A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Joan Murray on John 1:43-51
First Lutheran Church, Waltham
January 18, 2009, the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany
John 1:43-51: The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, 'Follow me.' Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, 'We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.' Nathaniel said to him, 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?' Philip said to him, 'Come and see.' When Jesus saw Nathaniel coming towards him, he said of him, 'Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!' Nathaniel asked him, 'Where did you come to know me?' Jesus replied, 'I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.' Nathaniel replied, 'Rabbi, you are the son of God! You are the King of Israel!' Jesus answered, 'Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these. And he said to him, 'Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.'
For me Nicaragua was my fig tree – it's the place where God searched me and knew me and called me forth. It's where God got my attention, not for the first time, but in a particularly compelling way – perhaps similar to the way in which Jesus got Nathanial's attention by claiming to know so much about him from simply observing him under the fig tree.
I went to Nicaragua almost 16 years ago now, with a group from my church — Wellesley Congregational Church. I wanted to join that mission trip. At the time it seemed like the thing to do
I was motivated by a sense of duty and responsibility to take action. "To one, whom much has been given, much is required" are words which describe well my motivation. I did not feel superior. However, I did see myself as one acting on faith to give to those who had much less than I did. I had good intentions, but not very high expectations. In the back of my mind I was wondering, "Can anything good come out of Nicaragua? Can anything good come out of Nicaragua?" Skeptical like Nathaniel.
Although the decision to go to Nicaragua was a way of acting on my faith, I was not aware of its coming out of my relationship with God ... You could say about me then, as it was said of Samuel in our first reading today, that I "did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to me," at least not as tangibly as would be the case during the mission trip. God got my attention in Nicaragua.
It was an encounter with a man named Jorge, a man who had nothing, which had a profound effect on me. Our group visited him in his home – all 17 of us. We barely fit into his make-shift shack. The walls were made of cinder blocks, scrap metal and cardboard. The earth itself provided the floors of the two rooms – simply dirt floors. There was no electricity. Yet Jorge, who was battling a rare type of bone cancer, and could barely sit up in his bed, welcomed us graciously. He shared with us his story – a story filled with challenges beyond my imagination – and he spoke with a sense of joy for life. He was not despairing but grateful and hopeful. And he wanted to know about us.
He wanted to know how our trip had been. He wanted to know how we were doing in his country. He spoke nostalgically about his former activities as a community leader and wished he could show us around. With all that he had to deal with in his life, he never complained and always wanted to focus on us.
I was in awe of Jorge and others like him in Nicaragua. It was faith which sustained them. There was nothing else. I could see the Spirit of God alive in Jorge and in his radical hospitality. I was the one with all the resources, but it was Jorge who companioned me in a ministry of healing presence.
I returned from the trip talking about mission as "a two-way street" and I described myself as one who had received much more than I had given. I recognized that it was the gifts I had received through relationships with Nicaraguans – from their witness and their example – which ignited in me a desire to pray in new ways, so that I could live my faith the way Jorge in particular, lived his.
I had always prayed, and I had been a faithful member of my church for a long time. However, what I began to realize is that I had talked to God and I had been dutiful in my church, but I did not know how to listen to God. My encounter with Jorge started me on a new path. What I wanted then was to hear God, to be in relationship with God, and to let God show me how to live my faith.
What had begun in Nicaragua grew over time after I returned home. I began spending time at a retreat center and I began to experience God's presence in my prayer more and more — not as a voice, but definitely as a presence. I began to feel in relationship with the Spirit in ways I had not experienced before. My commitment to outreach and social justice increased, but it seemed to flow more out of my gratitude for God's love for me, than out of a sense of duty. .
Now Nathaniel's fig tree was ... well, a fig tree! As a good Jew, Nathaniel knew the importance of duty and of following the Law. He would tithe and give alms to the poor. But Jesus had other plans for him. And having seen him under that fig tree, Jesus called him forth. But Nathaniel was skeptical. He had wondered aloud with Philip, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth? ... Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
Yet Jesus captured Nathaniel's attention when he appeared to know more about Nathanael than seemed humanly possible. As we heard in the psalm we read today, Jesus' knowledge, like God's, was "too wonderful" for him and Jesus' true identity was revealed. I imagine that in that instant Nathanael's life began to change, as mine did when I returned from Nicaragua, convinced that God had been revealed to me in a new way.
