Second Sunday after Epiphany

Second Sunday after Epiphany (RCL) – Year B 2009
1 Samuel 3: 1 – 10; Psalm 139: 1 – 6, 13 – 18; 1 Corinthians 6: 12 – 20; John 1: 43 – 51
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland OR
Sunday, January 18, 2009

THE WORK IS LEFT TO US

Let us pray: Christ Jesus we your unworthy servants give you praise. Of all those who are wise, insightful and talented that you might have called to come and follow you – you have chosen us. In our weaknesses and our limitations we often feel unworthy of your faith in our abilities to carry out the work of your Gospel. We gather here in your sanctuary, in the worship of your Name to ask for the gifts we need to become the disciples that you desire us to be. Fill us with your grace and gifts that will empower us to carry out the tasks that you assign us. Send us forth from this sanctuary as those chosen by you to do your will in all that we say and do in your holy name. Amen.

(SUNG) WILL YOU COME AND FOLLOW ME, IF I BUT CALL YOUR
NAME? WILL YOU GO WHERE YOU DON’T KNOW, AND NEVER
BE THE SAME? WILL YOU LET MY LOVE BE SHOWN, WILL
YOU LET MY NAME BE KNOWN? WILL YOU LET MY LIFE BE
GROWN IN YOU, AND YOU IN ME?

In the telling of the Gospel stories things move very quickly. In today’s reading, for instance, we are barely 40 verses into the narrative and already Jesus is calling others around him to join in and begin the work of salvation and the bringing about of God’s Kindom into their midst. No sooner is Jesus baptized than we begin to hear of the call of the twelve disciples that will journey for the next three years with their teacher and friend to learn all that they will need to know in order to continue bringing about the work of God in the world. What often amazes me in the Gospel stories – is that the cast of characters is left to us in all of their faults and foibles. One might think that the authors of our Gospel texts might have wished to make themselves come off a bit more polished and sophisticated than they might have been. After all these characters will become the foundations of a Church that will yield immense power and influence in the centuries since its humble beginnings. If we are to look to exemplify our lives and our purpose in those lives by measuring them against the most perfect example of love and charity that the world has ever known in the person of the carpenter’s son from Nazareth – might we not think that those whom he would choose to carry on the message would be great thinkers and pious examples for us who follow? That however, does not seem to be the case and we have a perfect illustration of that in this first calling story that is narrated by the author of John’s Gospel text.

First we meet Phillip whom Jesus encounters on the way to Galilee. Phillip, we are told, is from the village of Bethsaida the same city that is home to two other of the disciples Peter and Andrew. This is all we are told about Philip. We are given no clue as to his background, his family, or his qualifications for discipleship. Quite quickly and simply Jesus tells Philip to “follow me” and an excited and energized Philip runs and finds Nathanael and says to him, “we have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” That is really rather amazing when you think about it. We were just introduced to Jesus a few verses before. Jesus has not yet done anything – no preaching, no teaching, no healing nor miraculous signs. Before any of that will occur, Jesus calls everyday, ordinary people of the time – people just like us – and invites twelve of them to join in the work of the bringing about of God’s Kindom. Nathanael responds to this amazing news that the Messiah of God – the one who was foretold in sacred story by Moses and the great prophets of Israel has come into the world by doubting that anything good could come out of Nazareth. An unashamed prejudice is evident in this remark of Nathanael’s. Jesus, as he would have been called in his culture - Jeshua bin Josef – hails from a hick town in the middle of nowhere – the son of a tradesman – not of a line of Kings and Nathanael was sure that was not the way the Messiah of God would make an entrance into history. We all are familiar with these unspoken prejudices in our own lives are we not? I for one can admit to one that I’ll share with you. When ever I hear the soft and subtle “twang” of an accent from the southern states of our nation, without even realizing what I’m presuming I think, “Sweet but dumb”. Not a truth in my character that I am proud of, yet a truth in my character nonetheless. Still, for whatever reason we are not clear, Nathanael heeds Philip’s invitation to “come and see.” What was it about this Carpenter’s son that caused people to drop their families, their livelihoods and everything that they held dear in their lives to follow him? One has to imagine that wisdom, truth, beauty and grace flowed through and helped him move about the countryside with a magnetism that was deeply powerful and compelling.

