Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Luc Thuku
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany, January 14, 2024
Click here for an audio of the sermon
In our first reading and Gospel today, we hear of two individuals being called. The first one is Samuel who was called directly by God. As a young man and inexperienced in the ways of God, he didn’t know who was calling or how to respond but luckily he was not going about it alone. He had Eli, an experienced guide who had the spirit of discernment and who after being woken up a third time by his protege was able to discern that it was God who was calling the young man. Eli would have been angry about being woken up by Samuel repeatedly. He would have ignored him or be rude to him. Eli would have chosen to use the little ‘child psychology’ he had and tell Samuel that he was not his absent father or his judgemental mother; but he was a true priest and a true man of God! I am sure we know of people who hold positions of spiritual authority who have no time for their charges and/or who leave them insulted every time they encounter them.
Strangely enough, when Samuel eventually answered God with the response Eli had coached him to use, the message that came through was for Eli. Shocked, Samuel didn’t know what to do with the prophecy of doom directed to his mentor.
Eli’s sons Hopni and Phinehas were priests just like their father. However unlike their father, they were bad priests. Scripture actually calls them scoundrels! They kept for themselves meat that people sacrificed to God which was against the law. They carried out every imaginable atrocity including raping women who served at the tent of meeting…sounds familiar? Like some of our modern day priests and preachers, they were wolves in sheep’s clothing. Eli tried to stop them but they ignored him which means that they neither respected him. Eli should have relieved them of their priestly office but he did not and therefore God had to intervene and hence the message through young Samuel.
God may be patient, kind, merciful and long suffering but as He shows in this case, He will nor tolerate abuse of power forever. God is a defender of the oppressed, of the abused, of the despised, of the hungry and of the destitute. He will equally not tolerate sin in whatever form. Scripture tells us in 1 Peter 1:15-16 that God is holy and we too must be holy!
So what happens when the Christian becomes the oppressor? I am sure it is hard to fathom a Christian being an oppressor but remember slavery was theologically backed and condoned by preachers and good Christians practiced it; apartheid was condoned and theologically backed by preachers and good Christians went along with it…“But that is in the past” one might be tempted to say… Yes, but what about the Mexican and other Latin American immigrants, the men and women working in our ‘Christian’ owned farms as we speak despite it being a Sunday, to produce the food that our ‘Christian’ nation will most probably end up wasting? What about the Asian and African immigrants changing our elderly parents’ diapers in the nursing homes around this ‘Christian’ nation for peanuts?… “But they are fairing better here than in their ‘shithole’ countries” if I may borrow from Mr. Trump’s sick vocabulary! Yes they do I agree, but does that justify paying them wages that keep them enslaved and treatment that is at times worse than we accord our dogs and other pets? What about the African American male who cannot move anywhere near me or my business because they are threatening…just by their being? The reality my dear brother and sister is that we, good Christians that we are, have blind spots.
In many ways throughout our lives, we have been oppressed either literally or figuratively. Those moments are easy to identify. However, what we don’t see are the many instances in which we, although at times accidentally, assume the role of the oppressor. All of us are guilty. Not any single one of us is spotless and if we think we are, we are lying to ourselves and others and do not deserve the name Christian.
The second individual whose call we hear about today is Nathaniel. Nathaniel unlike Samuel did not get called by the Lord directly. There is an intermediary, Philip. In this short story about the call of Nathaniel, we encounter enthusiasm, prejudice and extraordinary insight. These three things are a reminder today that we share not only a common humanity with the people of Jesus’ time but also traits and characteristics that enliven and sometimes make our day to day lives difficult and sad. Philip and Nathaniel, just like you and me were prone to moments of enthusiasm and almost unconscious prejudice.
If we first speak about Philip before we go to the main character of our passage Nathaniel, his encounter with Jesus had been a dramatic and life changing event. Jesus was direct with him. When Jesus met him, he asked him to join the small group of followers that he was forming. Philip dropped what he was doing and followed. There may have been more to the encounter than we know that might have added to the extraordinary excitement that made Philip go to find Nathaniel. Whatever it was that impressed him so much, Philip was hooked and he was charitable enough to want his friend to come and share in his new found experience.
Nathaniel on the other hand thinks Philip has lost it. To a Jew worth the name, the people who lived in Nazareth were not only rural backward people but were also a racially mixed community, therefore impure, and hence his famous retort… “what good can come from Nazareth”. Nathaniel was just like us who encounter and even perhaps in our unguarded moments exhibit judgement. We ask each other for instance in Kenya, what good can come from such and such a tribe, in Africa, what good can come from Nigeria, and in the West what good can come from Africa or the third world! Prejudice is as old as humanity! The beauty of this particular passage, however, is that John does not attempt to whitewash the character of the disciples. Despite what we might want to, or at times do, think of them, we encounter them as real people, their beautiful and ugly sides together. The reason why Jesus chose people who demonstrate the same failings we meet in the people we encounter in our lives is the same reason he chose us.
I am sure Philip being Nathaniel’s friend knew that Nathaniel had a sarcastic side and all. He therefore risked embarrassment, humiliation and even rejection when he went to call him. He however had inner conviction that if Nathaniel could meet Jesus, He would be convinced that despite him coming from that ‘godforsaken’ town of Nazareth, he was also the Messiah, the Savior, the Redeemer that Jews had hoped for ever since the fall of Adam.
Jesus saw in Nathaniel a totally honest but blunt person. He did not allow Nathaniel’s prejudice against his home town and its people block his view of the good in him as a person. Jesus saw the potential of what Nathaniel could be. He loved and accepted him just as he was, without an attempt to change or ‘fix’ him. The encounter was so revealing and life giving to Nathaniel that he made his confession of faith there and then…”Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel”.
When we became Christians, we too encountered the living God. A courageous person like Philip, be it our parents, evangelists or missionaries cared enough about you and me to bring us to the place where God is. Jesus looked into our souls and judged you and I to be the person he was calling. Sinful as we were, Like Nathaniel, we had the potential to be the type of people Jesus calls to be his intimate followers, his beloved brothers and sisters. Filled with this knowledge, let us therefore affirm our faith again that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, our king, our redeemer and sustainer. Let us also remember that we have a duty and service to represent Jesus to others. He calls us because he knows us. Jesus calls us like Nathaniel, despite our looking down on people and our prejudices against others in our day, to be changed by our encounter with him. An encounter with Jesus calls us to engage people in the totality of their being. Whatever their race, background, class, level of education, wealth or poverty, mannerisms and behavior, all are to be brought to Jesus. We are to evangelize them holistically. True evangelism for Jesus is concerned not with ‘fixing’ people but about poverty, disease, hurt, grief, discrimination, injustice and not of least importance sin!
Paul in our second reading this morning singles out sexual sin and describes how it affects the body and spirit of the sinner. Sin displaces Jesus from our bodies, which are His temples and therefore to get our relationship with Jesus back on track when we fail, we need to repent and once again enthrone the Lord Jesus in our hearts. May we get good guides and spiritual authorities like Eli who will help us to listen and discern the Lord. May we get good Apostles like Philip who will risk all to bring us to the Savior because while we still live in this world, we all need the Savior.
Amen.
