Sermon 15.1.12

“Come and See!”

Texts: 1 Sam 3:1-10, John 1:35-51

Jeanette Mathews

The November before last I went to a biblical studies conference in Atlanta in the United States. It was a good conference but I was happy to go to Atlanta for a couple of additional reasons – some good friends that I had begun theology study with lived there, and it was the birth place of Martin Luther King Jr and the city where he ministered as a Baptist pastor before and during his life of civil rights activism. Actually he was engaged in a struggle that is much broader than civil rights in the United States – at the centre of his ministry was the hope for a harmonious global society founded on God’s love for people and people’s love for one another. He expressed it as the “beloved community” and the third Monday of January each year is a national holiday in the US commemorating Martin Luther King Jr and known by some as “Beloved Community Day.” I read Martin Luther King’s biography when I was studying at a Baptist Seminary and now I had a chance to see for myself where he had come from and in particular to attend a service at the church that he had been pastor of, the Ebenezer Baptist Church. That was a great experience too! Not only the friendly African-american Southern welcome, the impressive gospel music, the handbell choir, but some little part of me wonders if I preached more fervently whether people in this congregation would call out an “amen” or start clapping in appreciation or even rising from their seats to give a standing ovation to the powerful word of God! I guess it was a pilgrimage of sorts for me – going to the place where someone I had long heard of and admired had been raised – and seeing if any of the power of that man would rub off if I followed in his footsteps.

A pilgrimage is a journey of discovery: it is about following in someone’s footsteps in order to discover more about that person and more about yourself. Many people of faith have taken time and effort to walk an actual pilgrim route. I’ve seen it expressed this way: “Tourists pass through places but people and places pass through the pilgrim.”

In a small way when we take time to reflect on biblical stories each week we are also making a pilgrimage – following the footsteps of Jesus and the early Christian community and discovering more about them and more about ourselves in the process. Rather than just letting the bible readings pass in one ear and out the other, when we come to them as pilgrims we allow them to pass through us and change us. The stories of Jesus calling his first disciples in the gospels tells us a lot about what it means to follow Jesus. And, actually, these stories perhaps sum up Jesus’ whole message in just a few words: “Follow me” and “Come and See.” Jesus said these words to a number of different people, and as we join the pilgrimage we can hear that he is still saying these words to us today. You might already know everything there is to know about Jesus, or you might be just meeting him for the first time, but wherever you are in your pilgrimage of faith, Jesus’ words are there for you today, inviting you to follow him, to “come and see”.

In the church’s cycle of seasons we are in between Christmas and the Lenten journey to Easter. It doesn’t seem too long since Christmas, and nor does it seem too far to Easter considering there are already hot cross buns in the supermarket! But it is worth lingering in this time in between, a time known as “Epiphany” – the name coming from a Greek word meaning “to show”. This word epiphany is used by people of faith to describe how they are convinced that something in their life was actually caused by God – God has been revealed in a special way. So it follows naturally from Christmas, when God was revealed on earth in the person of Jesus, recognised by both shepherds and wise men, then later by a priest and a prophetess in the temple, then even later recognised as God’s chosen messenger by John the Baptist.

Today’s Old Testament reading fits into the theme too. Although he was still only a boy, young Samuel was living in the temple as an acolyte. You might remember his mother Hannah had dedicated him to God’s work. The story sets the scene well by telling us “the word of the Lord was rare, visions were not widespread” – and even underscores this by speaking of the resident priest Eli’s failing vision. But God’s revelation does come again and Eli, despite his failing sight, still has enough insight to guide Samuel in understanding his experience as an epiphany – a special revelation that God was calling him to be a prophet for that particular time in history. I think there is an interesting interplay between the senses of sight and hearing in the passage. It leads us to expect a vision – by the comment at the beginning and the knowledge that the experience happened at night – but the epiphany is when Samuel hears his name spoken. Jesus says follow me, but he also says come and see. Both seeing and listening are important. But before we get too focused on those experiences, the bible also makes it clear that the call of God can come from within – remember the story of Elijah on Mount Horeb in 1 Kings 19? He waits to experience the Lord’s presence but it isn’t in the noisy and arresting images of wind, earthquake and fire. When it comes it is in the form of silence, sometimes translated a still small voice.

