Come and See

The gospel text for this coming Sunday is John 1:43-51, the story of the call of Philip and Nathanael. Most would appreciate more details about these early calls to be disciples, but all four gospels tend to do what they always do – tell the essentials.

The basics of the story are that Jesus found Philip and simply said, “Follow Me.” One has to assume that there had been other interactions in which Philip had at least come to some understanding that this Jesus person isn’t just another want-to-be rabbi creating a following. Philip then finds Nathanael and tells him that he had found “Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” (1:44)

Perhaps Nathanael is not unlike we are sometimes prone to be, and is looking for an excuse to dismiss this “Jesus of Nazareth” as nothing more than “the son of Joseph.” He quickly responds to Philip by saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Reflecting what seems to have been the normal point of view of the day, he is quick to dismiss Jesus as being the unfortunate victim of bad geography – Nazareth. That’s it.

But Philip is equally quick to respond, “Come and see.”

Come and see. That’s a powerful challenge to Nathanael’s dismissal of Jesus. Embedded somewhere in it all Philip is suggesting that Jesus is different. He isn’t what you might expect to come from Nazareth. “Come and see.”

In our modern efforts to tell the Jesus story, we are often victimized by much the same attitude. “Can anything “good come from the church?” One only needs to read research data compiled by people like Dave Kinnaman in UnChristian to realize that we are living in a world filled with Nathanael’s question.

The challenge for us is whether or not we are bold enough to say, “Come and see.” Beyond that, of course, if we dare say that, we have to make sure what a skeptic might see should he or she respond to our “Come and see” truly is the body of Christ! If the skeptic comes and sees, will they see a body of people committed to loving God and loving neighbor, or will they see small minded quibbling over “stuff” that doesn’t amount to a drop of water in a really big ocean? Will they see a body of believers committed to changing the world, or a group of religious people determined to protect the turf they presume to own? To use language reflected later in the gospel of John, will they see believers determined to help outsiders discover the “place” (John 14:1ff) Jesus has prepared for them by His death on the cross, or people determined to make sure outsiders don’t come in and take our “place.” (11:48)

For me, I’m thinking about two questions today. One is personal, the other more corporate. The personal one looks like this, “Am I living the kind of life that would allow me to say to a skeptic, ‘Come and see’?” The corporate one looks like this, “Am I serving and worshiping in a community of faith where we are so determined to be the body of Christ to the world around us that we can say to the skeptics, ‘Come and see’?”

Hard questions – but at the same time, essential ones!