Those Who Say Yes, Part 1

1 Samuel 3:1-10

John 1:43-51      

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

What’s wrong with Nazareth? You might very well ask this question.

I have often wracked my brains to come up with contemporary examples that would help us understand Nathanael’s caustic remark: Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Why would he say that? How can we understand this in our world and our time? To what can it be compared?

It has been a hard thing to do, actually, to come up with an example, without risk of deeply offending someone by suggesting that the place they came from is just trashy. It has been something I have been loath to do because of the inherent bigotry in it. To suggest that nothing good could possibly come out of some particular place is a deeply offensive, bigoted, potentially racist, thing to say.

And it’s been hard to come up with a contemporary example that would shed light on this comment Nathanael makes, although maybe some among us have felt the experience of being on the receiving end of such a comment. I remember a day from high school, sitting in my history class and listening to the conversation between some kids who were sitting behind me. One said something about a neighborhood near the school, Robin Drive. Then the boy behind me said, “Oh yeah, you mean the ghetto.” I lived on Robin Drive.

Can anything good come out of Robin Drive?

Maybe people from Alabama have felt that way at times, football notwithstanding. Or Mississippi. When educational or income rankings are published and once again Alabama and Mississippi are vying for last place. Can anything good come out of Alabama?

Can anything good come out of … We probably wouldn’t say such a thing, because we know it’s not true. Can anyone really say that nothing good can come from Haiti? Can anyone say that nothing good can come from Africa? Of course not. Is it in any way reasonable, helpful, or true to say that we don’t need anyone from those countries because they are, in a word, but not the word we have been hearing so much of these last few days, dumps? The very idea of it is anathema. To dismiss an entire nation with a vulgar comment is, at best, ignorant; at worst, it is reflective of a deep-seated racism.

While some might argue it is nothing but political correctness to be concerned about comments like these, I would say it is certainly more than that. To use such a broad brush to condemn a place or a people is a dangerous thing to do.

But people do dangerous things all the time.

Nathanael was merely expressing a somewhat popular opinion when he said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” We read this question as a snide dig at all things Nazarene, more than as an authentic query. Nathanael didn’t want to know what was good about Nazareth because in his already made up mind there was nothing.

The fact is that in those days people of Judea, Israel proper, looked with contempt on the people of Galilee, that region to the north. Judeans regarded Galileans as uncouth, country bumpkins. They would have used words like lazy and undisciplined to describe them. But the only reason for looking down on them was that they were different. They spoke differently, with their Galilean accents; they probably dressed differently. Judeans would have looked at a Galilean coming down to Jerusalem on pilgrimage to the temple and seen in him someone not like us, not one of us. And they might have felt contempt.

They also coveted the natural resources of Galilee, which had agricultural and fishing resources far richer. They were, at the same time, both contemptuous and jealous of their northern neighbors.

A lot of people would have endorsed Nathanael’s remark, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Yet, here’s the interesting thing: It seems as though Nathanael, too, was a Galilean.

He was not from the village of Nazareth, but the text suggests that Nathanael was from Bethsaida, a village east of Nazareth, right on the Sea of Galilee. He was just as much “one of those people” as Jesus was, yet he somehow felt superior to him. I chalk this up to our human need to have someone to look down upon.

So when his friend Philip called to him and said there is this guy from Nazareth you have to meet, Nathanael gave him the back of his hand. But Philip was not deterred; he said, “Just come and see.” And when he did, everything changed.

So how do you suppose THAT happened? How was Nathanael’s ingrained, reflexive bigotry overcome in an instant? How did he go from “no way” to “yes” so quickly? Jesus opened his eyes.

We are in the season of Epiphany, which we might call a season of seeing. The Magi traveled across the world to see the Christ. And this seeing sets the tone for the whole gospel story of those who see and those who don’t see.

In this story from John’s gospel, we are introduced to a few men who do see him. Philip: We have found the one Moses and the prophets told us about. Come and see for yourself. Come and see.

