The man under a fig tree

The man under a fig tree The disciple Nathanael or Bartholomew, as he is known in Matthew, Mark and Luke, flashes across the opening chapter of John s gospel and has no mention again until he is a named witness to the Resurrection. [John 21:2] In common with all the disciples (except Judas Iscariot), Nathanael is a Galilean. He comes from the village of Cana which we know from John s next chapter and another Epiphany story is where Jesus miraculously transforms water into vintage wine and happily keeps the wedding reception going. A tricky moment for some Methodists who wish the miracle had worked the other way round! The disciple Philip has already met Jesus of Nazareth and tells Nathanael that Jesus perfectly fits the job description for the Messiah foretold in the Law and the Prophets. Nathanael responds pithily: Can anything good come out of Nazareth? After all Nazareth is an insignificant village where just 30 or so families live and just six miles from Cana. So Nathanael s dismissal of Nazareth is an expression of local rivalry. Reminding me a bit, as a Newcastle United football fan, whether anything good can come out of Sunderland? The narrative rushes on as we recognise that this is biblical theology written from above which makes sense of the life of Jesus after his death and resurrection; rather than in real time when events have just happened. Jesus sees Nathanael approaching him and notices three things First of all, he s an Israelite. A true Jew whose knowledge of Moses and the prophets would allow him to recognise the Messiah if he met him. That s in contrast to those Jews who failed tragically to acknowledge Jesus because he threatened their future The second thing Jesus says about Nathanael is that there is no deceit in him or as the King James version memorably puts it in him there is no guile. Nathanael is a man of religious and moral integrity who fits the description offered in the words of the Psalmist [32:2] happy are those in whose spirit there is no deceit. 1

The third thing that Jesus noticed about Nathanael was that he had seen him under the fig tree even before Philip invites him to come and see Jesus. I remember a steamy July morning 18 months ago, sitting under the shade of a tree by Lake Galilee in Capernaum and listening to my guide Oliver [Miller] explaining the significance of Nathanael being seen under the fig tree. I wanted to make sure I got the explanation right this morning so sent an email to Oliver. Amazingly I got this reply from the Red Sea where he is working at the moment. Dear Rob, I find it much easier verbally, spontaneously, to convey such ideas rather than write them down but I'll give it a try Jesus tells Nathanael I've seen you under the fig tree What happens under the fig tree? Teaching of course. This is a play on words that can only be made in Hebrew. The word for tree is etz or ets עץ which sounds very much like eza or etsa עצה which means advise. In other words, Jesus acknowledges Nathanael s authority and wisdom. He is saying to Nathanael I saw you giving advice - teaching under the tree so I acknowledge and accept your wisdom, authority and knowledge. Nathanael is surprised by this and acknowledges Jesus immediately as the one who is expected. Now you won t find that in the commentaries well not in the ones I ve looked at! So we have learned that Nathanael is Kosher - the real thing a man who knows about God whose expectations of the Messiah are well formed who is primed and ready to make the connections between what he knows and who and what he encounters he is a bright man And like Thomas who will acclaim Jesus as his Lord and God after the Resurrection, Nathanael responds to Jesus Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel! So Nathanael and Thomas neatly top and tail John s Gospel. Nathanael in chapter 1 and Thomas in chapter 20 My Lord and my God. By now you ought to be asking: what might this be saying to us? 2

If you will, put Nathanael s call to discipleship alongside some of the other disciples that we know about like Peter, James, Andrew and John who are fishermen. Matthew who is an unpopular tax collector. Judas Iscariot who is the ambitious keeper of the communal purse and eventual traitor. Simon the nationalist zealot and Nathanael aka Brains. We have a pretty unlikely set of companions for Jesus to work with. Putting aside the issue of a men only group and that is not easily done I know; if we think of Jesus disciples as modeling the diversity of the church today then we see an inclusivity in the economy of God s kingdom. Here all are welcome, all are valued and all are needed. Nathanael s inclusion in this eclectic band of brothers is a reminder of the importance of scholarship in the contemporary church and of the need we have for people of faith who can confidently engage with the ideas and critics of our day People who can respond carefully and credibly to the tragic, scurrilous, spikey cartoon world of Charlie Ebdo. A magazine which sees all faiths as ridiculous, which should be mercilessly mocked in the name of liberty. We do have the right of reply. We need people who can respond to Stephen Hawking s Theory of Everything. Do see the film. We need people who can dissect Richard Dawkins s God Delusion. We need people to engage with Philip Pullman s Dark Materials. I remember Archbishop Rowan doing just that in an extraordinary conversation with Pullman at the National Theatre a few years back. I was riveting stuff. We need people like priest and scientist John Polkinghorne. My Methodist colleague David Wilkinson who was a theoretical astrophysicist before becoming a minister and now Principal at St John s, Durham. Loose canons like Giles Fraser, bless him. Archbishops who know their way around the financial markets as well as the scriptures. Your Dean who writes about theological education and how we need to understand Islam. Thank God that the Nathanael s are about. We need clever people to take on the debunkers and cynics. We need them to keep sitting under their fig tree. Christ s church needs people who can speak for us about Jesus in ways that will command respect and 3

bring people to faith without having to believe six impossible things before breakfast, like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland. Of course no-one enters the Kingdom of God by intellectual argument alone but who is going to take a serious interest in a religion which lacks integrity and seems to outsiders to be built on nothing but fairy tales? We need our apologetics. We need our explainers. We need Nathanaels. And a final thought which I hope is appropriate to being invited here this morning. Jesus followers are not a dream team who think and do the same. They come from different backgrounds. Just look at what they get up to. They argue about who is to sit at the top table with Jesus. They are fallible. St Mark tells us that after Jesus arrest they all desert him and run away. Curiously this is good news for us because we can take our place in their sinful company. So we have a Church which is far from perfect but where all are welcome and may have a seat reserved at the heavenly banquet prepared for all people Our diversity is mirrored in the Church universal with her radically different doctrinal understandings and ways of expressing authority and governance. You have your way of doing things. Your theological understandings and styles of worship which you are comfortable with. That is why you are here and that is why you are Anglicans. Much of which I share with you but I have some different perspectives. More than ten years after signing the Methodist - Anglican Covenant we are still struggling to reconcile our differences about the place of bishops and mutual recognition of ministry. Your General Synod and my Conference will look again this summer at what we can do. That s just Anglican s and Methodists for goodness sake and we are just up the road from you. The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is an extraordinary institution. It is thought that there are between 40 and 60,000 different church traditions across the world surely a depressing response to Jesus call that we should all be one. That s John s gospel again [17:10]. But whilst it is a truism, it remains important to recognise that each of those 40-60,000 churches expressly acclaims Christ as the 4

Head. Which allows me to end with words of John Wesley, whose reasonable enthusiasm for scriptural holiness could not be contained within the Church of England. And I suppose is the reason for me being here this morning as a Methodist minister. In 1755 Wesley, a Nathanael if ever there was one, first preached his sermon, The Catholic Spirit. It expressed his understanding of what the essentials of Christian experience are and his resolve to work with all those who honoured Christ and promoted Christ s Kingdom, even if Wesley differed from them in some doctrinal matters. His text was this: Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?...if it be, give me thine hand. [2 Kings 10: 15] A good place to end on the first day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity when we unite in acclaiming with Nathanael and all the faithful: Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel! 5