Because epiphanies are not always hearing God’s voice as clearly as Samuel did.

Martin Luther King Jr was once asked to describe his call to ministry – his interviewer Joan Thatcher said ‘Apparently many of our young people still feel that unless they see a burning bush or a blinding light on the road to Damascus, they haven’t been called.’

This is how King responded: “My call to the ministry was neither dramatic nor spectacular. It came neither by some miraculous vision nor by some blinding light experience on the road of life. Moreover, it did not come as a sudden revelation. Rather, it was a response to an inner urge that gradually came upon me. This urge expressed itself in a desire to serve God and humanity, and the feeling that my talent and my commitment could best be expressed through the ministry. At first I planned to be a physician, then I turned my attention in the direction of law. But as I passed through the preparation stages of these two professions, I still felt within that undying urge to serve God and humanity through the ministry. I came to see that God had placed a responsibility upon my shoulder.”

Sometimes we only gradually come to an understanding of how God can work in our lives. That’s why Jesus’ invitation to “come and see” is so important in today’s reading.

It seems that Jesus is happy for people to explore, ask questions, check it out for themselves. Even when people are sceptical or have doubts there is room for that amongst Jesus’ followers. Nathaneal was sceptical. He said “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” You see Nazareth, the place where Jesus grew up, either had a pretty bad reputation or was so insignificant that it was hard for Nathaneal to imagine someone important could be associated with it. In human terms we think someone can be explained by where they come from, who their parents are, where they went to school etc. But rather than arguing about Nazareth’s reputation, Nathaneal was just invited to come and see Jesus for himself.

All sorts of people in all sorts of circumstances have answered the invitation of Jesus. We just heard a few in our reading from John’s gospel. The other gospels fill in details that John leaves out; they tell us that the people Jesus invited to follow him included fishermen, freedom fighters, a tax collector, someone recently bereaved and a rich man. In the passage in John it seems Jesus even gave the invitation to people who were already following someone else.

What is common in most cases is that when Jesus said “follow me” people were doing their ordinary work. We might think God’s revelation will come while we are at church, or reading our bible, or praying. But according to the gospels most of the first followers of Jesus weren’t doing any of these things. Mostly they were just going about their ordinary lives. According to John, Andrew and Simon were actively engaged as disciples of John the Baptist who then pointed them in the direction of Jesus. But we can’t be sure that some of the others were even thinking about Jesus when he walked past and invited them to follow. Of course we don’t get much detail at all about these followers: in the gospels everything is told very briefly. That’s probably deliberate though, so that people who heard the stories back then and we who hear them now can put ourselves in their place. Any of us can read the story and imagine ourselves in the picture. We might not all be able to see ourselves fishing (some of us can!), but we can picture ourselves doing whatever we do each day, and realise that Jesus’ invitation can come at any time. It doesn’t depend on how much we know about him, or how well prepared we are. What is up to us is the response. Will we follow? In the song “will you come and follow me” we are told what might happen if we follow Jesus – it uses words like loving, growing, risking, caring, transforming. But all that comes later. First we have to decide, like Simon and Andrew and James and John and Nathaneal did if we will follow.

Then there’s the story of the tax collector. That wasn’t just any ordinary work. It was exploitative of the Jewish people and part of the organised system of Roman occupation. Matthew or Levi (depending on which version you read) was a man with a bad reputation. But the story tells us he did become a follower and invited his new friend for dinner. This meant that Jesus was in the company of people on the fringes of normal society. He wasn’t doing his own reputation any good either. But that isn’t what he was on about. He was on about building up the kingdom of God – and as he said, “the ones who need it the most are the ones who are going to be invited.” By including people from such different backgrounds in his inner circle, Jesus was creating a “beloved community” centred in his love for them.

