Epiphany 2

Sermon preached by the Reverend Canon Richard Ames-Lewis

January is a difficult month at the best of times. The festive season is long over, the weather is poor, the days don’t seem to be getting noticeably longer and now we are in national lockdown. It can be hard even for special people like me, for whom January is a golden-fringed birthday month. 

In January we need to have something to look forward to. In good times, this is the month we plan what we might do in the coming year, who we might visit, which grandchildren might come to stay, where we might go on holiday. But this year is starting in such an uncertain way that we can make none of those plans. Rather we look on as so many in our country and our world face the terrible consequences of the pandemic. There seems nothing practical we can do except as praying bystanders.

But as is the way with the spiritual life, there is always light in the darkness. This dark month reveals to us some chinks of light, for the month of January is coterminous with the Epiphany season. During this season we reflect on the extraordinary way the light of the Incarnation is spread from its minute beginnings in the Bethlehem manger to the wider world, and even to us in our darkness. As Isaiah prophesied: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples, but the Lord shall arise upon you, and his glory shall appear over you.”

The season began with our reflection on the journey of the Magi, following the star. Last week we reflected on the Baptism of Christ, Christ’s going public to the waiting world. Next week we shall reflect on the Miracle at Cana and the transformation of water into wine at the marriage feast. 

And today we reflect on Christ’s calling of his first disciples, and so his calling of us. It might seem strange that we, even we, might be counted amongst his disciples in our present darkened frame of mind, but this is indeed what we find as we reflect on today’s readings. We have been called, and we are his disciples. 

The call of Christ to his disciples in Galilee with the words “Follow me” is prefigured by another calling which we heard about in the first reading – the call of Samuel by the Lord in the dark time when “the word of the Lord was rare and visions were not widespread.” Then the boy Samuel, in his darkness, understood nothing of the voice of the Lord or the possibility of vocation. But Eli taught him what he should say if the Lord called him again: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” That is a phrase we can hold onto. It is a prayer we can use every day. “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Today’s gospel reading from St John’s gospel centres on the calling one particular disciple, Nathanael. We know very little about this man. He is said to come from Cana in Galilee, but we have no information about his parentage or his occupation. He’s mentioned only twice in St John’s gospel, here at the beginning and at the end after the Resurrection. He doesn’t occur in the other gospels, though traditionally he has been associated with another disciple, Bartholomew, perhaps in order to get him into the number of the twelve. But he’s definitely a minor disciple. In that respect we can, I think, identify with Nathanael. His call from Jesus comes indirectly through Philip, who we can suppose was his friend. Again, perhaps we can identify with this. Was our calling enabled by a friend? 

Jesus calls to Philip “Follow me”, whereupon Philip runs to find his friend Nathanael and tell him “We have found him about whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” And what does Nathanael reply? “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathaniel in his darkness cannot conceive of the Messiah coming from such a common and lowly place as Nazareth.

Commentators on this passage are divided about why Nathanael should have been so sceptical about Nazareth. It may be because Nazareth was never mentioned in the Old Testament or in early rabbinic literature, suggesting it was of no importance. It may be that Jesus’s Galilean origins were held against Christian claims by the unbelieving Jews. Add to this the fact that Galileans were of mixed stock and despised by Jews of pure descent, of whom Nathanael was evidently a representative.  

At any rate, Philip persuades him to put aside his scepticism. “Come and see!” he says. And he does. When Jesus sees Nathanael coming towards him he says, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”  Nathanael is of pure Jewish stock, and this is emphasised by Jesus’s use of the word “Israelite” – the only time this is used in any of the gospels.  Jesus’s perceptive appreciation of Nathanael goes deep. He is picking him up on his heritage, on his presuppositions and his prejudice, and Nathanael is chastened. “Where did you come to know me?” What meaning is there in the verb “to know”? They have hardly met, but Nathanael is finding that Jesus already knows him through and through.

Like the Psalmist wrestling with the Lord:

“Lord you have searched me out and known me;

you know my sitting down and my rising up;

You discern my thoughts from afar.

You trace my journeys and my resting places

And are acquainted with all my ways.”                      Ps 139 vv 1-3

I wonder how far this has been true for us, when we wrestle with the calling of Christ, that he has reached deep into our soul, that we find he knows us; and that we haven’t liked what he has found. He has discovered our darkness and is painfully bringing it into the light.

In reply to Nathanael’s question “Where did you come to know me?” Jesus’s reply is disarmingly simple, yet loaded with symbolism “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you”.  “Under the fig tree” is a figure of speech. It means something like “being steeped in Jewish tradition”.  It describes both the Jewish expectation of paradise at the end of time, sitting under your vine and your fig tree; and also the means by which you might expect to reach there: under a fig tree was traditionally the place where rabbis taught the Law of Moses. So Jesus perceives Nathanael as a Jew schooled in the Law and awaiting the final promised paradise. I suppose our equivalent might be “being a good Anglican churchperson.”

Then the conversation moves to a climax with Nathanael’s confession of faith “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” His darkness banished in the light of the knowledge of Christ. He is turned around.

“Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” There are more compelling signs to come. Epiphany is a gradual unfolding of the light of Christ. So also for us: Jesus meets us as good Anglican church people, but there is more to following the call of Christ than this.

We hear no more of Nathanael until the end of the story. After all the turmoil of the Resurrection, by the calm water of the Sea of Tiberias, there he is listed with the other disciples, as the risen Christ reveals himself. I think of Nathanael as a kind of everyman or every woman disciple. He might be you or me, steeped in traditional faith and sceptical of change. But he is called. He encounters Christ. He is turned around. And so he stands as a model of darkness being turned to light.

And so may we. In these dark days let us take this model to heart and let Christ make his epiphany in us.