Come and See

Scripture Lessons: 1 Samuel 3: 1-10 and John 1: 43-51 Sermon Title: Come and See Preached on January 14, 2018 Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? What a question. What a human question – and what a relevant question for us to ponder this Sunday morning. You and I know already, that Scripture speaks truth to our world. We get out of bed Sunday after Sunday to hear it. We put the pulpit right here in the center of this great, revered room we call the Great Hall because the Word that Scripture reveals we put right at the center of our lives. That’s why the Beadle carries the Bible in with dignity and respect, because the Beadle knows as we all know that the Bible is not some dusty book passed down from generation to generation, but the most relevant book that we could possibly read. But who would have thought that this book, so ancient and removed from 21st Century America, would lead us to ponder a phrase nearly the same as a statement the President is reputed to have made just a few days ago? Nathanial asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” And allegedly claims the President, “Can anything good come out of a place like Haiti? Can anything good come out of Africa? Isn’t it true that the best people come from Norway or someplace like that?” Those aren’t the words exactly, but you’ve watched the news and heard all about it. Regardless of exactly what was said and by whom, this is a very human assumption. We all try to get to know people and one of the very first questions we ask is, “Where are you from?” as though that could tell us something. My grandfather came from a place called the Caw-Caw Swamp. I’ve never been there, but he’d tell us these stories of how they’d catch turtles and would fatten them up in copper pots before cooking them for dinner. How the teacher would come to the house before the school was built, and there was a door to the front that only the teacher was allowed to use. Then when the school was built, my grandfather was the oldest school age child and so he was chosen to drive the bus. How old was he? “Oh, 12 at least,” I remember him saying. One day he fell asleep on his desk and some kid dropped a bb in his ear, and the story goes that because of the damage done to his ear drum he was never again allowed to swim. I told Dr. Jim Goodlett the story and he told me that a bb would just fall back out again. That a bb is too big to do any real damage considering how narrow the ear canal, but Jim is a real doctor and who knows who my grandfather saw out in the Caw-Caw Swamp? The first time he went to the beach, he told me, he fully expected to look right across the water to see Europe, which doesn’t speak too highly for his school system, and as he started out in business in the nearest city which was Charleston, South Carolina, who knows how many people looked down their noses at him when he told them he was from the Caw-Caw Swamp? I can’t tell you exactly where the Caw-Caw Swamp is, but it is definitely not South of Broad. People think that where you live really means something, so they ask about where you’re from to learn about who you are. And that can be good. But to really get to know someone you have to do something more. You have to go deeper. I’ve been interested to know how strategic some people are about using their Kroger Fuel Points. I ran into Wilkie Schell as I was dropping the girls of at school, and he told me he was checking the gas levels of both their cars, because Libba and Wilkie wait until both cars are on empty before they go to gas up so that they maximize their fuel savings at the Kroger. Amazing. I’ve been to a Christmas Party where the conversation completely revolved around tips for gaining a greater discount at the Kroger gas pumps. That tells you something about a person, though I’m not sure what. Getting to know people. Getting to really know people. How do you do it? We once rented a house from a man named Greg Martin who later told me that he always made a point of looking inside a person’s car before renting him or her a house. And that, for him, was a good way of getting to know someone. So, if you want to know someone: how clean is their car? How much do they care about Kroger Fuel Points? I’ll tell you this: you learn more when you know either of those than when all you know is where a person came from. I was in New York City one summer. I told a man I was from Georgia and he said, “I know.” A friend of mine, his name is Will, and he’s a Presbyterian minister down in Savannah. He went to a boarding school up north and when his roommate learned he was from Tennessee he was surprised that Will owned shoes. You ask someone where they’re from, and what do you learn? Maybe nothing. But what do you assume? A lot. You remember Hee Haw? Grandpa comes down stairs: “Well everybody. I’m getting old. It’s time for me to move up North.” “Why grandpa?” Everyone wants to know. “I figure it’s coming close to my time to leave this earth, and it’s better if we lose one of them than one of us.” Philip says to Nathaniel: “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathaniel said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Stop and listen to that. We think we can learn something about someone based on how long his or her family has lived here or whether they’re from Cherokee or Paulding County. But take note. Jesus the Messiah comes from one of those places that people make assumptions about. However, where he was from didn’t tell Nathaniel anything, because getting to know people, and I mean really getting to know them, is valuable and life-giving, but it isn’t easy. Because you have to turn off the part of your brain that relies on assumptions and operates on fear. You really want to get to know someone you have to do more. You have to move in next door. Here in Marietta, we live close to our neighbors, and this new proximity has made us aware of how loud we are. We have two dogs, and one day I opened up the back door to tell one of them to stop barking, only to hear our next-door neighbor yelling: “Junebug, be quiet.” It’s bad when they know your dog’s name, but unfortunately, or fortunately, our neighbors don’t just know us, they really know us. And that’s what it takes. To really get to know someone have to be around them. You have to know what they eat and where they sleep. You have to see what they’re like when no one is looking or when they think no one is looking, so the Gospel of John begins like this as Eugene Peterson translated it: “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” That’s what the Lord did – he moved into the neighborhood. He didn’t rely on assumptions or operate on fear. Out of love he came down here to really get to know us. That’s who God is: A Creator who longs to know his creation. To use the words from our Call to Worship, quoted from Psalm 139: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You are acquainted with all my ways.” God was acquainted with Nathaniel, having knit him together in his mother’s womb. But more than that, the Lord saw him underneath the fig tree. Do you know what that feels like? You leave a message on someone’s voicemail, but instead of hanging up properly like you thought you did at the end of your brief message, you start in on your husband once again and the true state of your marriage is preserved on someone’s cell phone. Or maybe you were in the middle of a sensitive conversation in kitchen when your daughter barges in. You don’t know how long she’s been listening or what all she heard, but you wish that the words that just spilled out of your mouth could be sucked back in. It’s a strange thing to know that you’ve been seen. It’s intimate and makes you feel vulnerable. To be known is this incredible thing, but this is God’s reality and we are wise to remember it. God sees so much that we would rather hide. God knows us at this deep and substantial level. All that we would deny or run away from, he sees and knows. But here’s the big deal: even in knowing all that he comes to earth to get to know us even better – and then – and this is the really big news – even after seeing us for who we really are – God invites us to take part in what God is doing. You can see what an honor that is. The difference that this kind of invitation makes in peoples’ lives. Did you see that picture of a Haitian born cadet who wept as he graduated from West Point? Or did you hear about the boy who grew up in the Caw Caw Swamp to set records in insurance sales for Life of Georgia. Then there’s the kid who was left at a Temple by his mother, raised by a blind old man, bullied by the man’s two sons – but was woken up in the middle of the night because God wanted Samuel to crown Israel’s greatest kings. We are all Nathanial’s – we look down on others because we fear we are nothing ourselves. Forget all that. Let me tell you the truth. You might have come from some place that presidents and disciples would call a back-water or worse, but you are precious in his sight. And, God has some work for you to do. God sees in you the potential that no one else ever saw. God sees the worth that you long ago forgot all about. God knows when you are sleeping and he knows when you’re awake – and the greatest gift he could give he has given and the most important news he entrusts to you that you might proclaim it – just come and see. Just come and see who you really are. Just come and see – and take part in the redeeming work that God is doing in our world. Amen.