Can Anything Good Come out of
Nazareth?
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
January 19, 2003
1 Samuel 3:1-10; John 1:43-51
I. INTRODUCTION
I was born in Buffalo, New York. Buffalo, in addition to being the home of four-time AFC champions the Buffalo Bills, is also home to some great culinary masterpieces: the Buffalo wing, the Roast Beef on Kimmelwick sandwich, and a variety of other treats that await the diner. Buffalo is also known for steel. And with Pittsburgh, was one of the steel capitals of the United States for a long time. It was, and remains, a major port on the Great Lakes. The western end of the Erie Canal and the gateway to the mid-west. Presidents Grover Cleveland and Millard Fillmore were both from Buffalo. (I myself was born in Millard Fillmore Memorial Hospital). It is also the second largest city in the State of New York, second only to New York City itself. It's not the greatest city in the world, or even in the United States, but there's enough in Buffalo to be proud of.
When I was five, our family moved to a little town called Center Brunswick, three miles east of Troy, New York. Troy is a whole nother story. Troy was once a big textile city. It isn't anymore. There are abandoned factories downtown that to this day are largely unused. They used to make Arrow shirt collars there. But that history is so remote that we're barely aware of it. In fact, in the 80s they built a new bridge across the Hudson and there was a contest to name it. Hoosick Street Bridge would have been sensible since it was on Hoosick Street. Uncle Sam Bridge, since Uncle Sam Wilson (upon whom the character of Uncle Sam is based) was from Troy. "Collar City Bridge" that's what they named it. It had been so long since anyone had thought of Troy as the Collar City, that the name seemed about as relevant as the shirt collar industry itself. It is a city with a past, but not much of a present, and an uncertain future. I didn't live inside the city of Troy, though my mailing address was there. So I wasn't one of the "Troylets" (as Troy residents were derisively called--though the actual name "Trojan" wasn't much better). There is no industry. No vision. Not much going on there.
It's the kind of place, where if I told someone that I had found something really good in Troy, they might say, "Can anything good come out of Troy?"
II. THE TEXT
That's something of what's going on in today's New Testament lesson. Philip finds Nathanael and says to him, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." And Nathanael says to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
It's sort of strange unless we understand something about the situation. Nazareth was not a big town. Nothing prestigious about it. It is not mentioned in the Old Testament. Or in the writings of Josephus or any of the rabbinic writings. In Jesus' day, there were from 1600 to 2000 people who lived there--fewer than are on this campus. Nothing to speak of.
But worse yet, it was in the Galilee. The Galilee. Galilee comes from the Hebrew word ‚ÏÈω, Galilah, meaning "circuit, boundary, territory." The territories. The provinces. The sticks. Jesus came not from the glitzy urban centers of Israel, like Jerusalem--he was from the country--Upstate Israel.
It's not just that Jesus is from a backward place. An insignificant town. Sometimes it happens that leaders come from obscure places: Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin. Bill Clinton was from Hope, Arkansas. Anakin Skywalker came from Tatooine. It's not just that Jesus is from the wrong place, it's also that Jesus is not from the right place. Everyone knew that the Messiah would be of the line of David, and the tribe of Judah. So probably, such a person would be born in Judea. Further, there was the matter of Biblical expectation. The Prophet Micah wrote:
But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days." (Micah 5:2)
The expectation would be that the Davidic Messiah would be from the line of David, of the house of Judah, probably born in Bethlehem.
Now, we're so used to reading the different Gospel accounts as if they were written to be one unified story, that we think, "Well everyone knows that Jesus was born in Bethlehem." And that would have been a nice convenient answer for Philip to have given: "Well, yeah, he lives in Nazareth now, but he was born in Bethlehem." "Bethlehem, well, why didn't you say so? That's different!"
But John's Gospel does not use this rebuttal. In fact, John's gospel has no account of Jesus' birth. Scholars debate the interrelationship of the gospels. It had been assumed that John had written his gospel as a spiritual supplement to Matthew, Mark, and Luke's versions, and therefore, didn't need to repeat some details. But most scholars now believe that John didn't know Matthew, Mark, and Luke's versions at all. So we cannot assume that the people for whom we wrote his version would have known the Bethlehem stories either. In any event, John does not try to rebut the issue of being from Nazareth with a claim about actually being from a better hometown. Nor does it attempt to raise the estimation of Nazareth. Philip simply responds: "Come and see." And to the surprise of both Nathanael and the reader, the passage ends with Nathanael proclaiming, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"
No. John isn't concerned with geography. Because John has already made the point clear: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and lived among us…." Jesus is from GOD--it doesn't matter what town he grew up in (or even what town he was born in).
III. LOOKING TO THE MIGHTY
What does this say for us? If the Messiah comes from an insignificant, backwater of a town--what does that tell us about our own presuppositions and expectations? God comes to us in ways and places that we do not expect.