Nathanael does come and see, although I imagine Philip had to practically drag him there. I can see Nathanael lagging behind the enthusiastic Philip; humoring his friend, not expecting anything. Then suddenly seeing Jesus.

“Here is an Israelite in which there is no guile, no deceit,” Jesus says to Nathanael. It is a strange thing to say, seeming to come out of nowhere. And it seems to touch a nerve for Nathanael. Because perhaps he, too, deep in his heart sees himself as an honest man, an earnest seeker of truth. Maybe Nathanael is a man who has been disappointed again and again, and has allowed cynicism to become his armor, his protection against further disappointment. Maybe no one before this has ever recognized this truth about Nathanael, this vulnerability in him, and he is overcome with surprise, deeply moved. Jesus says to Nathanael, “I saw you.”

I see you.

Now Nathanael, with his eyes opened, cries out his delight and praise, and Jesus says to him, “That’s nothing, my friend; you’ll see much greater things than this. Stick around and you’ll see the heavens opened.”

Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Absolutely. Open your eyes and see. There were others, too, who opened their eyes and saw the Christ, the Son of God. There were others, too, who said yes when he said to them, “Come with me, come and see.” But there were more, it seems, who failed to see.

The Jerusalem and Roman authorities failed to see that anything good might come out of Nazareth. So they crucified him. To use such a broad brush to condemn a place or a people is not only a contemptuous thing, it is a dangerous thing.

The world needs people who can see. In the story of Samuel, the old priest Eli needed young Samuel because, as the text says, Eli’s eyesight had grown dim so that he could not see. The nation was dependent on him, yet he was no longer able to offer them spiritual vision. Eli needed Samuel, Israel needed Samuel, whose vision was clear. And Samuel said yes.

The world needs people who can see, people who will say yes to the call of the Lord. The world needs people who will say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening,” and who will then speak truth to the lies that prevail. The world needs those who will say yes against questions such as – Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Robin Drive? Can anything good come out of Haiti, El Salvador, Cameroon, Nigeria, Syria, and any other place on earth that is the home of God’s children, people Christ died for?  Do we need people from these places? Yes. Yes.

Photo: Nazareth neighborhood. By Tiamut at English Wikipedia - Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1922140

The Story of Us

Genesis 1:1-5    

Mark 1:4-11       

Years ago, I used to do a little bit of mental math, to sort of gauge the health of the church. I kept a tally in my head of two things: funerals and baptisms.

For a while, there was some parity between the two tallies, so I felt things were okay. I felt it was safe to say that we were keeping an even keel, as long as, for every member lost, there was a gain. With every baptism, there was newness of life; there was renewed hope.

I stopped doing that a while ago. And the truth is we haven’t had any baptisms at our font for a long time – none in the past year. And I cannot deny that the numbers tell us something – although I don’t think I can tell you exactly what that story is.

As I told you last year, my identity, my sense of purpose in pastoral ministry, is tied up in baptism. To handle the waters of baptism, on behalf of the church as a whole, is perhaps the greatest honor there is in ministry – from where I stand.

It is an act that has meaning that shoots back through time – all the way to the beginning, when the earth was a shapeless void, a mass of water, and God’s wind, God’s Spirit, swept over the face of the waters. The act of baptism, the sound and the sense of water as it moves, touches skin, takes us back to the beginning and what it means to be created by God – and recreated by love.

The act of baptism, which Jesus participated in – even though everyone said, and still says, that he didn’t need it. Jesus did not need to be recreated, renewed. But he did it anyway – maybe just to make an example for us. Or maybe just because it is so wonderful and he wanted it – even if he didn’t need it.

I never miss an opportunity to talk about baptism – on this Sunday when we remember the baptism of Jesus, or on any Sunday when we baptize a new Christian, a new member of our family. I love to talk about it and I feel the need to talk about it because I am afraid we think about it too little.

