Let’s start with some context for today’s Gospel.  First: Where we are in John. We’re about 25 *verses* after the theological prologue we heard two weeks ago: “In the beginning was the Word… And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” 

In verses 19 – 34: John the Baptist talks about how he is preparing the way for the Messiah, and who Jesus is: the Son of God, the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 

Then a couple of John’s disciples – men, probably young men, who are hanging around John to listen to his teaching – decide to go follow Jesus instead. One of them, Andrew, goes to get his brother, Simon, telling him, “We have found the Messiah!” Simon  Peter will become one of Jesus’ closest friends, and a core leader of the early church. 

That brings us up to today’s text! But I want to bring in another piece of context by turning back to Genesis, to a story we had in the lectionary last summer – the story of Jacob. Jacob and his twin brother Esau are the grandsons of Abraham and Sarah, the couple with whom God first forms a covenant. Jacob becomes an important figure too – he is later given the name Israel, which becomes the name of God’s first people and nation.  

Jacob is the second-born of the twins, and he resents it. As a young man he and his mother trick his father into giving Jacob the special blessing for a first-born son. Jacob then has to run away to escape his brother’s fury. He falls in love – but his father-in-law tricks him into marrying the wrong woman. Then he tricks his father-in-law into taking most of their herd of sheep and goats. Deceit is a big theme in Jacob’s life! 

But God finds a way to make Jacob part of the ineffable plan, despite his complicated story. When Jacob is first running away from home, he spends the night sleeping in the wilderness, using a rock for a pillow. And he has a dream. He sees “a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” And God speaks and assures him that God will protect him, bring him home, and bring good out of his story.

With that fresh in our minds, let’s look again at today’s Gospel. 

Jesus is continuing to call and gather his first followers – now Philip, who’s from the same hometown as Andrew and Simon Peter. It’s natural that word spreads about Jesus through networks of friendship or acquaintanceship. And here it happens again: Philip runs to tell his friend Nathanael about Jesus. 

Philip has already reached some big conclusions about who and what Jesus is: the fulfillment of God’s people’s long wait for a Savior who will free their people, restore their nation, and transform the world. He says, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote: Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” 

But Nathanael has questions! He says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” It’s obvious that Nathanael doesn’t think much of Nazareth, or people from Nazareth. But why not? We don’t entirely know, but there are some hints from history and archaeology. 

The region of Galilee had a more mixed population than Judea to the south – there were folks there of all different backgrounds and beliefs – so Judeans tended to look down on Galilean Jews. 

But  Philip, Andrew, Peter, and probably Nathanael are all from Galilee too, so that’s not the issue here. 

Nazareth in particular seems to have been a very small town indeed. An archaeologist who works there says that Nazareth wasn’t on a roadway, so nobody went there unless they really meant to go there. A true backwater, of probably just a few extended families.

(Link – interesting stuff! https://www.timesofisrael.com/listen-what-do-we-know-about-nazareth-in-jesus-time-an-archaeologist-explains/ ) 

We just don’t know whether Nathanael’s scorn or doubt come from the fact that Nazareth was just a complete nothing of a town, or whether there was more – some particular bad reputation that is simply lost to history, outside of this hint in John’s Gospel. 

Nazareth was built on soft, chalky rock, and archaeology shows that the residents of Nazareth were good at digging pits under their homes – for storage, but also perhaps to hide goods from Roman taxation. Maybe it was a hotbed of smuggling, or some other kind of hive of scum and villainy!

Regardless: Philip gets Nathanael to come meet Jesus. And that’s where this little passage really gets interesting. Jesus greets Nathanael cheerfully: “‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”

That’s a weird thing to say. Say your friend is bringing you to meet somebody that they think is really amazing. And that person sees you coming and says, “Here comes an American who does not commit fraud!” Or, “Here comes somebody from Wisconsin who is not involved in any secret plots!”

You’d react in one of two ways, right? If you in fact do not commit fraud and are not involved in any secret plots, you’d just be like, What the heck, man??? 

On the other hand, if that greeting was somehow not entirely off the mark, you might say, “…. Who are you? Have we met? What have you heard?” And that’s what Nathanael does. He says, “How do you know me?” 

The plot only thickens with Jesus’ response. He says, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 

What was going on under that fig tree? 

