such that anyone with eyes to see would see the power of Christ in them.
Some may feel that their faith is something precious, tender and vulnerable – and not want to expose it to the skepticism and cynicism of others, but just quietly worship and pray and study and let their own knowledge of Jesus grow. Because it is not uncommon for faith claims to be met with skepticism and cynicism, for people of faith to be mocked for their beliefs, discounted as fools, suckers. It even happens in this little passage. Philip, instead of immediately responding to Jesus’ invitation, seeks out Nathaniel to share the good news with him. Nathaniel’s response is one of skepticism tinged with bigotry. To Philip’s announcement that this Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth, Nate scoffs, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Despite his skepticism, he goes with Philip to meet Jesus, who greets him with admiring words, words about Nate’s integrity and genuineness. When Nathaniel wonders how Jesus knows anything about him, Jesus says he had a vision of Nathaniel as he was under the fig tree. Nate is astounded, needing nothing more to convince him that Philip was right, this is indeed the Messiah, the Son of God, the King of Israel. He may not need more, but Jesus tells him he will see more – the heaven open and angels going up and down the stairway which is his very own self.
To me, the compelling thing about this story is not it’s message for us to share our faith, but the insight it gives to the truth that well before we seek God, God sees us, really sees us in a way that would blow our minds if we really knew. What was Nathaniel doing under that fig tree? What had he been thinking about? What state of mind was he in? Was his skepticism an expression of that? Had he felt despairing and hopeless? Jesus expressed admiration for him, saying he was a true son of Israel, a man of integrity. And yet Nathaniel’s words showed prejudice – “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” I can’t help but think of what’s been in the news these past few days about and in reaction to an alleged statement that immigrants from some countries are less desirable than those from others. Sort of a more vulgar way of saying, “can anything good come out of Haiti? Can anything good come out of Africa?” Philip is not distracted by Nathaniel’s words, doesn’t argue with him about it, or scold him, but invites him to come find out for himself. I don’t know if Jesus’ praise of Nathaniel has anything to do with what he said, but at the least, Jesus is not put off of him by it. Did it have integrity for Nathaniel to say what he did? Is there an opportunity for us in sharing with Jesus about our feelings, even when they are negative, cynical, prejudiced? I wonder.
Nathaniel, despite his words, was open to seeing what Philip was talking about, open to seeing that he might be wrong in his prejudice. And in that openness, the tables were turned. He may have approached Jesus with the idea that he, Nathaniel, would be the arbiter of truth in the situation, he would be the one to decide if Jesus was legit or not, but he found to his amazement that Jesus was the arbiter of what was true – about truth in general and the truth about him. And what was true about Nathaniel, according to Jesus, was that he was a man of integrity. Jesus had sought him out, chosen him. Jesus saw through the prejudice, perhaps through the despair that had brought him to that state of mind. Jesus is not only the Son of God, but was with God as God knits us together in our mother’s womb. Nothing is hidden from him. Jesus knows us in a way that is too wonderful for us to understand.
What does Jesus see when he seeks you out? What does he see as you go about your daily life, as you drive in traffic, as you talk politics? How does he see you respond when people scoff at religion, or say hurtful things against others? Does he see you trying to keep an open heart for another person, even if you disagree or disapprove of what they say? I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure Jesus sees me fail to practice what I preach, at least sometimes. I believe that upon searching my heart he has found some troubling things. I’m sure that some of those words forming on my tongue, he wishes I would not say. And yet, I believe he still sees me as a true daughter of Israel, a child of God, someone he would like to have following him, someone he might entrust with great things. I think he sees us all this way – perfectly imperfect, beloved, fearfully and wonderfully made. And I believe the more we can accept his vision of us, the more we will live into it, and the more truly we can see him, until we, like Nathaniel, like Philip, and Andrew and Peter, cannot hold back in exclaiming “I have found the Messiah. Come and see.” May it be so.
