SERMON EPIPHANY 2 YEAR B JOHN 1: 43-51 The season of Epiphany. Or WOW moments. Have you ever experienced a WOW moment?? Perhaps your WOW moment was shown to you by the beauty of nature. Perhaps your WOW moment might have been when things lined up to make everything fall into place in a situation. Or perhaps your WOW moment might have been in a relationship with another person. A WOW moment is when we are able to see God more clearly in moments of wonder. All four scripture readings set down for today offer insights into WOW moments in the lives of the people in the stories. For Samuel his moment came when God called him in the silence of the night. Even though it was quiet he didn t recognise God s voice but thought it was Eli. Samuel didn t think he was old enough or important enough to hear God calling him. For the psalmist the WOW moment was the realisation that God is ever present and close. God is inescapable! The psalmist makes it clear that there is nowhere that we are not within reach of our God. Isn t that comforting?? In Corinthians 6: 12-20 which was the scripture we did not read, Paul brings to the people at Corinth a WOW moment when he asks them to realise that their bodies are not only a temple for the Holy Spirit but they need to be treated in a way that glorifies God.
However the biggest WOW moment we read about today came through Jesus of Nazareth and was a WOW moment for a bloke called Nathanael. How many of you know anything about Nathanael? From what I could find out he was born in Cana of Galilee and he was a simple truthful character. His name only appears in John s gospel but it is believed that Bartholomew who is mentioned in the other 3 gospels is one and the same person. Nathanael was introduced to Jesus by Philip and he was also one of the disciples that Jesus appeared to after the resurrection. In summary John s gospel indicates that Andrew and Peter have already been called by Jesus and then Jesus called Philip. Philip just HAD to tell his friend Nathanael. He told him he had found the prophet that had been written about. He is Jesus from Nazareth, Philip told Nathanael. Nathanael s reply was Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Instead of reacting to Nathanael s comment all Philip did was to issue the invitation, Come and see. Jesus recognised Nathanael as a real Israelite with not a false bone in his body. Nathanael then questioned Jesus as to where he got to know him to which Jesus replies that he saw him under the fig tree before Philip called him. It is then that Nathanael had a WOW moment. He could see clearly who Jesus was and told him so. And Jesus promised Nathanael that what had been revealed to him was just the beginning. Everything had lined up to bring enlightenment to Nathanael. Come and See. That was all that Philip said to Nathanael. Nathan Williams told the following story. Two men who had been business partners for over twenty years met one Sunday morning as
they were leaving a restaurant. One of them asked, Where are you going this morning? I am going to play golf. What about you? the other replied. The first man responded rather apologetically, I m going to church. The other man said, Why don t you give up that church stuff? The man asked, What do you mean? Well, said the other, we have been partners for twenty years. We have worked together, we have attended board meetings together and had lunches together and in all of those twenty years you have never talked to me about going to church. You have never invited me to go with you. Obviously it doesn t mean that much to you. How much does our church life mean to us? Are we constantly asking others to Come and see? I think that I am one of the worst at not inviting others to come and see. If Christ is the joy of my life and through my contact with him I have new experience of wonder and light, so that the old grey, monotonous world has given way to a life of joy, peace, power and love for others, then surely I should long to pass it on to others. Philip made a great discovery. He found the Messiah. He could not keep his discovery to himself. He ran to find his friend Nathanael and brought him to Jesus. But when Philip said, Come and see, to Nathanael there was no threat of judgement, there was no threat of being wrestled to the ground and force fed any set of beliefs. There was no threat just an invitation. Come and see! Philip wanted to share his discovery with his friend. Methodism began as a lay movement. For John Wesley, preaching and witnessing belonged to the whole church. At the beginning of
the Wesleyan revival, lay people were utilised to spread the gospel. Wesley felt it was a fatal mistake to leave the task of spreading the gospel to the ordained clergy and hence turning the Christian church into a clergy dominated religion. Witnessing was the task of the whole church. John Wesley brought renewal to the Church of England in the 18 th century by getting back to basics. He established the class meetings, which were small groups that follow three basics: Prayer, Bible study, and witnessing. Across the world, church growth is at its greatest when the laity is most involved and witnessing to God. We are invited to come and see. Come to Jesus with a teachable spirit, eager to be changed. Relax and realise the peace in his presence and bring your mind back to God for refreshment and renewal. Come to Jesus with a thankful heart and positive expectations knowing there is no limit to what can be accomplished. Come to Jesus with hope and stay close. Let me tell you the story of the man with the two umbrellas. Dr Gordon Targerson, a Baptist pastor was crossing the Atlantic by ship some years ago. He noticed on several occasions a man sitting in his deck chair reading a Bible. One day Dr Targeson sat down beside him and said, Forgive my curiosity. I m a Baptist minister and I noticed you are a faithful Bible reader. I d like to meet you. After introductions the man said, I am Filipino. I was born into a good Catholic home. I went to the United States as a young man to study at one of your universities, intending to become a lawyer. On my first day on campus a student dropped by to visit me. He welcomed me and offered to help in any way he could. Then he asked me where I went to church. I told him I was Catholic and he explained that the
Catholic Church was quite a distance away but he sat down and drew me a map. I thanked him and he left. On the following Sunday it was raining so I decided to just skip church. Then there was a knock on my door and when I opened it there was my new friend and he was holding 2 umbrellas. He said he was worried that I might not be able to read the map so he said he would escort me to the Catholic Church. I hurriedly dressed thinking all the while what an unusually thoughtful person he was and I wondered what church he belonged to. As we walked along I asked him about his church. He said his church was just around the corner so I suggested that we go to his church that Sunday and then to mine the following Sunday. He agreed but somehow I felt so much at home at his church that I never got around to finding mine. After 4 years I felt that God was calling me into ordained ministry rather than law so I became an ordained Methodist minister. Then I returned to the Philippines to serve in a Methodist parish. My name is Bishop Valencius, Bishop of the Methodist church in the Philippines. The hero of that story is not the bishop but the young man with the two umbrellas. Whether they ended up in the Methodist church or the Catholic Church it doesn t matter. That unnamed man or woman with the two umbrellas is behind almost every Christian convert. That person of faith who builds a bridge of friendship with another person allowing them to come and see for themselves the life we can have when we walk with God. You can be like Philip. You can ask others to come and see. Just come and see and you will learn that something good can come out of Nazareth. Amen.