Sermon on John 1.43-51

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews

January 14, 2017

St. Joseph-St. John, Lakewood

Epiphany 2, B

John 1.43-51

I don’t know what to say this week.

The annual meeting is right after this,

            and Jesus calls to Philip

            and Nathanael and us,

                        “Follow me.”

We’ve also got Philip saying,

            “We have found him

about whom Moses in the law

and also the prophets wrote,

Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.

How does Nathanael reply?

He asks,

“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

[Sigh]

That sounds a lot like

            A comment the President made this week,

                        doesn’t it?

The sentiment sounds the same.

A temptation is to let the comparison  

            stand on its own.

Giving in to that temptation

            is giving in to white supremacist rhetoric.

Nathanael may have thought

            that Nazareth wasn’t anything

            but that doesn’t make it nothing

                        even if it was in the back woods.

It’s where Jesus,

            the savior of creation,

                        grew up poor.

Jesus changed the world,

            just like the people of Haiti.

I couldn’t get in this pulpit

            and not mention the analogous comparison.

But saying anything more about it

            isn't the sermon that I

am called to preach to you

            today.

And I tried to write one.

When Nathanael dismisses Jesus

            simply because he is from Nazareth

                        Philip replies to “Can anything good?”

                                    with “Come and see.”

What Nathanael finds is

            a man who essentially

has done a magic trick.

Jesus says, “I saw you sitting under the fig tree.”

Jesus knew where Nathanael was,

            and that’s all it takes to convince him

                        that Jesus is the son of God,

                                    the king of Israel.

I’m with Jesus:

            that's a pretty low bar.

Despite Nathanael’s dismissing Nazareth,

            Jesus doesn’t dismiss Nathanael.

Jesus says,

            “You will see greater things than these.”

From what we know of Nathanael,

            he does what Philip does at the beginning of this passage.

He follows Jesus.

This short passage

is part of John’s Gospel

                        where Jesus is assembling

his core group of disciples.

Some of them

were followers of John the Baptizer.

Others he recruits along the way

            and convinces to follow him by his teaching.

They seek out new people to follow Jesus

            because they are convinced

                        that Jesus is the one written about

                                    in the law and the prophets.

This is only John Chapter 1

            and Philip is evangelizing —

                        sharing the Good News with —

                                    Nathanael.

From John’s disciples,

            to those he invites,

                        to those they invite

and Jesus persuades,

            the number of Jesus’ followers grows.

Jesus says,

            “Follow me” then

                        “You will see greater things than these.”

Our annual meeting is today,

            and I think more clearly that ever

                        Jesus is saying,

                                    “Follow me.”

Jesus the living Christ

has made all things new.

There are some new announcements

we’ll get at the annual meeting in a bit

            including some new Bishops Committee members.

I hope.

Following Jesus who has made all things new

            requires as I talked about last week

                        dying to old habits,

                                    including habits of clinging to things.

It means trying new things

            with new people.

It means being like Philip,

            and telling those we encounter

                        the Good News of Jesus.

It means saying,

            “Come and see”

                        about how you’ve known new life in Christ

                                    at St. Joseph-St. John.

When Philip and Nathanael follow Jesus

            he promises them,

                        “You will see greater things than these”

They leave their immediate families.

They quit their jobs.

They risk their social standing and even their lives

            to follow Jesus.

“You will see greater things than these.”

This assurance of Jesus is ours too,

            but we have to take risks —

                        personally and as a body.

One risk Episcopalians are scared to take, often,

            is inviting someone to church with them.

The Season after the Epiphany,

            has historically been a season about evangelism.

This has been a few weeks of focusing

            on sharing the Good News of the incarnate Christ

                        salvation made available to all

If you have someone in mind

            to invite for next week,

                        don’t hesitate.

But if you’ve got some trouble,

            some anxiety with that risk…

                        if you’re not quite comfortable saying

                                    “Come and see” like Philip…

            spend some time in prayer and discernment.

Think about who might need to be reunited

with the church,

            with our church or any church.

Think about who might need to hear

            that their sins are forgiven.

Think about who might need to be reminded

            that they are dust, and to dust they will return.

Spend this next month

            wondering who you might invite

                        to our one Ashes to Stay service

                                    after Community Dinner on February 14.

Jesus tells Philip, “Follow me.”

Philip tells Nathanael,

            “Come and see.”

Jesus tells Nathanael and us,

            “You will see greater things than these.”

Let’s take the risks.

Let’s follow Jesus. 

