The next couple of weeks we’ll be hearing stories of Jesus calling the first disciples. So I thought I might set the stage by telling you a bit of my own call story. There are a lot of twists and turns to my call to pastoral ministry, but it started out, which probably by now will come as no surprise, with a really nerdy conversation about doctrine and a miscommunication.
My freshman year of college I was talking to the pastor at my parents’ church about apostolic succession. During the ordination service, the bishop lays their hands on the person being ordained. Apostolic succession is the idea that you can trace the laying on of hands all the way back to St. Peter. This is a fairly unimportant concept, except that I got confused and thought apostolic succession meant you had to be a genetic descendent of Peter in order to be ordained. “Wait,” I said to Jana accusingly, “you’re telling me that because I’m not genetically related to some first century Palestinian guy, I can’t be a pastor?” It wasn’t not being able to be a pastor that bothered me; it was the injustice of genetics having a role in vocation. Jana missed the nuance, “you want to be a pastor?” “No, no, oh no,” I quickly backpedaled and clarified my question, which she then dutifully explained. Twelve years later, Jana presented me to the bishop at my own ordination, to have hands laid on me as I took my own place within the apostolic succession.
I love call stories. They seem to have a power greater than themselves to lead us into deeper ways of thinking about who we are and how we got there. I remember in seminary sitting around one evening with two pastors and a young college student, sharing call stories. After the two pastors and I told ours, we turned to the student and asked him, “how about you, tell us your call story.” He proceeded to tell us not about choosing his major, but about coming to recognize himself as a gay man, about coming out into that identity. He talked of the fear he felt in embracing this identity, but also the sense of truly becoming the person God had created him to be, and the freedom that assurance brought him.
That’s one of the other interesting truths about call stories. As radical as the change may seem, there is a way where in hindsight, the signs were there all along. These stories are about becoming more fully ourselves, of coming back to who we are. If anything, the person we shifted from was the aberration, not the person we are becoming. Even Paul on the road to Damascus was both profoundly changed and not changed at all. Once a zealous persecutor of the Gospel, he became just as zealous a promoter. His zeal did not change, what changed was its expression. Where once his passion had led him to violence, now it led him to risk everything for peace, for hope, for love, out of the conviction that who he was becoming was more true than who he had been.
What strikes me about the call stories in our Gospel this morning is how straightforward they are. “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’” And Philip got up, and he followed. Following in John’s Gospel has layered meaning. It means to physically follow someone, to get up and walk in the same direction they are going. But it also means to become a follower of that person, to learn from them, to model their actions, to try to conform to their image. Jesus asked Philip to follow him to Galilee, a simple enough invitation for a boy from Bethsaida. But he also asked Philip to follow him as a disciple, a much bigger request. That meant to give up everything, to reorient one’s direction in the direction of Jesus, it meant change.
But even more than the word follow, what struck me was the word “found.” Jesus found Philip. Philip wasn’t looking for Jesus. In fact, besides being from Bethsaida, the same town as Andrew and Simon Peter, two others who weren’t necessarily out looking for Jesus, there is no obvious connection between Jesus and Philip. But Jesus found him, found him and said to him “follow me.”
And Philip responded to this invitation by going and finding Nathanael. Here’s where the calling of the disciples begins to resemble a game of Telephone, Jesus found Philip, and Philip found Nathanael, and Nathanael, as often happens in the game of Telephone, became confused. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” It is worth noting that this is the first time in John’s Gospel that Jesus’ message is met with resistance. But the question Nathanael posed is honest enough. All of the scriptures had indicated the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem, but this guy was from Nazareth, a backwater town from a backwater corner of the region, as far from a place of power as one could get. What could possibly come from such an out of the way place?
A question to which Philip replied simply, “Come and see.” Philip didn’t argue with Nathanael, rebuke him for his questions, or require him to give some statement of faith, he simply invited him to come and see for himself. What Philip’s invitation demonstrates is that faith rarely comes through rational explanation or intellectual assent, rather the first step to faith is seeing. Seeing, experiencing, being in the presence of Christ leads to believing, not the other way around. Because faith is not something we do, it is something Christ does in us, you cannot believe without having first experienced him.
And maybe the greatest miracle of the story is not that Jesus knew who Nathanael was before Nathanael approached him, but that Nathanael responded to Philip’s simple invitation by coming and seeing. Something about the way Philip made the invitation, his openness to questions, his honest lack of judgment, gave Nathanael the space come despite his doubts, concerns, and questions, to see for himself the one of whom Philip spoke.
I find in this story both good news and challenge. The good news is that Jesus finds us. Neither Philip nor Nathanael went looking for Jesus, they were not seeking high and low, not questing for some hope they could not see. They were immersed in their very normal lives when Jesus came and found them, and nothing was ever the same. Jesus finds us. I was in the back of a car on a really long road trip when I first heard a call to ministry. I could tell much more of the story, I did not go from misunderstanding apostolic succession to ordination, there were numerous fits and starts along the way. Philip and Nathanael were minding their own business, James and John were fishing, Paul was on the way to persecute people. None of them, none of us, was, is, prepared when these moments of change come. The point isn’t to be prepared, the point is that Jesus uses our unpreparedness, calls us not despite but because of what we lack. Because people who have it all together have no place to grow.
Jesus does not call those who have it all together; he calls those who have somewhere to grow. Which is good news, but it is also challenge, because it means we will find ourselves needing to begin before we are ready. I said that Nathanael was found when he was not looking, but notice who did the finding. It wasn’t Jesus who found Nathanael, who sought him out and brought him to belief, it was Philip. What this story reminds us is that sometimes the people who Jesus uses to bring people to himself are people like us. The relationship between Philip and Nathanael demonstrates that Jesus is calling disciples, and he’s calling them through us. We are the ones whom Jesus is sending to find others and bring them to Jesus.
Which sounds terrifying, until we remember how simple Philip’s words were. Philip didn’t have to teach some complicated catechism lesson, or explain some deep aspect of theology, or convince Nathanael of anything, he simply invited him to come and see. My own call narrative is even more obscure than that, I am a pastor because of a misunderstanding. These stories assure us that evangelism, that sharing the good news of is way easier and less scary than it seems. It is as simple as inviting people to come and see the places where God is at work in our lives, and trusting that God will do the rest.
This passage is one of my very favorites, I think because of how much it relates to the places I have found myself spending my professional life. Think about this, Nazareth was a small, economically challenged community. Not on the lake or on a trade route, you didn’t stumble into Nazareth, you had to want to go there, and nobody did. In contrast, all the scriptures had promised that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Nathanael’s question was honest; can anything good come out of such a place as Nazareth? Now think about where we are this morning. In a small, out of the way neighborhood, cut off from the economic development efforts of downtown by two railroad tracks and a field. No one stumbles into Post Addition. You have to want to get here, and generally nobody does. Can anything good come out of Post? And yet, think of all that is happening here. Every day people’s lives are being changed, communities are being created, relationships are being formed. Women are learning skills, gaining confidence, becoming more fully themselves. All of the literature says change should be coming from downtown, but transformation is happening here, in Post every day. So the opportunity for us is just to invite others to come and see. You don’t have to teach them a catechism lesson, or explain how they need to know Jesus, or wow them with your amazing faith. Just invite them to come and see the amazing things that God is doing in this place and in your life, and God will take care of the rest. Amen.
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