Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Come and see!
Nathaniel is the questioner; Philip is the answerer. Or so it was 2000+ years ago on a dusty road to Galilee!
Which are you at this moment in time and in this place? Nathaniel? Or Philip? I ask because I can see and hear myself in both of these guys.
This morning I would rather be Philip, the one pointing the way to the Good News of Jesus the Christ. Come and see!
Isn’t that our primary job as Christians?
But I am perfectly clear that sometimes I am Nathaniel, allowing my prejudices or my hurt feelings or my disapproval of… whatever, to blind me to the redeeming grace of God. Can anything good come of that?
We all have Nazareths in our lives. Our Nazareth
might indeed be a place—a small, poor town that, like Nazareth in Jesus’ time,
suffers from ill repute. It might be a part of a town. I have heard the south
side of Monroe referred to in that very tone of voice.
In this era of polarized politics, it might be a
political party or a specific candidate for public office, one with whom we
radically disagree on important matters. If
he or she is elected, we think, no
good will come of that!
It might be a policy decision, or a personnel
decision, or simply a new way of doing things that challenges our own sense of
order, our own sense of rightness and wrongness, our resistance to change, our blindness to our
own privilege. Any of those can cause us to think, Well, can any good come of that?
Sadly, we are often so devoted to our own way of
seeing the world that our behavior slants toward trying to make sure good does
NOT come out of… whatever it is we are upset about.
We’d rather be right than content, or perhaps surprised that something works out
better than we thought it would!
My son got married a couple of weeks ago.
Leading up to the wedding, various friends offered him advice—as humans have a
tendency to do. One male friend said to him, Just remember, Will, you can be right, or you can be happy, but you cant be
both! He was joking, of course!
Remember Jonah, the pouting prophet? God saves
Ninevah in response to Jonah’s own preaching, and Jonah goes off to sit under a bush and pout.
My point is that God redeems things. God is in
the redemption business. Whatever good comes of anything, it is because God
redeems things.
Our human efforts, even our most well-intended,
morally right and good efforts, are by definition limited, partial, imperfect,
broken human efforts.
But those human efforts produce good because God
redeems them, and perfects them, and magnifies them.
When we have the courage and wherewithal to set
aside our prejudices and hurt feelings and pride and desire to be right, and to
say, Come and see… God can and does
use that to produce good in the world.
Sometimes, to our chagrin, God produces good out
of the very thing we were so certain could never produce good.
Recent decisions by our courts and our church to
broaden the definition of marriage and to change the marriage rite have some
folka celebrating, and other folks mourning.
And both groups came prayerfully and thoughtfully to their conviction
of the rightness of their cause! That's what puzzles me. I find myself asking, Why would God lead
people to exactly opposite convictions about the rightness or wrongness of a
thing? What good could ever come of that?
Let me hasten to explain that, in fact, my first
question is unanswerable and the wrong question. We humans are obsessed with
“why.” WE want reasons. It is not at all clear to me that God gives a hoot
about “reasons.”
I certainly do not share the notion we hear so
often when something bad happens that “God has a reason” and if you’ll just
have faith, and smile through the pain and tears, one day you will realize that
God had a plan all along, and on and on...
Let me say again, I believe God is in the
redemption business, not the reason business. Stuff happens, God redeems it.
And good has come of sharp, painful differences
among us. If you look at the history of the church, we have been through some
humdingers! Did you know that a few hundred years ago, blood was shed, people were killed, over how
the church was to set the date for Easter?!
When sharp, painful disagreements arise among
use, we must discuss and debate and argue and negotiate and compromise and contend with each other… and
love each other and choose to stay together through the pain and disagreement.
And we become bigger, our hearts and minds
expand, our love grows stronger, we let go of being right.. in favor of being together.
And maybe that’s the shape of God’s redemption!
God’s redemption rarely looks like we think it
should! Surely the scandal of Messiah on a cross is the most powerful lesson of
all that God’s redemption never looks like we expect it to!
A few years ago, I was on my knees one night
over in the chapel at St. Thomas’ praying fervently for something I wanted. I thought
I would die if I didn’t get it. It just seemed so right, or ordained, that it should come to be.
Suddenly I experienced a “thought” I’m pretty
sure was from God. Now I am not a person who gets messages direct from God! But
at that moment a thought appeared in my head in a most powerful way. And the
thought was, It’s up to you.
I rocked back on my heels. Holy smokes! What
does that mean?
Suddenly, my prayer seemed totally selfish. Oh,
my, if it really is up to me, if God really will give me whatever I ask for, is
that really the thing I want most in the world?
And I realized I didn’t want the responsibility, if you will, of taking
God up on an offer to give me what I wanted! It was a lesson in, Be careful what you pray for!
And so another understanding of that message
from God came to me and has been with me ever since. It’s this: God is saying, My work in this world is up to you. I need
you to be my body in the world, my mercy, my peace, my reconciling love. Come
and see. Go and do. And I will redeem your feeble efforts! AMEN
