First Come, Then See

 John 1:43-51
I suspect that I would have really liked Nathanael.  I say “suspect” because unfortunately, we don’t know a whole lot about him.  He only appears two times in this Gospel of John—once here in the very beginning, and then the second time in chapter 21, near the end.  Furthermore, Nathanael is not mentioned in any of the other gospels.  So today’s story and the story in John 21 give us all we know about old Nate. 

 So what do we know?  Well first, I think we have good reason to conclude that Philip and Nathanael were good friends.  After all, Nathanael is the first one Philip goes to find after meeting Jesus.  Nathanael is the first person to whom Philip wants to tell the good news, the great news, about finding the one for whom they had been waiting. 

 Think about it.  When something big and wonderful, or big and awful, happens to us, our first tendency is to go and tell the person with whom we are the closest, isn’t it?  For some of us, especially us extroverts, the event does not even seem real until we have told a person who takes up space in our heart.  So given this human tendency, I assume that Philip and Nathanael were close friends.  For immediately after Jesus invites Philip to become one of his followers, Philip has to go and find his buddy Nathanael. 

 Now, our biblical report of that conversation seems rather truncated to me.  So here is how I think that conversation went, with a few editorial comments added in:

Philip:  “Guess what!  Guess who I just met?  You will never believe it.  Never in a million years.  Never, ever, ever.   I cannot wait to tell you.  You are going to flip.” 

I bet Philip was right about that-- after that kind of build up Nathanael felt he might flip Philip if he did not hurry up and share the reason for his excitement. 

Nathanael:  “Just tell me.” 

Philip: “Okay, but you have to prepare yourself.  Are you prepared?” 

Nathanael: “Prepared for what?  You have not said anything yet!  You are driving me nuts.” 

But not even Nathanael’s bad mood could rain on Philip’s parade that day. 

Philip:  “I met him.  We found him.  You know how Moses was always saying that the Messiah was just around the corner?[i]  Not anymore.  We have found THE ONE about whom Moses in the law and also all of the prophets wrote.  We have found that One.” 

(Quick aside—Scripture reports that actually, Jesus found Philip, not the other way around.  Funny how we disciples often get the order confused.  Back to the conversation)

Nathanael:  “You’re kidding me.  Who is he?  Where did you find him?  Tell me more!”

Philip:  “He is Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth.” 

 I wonder if Philip felt odd about making that proclamation.  For let’s be honest—as Fred Buechner writes—it is not like Philip is saying the Messiah is someone who makes sense, like the head rabbi or something.

 Not at all.  Philip is standing there, in front of his friend, claiming that the one for whom they have been waiting all their lives, the one for whom their ancestors had waited all their lives, is some guy named Jesus, the son of a carpenter named Joseph, who was from the small, Podunk, nowhere town of Nazareth.  Nazareth was so small, so insignificant, so “not happening,” that it is not mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament, or the Jewish Talmud, or the Rabbinic Midrash, or the historical writings of Josephus.  And to me, that indicates that either no one cared or no one knew about the small, out of the way, town of Nazareth. 

 And yet, Philip was standing there, in front of one of his best friends, sure as sure could be that this Jesus, this son of Joseph, from Nazareth, was indeed the Messiah, the Anointed One, the one in whom all their hopes and dreams resided.  Well, needless to say, good ole’ Nathanael was anything BUT impressed. 

Nathanael:  “You’re kidding, right?”  Philip shook his head no. 

“Get serious Philip,” Nathanael pressed.  “I mean, really, can anything good come from Nazareth?”

 And THAT response is precisely why I like Nathanael.  I like him because he is honest.  I like him because he says exactly what he thinks.  And I like him because he is a skeptic.  I once had a person who was interested in becoming a part of the church stop me to express his concern that due to his skeptical orientation towards life, I might not want him to be a part of the congregation.  “It’s my nature,” he said, “I am a skeptic.  It is who I am.” 

 I responded by telling him that frankly, I love having skeptics as a part of the congregation.  They keep all of us honest.  They keep us from making assumptions about what everyone thinks or believes.  Like Buechner wrote about the relationship between doubts and faith, I think skeptics are the ants in the pants of the church.  They keep us moving; they keep us from sitting too still in false certitude.  I love skeptical disciples, people who are not afraid to question or to doubt, people who poke and prod and wonder.  I think skeptics are wonderful parts of Christ’s body.

 So one big reason why I like Nathanael is his skeptical nature, his poking and prodding and wondering response to Philip. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”   But I also love Philip’s response to Nathanael’s question.  Remember—Philip was totally excited about being found by Jesus.  He could barely keep his feet on the ground.  “He is the one about whom Moses and all the prophets wrote, Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth,” Philip said, his joy barely contained. 

 But when that overwhelming joy was met head on from his skeptical friend with a slightly snarky question, how did Philip respond?  Did he get angry?  Did he pull out his list of proofs as to how he knew that Jesus was the One?  Did he threaten Nathanael like the seminary t-shirt I once saw that said “Your choice for eternity—smoking or non smoking?”  Did he try and scare belief into him or worse, express arrogant sorrow over the state of his friend’s soul simply because he could not yet believe?  No.  Philip did none of that.  Instead, Philip simply looked at his friend and said, “Come and see.”

