Come and See

Scriptures: I Samuel 3:2-14, John 1:35-51

Christmas season (which we’re really still in – Epiphany isn’t for four more days) is a great time for telling stories. We hear the old, familiar ones, like “Why the Chimes Rang”, or we see the ones on television or DVD or Netflix that have become, oh, so familiar to us: “The Little Drummer Boy”, “Miracle on 34th Street”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”.

Jesus loved to tell stories, too. Many of these we call parables, and many of these are just as familiar to us as our favorite Christmas stories: the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Parable of the Lost Coin, to name a few.

What makes a story compelling? The best stories, it seems to me, cause a kind of “Aha!” response: somewhere inside we say something like, “Hey, I know someone like that;” or “Say, that could be me being described;” or “If I really hear what this story is telling me, It’ll help me be a better person.” It’s a story that we feel has really become internalized as a part of us.

So, when we hear or see or read a story what is important about it is not so much whether or not it “really” happened but what it tells us about ourselves, about our lives. You know the story of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Now, this, of course, is a story someone made up (and, no, it wasn’t Gene Autry, even if we most associate the song with him; it was actually Robert L. May who created Rudolph in 1939 as an assignment for Montgomery Ward, and it wasn’t until ten years later that Autry recorded the song…but I digress). We resonate to “Rudolph” because it tells us something about ourselves – that each of us has some special gift to use. We may be laughed at by some; we may think that others are better than us; but if we look into ourselves we will find that special gift that God has given us to use. It may not be as spectacular as leading Santa through fog and snow; yet, if we use our gift well, it is just as glorious in God’s sight as Rudolph’s famous trip.

Our scriptures today on this second Sunday after Christmas offer two stories that I want to share with you and see if you can tease out your own “Aha” response to them and what they might mean for your life. One is about a boy and one about a man, but they are related, as we will see.

The first comes from the third chapter of that Hebrews Scripture book we call I Samuel, and it is about a time when Samuel was a boy. The second from the gospel of John is about the man Nathanael, whom Jesus called to be one of his disciples. Keep in mind as you hear them that what is happening in these stories is not as important as what they tell you about yourself and see if you can discover what that is.

Samuel was quite different from other boys in ancient Israel. His mother, Hannah, had given him to God even before he was born. This came about because Hannah had been married for a long time and still had no children, even though she loved children very much. So, one day she decided that if God was going to bless her with children she would have to sacrifice something. The next day she went to the temple and prayed before the old priest, Eli: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death.” A nazirite refers to one who took an ascetic vow, as described in the 6th chapter of Numbers, and it means “consecrated” or “separated”. After Hannah had prayed in this way she did conceive and her son was born, Samuel, meaning “God has heard.”

A few weeks after Samuel was born Hannah was getting him ready to take to the priest. Maybe you can imagine what she was feeling. After many, many years of not having children finally one is born to her, and now she must take him to the temple to give to God. This may seem to you like a very hard thing to do, but Hannah had a great deal of trust in the Lord and knew that what she was doing was right. Hear what she says as she gives the child to Eli: “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God…. There is no Holy One like the Lord…there is no Rock like our God.” Sounds quite a bit like the words of Mary in the Magnificat, doesn’t it?

And so Samuel goes to live with this old teacher of Israel, Eli, and he grows up in the temple. Now, Eli had a couple of sons named Hophni and Phinehas who were not very nice – you know how cruel teenagers can be sometimes. They laughed at Samuel and kidded him for being the “Lord’s little boy.” They really had a mean streak.