Sermon on John 1.1-18

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews

31 December 207

St. Joseph-St. John, Lakewood

Christmas 1, B

John 1.1-18

“Wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sins and make us holy
Perfect Son of God

Perfect Son of God.”[1] Amen.

This passage from John’s Gospel

            is always here.

It’s always the text

            for the first Sunday after Christmas.

It’s beautiful.   

John establishes that Jesus the Christ

            existed before creation,

and yet as we say in the creed,

            through him all things were made.

 “All things came into being through him,

and without him not one thing came into being. 

What has come into being in him was life,

and the life was the light of all people.”

“He was in the world,

and the world came into being through him.”

John sets up his themes of light and dark,

            light that darkness can’t defeat.

“[John the Baptizer] came as a witness

to testify to the light…

The true light,

which enlightens everyone,

was coming into the world.”

I love this passage,

            but I’ve heard so many bad sermons on it.

I’ve heard so many bad sermons

            because John is so philosophical.

John’s prologue deals with

the Greek concept of λόγος

            translated as Word.

It’s an important concept,

            but it’s so easy

to get lost in the weeds

            discussing it in a sermon.

John’s prologue is beautiful,

            and it’s philosophical,

                        and it can be so abstract!

This week in Vancouver

            Brandon and I went to an exhibit

            called “Emptiness”

                        at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

It followed two artists —

            one Canadian, one Chinese —

                        as they moved

from traditional painting styles

                        to contemporary styles

in their own countries.

For the Canadian artist,

            Emily Carr

                        this was a move from romanticism and realism

                                    to more abstract, more spiritual —

                                                more conceptual.

After being exposed to abstractionism

            and the direction visual art in Canada was going,

                        Carr said, “I was not ready for abstraction

                                    I clung to earth and her dear shapes,

                                                her density, her herbage, her juice.

                                    I wanted her volume,

and I wanted to hear her throb.”

On the first Sunday after Christmas

            when John says,

                        “In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God,”

            I don’t want abstraction.

I want to cling to the earth and her dear shapes,

            her density, her herbage, her juice.

I want to cling to Jesus

            taking our injured flesh on himself,

                        breathing our air, walking our sod —

                                    robbing our sins and making us holy.

I want the God born as an infant

            to reflexively wrap his tiny, human, Godly hand

                        around my pinky

John gives me what I want  

when he says about Jesus,

                        “And the Word became flesh

and lived among us,

and we have seen his glory,

the glory as of a father's only son,

full of grace and truth.”

The Word became flesh

            and lived among us.

Y’all.

I’m going to say that again.

Again.

The Word became flesh

            and lived among us.

We don’t have to dive into the abstractions,

            into John’s philosophy

about the Word, the λόγος,

            to understand God becoming human

                                    and living with, like, and as one of us.

Christmas is wonderful,

            but we are tempted

                        to make it more sweet than revolutionary.

Some of our carols don’t help.

In the busy-ness of the season

            time spent with family, closing the year,

scrambling for bills, three services in two days

            we aren’t conditioned to think about

                                    Jesus the Word becoming flesh

                                                and living among us.

The Church celebrates this joyous event

            for twelve days.

As Chrysostom says,

            “For it was to Him no lowering

to put on what He Himself had made. 

Let that handiwork be forever glorified,

which became the cloak of its own Creator.

For as in the first creation of flesh,

man could not be made

before the clay had come into His hand,

so neither could this corruptible body be glorified,

until it had first become the garment of its Maker.”

In the Word becoming flesh and living among us,

            the flesh we have has bene elevated to be like God.

All of creation has been redeemed.

I opened with lyrics

from the modern Christmas hymn

            “Welcome to Our World”:

Wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sins and make us holy
Perfect Son of God.

Another verse references

a tiny heart whose blood will save us,

            which I think belies the plea to

                        “Rob our sins and make us holy.”

It skips the birth,

            the taking on flesh and living — living — among us

                        to Jesus’ death saving us.

It misses celebrating the Incarnation,

            for which I render that lyrics

                        tiny heart whose beating saves us.

To miss the celebration of the Incarnation —

            from busy-ness, or philosophy, or rushing to the crucifixion

                        misses the tangible, messy, fleshy reality

                        of Jesus the Word becoming flesh

                                    and living among us.

In Christmastide I am not ready for abstraction.

            I cling to earth and her dear shapes,

                        her density, her herbage, her juice.

I want her volume,

and I want to hear her throb.

I want to hear, to feel, the throb

            of the tiny heart whose beating saves us.

---

[1] “Welcome to Our World,” lyrics by Chris Rice.