Come and see where you are
Some sunny days to get out in the garden and just look around this week. New appreciation for weeds like this yellow dock.
I preached and celebrated at St Benedicts Episcopal Church in Lacey WA on 2nd Epiphany, and also recorded the sermon for Good Shepherd Lutheran in Olympia.
You can listen and watch the sermon and children’s message at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd starting at in the link below. The text below is as preached at St. Bens.
https://www.gsolympia.org/
Sunday Scripture Readings (link)
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A Sermon preached at St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church, 2nd Sunday in Epiphany, January 17, 2021
Come and see.
I’ve been reading a little about labyrinths lately. A labyrinth is a densely packed trail, coiled and knotted into a small area, which a person then walks through. As you walk you might even feel quite lost. A labyrinth can be a place for teaching how to walk in faith, trusting that along paths that are unclear and even frightening, we can reach the unseen destination at the center. To build a labyrinth requires careful work, starting with a little seed pattern, and expanding it outward steadily. In such a place we learn to receive the word, the vision, the direction we need from God. They are a place you can invite your friend, you neighbor to experience, saying ‘come and see.’
Come and see. Our task as disciples is to help people, including our own selves, to see and know the lord in the place we find themselves, and to follow Jesus Christ. We see this kind of learning and teaching happen in the reading from 1 Samuel. The place for Samuel was youth, serving and sleeping within the tent and tabernacle. God’s voice came to him there at night, but he didn’t know God yet, didn’t know in a personal, heartful way how that voice sounded for him. Eli the old priest was able help the boy Samuel hear the voice, know who called, and to follow faithfully, despite uncertainty and fear. Eli, despite his failing vision, despite the word and vision of God being scarce in israel then, with all his brokenness, comes alongside Samuel where he found himself, and helps him to hear, to see, to know the Lord.
A word on the corinthians reading. When we read the NT epistles in the context of public liturgy, I encourage us to remember that we are reading selections from correspondence between a congregation and missionary pastoral counsel as they sort out the difficulties and life challenges of everyday human life. It requires context we may not have. But that correspondence articulated some archetypal matters for Christians, matters that must be faced anew in every generation and in diverse places. One point to glean here for many of us is this: our bodies, the life we lead in our body in spiritually important. It matters what we do with our bodies,and the emotions, desires, and wants that weave with them. All of these together are the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is as who we are that the Holy Spirit helps us to struggle, be transformed within, making decisions as we grow in our knowledge of God, and invite others to also grow in that knowledge. It is as who we are, making the difficult choices that we each must make as we navigate the world as it is with our best impulses and what we have available to us, that we dare to say ‘come and see’, to others, and to ourselves.
Come and see. Jesus, who, when asked ‘Rabbi, where are you staying?’ replies ‘come and see.’ Philip, an early disciple, says ‘come and see.’ He says it to Nathanael. Nathanael, a man from the Galillee region, was one among many who searched the often confusing paths of the holy scriptures for the promises of God. Philip says to Nathanael ‘we have found the Messiah, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ Nathanael, from his skeptical mind, says ‘can anything good come from nazareth?’ Philip doesn’t argue, he simply offers in reply “Come and see.’ And Nathanael, unlike the other learned sorts, the others who think they know how it all works, think they know all there is to themselves and the world and God, Nathaniel came and saw. And Jesus recognizes that as an openness of heart: ‘Here is an true Israelite!’ And then Jesus really surprises Nathanael in a good way. He has seen him before. ‘I saw you when you were under the fig tree.’ One wonders what the fig tree is about. Some scholars pointing to later rabbinic traditions, suggest that this expression meant to study the scriptures. Jesus had seen Nathanael as his sat and faithfully prayed and studied the scriptures in the hope and desire to know God, to hear God’s word for him and his people, to see as he needed to see. Jesus gives Nathanel the gift of a true sight of himself, and of greater things, of angels, of the meaning and presence of Jesus, and of God. To see the heavens opened, and his path revealed in the light of angels ascending and descending, just like his ancestor Jacob had seen on his difficult path. Come and see.
This is our primary work as disciples now. Right now you may feel very aware that there are human and democratic values to affirm, institutions to repair and rebuild; that there is a global pandemic; that there grinding poverty and economic inequality. Yes, and there are sick people to care for, children to raise, lonely people to comfort. But first and always we must turn the eye of our hearts to hearing and seeing Christ, really, truly, mystically. Seeking such a knowledge, we will see our own sin, and rend our hearts, but not our garments and not each other. And we will hear true and good things, we will see true and good things. Starting in our heart, moving out to our friends, or neighbors, or coworkers. Starting with our little religious communities, where we gather others with ourselves under the vine and fig tree faithfully. We will see greater things, even the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son and man and the place we find ourselves. Come and See.