The Second Sunday after the Epiphany: What do you see?

1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20); Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51

The reading from 1 Samuel is important for me personally, because in my Historical Books class this semester we just began discussion of the book of 1 Samuel this past Thursday. Explication of the call of Samuel, with the Voice from heaven and the transition in leadership from the evil of Eli's house to the good of Samuel's house will next occupy our attention. It is quite ironic that eventually the house of Samuel will turn evil as well, because just as the sons of Eli--Hophni and Phineas--are scoundrels out for personal gain, so in 1 Sam 8 the sons of Samuel--Joel and Abjiah--are declared unfit to rule by the people of the land, and they consequently demand of Samuel that he appoint for them a king, like the other nations around them. The end of the book of Judges very simply states that "In those days there was no king in Israel, and all the people did what was right in their own eyes." On the one hand, this statement is a direct endorsement of the development of monarchy in Israel, even in the fact of the fable of Jotham (Judg 9) and the warnings Samuel gives about what exactly a king will do to the people when once absolute power is ceded to him (1 Sam 8) and, for that matter, Yahweh's assurance to Samuel that they are rejecting Him, not him, as king over them. And the name of Samuel's second son is "Abijah," which means "Yahweh is my father." And the name of Gideon's son, who took the throne for himself (becoming, oddly, the first king of Israel, not Saul), was named Abimelech, "My father is king." Very interesting names in there.

Up until the kings are established, it is only when someone's son succeeds him that things are bad: Abimelech succeeding Gideon, Hopni and Phineas succeeding Eli, and Joel and Abijah succeeding Samuel. It strikes me that the transitions are important, especially as they deal with the finding out of sin. Yahweh goes on to tell Samuel that the sins of Eli's house have brought condemnation, and his line will be cut off. But through Samuel God will establish a new way. Even if eventually the same judgment is made of Samuel's house, God still has a plan, according to the text, and the institution of kingship is not, as some writers mistakingly suggest, the beginning of the end in terms of "good" Israelite society. True enough, a lot of the kings are scoundrels, but their sin is almost always found out, even in the case of the great king David. When it comes down to it, you simply cannot act for your own advantage, as the passage from 1 Corinthians indicates. God who knit us together in our inward parts (Psalm 139) will be able to find even those things that we are successfully hiding from others: our church members, our pastor, our friends, our coworkers, our students, our spouses, ourselves.

The opposite side of this comes in the Gospel text, where Philip tells Nathanael to come and see this one whom the former says is the one about whom the prophets have been prophesying for many years. Nathanael is doubtful, wondering if worthwhile anything can come out of the hills. It is somewhat refreshing to read that even the disciples had the same kind of cultural provinciality that often affects us. It's almost comforting. But I can hear a bit of embarrassment in Nathanael's words to Jesus, because he has just expressed to Philip his rather derisive opinion of everything and everyone that comes from Nazareth. I have had this experience on more than one occasion, having had a prejudicially negative opinion of someone only to find that person respects me very much, or at least is not at all deserving of my negative attitude. Whether or not I express those opinions--and I usually don't, because I find I always get into trouble when I do--I always feel that at least on some level the other person is being nice to me in order to heap burning coals on my head (Prov 25:22, Rom 12:20). There is no chance that such people know what thoughts I have had about them before meeting them, but there is every chance in the world, indeed it is certain, that Jesus knew what Nathanael had been saying about him just before he and Philip came around the bend in the road. The rebuke of Nathanael goes on a little bit further, with Jesus telling him he will see even greater things than what has already happened. At the end of John's Gospel, a similar rebuke is sounded against Realistic Thomas, and the promise given to him is that those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe (i.e., the readers of John's Gospel in the first century and the twenty-first) are blessed in just the same way as those who have seen and touched Jesus for themselves.

Sin will always find you out (Num 32:23), but thanks be to God that his glorious gift is given to us no matter what our sin. It is not for those who deserve it, but for those who ask for it. "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you" (Matt 7:7). When I was twelve or thirteen (somewhere in that neighborhood) I started to write a Christian rock song that I never finished. The song was to start with the band singing a capella those words from Matt 7:7, and parallels, with the capline: "Jesus knows your mind!" Jesus is the one who searches us and knows us (Ps 139), and promises to us that even though we think we have seen great things, we will indeed see even greater things than these. But blessed, even still, are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe. Amen.