Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024
To be known | john 1: 43-51
The Rev. Aaron B. Jenkyn
Full text of the homily preached at Thursday's healing Eucharist reflecting on John 1:43-51
A month ago, I stood on the broad step of St. John’s, having just been ordained a priest in God’s church, and looked out into crowd that was gathered and saw the faces of so many that I love. Of course there was my family and friends, and all of you, there were colleagues from around the church, and many parishioners from Epiphany Church in Newport, New Hampshire, the church that I served at for five years and where my children grew up. My heart was so full seeing everyone gathered in one place.
As I scanned the room that night, I realized that there too, in the pews along the edges of the church, were scattered an eclectic group of people that I have encountered along my journey, companions who I did not expect at my ordination, but for whom I was overjoyed to see. Some of whom, had never been to a worship service before, nevertheless an ordination, many of whom would not call themselves Episcopalian, or even Christian. Some I met while working in community ministry in Newport, others I encountered while a chaplain at New London Hospital. Each of these friends has their own story to tell, but the thing that they have in common, is that each of them know what it is like to be on the outside looking in. Each of them know what it is like to have someone look at them and say "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Single moms, transgender teens, a homeless women with developmental disabilities, a Dad who works three jobs to pay the bills, an elderly man who has burned all the bridges with his family and longs for connection, little ones (children), who are not so little anymore but for whom adults still don’t take them seriously. Folks who by class, or age, race, or identity, have found themselves on the margins.
You know the sort, they tend to be the ones that we find easy to ignore, easy to dismiss. Sometimes they are very different from us, often they the ones with little or no power. Sometimes it happens with those whose ideology or politics we have dismissed. We become so set in our views, and so outraged by theirs, that we begin to see them as something other than our neighbor. The sort of people that, if we’re being honest, we often don’t even try to encounter because we don’t think they have anything to offer us, or if we do engage, we presume a sense of intellectual authority and dominance.
In the gospel story we heard today, we see Jesus in Galilee, he is no longer a baby in a manger, but a full grown man, embarking on his new ministry. He sets out for Galilee and there he finds Philip and says “Follow me” - and Philip does. Then Philip goes out and finds Nathaniel and invites him to come and meet Jesus - it is Nathaniel who utters the now famous quip about Jesus’ hometown quickly dismissing Jesus because of where he has come from. “Can anything good come out of Nazarath?” he says. But Philip has come to know and trust and see Jesus, a first glimpse for us as readers, of the appeal and power that Jesus will hold over people he encounters. As this story unfolds, I can’t help but notice that Philip doesn’t argue with his friend, he doesn’t try to talk his friend into seeing things his way, he simply says “Come, and see for yourself”. And so Nathaniel does. And as he approaches Jesus, Jesus greets him in a way that only someone who knows him, who sees him, who really understands him, could do. And Nathanael, in that moment comes to know Jesus too.
What Jesus is able to offer Nathaniel is the sense of being known. Jesus sees him for who he is, and loves him just as he is. Jesus sees him for who he is, and says, “I need you. Come and follow me.” And within that fold of love, within that sense of trust, and companionship, Nathaniel is made whole, given a purpose and promised a vision of heavens opening up. That is why he follows, that is why we follow.
Each of those who gathered to pray me into my priesthood have revealed something of God to me. One of the things I am most grateful for, is the way that I have been joyfully changed by these encounters. There were many times in which I set out, thinking I was going to be the teacher, thinking that I was the one that had the resources, the stories, the faith, the experience, that would help those I was called to serve, those like the people sitting in the margins at my ordination. I don’t like to admit it, but I know that when I first set out, like Nathaniel, I had some small-mindedness and bias upon my approach, but as I drew closer, as I listened, and learned, as I begin to see and understand the people in front of me, I came to know God in new, beautiful and expansive ways. I began to realize that to know God, I needed to know God's beloved.
As we move about our days, as we try to walk the way of love, may we see those we encounter along the way, whoever they are, wherever they come from, as the beloved children of God that they are. May our hearts be open to know them, and to be seen by them, so that together we can grow in love and draw close to Jesus’s vision of the heavens coming down. Amen