 “Come and see.”  What a wonderful response to Nathanael.  “Come and see.”  What a wonderful invitation to discipleship.  “Come and see.”  It is the same response Jesus himself gave to Andrew and the unnamed disciple when they started trailing him.  “What are you looking for? Jesus asked them.  “Rabbi, where are you staying?” they asked back.  “Come and see,” Jesus responded.  And they did.  “Come and see.”  “Come as you are called, and see what your calling will look and sound like.  Come as you are called, and see in the end what you cannot believe in the beginning.  Come and see.”

 It is interesting, isn’t it, the order of those verbs?  I wonder sometimes if those of us who are disciples get that order mixed up too.  Just like Philip making the claim that he/they had been the ones to find Jesus, instead of Jesus being the one that found them, I wonder if we sometimes think the call to discipleship is more “See then Come.”  I wonder if we sometimes think we are supposed to first get all of the answers, shore up our own certitude, try and figure it all out so we can control it all, and then decide, if it passes all of our tests, to follow. 

 I know some folks like that too.  I might call them more cynical than skeptical, though.  “How can you base your life on something you cannot prove?” I’ve been asked.  “How can you make decisions about what to do with your money or your time, or how to live or how to die, or how to treat people or raise your kids, based on something you cannot see clearly or know fully,” they’ve wondered.  And I understand.  I have had wrestled with those same questions in my own life.  I mean, let’s be real:  Wouldn’t it make much more sense to first validate one’s faith by proofs or reasonable arguments and THEN to follow?  To See first and then to Come?  Perhaps, but then that would not be faith, would it.

 That’s the thing about faith.  It is not based on seeing.  The seeing comes later, sometimes much later.  As the writer to the Hebrews put it “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  To live into faith is to decide to lean into the mystery; to choose to not have to have it all figured out first; to come and follow in the trust that one day, you will finally see.  Or, to co-opt the words of the poet Rilke, faith is the decision to “be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and to try and love the questions themselves, for gradually, you will live into the answers.[ii]”  Faith, discipleship, following Jesus, is to come, to follow, day by day, step by step, sometimes even moment by moment, and then, maybe even one day far into the future, to see.  Being claimed by faith it to come and then see in the end what you are simply unable to believe in the beginning.  Come and see, Philip said in response to the beautiful skeptic Nathanael.

 And for whatever reason, Nathanael did.  Maybe he went with Philip simply out of loyalty and love for his dear friend.  Maybe Nathanael went with Philip just to prove to him that he was mistaken, that nothing good could come from Nazareth.  Or maybe, just maybe, Nathanael went with Philip because in the center of Nathanael’s core, he was hungry for mystery, he was hoping Philip was right, he was willing to get up and to go, to follow, day by day, step by step, moment by moment, out of the deep desire that maybe one day he would see fully, even as he had been fully seen.  Who knows.  Frankly, I don’t think his motivation for going really matters anyway.  As Luther once said, God can carve the rotten wood and ride the lame horse.  It does not matter why Nathanael went. What matters is that he did.

 That is what mattered to Jesus, too.  As Nathanael strode towards him that day, Jesus said with affection, “There is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”  And wonderfully skeptic Nathanael was stunned by Jesus’ words.  How did this man from Nazareth of all places know his heart like that?  They had not met before.  He was sure of it.  “Where did you get to know me,” Nathanael asked Jesus.  “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you,” Jesus responded. 

 Now, according to biblical scholarship there are lots of possible reasons why Jesus used the imagery of the fig tree.  The fig tree symbolized all kinds of things—home, righteousness, the fulfillment of Messianic peace.  There are lots of reasons why Jesus might have used that image, not to mention that maybe Nathanael had been literally sitting there before Philip showed up.  But regardless of why Jesus used that image, his words clearly did something to Nathanael.  The only way I can describe it is that Jesus’ response must have made him feel really seen and truly known.  It must have been a Psalm 139 moment.  He must have felt seen and known for exactly who he was—no more, no less. 

 And the way Jesus said it must have also made Nathanael feel valued and claimed and loved for being exactly who Jesus saw and knew him to be.  For at that moment, the veil was lifted and Nathanael truly saw Jesus for who he was too.  “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!  You are the King of Israel!” Nathanael confessed. 

 And perhaps Nathanael realized that at that moment, he was seeing something that he never would have been able to believe in the beginning.  He was seeing that something very good, something very holy, something very beautiful had indeed come out of Nazareth.  And he must have found himself deeply grateful for the fact that for whatever reason, he had said yes; he had said yes to Philip’s invitation to come; he had said yes to the choice to step out in faith; he had said yes to the fearful wonder of learning how to lean into the mystery and to love the questions; he had said yes to trusting that gradually, he would indeed live into the seeing part, the answers. 

Yes.  I think I would have really like Nathanael.  For his honest skepticism opened him up to see far more than he ever could have asked or imagined.

 “Come and see,” Love still calls.  Come and see.