In our Gospel lesson, (John 1:43-51) Jesus finds Philip and says to him, “Follow me.” A little later, Philip finds Nathanael and says to him, “We have found him about whom Moses and also the prophets wrote, Jesus from Nazareth.” To which Nathanael responds, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

If we are being honest, we probably have to admit that there is a part of us — the unredeemed, smart-aleck part — that admires this question. It manages to be smug, demeaning, and dismissive all at the same time.

It’s smug: I know what is good and what is not good, and I’m happy to make blanket judgments about whole groups of people.

It’s demeaning: I’m glad to define every man, woman, and child in an area in

terms of their location.

And it’s dismissive: Nazareth… bunch of idiots, right.

Perhaps like me, since moving to the Central Coast, you also have been involved in conversations that asked, “Can anything good come out of L.A.?” or San Francisco? Atascadero? For the record, Bob Engle a favorite National League Umpire for 25 years, Chelsea Johnson, Scott McClain, Michael Stewart - Olympic and Professional athletes to name a few all came from Atascadero. Many, many medical, technical, and scientific advances have come from academia and industry in L.A., and San Francisco.

So, perhaps we might begin to see a question like Nathanael’s isn’t all that helpful. Notice, however, that in our Gospel lesson, Philip does not respond in the same fashion. Rather, he just says to Nathanael, “Come and see.” This response is so mature, and, well, so Christian, that it reminds us what kind of person we may hope to grow up and be someday. Philip just lets the smugness and dismissiveness in Nathanael’s question pass, and he invites him to come and see Jesus for himself.

How often have I wished for such Christian maturity, especially in retrospect after a knee-jerk, ill-tempered retort? When one of these new atheist types says to us that religion and Christianity have been responsible for every social evil known to humankind, we wish we hadn’t responded by asking if they have ever read the New Testament. Or heard of St. Francis of Assisi, or Mother Teresa, or William Booth, or Martin Luther King. Or by pointing out to them the studies that show religious people are more likely to give to charities than non-religious people. We wish we would have just said, “Why don’t you come to my church sometime and meet some people, who are teaching and caring for kids, feeding the hungry, praying for peace, making music, worshipping God? Why don’t you come and see for yourself?” We wish we could be more like Philip.

But, alas, we have to admit that oftentimes we are more like Nathanael even when it comes to dealing with people in our church. How often have we expressed attitudes shaped more by popular culture and social media than by Christian charity in speaking of “bible thumpers” from the South, “crunchy granolas” from California, and “looney libs” from the Northeast? Have you ever tut-tutted whole groups of Christians, shaken your head, and exclaimed, “Can anything good come out of that church?”

We may take some comfort and hope from our Gospel because, for reasons we are not told, Nathanael takes Philip up on his invitation to come and see Jesus. But you may have noticed that something unexpected happens on the way. Instead of Nathanael seeing Jesus we are told that Jesus sees Nathanael and says of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Notice, Nathanael doesn’t see Jesus first. Rather, first, Jesus sees Nathanael. And then, rather astonishingly, he says of Nathanael, who had just asked the smug and dismissive question about “anything good coming out of Nazareth,” that he is a “true Israelite in whom there is no guile.” This is extraordinary because Jesus knows what Nathanael just said about Nazareth, and yet he does not, as one might be tempted to, get into Nathanael’s face and say, “I heard you talking trash about my hometown.” No, despite Nathanael’s trash-talking, Jesus says that Nathanael is a true Israelite. And in this act of Jesus seeing Nathanael and declaring him to be righteous, I think we see the salvation of his soul. The Lord knows what Nathanael said – he saw him under the fig tree before Philip called him – and nonetheless, Jesus sees him, and he loves him, and declares him a true Israelite.

When it comes right down to it, when it comes down to our eternal salvation, it’s not a matter of us finding Jesus, but rather of him finding us. The Lord sees us, warts and all, and he speaks a truth that makes us righteous despite ourselves, despite our smugness and dismissiveness. And it is only then that Nathanael is able to say, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

We can take comfort in this because it is the only hope we have of ever becoming true Christians. Left to our own devices, we are smug and self-righteous and dismissive. It is only by the grace of God and by people like Philip that we have heard the invitation to come and see the real Jesus.

And, even then, our only hope is that he will look at us, and see us for who we are – people who grew up in our own narrow backwaters, running our mouths and wagging our fingers – and nonetheless will still say, “Here is truly a person in whom there is no guile, here is someone for whom I have given my life to heal and make whole, here is my beloved child who will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come out of the church?

Come and see—better yet, come and be seen. - Guest Pastor William Metz