SIGNS OF GOD'S GRACE: Where Belief Begins
Dr. James Mayfield
September 28, 2003 Text: John 1:43-51 Where does belief begin? How does belief begin? These are the questions that were on my mind as I read today's passage from the Gospel of John. Jesus was beginning his ministry by selecting, calling persons to be his disciples. Already he had chosen Andrew and Peter. Next he chose another man from their hometown, a fellow by the name of Philip. Philip went to his friend Nathanael; "We've found the Messiah; he is Jesus who is from Nazareth, the son of Joseph." And Nathanael's first response was: "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Perhaps Nathanael was speaking because of rivalry between communities -- something like an "orange blood" U.T. fan saying: "Can anything good come out of College Station or Norman, Oklahoma?" John Chrysostom who lived in the late 4th century says that Nathanael's question did not express rivalry between communities but rather his question revealed he had been taught that the scriptures predicted the Messiah would come from Bethlehem, not Nazareth. Whether Nathanael's question was rooted in city rivalry or religious training, I think it is important to note the way Philip responded. He did not argue. He did not try to force Jesus to Nathanael. He simply offered an invitation to a friend. "Come and see." I suspect each of us can name several friends or colleagues who have talked about churches the way Nathanael talked about Nazareth. It may be that some have had bad experiences with congregations or with preachers or with some church member somewhere. What do you say to a friend who says: "Can anything good come out of church?" Basically what Philip said. Philip told Nathanael what he had seen and experienced and he invited Nathanael to come and see for himself. Philip did not argue with Nathanael nor did he try to pressure or coerce Nathanael; he simply shared what he had experienced and then invited Nathanael to come and see. And Nathanael went. Why did he go? I doubt it was because he suddenly believed what his friend Philip had said. I think he went because Philip was his friend; his friend had invited him, and I suspect part of his motivation may have been he hoped Philip was right. In most of us there is a longing for good news that is profoundly true. As Nathanael was approaching Jesus but before he had been introduced, Jesus said (in effect): "Here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit, no guile, a man who does not put some sort of "spin" on everything, a man who is blunt, honest and to the point." "Where did you get to know me?" Nathanael asked. "Before Philip told you about me, I saw you in the shade of a fig tree," Jesus said. Christ knew Nathanael even before Nathanael had heard about Jesus. And Jesus did not merely know Nathanael's name, he knew Nathanael. He knew the sort of person Nathanael was. This is the way it is. Long before anyone has told us about Jesus, Christ knows us - really knows us not just our sin, our weaknesses, faults and failures but also the best within us, our strengths, possibilities and potential. The Christ knows us - really knows us- whether we know him or not. To use the slang of our day, Nathanael was "blown away." He was amazed that Jesus really knew him even though he had never met Jesus. It was all Nathanael needed to trigger his belief. "You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the King of Israel!" Where did this affirmation come from? There is no evidence of lengthy conversation, much less a thorough education process. The Christ saw into his life, saw who he really was, and Nathanael believed. This week I have been thinking about: "How did I come to believe in Jesus Christ?" It is easier for me to talk about how I have learned about Jesus than it is for me to talk about how I came to believe in Jesus Christ. As a child, prayers and going to church were as much a part of my family's routine as three meals a day. Grandmother churned butter singing "Blessed Assurance Jesus is mine, O what a foretaste of glory divine." My first Sunday School teacher was a woman we called "Mizz Grace." She would get on her knees and play with is in the sand box table where a mirror was the Sea of Galilee and clothes pins were Jesus and other characters in the stories we recreated in the sand. And she would visit us when we were sick. Randal Butler was a farmer who put up with our junior high non-sense trying to teach us Sunday School, and I remember absolutely nothing of any of his lessons, but I remember Randal, and I remember Randal knew me, and he cared about me, and he believed in Jesus. The memories go on and on, blending together in a kind of collage. My faith journey does not have an experience of sudden revelation, like the flip of a switch that turned on the light in a dark room. My experience has been more like the gradual dawning of a day when I was insensitive to the reality of the sunrise. At some point midmorning, I was simply aware the sun had risen. There are those who might think they can discount my journey toward belief as merely my being shaped by my environment. And I was. But that no more explains the mystery of it all than a botanist's analysis of a rose explains the mystery of there being a rose. Where does belief come from? How does it happen? Whether it happens like Nathanael's sudden grasp of the truth of Christ or my gradual process of maturing, it is a mystery of grace. Jesus responded to Nathanael's declaration of faith saying: "Do you believe because I told you that I knew you before you knew me? You will see greater things than this." There is more to belief in Christ than merely the initial recognition of Christ. There is more to our relationship with Christ than our initial encounter with Christ. Jesus said to Nathanael: "I tell you the truth: you will see heaven open and God's angels going up and coming down on the Son of Man." To decode that statement one needs to be aware that in ancient times many people believed there were special places, holy places, where the messengers of God (angels) came from heaven to earth and went from earth to heaven. These were places where people could receive messages from God and send messages to God. I suppose it was something like those places where the cell phone really works. They were very special, holy places, such as the place where Jacob dreamed about the ladder from earth to heaven, with angels of God ascending and descending? Jesus was saying to Nathanael, "This is my role in life. I am the one through whom there is clear communion with God." It is through knowing Jesus, not from being on a certain mountain top that God's good news is made known. It is not being at a special location that enables us to be in communion with God but rather being in relationship with this special person, Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus was talking about using that language so strange to our ears -- that we would see angels (the messengers of God) ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. How does belief happen? How do any of us reach the point where we affirm that Jesus is the Christ and then through Jesus, begin a special communion with God? We can describe the journey -- be it a journey similar to Nathanael's or mine, or yours or someone you know. We can describe it, and sometimes think we really understand it because we have composed an accurate description. But such descriptions are about like a good photograph of the ocean; they do not reveal the reality of the depths beneath the surface. Trying to track down where belief really begins eventually leads us into the territory of holy mystery. But although how we have come to believe is finally a profound mystery, once we have believed, once we have stood where Nathanael stood, once we have recognized Jesus Christ, it is impossible for us to live as if we had never encountered Christ. Even if we reject him and refuse to pick up our cross and follow him, we can never quite forget the Christ who knows us, who really knows us. We may reject his teachings, but we can never quite forget his claim on our lives. We may reject his call for us to to pick up our cross and follow him, but once we have met him, we can never quite forget his message of God's love for the world. Once we have stood where Nathanael stood, we can never quite forget the love of God and the claims of God's love on our lives. God, we are amazed and grateful for the various ways the mystery of your grace has been and is at work in our lives leading us to believe in Christ; enable us, O God, to follow him. Amen. Pastoral Prayer: God, in our self-centeredness, we too often live as if life was created for us, rather than us for life. Rather than view you as the holy One whose will is to shape our living, we act as if you are a waiter, serving our table and expecting only a tip in return. When we pause to think, we know better. When we look into the star-filled sky, aware our galaxy, huge as it is, is of modest size compared to the billions of other galaxies in the universe, when we contemplate the delicate, complicated intricacy of a minute microbe, when we recognize that even the power of the most ferocious hurricane does not come close to the power you expended, exploding the universe into being, when we compare the vastness of your time to the brevity of our few decades on earth, we are humbled. God, forgive us when we forget you are God. Make us sensitive to your holiness and majesty so that we can experience the strange joy of living in awestruck and humble obedience. This we pray in the name of the one who was teaching us to live when he taught us to pray: "Our Father ...." |