There's an old story about a man who is in a new town and in need of a haircut. There are two barbershops in town. He walks to the first and sees the barber: a somewhat unkempt man with uneven hair, standing in a run down barbershop, with hair all over the floor, and a general look of disorder to the place. He walks on a little further to the second barbershop, wherein he sees the barber: a neatly dressed man with an impeccable haircut, standing in a brightly lit, well-organized and tidy barbershop. He stops and thinks and goes back to the first barbershop for his haircut. You see, it occurred to him that in a town with only two barbers, they would have to rely on each other for their haircuts, and the first man had obviously been the more skilled of the two. It was not with the reputable or respectable that he found what he needed.
But, too often, we look to relief from the reputable or the powerful. We expect people to be credentialed. And often for good reason: we wouldn't go to a neurosurgeon who had entered the practice of medicine last week because he was always 'good with his hands' and thought it would be a good opportunity to give back to the community. We want to see licenses and diplomas on the wall! And we're not going to sign up for a class taught by someone who never studied the topic, but who 'saw a really cool show on the History Channel about it' and thinks she can remember most of it. Credentialing matters.
But we run into problems when we look for credentialing in matters of God. Now, of course, I say this as one who spent three years in a United Methodist seminary earning a Master's of Divinity degree and who is in the process of a three-year probationary period prior to my final ordination. I say this as one who will have been thoroughly credentialed by the time the process is all over. And also as one who does believe that pastors ought to go to seminary. But there is a difference between being credentialed to preach, teach, order, and serve the Church and being credentialed to be a witness to God. The clergy are not any holier, or any better, or any more sinless, or often any more inspiring than anyone else. God save us against the day that we assume that a graduate of Yale Divinity School is holier than a graduate of Wesley Seminary because they've got 'better credentials.' Indeed, sometimes our most profound experiences of God come from the least respectable places.
IV. GOD IN UNEXPECTED PLACES
A. Can anything good come from DuPont Circle?
One night after services, I stopped off at my neighborhood CVS to pick up some milk for breakfast the following morning. It was late, around midnight, and there weren't many people around. One of the men who was around was a homeless man who asked me for some money on my way in. I don't make it my habit to give money to people on the street. I told him that I would get him some food from inside and I went into the CVS and bought as much ready-made and relatively healthy food as I could inside. After I came out, I gave him the bag of food and was prepared to go on my way. He wouldn't let me go right away. He wanted to tell me that he was thankful and that he was going to get through his current situation. He had been a veteran and a carpenter and had fallen on hard times. He told me of his life and we talked for a bit. He could see that I was a pastor and he wanted to talk about God. Our encounter ended by me writing my name and number on a piece of paper in case he ever needed help. He took a pen out of his bag so that I could write it for him. Afterward he handed me the pen and said, "I want you to have this pen so that when you use it you will think of me." His name was John. We embraced and we departed from each other after exchanging blessings.
I know I had given him $20 worth of food and a couple bucks for the shelter, but I was the one who had gone away enriched. I had gotten a lesson about faith, hope amid despair, and the durability of the human spirit from this unlikely stranger, whom we most often view as obstacles to our entry into our places of commerce. Can anything good come from the CVS in Dupont Circle? I had met God there.
B. Good Kings and the Image of Christ
It's less than a month from Christmas. It's still winter, though, isn't it? As an Upstate New Yorker, I love the snow. If we could get a couple inches a week until late February, I'd be happy. It would cover up the brown muck that winter in Washington normally is. One of the things that I like the most about the winter is its kickoff: the Christmas festivities, with holiday music, and lights, and fellowship. I kind of miss that in the long weeks of January, when we go back to plain. I have often thought about the music side of it: why can't we keep singing Sleigh Ride, or Winter Wonderland, or Let It Snow! There's nothing especially Christmas-y about those songs. Those are winter songs. Or why not even Good King Wenceslas? That's a nice little carol. There's nothing about Christmas in that one. Just a king and his page trampling through the snow to bring a poor man some dinner.
Actually, Good King Wenceslas is a Christmas song. And it is for the very reason that the King is called 'good.' When this carol was written, it was generally assumed that Christ was specially present in the poor. King Wenceslas is called 'good' not on account of his majesty and power, but because when he saw a poor person he saw an opportunity to serve Christ.
V. CONCLUSION
This weekend we commemorate the life of one who gave his life combating prejudices and stereotypes that kept and entire people in subjugation. Who sought to serve God by serving the lowly and the disenfranchised. Martin Luther King's Christian faith required him to challenge the mighty and the powerful on behalf of the lowly and voiceless. Not many people would have believed that any good could have come of it. Martin Luther King invited the nation to "Come and see."
And we here, who commemorate his life? We are in the nation on the brink of war. Are we serving the interests of the rich and powerful--of the oil interests and national security interests--or of the lowly, the poor and disenfranchised of Iraq whose suffering can only increase in war? Are we seeing the image of Christ in the people of Iraq? Are we looking hard enough? Or have we resigned ourselves to saying, "Can anything good come out of Baghdad?"
Nathanael asked Philip: "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip says, "Come and see" and when Nathanael does, he replies "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" God awaits us in the unexpected and in the unreputable. God awaits us not in the halls of power but in those among whom there is no power or might. Among those we are so easily tempted into ignoring or scorning.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Come and see.
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Copyright © 2003. Mark A. Schaefer.
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