January 15, 2012:
Anything Good?
January 15, 2012
Call: 1 Samuel 3: 1-10
Text: John 1: 43-51
Read: Lord Speak To Me
Anything Good?
I like humor.
I even try to be humorous
Although, during the time I have been your pastor
I have provided plenty of evidence that I am not always successful.
However, as much as I like humor
I do have reservations about certain types of humor
I am not crazy about slapstick or physical comedy
The Three Stooges never turned me on.
I never really loved Lucy.
I don't like stupid humor
And much of what passes for humor today requires people to look and act stupid
Although I do have to confess that I liked "Get Smart" which some might argue falls into this category.
I don't like gross humor,
And again, much of what passes for humor today seems to be based on off color language or socially
questionable actions and sounds whose very use is perceived by the writer as funny.
I like satire, word plays and puns, and "clever" humor,
In short, I like humor that makes me smile
I liked the Beanie and Cecil cartoons where the animator put toes on the mountains so we could recognize the foot hills.
And my favorite humorous movie was - and is - "Dave"
In which Kevin Kline makes his living
Finding jobs for people
And moonlighting doing impressions of the President
And who is suddenly whisked off to the White House
And told it is his patriotic duty to pretend to be the President
To cover up the fact that the real President has had a massive stroke and is in a vegetative state.
When I left the theater after that movie,
my cheeks literally ached from smiling so much.
But I spend a lot of my time reading and interpreting the scriptures
And to be honest,
The scriptures are not exactly a treasure trove of humor.
Inspiration? Oh, Yes
Instruction? You had better believe it
Reflection? MMMMhhhhmmmmnnn
But humor? Not much.
And that is why I have always like today's scripture.
I believe that it contains
the funniest line,
the words that produce the biggest smile
in the entire Bible.
Now the passage itself is not funny.
It is only one of lines in it that always makes me smile.
[John 1: 43-51]
Here we are as modern Christians
We know that Jesus is the Christ
We know that he teaches about love and peace
We know that he has been sent to bring us closer to God
The hymn says that he came
"to love, heal, and forgive."
And too, we know he came as God incarnate
And that he came as our king and our sacrifice.
We know who this guy is.
And so when Nathaniel asks,
"Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
We have to look at each other and smile - maybe even chuckle
For we know that something really good came out of Nazareth
And we have to look at Nathaniel with those smiles still on our faces
And say, "If you only knew, Nat. If you only knew."
But there is more to this passage than a humorous line
In fact, the line I find so amusing has more to it than humor.
For Nathaniel is somewhat of a skeptic
He is apparently a devout Jew
He is almost certainly a man who expects the coming of a messiah
But he is somewhat skeptical of what Philip has told him.
And I wonder whether you and I might well have been skeptics too.
There are two ways to understand Nathaniel asking the question
Neither is a matter of truly oppositional disbelief
First, what Philip said must have astonished him.
He has talked about, prayed for, and looked forward to the coming
Of the Messiah
But so great was his anticipation that he may have found it
hard to believe that at last the messiah had come
hard to believe that the messiah was just a short distance from him.
On July 4th weekend of 1955, I was at Independence Hall in Philadelphia
I knew I was there
I could actually see the building
But it was hard to believe that I was actually there on that date.
Adam had a similar experience in July of 1996
When he entered the White House
He had looked forward to it
But when he walked into the building,
it was breath taking for him to realize
that he was actually in the home of the Presidents.
In 1998, I worshipped at Foundry UMC in Washington
I chose to worship there
because I knew that was where President Clinton worshipped
As I entered, I saw guard dogs posted outside
I saw the secret service man on the steps with a hearing device in his ear
But when Mr. and Mrs. Clinton entered
I could not believe that Jim Barnes
Then of the hamlet of Jordanville, NY
Was worshipping with the President and First Lady.
There had to be some of that awed disbelief in Nathaniel's mind
When he uttered those words.
But I think he had another more challenging type of skepticism.
I think Nathaniel,
Like most of the Jews of his day,
Had his own "picture" of the coming of the messiah.
And being from Nazareth was not a part of Nathaniel's picture.
Can you imagine if I told you that the second coming would take place
in Hannawa Falls?
Now, most of us would not actually ask,
"Can anything good come out of Hannawa Falls?"
But someone might comment, "Hannawa Falls?
Why would God have chosen Hannawa Falls?"
[And somebody in the congregation might interject,
"It's simple. He didn't want to pay Potsdam property taxes."]
But seriously, Nathaniel and the Jews of his day had expected
A great military leader
A person with the trappings of royalty
And not a simple teacher from Nazareth
Who had let this quirky wilderness guy baptize him
And so the question, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
Amusing as it is to us today
Can be understood in both ways
Awe that it is really happening
And difficulty reconciling
how it is happening
With how one had envisioned it happening
Any and all of us can be Nathaniel.
And even more importantly, any and all of us can be Philip as well.
And that is good news
for while it is easy to be like Nathaniel
Philip is the one we need to emulate.
For having discovered Jesus
Philip wanted to share what he had discovered.
And so he told Nathaniel about him
In doing that,
Philip was the successor to the shepherds we talked about on Christmas Eve
In doing that,
Philip was the predecessor to the apostles
Who, at Christ's ascension, received for all of us
The Great Commission to be witnesses.
And note how he did it:
When Nathaniel responded with skepticism
Philip did not argue with him
Philip did not get defensive
Philip did not write him off
No, Philip simply said, "Come and See"
And he gently led Nathaniel to Christ
For Philip knew that skepticism was normal
And that it was just a matter
Of opening Nathaniel's eyes
Of opening Nathaniel's ears
Of opening Nathaniel's mind
of getting Nathaniel to give Jesus a chance
In that sense, Philip was a lot like Eli
In this morning's Old Testament story
For Eli told Samuel to open his ears
And when he did, he heard God speaking to him.
The story of Philip and Nathaniel is not in our scriptures because John
wanted to provide some light humor for Jim Barnes or anyone else who thinks like he does.
It is in John's gospel
Because it tells us that when we are skeptical like Nathaniel:
If we open our eyes open our ears and open our minds
Like Samuel and Nathaniel finally did
We can see God We can hear God
We can experience God.
It is in John's gospel
Because it tells us that when, like Philip,
we know we have encountered Christ
That we can share him without being overbearing
All we have to say is "Come, and see"
In one form or another.
And isn't that a lot more important than being the funniest line
In the entire Bible?