And maybe there is no reason to expect we should think about it more. After all, baptism is a sort of pre-verbal, pre-cognitive act. Any logical or rational arguments associated with it were tacked on after the fact. The act of baptism is an act as ancient as humankind. The act of baptism is stronger than any argument for its existence. The act of baptism is. It simply is.

We actually do ourselves a disservice, I think, when we make too much of the rules about baptism. Particularly about the prohibitions against re-baptism. We are adamant in the church that baptism – once done – is sufficient. Baptism, no matter how or where or at what age it was done, equips you for a life of faith and all kinds of ministry in the church. I have been among the most ardent guardians of this truth, being provoked to irritation by stories of people who have gotten themselves re-baptized at the Jordan River because it was such a cool thing to do, or re-baptized by immersion at the Baptist Church because it just feels more complete. I become sensitive to any suggestion that our baptism is merely a pathetic dribble of water; that it is inadequate, hardly enough to call a washing away of anything.

And yet, in my zeal to keep us all theologically in line, I might overlook the importance of the experience of baptism. Experience is what baptism is mostly about.

A baby swims for months through the amniotic fluid of the womb, and out through the birth canal, finally taking his first breath into new life. Every time this child is submerged in the baby bath, or has a soft wet cloth wiped across his face he is bodily remembering that primordial state. The baby doesn’t know the words to describe it, but the baby knows the touch of water.

The world before creation swam in watery chaos until God brushed over the surface with God’s Spirit and spoke – calling out the distinctiveness of creation and all that is in it. Bit by bit, creation articulated itself into species of plants and animals, free from the watery chaos yet never free from the water, which is, we know, life itself. All of life thirsts, leans toward water, which holds the mysterious power of life in it. The world does not have the words to describe it, to do it justice, but something within us is touched, a memory recalled of that primordial state, by thirst satisfied.

The touch, the feel, the smell, the sound, the taste of the water, is enough to recall all of it. Death, birth, beginnings, creation.

It is something that we might relive, re-experience, time and again. It tells us where we came from. It tells us what we are and who we are.

In Judaism, there is a history of baptism – John the Baptizer did not make this thing up. It has always been a ritual of purification that individuals would participate in from time to time, called the mikva. It was part of the temple priests’ purification requirement before they could serve their duties in the temple. But anymore the mikva is used only in a few circumstances, one of which is a monthly purification ritual of married orthodox women.

A woman of childbearing age has a monthly cycle which is marked by cleanliness, uncleanliness, and a return to cleanliness. After her monthly cycle, she goes to the mikva and undergoes a well prescribed and thorough ritual. Every inch of her body is combed, shaved, clipped, scoured to cleanliness. And then she enters the bath, the final stage, where she lowers herself completely under the water, then rises. She is declared clean by the bath attendant, and free to return home to her husband, no longer impure. Now, once again, pure.

There is much about this ritual and the set of beliefs that support it which I find meaningless – except for the single piece that defines the whole: the bath. The submerging into and the rising out of the water is laden with meaning – ancient and timeless.

It is the reason why I find my spirit calming and centering, my emotional temperature lowering, as I approach a babbling brook and sit down next to it. It is the reason why some need to reconnect with the ocean periodically in order to feel fully alive. It is the reason why every mother knows that the recipe for soothing a fussy baby is to insert her in warm water. Water is the source of life; water connects us with the source of life.

Yet most weeks our baptismal font is dry. It sits on the side as a dry symbol, almost forgotten, of who we are.

Well, I have told you a story now – about who we are, where we came from, what we are like. But now you need to tell a story, as well. It must be more than a story about the past. Our stories must retell the past as something that is alive and present, life-giving and surprising. We have no problem telling the story about who we were, once upon a time. But that story leaves us barren and cold. We must tell the story about who we are.

The water is here. Life is here. If you wish to live, if you want to tell a story about who we are, now, in this place, come and be revived by the waters of life.