There is a face-value reading possible here: that Jesus is simply revealing that he has the ability to see things that aren’t within sight for a normal human, and that that impressed Nathanael so much that he immediately believes that Jesus is the Messiah.

But. But. This interaction is already weirder than that. And we’re in John’s Gospel. John’s Gospel is weird. John tells a distinctive version of Jesus’ story. And John also uses language in a distinctive way, often using words or phrases to point towards bigger or deeper ideas. If something in John’s Gospel feels odd in a way that makes you wonder if more is going on, the answer is Yes. 

So what happened under that fig tree?? We don’t know. We don’t know anything else about Nathanael. John’s Gospel is the only one that names one of the disciples as Nathanael. It’s possible he’s the same person as Bartholomew, named as a disciple in the other Gospels. Bartholomew is what’s called a patronym; “Bar” means “son of.” So, he could have been Nathanael, son of Talmai. Kind of a first name/last name thing. 

But even that doesn’t help us because the other Gospels have nothing to say about Bartholomew, other than that he was one of the twelve that Jesus chose as his inner circle. This is the most we ever hear about Nathanael as an individual.

There’s a funny kind of hint in the things Jesus says to Nathanael. First, calling him an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. That’s just half-step away from saying, Here’s a Jacob who’s not full of trickery.  And then there’s the last thing Jesus says in this passage – about how if Nathanael sticks with Jesus, he’ll see some amazing things – as amazing as angels ascending and descending from Heaven. Jesus is clearly gesturing to the Jacob story, here. But why? 

In the book some of us read for Advent, “The First Advent in Palestine,” the author, Kelly Nikondeha, sometimes takes the Biblical text, puts it together with some information from history, archaeology, culture – and then uses her imagination to expand the story. What if we do that with Nathanael and the fig tree? 

We know that there was a lot of resentment of both the Herodian and Roman rulers in Galilee in Jesus’ time. It’s pretty clear in the Gospels that people’s double subjugation and its daily impact was on everyone’s minds. And there were various attempted revolts. 

Andrew was one of John the Baptist’s disciples, which suggests he was somebody who was looking for change. Willing to follow this weird wilderness prophet in the hope that his preaching might point towards something better than the status quo. None of the other first four disciples are named as followers of John. But they probably all knew each other. Andrew and Simon are brothers; Philip’s from the same small town, and he knows Nathanael. 

It’s easy to imagine the four of them sitting together in the evening, after a hard day’s fishing, and talking – quietly – about how bad it is. How much they hate Herod and Rome. How they long for freedom from political oppression and grinding poverty. 

Now imagine Nathanael, the day after one of those conversations, sitting under a fig tree to take a break in the hot afternoon sun. He’s thinking about how heavy and frustrating and hopeless it all seems. And maybe he’s wondering what can be done. Maybe somebody has asked him to help with… something. Something deceitful. Maybe to strike a blow against the Romans; maybe just to put one over on them in some way. 

Or maybe Jesus’ allusions to Jacob suggest that Nathanael’s temptation to deceit has more to do with getting what’s coming to him, as he sees it. Some matter of inheritance or a share in somebody’s wealth that he thinks is rightfully his – but will have to claim by trickery. 

Maybe, as he sits under the fig tree, Nathanael is weighing his response. Is he willing to do… whatever it is? Can he square it with his faith, his ethics, the kind of person he means to be? Maybe he decides he can’t – won’t – do this thing, whatever it is.  

And then, a day later or two days, this stranger from Nazareth says, Hey! Look at this Israelite! There’s no deception in this guy! And when Nathanael says, What gives? – the stranger says: I saw you. Under the fig tree. 

That’s the kind of thing that might really make an impression on you. That might make you say, Rabbi: You are the Son of God. 

That might make you decide to follow that man wherever he leads you, and make his teaching, his life and death and resurrection, the focus of the rest of your life. Which Nathanael did.

This Gospel is a call story. The story of Nathanael’s call to discipleship, to becoming a follower of Jesus. “Call” is an ordinary word that we use in lots of ways, but here I’m using it in a particular, churchy way. “Call” in this sense is a moment when somebody hears or sees or experiences something that invites them out of their life as they have been living it, and into something new. A new understanding, commitment or community; a new path or direction. 