Oddly, as it seems to me, ... very oddly, ... since I live a comfortable life with my husband in Wellesley, ... I have continued to experience God's presence most palpably in relationships with poor and chronically homeless people, many of whom struggle with addiction and/or mental illness. This has led me into ordained ministry — to my first call to Ecclesia Ministries in Boston and now to a new ministry called Chaplains on the Way in the greater Waltham area, including at Newton Wellesley Hospital.
At Ecclesia I served a mostly-homeless congregation and led weekly outdoor services on Boston Common year round for over five years. I continue to serve a similar population of people as a chaplain, offering pastoral and spiritual care at the Waltham Community Day Center, the Bristol Lodge Soup Kitchen, on the street, and at Newton Wellesley Hospital, where I visit patients in the Psychiatric Unit and co-facilitate a spirituality group
It is my experience of God's love for me and my conviction that God has the same love for everyone that motivates me in ministry with poor and homeless people. As I engage with people struggling with poverty and homelessness, and often addiction and mental illness, I am convinced that the heart of a healing ministry is simple human companionship.
On the surface the people I meet and I have nothing in common — not at least based on our life styles and much in our past life experiences. However, on a deeply human level we have everything in common. We need food, clothing and shelter, love and care, including health care and safe places to be. We need respect and dignity. We seek to find meaning in our lives and we want to make connections with other people. Although I am in the role of caregiver as a chaplain, I find mutuality in the relationships which form. I serve and I am served. I give and I receive many gifts..
This mutuality which I experience in companioning people is much like the mutuality I observe in Jesus' way of relating to people. He was not only teaching and healing, but inviting people into relationship and into community – most especially those on the margins – and that in itself, was part of the healing.
People give me their trust and their stories and we find God's love together. I offer referrals and try to help them to increase their circle of care. Often we look at their problems together, but I do not solve their problems. I simply offer my time and a listening ear and often healing comes out of that over time.
Jesus was inviting Nathaniel and each of the disciples he called, to be companions with him and companions with those whom they would meet in their travels. The promise was that they would witness to the power of God's love beyond their imaginings and that they would be transformed in the process, beyond their imaginings.
In retrospect I would say that it was Jorge who first showed me the power in companioning another. He showed me how to be a companion in a way that can bring about healing and transformation.
I will close with a story about a man named Fred, a man I had the privilege to companion over several years in Boston.
I met Fred on the corner of Charles and Cambridge Streets. He was drunk, very drunk and he wanted to talk. I listened to him, but didn't stay with him long. Over a period of three years, I had many similar encounters with Fred. He never came to worship on Sunday nor did he come to any of our programs. I always listened to him for a bit and then moved on. I was always happy to see him and saddened at the same time and sometimes, I confess, I wondered why I spent time with him because he was always so drunk.
Then for some time I didn't see Fred and when I would think about him I would wonder and worry a bit — wondering what had become of him and fearing the worst, but then I trusted that he was alive, as word traveled fast within our extended community when someone died.
Then one day, Fred walked into common art, our Wednesday art program. He was sober, clean, and smiling. He said he had a place to live and was in a two-year program. He had been sober for three months. He stopped by because he wanted to say "hello" and to tell me that he appreciated the fact that I had always been nice to him, and because he wanted to give something back. After that he began stopping by every week at the end of the program just to help us clean up.
I must say on those Wednesday afternoons, I really enjoyed getting to know Fred sober and we talked as we carried art supplies to the cupboard. In one conversation when Fred was singing my praises, I turned the conversation around. I realized that Fred was sober because of his own efforts and because of help that was available to him from outreach workers when he sought it — and that all of this had nothing to do with me. When I gave him the credit and said I had actually done very little, he said, "No, you came by and spoke to me and you kept coming back saying, 'Fred, how are you?' You called me by name and wanted to know how I was. That made all the difference."
Simple companionship — we find God's loving and healing presence, human being to human being when we companion one another along the way.
The good news is that God calls each of us to be disciples of the risen Christ in the world — to follow where the Spirit leads us, as companions with Christ and with each other. We do not have to go to Nicaragua. Our fig tree might be right here in Waltham or in the town where we live. There are people to companion wherever we go and those same people have gifts to offer us, ways of bringing God alive for us. We might need to venture from our comfort zones, but mostly we just need to be fully human and fully present to those who cross our paths.