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A Sermon for The Second Sunday of Epiphany
Philip said to Nathaniel; Come and see. Keith and Jim had been friends since school days. As the years rolled past their friendship had strengthened. They were two very different people but their friendship endured. Keith was a practicing Christian Jim was a sceptic. And then disaster struck for Jim. The company of which he was the accountant crashed after it was investigated by the Inland Revenue and Jim was accused of fraud. The news spread like wildfire amongst the local business community. The local papers were full of it. Jim and his family hardly dared set foot out of the house. One by one his friends dropped him – apart from Keith. For shame Jim wouldn’t show his face at Rotary meetings. Guilty or not he felt ashamed – and deeply afraid of the real possibility of prison. The strain on the family was too much, and after a few months Jim’s wife left and took the children with her. He was at rock bottom. His whole life had fallen apart. He even contemplated ending it all. But his friend Keith stood by him: ‘My faith keeps me going- me through thick and thin. Why don’t you come to Church with me – just give it a try.’ ‘Why would I do that’? Was Jim’s sceptical reply. ‘What on earth for? No religious claptrap is going to sort out this mess.’ But he went any way. At the Church people were kind and welcoming and treated him like a normal human being – above all nobody condemned him. In time he joined a fellowship group within the Church where he could get to know some Christian people more deeply and they could get to know him. He found acceptance and love and he found faith and hope in God. And he needed that because he was found guilty of fraud and he went to prison for nine months. He went to the prison chapel every day – he helped with the chapel services. Friends from Church wrote to him and visited him regularly. When Jim came out of prison he managed to rebuild his life his marriage and his family. His faith grew ever stronger. And now he works as a prison visitor with the Prisoner’s Christian Fellowship. And all because his friend Keith had said to him – very simply ‘my faith keeps me going through thick and thin why not come to church with me?’ Keith said and did exactly what Philip said and did with Nathaniel in the Gospel story for today: ‘Come and see’. It was just an invitation. No hard sell. Just an invitation – ‘Come and see’. In the gospel for today we are told how Philip, one of Jesus’ disciples invited Nathaniel to come and see Jesus. The story is found in the Gospel of John. Now when you read St John’s Gospel you always need to pay attention to the detail and ask yourself ‘Why is he telling me that?’ There is a little detail about the Fig Tree. Nathaniel comes to Jesus. And Jesus says to him ‘Ah yes Nathaniel, I saw you sitting under the fig tree’. Why does John tell us that? You see in the Judaism of Jesus’ day a Fig Tree was a symbol of the Law in the Bible. The fig tree symbolised that law which guided all Jews through life. And so if you wanted to study the law of God in the Bible you could do worse than go and sit under a fig tree to do it. And especially so if you were seeking guidance from God’s law about the way you lived your life or about the direction of your life. It’s an interesting idea isn’t it? Seeking the guidance of God from the Bible. I wonder how many of us really consider the scriptures as a source of guidance for our lives. Mind you it can be dangerous. When a Christian man had to make a decision he said to himself: ‘I will seek the guidance of God by opening the bible and sticking a pin at random in a verse and whatever the verse tells me to do I will do it. The first time the pin landed in the verse which read ‘Judas went outside and hanged himself.’ Well, the man didn’t find that to be all that helpful so he tried again. This time he found that he had stuck the pin in at the end of the parable of the Good Samaritan where he read ‘Go and do likewise’! I don’t suppose he found that very helpful either! In the Gospel story Nathaniel was sitting under the fig tree looking for guidance for his life from God. That guidance came to him in Philip’s invitation to meet Jesus in those plain and simple words ‘Come and see’. It was as simple as that. Church tradition Identifies Nathaniel with the Bartholomew who appears in the lists of the apostles of the Lord and who according to tradition took the Gospel to Armenia. Armenia became the first nation to adopt the Christian faith as its official religion. And all from that simple invitation to ‘Come and See’. Nathaniel came to faith through his friend Philip’s invitation to come and see and Jesus did the rest. In the same way that Keith invited his friend to come and see – and Jesus did the rest. I guess that when each of us reflects upon our own Christian journey we may be able to recall the people or the person who invited us to come and see for ourselves. Maybe it was someone who enabled us to begin our journey of faith – a parent, teacher, friend, a spouse – maybe even a priest. Few of us find Jesus alone. He is nearly always mediated to us through other people. Before we meet Jesus we will nearly always meet a litany of people who have met him first and invited us to meet him. The story of Christianity is a story of a great chain of witnesses linked through time with the apostles like Philip and Bartholomew to Jesus himself. That is how the faith is shared – it’s as simple as that. Who do you know who is seeking guidance for their life? Who do you know who is wondering about the purpose and the meaning of their life? Who do you know that is questioning and questing and seeking and searching? I bet there is someone sitting with Nathaniel under the fig tree. Why not invite them to come and see? |