If you asked Nathanael for his call story, he’d probably tell you about this conversation with Jesus. If you ask me for my call story, I would ask, as a Christian or as a priest? As a Christian, I’d tell you I was raised in the church, but that there was an important moment for me during my freshman year of college where I kind of chose to be an Episcopalian Christian for myself. As a priest, I’d tell you about a day in Uganda in 2002. 

But the truth is that those were just starting points – for Nathanael, for me. There keep being forks in the road. You have to keep deciding, seeking, choosing. 

After Jesus’ death, after the Ascension, I’m sure some of the folks who had been following him decided it was all over and went home. But some of them stuck around, stuck together, to see if there would be a next chapter to this great story. And it turns out there was. We don’t know anything about how Nathanael Bartholomew was part of the story of the early church, but we know that he was. His name is on the list of the ones who kept following the call, even as it led in new directions. 

Tomorrow our community and our country honor the life, witness, and death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Having a national holiday for Dr. King is a mixed blessing. There’s a risk that at some level folks will say, “Hey, look at what we did, racism is over.” 

The fullest potential of this day, it seems to me, is as a time to recall the costs of the struggle for civil rights and human liberation in our country, so far; and to recommit ourselves to the ongoing work – inner work as well as civic and political work. 

As I prepared this sermon, I got curious about Dr. King’s call story, as a Christian, a pastor, an activist and leader.

Somebody asked him about his call, in 1959, and he wrote about it, saying, “My call to the ministry was neither dramatic nor spectacular. It came neither by some miraculous vision nor by some blinding light experience on the road of life. Moreover, it did not come as a sudden realization. Rather, it was a response to an inner urge that gradually came upon me… a desire to serve God and humanity, and the feeling that my talent and my commitment could best be expressed through the ministry.” 

But that gentle emergence of a sense of vocational direction was just the beginning, for Dr. King. I’m sure there were many moments of call, of choice, in his life. He later shared the story of one that was particularly pivotal. 

King had accepted a job as a pastor in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954. He didn’t plan to get involved in civil rights work, but when the bus boycott began in late 1955, he got involved with the group of pastors that were leading the boycott. One late night in January of 1956 – soon after King arrived home from his first night in jail – the phone rang. A voice on the other end of the line told him, “By next week you’ll be sorry you ever came to Montgomery.” 

King had received his share of threatening phone calls before, but somehow this one shook him. He was alone; his wife and young daughter were asleep. He made a pot of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. 

“I felt myself faltering,” he said, telling the story of that night – and wondering if there was a way to get himself and his family out of this danger without harming the movement. He felt trapped and frightened.

He bowed his head and began to pray – calling on the Power that can make a way out of no way. He prayed, “Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. I still think I’m right… But Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now… I’m losing my courage. Now, I am afraid. And I can’t let the people see me like this because if they see me weak and losing my courage, they will begin to get weak. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.”

And in response he heard a voice say, “Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you. Even until the end of the world.” King recalled that moment as a profound experience of the presence of the Divine. His fears and uncertainty began to ease, and he felt ready to face anything. 

Call – to a new thing or a next thing – can take all kinds of forms, from an actual voice speaking to you as you sit at your kitchen table with your head in your hands, to a sense of clarity and direction emerging from the way the pieces of your life add up. 

Maybe you meet someone who speaks truth to you in a way that changes your heart. 

You know the feeling when you’re trying to screw on a lid and it’s not sitting right on the threads, so you take it off and try again and this time it’s right? Sometimes call is like that. Something just feels right, that wasn’t right before. 

Calls come in all different sizes. We tend to talk about the big ones, the life-changing ones, but in my experience there are plenty of little ones too. Pay attention to this. Say yes to that opportunity. Ask her how she’s doing. Let your mind be changed. 

Calls find us in all kinds of moments and states of mind. Ready and willing; confused and defensive; reluctant or resentful. Next week we’ll have a snippet of the story of Jonah in the lectionary; Jonah gets a call from God and straight up runs away from it. Relatable! 

My prayer for all of us is that when the Holy speaks your name, you’ll be able to hear, and to respond with wonder, curiosity, and courage. Amen. 

Sources: 

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/my-call-ministry

https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/2005/01/receiving-the-call.aspx