John 1:43-51
The other day I was in my car listening to the news when the reporter announced that the state that was leading the nation in Covid-19 vaccine distribution was...wait for it...West Virginia. West Virginia? You could hear the disbelief in the reporter’s voice. A state that consistently ranks at the low end of any national survey or measure. US News and World Report ranks it as the worst state when it comes to infrastructure and economic opportunities. It gets bumped up two notches when it comes to healthcare, coming in at 48 out of 50. No wonder the reporter was incredulous. Can anything good come out of West Virginia? Well, it appears that the answer is yes. West Virginia is showing the rest of us the way when it comes to how to vaccinate its population. And thank God for that.
But it’s not just West Virginia that has to deal with a bad reputation. Back in Jesus’ day it was Nazareth. A backwater town that, if there was a ranking system, would come in at the bottom of everyone’s list. It was a place that many were sure had nothing going for it. We hear this in our gospel reading when Philip tells his friend, Nathanael, that he has found the Messiah, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth. What’s funny is that Nathanael doesn’t seem surprised that Philip could have found the one about “whom Moses in the law and the prophets spoke.” Rather what he balks at is that God’s long awaited one could come out of Nazareth. Nathanael has as much faith as the next guy, but Nazareth? No way. Not there. Clearly, Nathanael has some strong opinions, some negative assumptions about that place.
Have you ever made assumptions? Let me answer that for you - and for me - yes. Because we all have and we all do. We may or may not have an opinion about the state of West Virginia, but we hold opinions and make assumptions about plenty of other things. “He’s so closed minded; he’ll never change.” “They’re not a good fit; that marriage won’t last.” “Those people who voted a certain way; they’re plain crazy.” Whenever we judge, label, or dismiss - whether it be a person, place, or situation - what we are doing is creating our own personal Nazareths from where, we assume, no good can come.
And so with Nathanael we ask, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Or more to the point, can anything good come out of our divided nation? Can anything good come out of our politics, out of the turmoil, out of the pandemic? And in our personal lives, we have our own questions, Can anything good come out of this loss or this diagnosis or this private struggle? We wonder and pray, Can anything good come out of the Nazareths of our day?
Well, come and see. That is the invitation that Philip offered to the questioning and skeptical Nathanael. Come and see. And Nathanael, to his credit, accepts the invitation. He doesn’t stay stuck under the fig tree, arms crossed, dug into his own assumptions that he was right and everyone else is wrong. Instead he is willing to get up, to leave his place of certitude, and to go with an openness to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, there is something to see. Could it be that he doesn’t know as much as he thought he knew? That perhaps something good could come out of a place called Nazareth?
And it does! Because Nathanael is willing to come, he does see. “Rabbi,” he declares, “you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" Now the way that the gospel of John records this epiphany, this revelation of God, is that it happened just like that. And sometimes, that’s the way God reveals Godself to us, like flipping on the lights in the middle of the night. But more often, epiphanies are gradual, like a sunrise in the morning. A slow dawning of an awareness of what is true, that God is with us and at work, even in Nazareth - even in our nation.
As we enter into the coming week with our nation’s capital, along with state capitals, fortifying themselves against threats of violence surrounding the inauguration we are all living on edge. We rightly wonder if anything good can come. So much is uncertain and it’s tempting to despair. But hear this good news, our God is not limited by our judgments, our assumptions - not even our fears. Even now, in this Nazareth time God is present. And we are given the invitation to come and see. To open ourselves up to the possibility that seemingly hopeless situations can be redeemed. To believe that even in the darkness God’s light can and will shine. To trust that the power of God’s love is greater than anything that is currently going on in our country or in our own lives. That epiphany may not come all at once, but if we are willing to come and see it will surely dawn. Because there is more happening in Nazareth than we ever thought possible.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Not just “anything good.” The One who is Good always comes out of Nazareth.
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