SERMON: 2018/01/14 (2nd Sunday aft. Epiphany, Year B) - 1 Sam. 3D1-20; 1 Cor. 6D12-20; Jn. 1D43-51 [Invite the children to sit at the front. Hold up a detached electrical outlet.] Imagine that this electrical outlet was connected to the wall in my house. Should I stick my fingers into it? Yes or no? [Wait for a response.] Why not?! I can! I have the ability to do so. (Those dark, mysterious holes look so tempting.) So, why shouldnʼt I? Hm?! Tell me. [Wait for a response.] Because itʼll hurt? Is that why I shouldnʼt stick my fingers into electrical outlets? But my fingers might fit! It almost looks like Iʼm supposed to do it! [Wait for a response.] But I shouldnʼt because itʼll hurt? Thatʼs interesting. And it reminds me of a lesson I want to share with you. (Long ago,) in the 17th century - thatʼs the late Middle Ages - there was a man from France called John Calvin. And Calvin was an important man. Like (Martin) Luther, his friend - who we learnt about in the Fall (last year), he became worried that the Church wasnʼt teaching the Bible correctly, and so he took it upon himself: He carefully read his Bible every day, and eventually he came to the conclusion that there was nothing he could do to save himself; to improve His unhappy relationship with God; but Jesus - He had fulfilled all righteousness by His death on the cross [Heb. 9D12], which is why we hear Saint Paul saying, this morning, on all of our behalves, that All things are lawful for me. ʼ [1 Cor. 6D12] Which is wonderful!
But does that mean we should (actually) do all things? Well, some of the people who were learning from Calvin (in Geneva) thought: Yes!! It does. They were called, the Libertines. [n.1] (They would stay up all night having fun and being wild.) And some Christians today make the same mistake: it is one of the oldest misunderstandings in the Church! But in the same letter, Paul goes on to talk about what it means to [be] united to the Lordʼ, and thatʼs to be like Him [1 Cor. 6D17]. To copy Him. Because this is how we show that we are sincere in our love for Him - our faith in Him - as Lord and Savior, [see, e.g.: James 2D20-26]. Letʼs pray: [Ask children to leave.] Jesus was a Jew. We often forget this simple fact. But it is, actually, often the very key to our having the deepest understanding of the Bible stories about Him. Take today's gospel reading, for example. What was Jesus about? What was He up to? Well, at a superficial level, having just been baptised by His cousin, John, (in the Jordan), we hear that He began to recruit some men to follow Him as apprentices - as students - disciples, and the first of these were Philip and Nathanael. What else can we say? Well, I suppose it's noteworthy that Jesus appears - in verse 48 - to have some sort of supernatural power of prediction - He has a vision of Philip before having even met him. And that's unusual, sure. Right away in this account, in other words, we are offered a tantalising crumb of evidence that suggests Jesus might be special: Not just another pretender or a charlatan. Because there were lots of those around - and many since. However, here weʼre offered some proof. But then what about verse 51? Jesus says something very odd.
He says: Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. Now - in case you donʼt know - letʼs be clear: such a thing never happens in the gospels - not literally speaking anyhow. The sentence is actually a quotation from the Jewish Scriptures - from chapter 28 of Genesis - and it unlocks the deeper meaning of this whole episode. Let's take a look: (And Iʼll abbreviate slightly (for the sake of brevity).) Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women. Go at once to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel, your motherʼs father; and take as wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your motherʼs brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and numerous May he give to you the blessing of Abraham Thus Isaac sent Jacob away Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.ʼ So, to paraphrase, Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, is sent by his father to find a wife in their homeland. Why? Because God had promised Abraham that he would have countless descendants, and this wasn't going to happen - in a biological sense at least - whilst Jacob remained a (celibate) bachelor. Thus, of he goes on this adventure to assist in the fulfilment of God's promise that there would be a new kind of people who would be [very] numerousʼ; and at the end of one particularly long day (of walking) he lies down to sleep - where is unimportant - at that point at least - and had this dream in which he saw a flight of stairs leading from where he was sleeping on the ground, reaching all the way through the sky to Heaven - and moving up and down on it were angels. (How do you picture that? In my mind, I visualize it almost like a Rene Magritte painting. Do you know him? The (Belgian) surrealist? He did some very odd
stuff, including one with dour-looking businessmen in bowler-hats floating up towards the sky - or descending from it - in invisible, Willy Wonka-esque glass elevators on errands from God. [n.2]) Anyway, the question, then, is: Why would Jesus mention this - bizarre - incident at this juncture, (in connection with His recruitment of Philip and Nathanael); and the answer - I believe - is two-fold: One, Jesus sees Himself as a bridge - the bridge between this world - the world that we know by sensory experience - and (the mysteries of) God, which is why, in His quotation from Genesis, He positions Himself within the image as actually functioning as the stairs, with 'the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man' - that is, on Him. And what does He mean by this? Well, I think it is an acknowledgment that there is some difficulty for men and women to know God and His purposes thoroughly, intimately, without some assistance from above. And so, graciously, God closes the gap in Jesus. Let me elaborate: I wonder, are you familiar with the expression a thin place? Have you heard that before? Of a place feeling thin? It is somewhere - like a silent monastery before the bell tolls and you find a bench and a bird is singing, or it is a pool of cool tropical, turquoise water on a hot day, which youʼve all to yourself - where Godʼs presence seems really close - imminent. And it is chilling and exciting. I felt that a couple of times during a trip to Israel. Jacobʼs experience of Bethel appears to be like that. And Jesus is that place; the mountain summit - the pinnacle. Hence, Nathanaelʼs astonishing outburst in verse 49: you[!] are the Son of God the King of Israel. Itʼs like Boo! Wow, I didnʼt see that coming. And yet, here it is: the mystical and the wonderful. The transcendent. He didnʼt expect it. One moment it was business-as-usual, and then Jesus! Secondly, Jesus saw His gathering of others to join with Him as a direct continuation of Jacob's mission: God had promised Abraham so many descendants so as to create a holy people who would be a light to the nations, [see: Is. 42D6, 49D6, 60D3], to demonstrate how good it is to renounce selfishness - to renounce materialism and consumerism and every other ism - and live instead lives characterised by love and service to others after the example of Christ.
We, then, the Church, are an extension of that great family called the Jews; and just as Jacob cooperated with Abraham in the fulfilment of creating a new tribe as numerous as the stars, and as Philip co-operated with Jesus to do likewise when he approached Nathanael [see also Acts 8D26D35], we too - make no mistake - are called upon to build the Kingdom of God by personally helping it to grow larger by inviting others to follow our Lord: As it says at the end of Matthew, ʼ[g]o therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.ʼ Amen. Footnotes: o. Schaff, Philip (1882), History of the Christian Church, Volume VIII: The Swiss Reformation, Grand Rapids, M. I.: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 440-442. p. See: https://www.wikiart.org/en/rene-magritte