(SUNG) WILL YOU LEAVE YOURSELF BEHIND, IF I BUT CALL YOUR
NAME? WILL YOU CARE FOR CRUEL AND KIND AND NEVER
BE THE SAME? WILL YOU RISK THE HOSTILE STARE, SHOULD
YOUR LIFE ATTRACT OR SCARE? WILL YOU LET ME ANSWER
PRAYER IN YOU AND YOU IN ME?

It is this very humanness of the ones whom Jesus calls to be disciples that can serve as example to those of us who are so very human and feel that we fall far short of what would be needed to become disciples ourselves. Discipleship is best left in the hands of Martin Luther King, Jr. with his fiery and passionate oratory skills than in the hands of a short, balding baritone priest who sings during his sermons! Leadership of the Church is better left in the hands of Popes chosen in Conclaves of Cardinals that signal their calling of the Vicar of Christ with white smoke billowing from the chimney’s of the shrines of the Vatican – than in the hands of a 52 Year old Woman from Corvallis who is elected by the Bishops with whom she serves often in contentious disagreement, to be the visible face of the Episcopal Church in The United States of America for the next decade. In the words of William Cowper, “God works in strange and mysterious ways his wonders to perform.” Episcopal priest and powerful preacher Barbara Brown Taylor says the following from an article she penned for Christian Century, in February of 2001, “Sometimes I think that those spectacular call stories in the Bible do more harm than good. At the very least, I suppose they are good reminders that the call of God tends to take you apart before it puts you back together again, but they also set the bar on divine calling so high that most people walk around feeling short.” The point is, my dear friends, that ALL of us are called by the Christ to “follow me” and carry out the work which we have been given to do in this world. For many of us present here this morning, we have chosen the venue of God’s Church in which to live out that discipleship as imperfect as we might be. Let me give you and example, which though perhaps a bit embarrassing to the individual, serves to illustrate the point of this calling by Christ to discipleship quite well. Just last Sunday, Fr. Bill North shared with me that he has once again been called by God to be about the work of bringing the Good News of the Gospel to those who need to hear it. This time, to serve in an “interim” capacity at a Church in Phoenix, AZ while they await their full time Rector sometime after Easter Sunday. Now I don’t mean to imply that this calling is as far fetched as say, Nathaniel’s incredulity at the appearance of the Messiah of God from Nazareth in Galilee – but you may be sure that the North’s had no expectation of Bill returning to full time Parish ministry at this late juncture in their lives – yet if not Bill, then who? If not you to live out whatever ministry to which God is calling you, then who? We are all we have folks, the future of this Church is in our hands – the future of this faith rests on our abilities to share it with those who need to hear its good news – its Gospel of liberation and radical inclusion for ALL of God’s children. Jesus has left us with certain gifts and talents to carry out our work of discipleship in whatever ways we might have been gifted to do that. Some of us as Preachers and some of us as Lectors; some of us as Vestry members and some of us as extra hands to prepare a meal for the hungry – the vessel is not the point – the message is the point.

All that Jesus from Nazareth – that hole in the wall hick town – wants for the world, all that Jesus expects from his life and death – and all that is meant to be is given by God to us, Jesus’ disciples. Maybe that is a piece of what Jesus means in today’s Gospel text when he promises Philip and Nathanael that they will see “greater things than these.” Jesus is making a reference to the story of their ancestor in the faith, Jacob. Jacob was called to be a father of the people of Israel and he got to see a great ladder that was let down from heaven. What is truly amazing is not only did Jacob get to see this heavenly vision but that Jacob got to see this vision. Jacob, the liar, Jacob the cheat, Jacob the scoundrel of his family got to see things that few mortals get to see. The truth is that Jacob is our ancestor as well. And we, like Jacob may not be the best people in the world, and we, like Philip and Nathanael might not be the most insightful people, but what we are is the people whom Jesus has called to follow him and to be part of the Kindom of God made manifest among us; and that means we’ll see some amazing things.

As we prepare this week to inaugurate the first African American to hold the office of President of this United States – we pause with humility and hope to give prayers to Almighty God for the strength and fortitude that Mr. Obama will need – and we also pray that God will bless each of us with the strength and fortitude that we will need to carry out the work of promise and the hope of the good news given to us as disciples of the Word made flesh who dwells among and within us.

Amen.