The Second Sunday after the Epiphany (RCL, Year B)
January 18, 2009
The Reverend Paul R. Abernathy, Rector
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Nathanael sits under a fig tree, in ancient Judaism, a place of reflection and communion with God.[1] He meditates,
searching his innermost depths and praying to the only One other than himself who can see his soul.
His friend, Philip, arrives breathlessly declaring, “We have found him that Moses and the prophets said would come.”
Nathanael, swelling with excitement, wonders, “The Messiah?”
Then comes the kicker. “Jesus of Nazareth,” Philip says.
“Who?” Instant cynicism squelching his curiosity, Nathanael sneeringly replies, “What good come out of (that backwater, insignificant town)
Nazareth?”
Undeterred, Philip urges, “Come and see.”
Nathanael for whatever reason – his trust in Philip renewing if only slightly his curiosity, his flinching embarrassment at his sudden outburst
of crass provincialism and prejudice, his reluctance momentarily overcome by a “what could it hurt” flicker of interest, or something else –
goes and sees. Jesus says simply, “I saw you” – not your body, but your soul. Nathanael recognizing in Jesus one who – an instant before, a
stranger – knows him as only he and the One to whom he prays, is compelled to confess, “You are the Son of God!”
So very human it is to trust, even to love our assumptions and expectations about the way things are and should be. Trusting and loving so very
much that seeing, even dreaming of a new possibility or imagining the fulfillment of a long held hope is hard to perceive or conceive.
Hard to believe that the Messiah would come from a town like Nazareth, an inconsequential village that even in ancient times sat on the outskirts
of anything amounting to historical relevancy.[2]
Hard to believe that in a time bereft of word and vision that God, finally clearing the divine throat, deigning to speak, would communicate first
to the young boy, Samuel, and not to the learned priest, Eli.
Hard to believe that Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life and legacy we commemorate this weekend, in prophetically calling America – to paraphrase
Langston Hughes, to be the dream it used to be, but never yet was, the land where all are free[3] – could pierce the
hardened conscience of a nation with non-violent words and deeds of justice and civil rights.
And on this day, two days before the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, it remains hard for me – a 56 year old born and
bred African American, who, in part, still views the world through eyes clouded by my assumptions about our nation’s provincial story of racial
bigotry – to believe that we have elected Barack Obama, a person of color. That, of course, is not all that he is, but it is who he
is. And it remains hard – albeit joyfully hard – for me to believe.
So, as I sit under a metaphorical fig tree of contemplation considering what we, as a people, have done, it occurs to me that Nathanael – in
questioning, going to see, and coming to a revelation – is a fitting archetype for our nation.
We questioned, did we not? Who is this Ivy-educated upstart who had yet to “pay his political dues,” this junior United States Senator from
Illinois with little national exposure or experience? Who is this man with the funny name and with the decidedly unfunny, for many in our
time, middle name, Hussein? Who is this cosmopolitan, even exotic man, child of a white Kansan mother and a Kenyan father – therefore,
black, but, for some, not black enough – raised in Indonesia and, yes, the United States, but, of course, in Hawai’i, the most paradisal
state of the union? An uncommonly interesting man with whom many Americans of all colors and classes found it hard to identify, at least,
at the start – and some still, will always find it hard.
Yes, we went out to see and apparently came to a revelation. A high-flying rhetorical, initially elusive message of hope about uniting a
terribly ideologically divided nation, over time, became the change we need.[4] A change made all the more believable,
possible for it was championed by one whose history and identity bear all the marks of the integration, the reconciliation of opposites.
One whose very person is the representation, the incarnation of the change of which he speaks.
So, now what? What good can come of this?
This is my vision. That we, as a nation, take up the unfinished business of Martin’s dream. That we engage in a more honest and intentional
dialogue – nationally, regionally, and locally – about institutional inequality. A dialogue in which we, as a people, confess that some of
us historically have been disadvantaged and some of us, advantaged. A dialogue in which all participants – black, white, red, yellow, and
brown, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and straight, theists and non-theists, agnostics and atheists, native born and immigrant,
able-bodied and disabled, rich and poor, young and old – can and will acknowledge that any systemic denial of opportunity predicated on
one’s nature is not only inherently unfair, but also immoral. A dialogue in which all pledge not only to talk, but also to do.
Do what?
This is my vision. That we, as a people, continue our long and sometimes unbearably slow sojourn from segregation to integration to
reconciliation. When those not of our group (however that is defined) neither live apart from us nor only around us, but are us. When
“those people” become “our people.” When “the other” becomes “another sister or brother.” When we, here at St. Mark’s, who have talked
for years about our desire to be a more diverse community, commit ourselves, all of us, to discerning together how we welcome all people.
And, after discerning, we, all of us, decide to do it hospitably, that is, openly, and radically, for being welcoming is at the radix,
the root of what it is to be human and at the heart of the Christian gospel. And, in this, being prepared to be uncomfortable as we figure
out how to do, how to be a new community.
As hard as it is for me to believe that America elected Barack Obama, it is far easier for me – with a firm and pessimistic grip on my
presumptions – to conceive, to fear that his election may stir up heartfelt fantasies that we finally have fulfilled the dream in
Langston’s poetry, Martin’s prophecy, and, verily, in our national creed that all are created equal and, therefore, we will do nothing. So, let
us remember that when Nathanael came to his revelation, it was only the beginning of his journey with Jesus. Thus, we, as a nation, in this
election, have only begun again. There is still so much that we – across this land, in our cities, in our towns, in our villages, in our
neighborhoods, in this parish – have to do to be the community that Jesus came to save and that we elected Barack Obama to serve.
[1] The appointed gospel text for the day is John 1.43-51.
[1] The Hebrew scripture text appointed for the day is 1 Samuel 3.1-10.
[3] See Langston Hughes’s poem, Let America be America Again (1938).
[4]A message of hope and the change we need were chief slogans of the Barack Obama-Joseph Biden presidential/vice-presidential campaign.
