January 17, 2021 Second Sunday after Epiphany
In today’s Gospel we see how the sharing of personal encounters brings others to Jesus.
Andrew hears John’s proclamation that Jesus is the Lamb of God, and follows Jesus. And then, he too, gives his own testimony to Simon Peter, “We have found the Messiah.”
Philip encounters Jesus, and goes to find Nathaniel, giving his witness, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth.”
Nathaniel, found by his friend and invited to an encounter with Jesus, responds with a certain degree of skepticism, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Philip, showing both wisdom and restraint, doesn’t argue, simply invites, “Come and see.” His lack of defensiveness allows for an openness to faith.
Nathaniel comes with Philip and finds Jesus. He is met with a cryptic greeting, “Here is a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”
I. In order to understand the greeting Jesus_gives, we need to know a back story, a story from the Tórah. Remember Jacob, the second son of Isaac? The one whose name means ‘grabber of the heel”? Do you remember his birth_story? How he grabbed at the heel of Ésau, his brother, who was firstborn. Jacob means the supplanter, and he develops a reputation as an accomplished deceiver. He is the trickster, always finding a way to get what is not rightfully his. That’s what Jacob’s name means: deceiver
We can hear the joke in Jesus’s words, “Here is a true Israelite in whom there is no Jacob!
II. Remember Jacob’s encounters with the Divine?
First, in a dream at Bethel, as Jacob sleeps with his head on a rock, he dreams of a ladder from heaven to earth, with angels descending and ascending. In the dream Jacob receives a continuation of the promise given to his grandfather Abraham and to his father Isaac, a promise of many descendants. And God gives him the assurance, saying, “Know that I am with you and will keep you WHEREVER YOU GO.”
III. The second encounter with the divine occurs later, in Genesis 32, on the night before an uncertain meeting with his older brother. Jacob wrestles all night with an unnamed figure, and when the dawn comes demands the name of the stranger. He receives both a blessing and a new name, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”
Keeping those two stories of Jacob/Israel in mind. Now we can understand better when we read: “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”
Nathániel is taken by surprise by Jesus’s words. “Where did you get to know me?”
IV. “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you,” answers Jesus. Now, Here is a Jewish Roots clue. A symbol. The term “under the fig tree” is an ancient Jewish ídiom that means studying the messianic prophecies. It comes from Micah 4:4, in a passage describing the future messianic kingdom: “Each of them will sit under his vine, and under his fig tree.”
We might imagine that Nathániel was under the fig tree, meditating on Scripture, probably on Genesis about the dream given to Jacob!
This would perhaps explain so many references made by Jesus on Jacob.
In John’s gospel we’re led to believe that Nathaniel finds Jesus, then we discover that Jesus had already found him even before he had taken his first step with Philip.
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Nathaniel was already known, seen in his personal search for God, in the reading of Torah, in his desire of faithful living. It is a mutual recognition, a knowing and being known experience for Nathaniel. Which is, I think, a universal yearning, the desire to be known, truly, without all of the faces we put out to the world, to be known by another.
Then, Nathaniel believes, and Jesus adds:
“Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending UPON the Son of Man.”
Remember Jacob? And his dream at Béthel? Jacob sees a great ladder from heaven to earth and angels descending and ascending UPON IT. And Jesus says: “…you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending UPON the Son of Man.” ….There you have it!
Now, you have another title for Jesus: Jesus the ladder.
Your ladder, your works, your righteousness, have come undone.
For Christ is Risen.
His Body is sturdy and strong;
It bridges heaven and earth, time and eternity,
It connects the Father and His children.
By His Body: heaven is opened to you.
And when Jesus said: “Very truly, I tell you, YOU will see heaven opened.”
The “you” is plural, not singular–“All y’all.” These words are not for Nathaniel only, but for all of us.
For what Jacob dreamed, Nathaniel and the faithful (including you and I) see.
During Epiphany, we are invited to come and see. Not by traveling to exotic places, or even making pilgrimages to sacred spaces, that we can’t do now, by the way, but in a journey of the heart in which the eyes are open to the presence of the Living Christ, the manifestation of the Holy that surrounds us.
Come and see.