As Samuel was growing up in the temple the Bible says that “the word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” But now a strange thing happens to Samuel. As he lies down one night he hears this voice calling, “Samuel, Samuel!” Of course, he thinks it is Eli, and so Samuel runs to him, but the old priest is disgruntled at being awakened and tells Samuel to go back to sleep. This happens again, but then by the third time it dawns on Eli that this may indeed be the Lord calling Samuel, and so he tells Samuel to listen to what the Lord says. So Samuel does, and the Lord tells him, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.” (Kind of a strange way for God to put it, but it did get Samuel’s attention. This was going to be important.) Specifically, the Lord is going to punish Eli’s sons for their wickedness. Samuel is rather fearful about reporting this to Eli, but eventually he does tell the old priest the truth. Eli’s response is acceptance: “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”

What happened to Samuel? When the Lord first called Samuel’s name, he didn’t know who it was. But after Eli told Samuel, he was ready to listen, saying to God, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Already, even before he knew what the Lord was going to say, he recognized that he was the Lord’s servant. And so the Lord says to him, in effect, “Come and see all that I am going to do in Israel, because I am the Lord.” And because Samuel saw that it was so, he became a great prophet in Israel.

Now, I doubt that any of us here have actually heard the Lord speaking to us directly – or would admit it even if we thought that to be the case. So, we may wonder if we really should go and listen when someone says, “Come and see all that the Lord will do.” Part of becoming an adult in the faith means raising questions and not just taking things on authority, as Samuel did from Eli – the only parent he had ever known. This, then, brings us to our second story – the one about the man, Nathanael.

Nathanael was a friend of Philip, whom Jesus had called to be his disciple when he was beginning his ministry. But Nathanael was a doubter who asked questions. His friend, Philip, tells him that the messiah had come, that this Jesus of Nazareth is the one foretold by Moses and the prophets. But Nathanael just scoffs and shows his prejudice by saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” This is like a UNLV fan saying, “Can anything good come out of Utah or San Diego State (or name any Mountain West conference team you particularly despise).” The question really tells us more about the chauvinism of the person asking it than it does about any of those universities.

Philip’s answer is short and direct: “Come and see.” Philip knows that Nathanael is the sort of person who has to see with his own eyes. Some of us are like this, too; unless we can see or touch or hear something we don’t accept the fact that it’s there. If you are in the Christmas tradition of exchanging presents, remember what it was like eight days ago before opening your presents? You might have known what you wanted or what you thought you were getting, but until you actually saw it after it was unwrapped you weren’t quite ready to believe you were going to have it. Well, this is how it was with Nathanael – he couldn’t believe that this was the perfect gift – the promised messiah – until he actually saw him. And when he does see him Jesus astounds him by telling Nathanael that he had already seen him lying under the fig tree which was a long way from where Jesus was. When Nathanael hears this he is ready to believe: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” But Jesus gently rebukes him by saying, “You will see greater things than these.”

Now, again, I don’t think that any one of us has actually met the Christ or had wonderful things foretold about us by him. We have not heard the Lord like Samuel; we have not seen the Lord like Nathanael. So, we have to believe just because someone tells us to. Or do we? We can hear these as just nice stories from the Bible – something akin to our more contemporary “The Little Drummer Boy” or “Miracle on 34th Street”. Or we can focus on Philip’s answer to Nathanael, which uses two verbs that imply action: “Come and see!” Come – pick yourself up, don’t just sit back and wait until all the questions are answered, because then it will be too late, but come and meet this Lord. See what God is doing in the world today. See, not just with your eyes, but with what you feel in yourself that love means. Think back on those moments before Christmas when you were filled with expectation, not just because of the presents and food, but because somehow you knew that something special was happening in the world to make it, in spite of all the hardships and economic turmoil, a little better place in which to live.

We can begin at this start of a new year our active focus on the work of our Lord by coming before this table and seeing the work that God has done in offering Christ to us through this sacrament. As we taste the bread and wine we use another one of our senses to see and hear and feel the action of God in the world. We are then enabled to take all that we have experienced here and turn it into our actions on behalf of the Christ in each of our corners of this world.

Being a Christian is to be an active participant in the joy and sorrow of the world. As Paul reminds us in I Corinthians, it is by participating with God in God’s world that we know the truth of Christ’s presence among us. If we just sit around and wait for all the questions and doubts to be cleared up, God and Jesus won’t mean much to us. Ask the questions. Be ready to doubt. But remember that the ultimate response to these doubts – given to you and to me, even as it was given to Samuel and Nathanael – is “come and see”.

Amen

Dave Pomeroy

First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
January 2, 2011