It is significant that it was Jesus who did the inviting. In the first century when Jesus was alive many Jewish teachers and rabbis had disciples or followers. But it was always the would-be disciple who took the initiative. They would come to the rabbi and prove their worth by quoting scripture or arguing a theological point in a clever enough way that the rabbi would be impressed. But that’s not the way Jesus operated. In fact it was a scandal that some of the people he chose were not considered worthy by anyone else. Listen to this:

Memorandum

TO: Jesus, Son of Joseph
Nazareth

FROM: Jordan Management Consultants
Jerusalem

Dear Sir:

Thank you for submitting the resumes of the twelve men you have picked for management positions in your new organization. All of them have now taken our battery of tests; we have not only run the results through our computer, but also arranged personal interviews for each of them with our psychologist and vocational aptitude consultant.

It is the staff opinion that most of your nominees are lacking in background, education and vocational aptitude for the type of enterprise you are undertaking. They do not have the team concept. We would recommend that you continue your search for persons of experience in managerial ability and proven capability.

Simon Peter is emotionally unstable and given to fits of temper. Andrew has absolutely no qualities of leadership. The two brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, place personal interest above company loyalty. Thomas demonstrates a questioning attitude that would tend to undermine morale.

We feel that it is our duty to tell you that Matthew has been blacklisted by the Greater Jerusalem Better Business Bureau. James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus definitely have radical leanings, and they both registered a high score on the manic depressive scale.

One of the candidates, however, shows great potential. He is a man of ability and resourcefulness, meets people well, has a keen business mind and has contacts in high places. He is highly motivated, ambitious and responsible. We recommend Judas Iscariot as your controller and right-hand man.

We wish you every success in your new venture.

Sincerely yours,
Jordan Management Consultants.

Like this imaginative memorandum, the gospels are quite honest about the failings of the disciples. But it was exactly these sorts of people that Jesus invited to be followers.

In John’s gospel the stories of following suggest the invitation sometimes came from Jesus through another person. There is Andrew who brought his brother Simon, and Philip who brought Nathaneal. People are still arguing about when John’s gospel was written but stories like this suggest it was written later than the other gospels when the church was well and truly established. Many people who were becoming Christians then hadn’t been around when Jesus was alive. And so naturally there is more emphasis on witnessing. And when we follow, we model our lives on the one we are following. So when the invitation to come and see came to Nathaneal, it was Philip who was doing the inviting. In John the story is about people hearing about Jesus and going to see for themselves, and then they in turn bring other people to him. Not many of us began to follow Jesus out of the blue. Most of us could name someone, maybe even our parents, who prayed for us, or spoke to us about their faith, or introduced us to someone else who would do that. But the invitation is still to “come and see”. Each of us has to make it our own faith.

The fact that there are so many different stories should remind us that Jesus can invite anyone to follow – there is no particular age or occupation or education or personality that God chooses. Jesus didn’t expect anyone to have a theology degree or be a perfect person. When the invitation is given “come and see” there are no conditions attached. But at the same time we don’t have to switch off our minds when we open the bible or come to church. The invitation to “come and see” includes every part of our lives: thinking, feeling, working, sharing, loving and being active in the world. We aren’t just told what to do, we are invited to explore the life of faith in the world around us with Jesus. One of our stained glass windows picks up a famous image of Jesus standing and knocking at a door with a lamp in his hand. It illustrates the verse in Revelation – “Behold I stand at the door and knock”. But if we think of that verse together with the invitation of Jesus to “come and see” then I think we could argue that Jesus isn’t just asking to be let in, he is inviting us to come outside and go with him. He was already walking along when he called disciples to follow him. He was already active in the world, healing and teaching and busy doing the things he believed God wanted him to do. When he says “come and see” he was inviting his followers to share in that work, to be part of the Kingdom of God that was already on the move. When we are invited to “come and see” it is an invitation to let our whole lives be shaped by those values, and an invitation to bring our heart, our mind, and our hands so that we can participate in the reshaping of the world to reflect the values of the Kingdom.

Jesus says “come and see”. We aren’t invited to be followers because of who we are and what we do, but because of who Jesus is and what God has done through him! It is an invitation to bring our whole selves, so that we can enjoy a full life – a life with purpose and peace. But don’t take my word for it. Come and see for yourself.