Having Jesus-Vision

 Sermon 1-17-21 “Having Jesus-Vision”

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

In every place I have ever lived, one thing has remained the same: there are always “those places.”

You know exactly what I’m talking about. No one in New Jersey goes to Trenton or Camden if they can help it. In Pennsylvania, I can’t tell you the number of people who would tell me “Oh yeah, I used to live in Philly…. Until it ‘changed’. It’s SO different now.” Growing up in Wisconsin even, Milwaukee was talked about in a similar way – one of those places that surely “nothing good happens.”

There were certainly “those places” in Jesus’s time as well. Like Trenton and Princeton, the town where Jesus is from – Nazareth – is so close to the town Nathaniel is from. And yet, they were obviously worlds apart. Nathaniel clearly sneers at the thought of anything good coming from Milwaukee, I mean… Trenton…. I mean… Nazareth. And yet somehow, his friend Phillip is undaunted: Come and See! He insists, even though he has only known Jesus for like 5 seconds. Miracle of miracles, Nathaniel puts aside his preconceived notions about Nazareth, and follows Phillip to Jesus. And boy was he surprised! 

We are currently in the season after Epiphany, at time in cycle of the church year where we focus on all the ways that God reveals Godself in our lives, in the past, in the present, and in the future. It’s when we usually hear the parts of the Bible that tell us how Jesus started his ministry and called the first disciples… like snarky Nathaniel.

Up until that moment, Nathaniel was a man who was SURE that he knew how God operates. He saw the world as many of us do – God uses some people but not others, God is present some places, but not others. But Jesus sees a different way. Jesus saw something in Nathaniel – Jesus saw him for who he truly is – beloved child of God.  

This might sound like a small thing – but is it revolutionary, then and now. The kind of love has the power to save us from the depths of shame and crippling despair, and the power to make us very, very angry. Just a few chapters later in the Gospel of John, Jesus says the line he is most famous for: “For God so loved the world that God gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” To see the world through the vision of Jesus is to see a world where all people have value. And…. THIS is still an extremely controversial message. It was back THEN, it was during the Civil Rights movement… and it STILL makes people angry even now.

Back when I drove a lot more, occasionally I would get wrapped up listening to NPR shows, like “This American Life.” A man shared how when his daughter turned 4, she became very interested in WHY we celebrate Christmas. With some simple but exemplary evangelism, he got his daughter a children’s bible, and they began to read it together (well done!). They talked about how Jesus was a preacher, and he spread the message that God loves everyone.

Not long after, they drove past a church with a HUGE cross in their front yard… which the girl of course asked about. Her father admitted that they had not gotten to the ending, and to his credit, was both honest and age appropriate about telling her about how Jesus was executed by the oppressive Roman government because of his message.

Fast forward a few weeks later to MLK day weekend, and he took his daughter out to lunch on her day off from school. She saw a picture of MLK in a newspaper, and of course asked who it was. When he said Dr. King was a preacher, and she got excited and asked, “For Jesus”? Yes, he explained, and Dr. King also taught that you should treat everyone the same no matter what. For a moment, the girl was silent in thought. Then, she looked up at her dad, and asked him, “Did they kill him too?”

The ironic thing is that the show this aired on was called “Kid logic: Stories of kids … arriving at perfectly wrong conclusions” …. But this kid got it EXACTLY RIGHT! This 4-year-old totally SAW the way the world works in a way that most adults miss, or refuse to see.

The season of Epiphany is about seeing things in a new way. On this weekend we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we remember that he had Jesus Vision. And, like Jesus, he not only saw injustice, he also called it out. Dr. King went to “those places” like Birmingham and Montgomery, to name the sin of racism for what it is – evil. And he called out his fellow (white) pastor colleagues for their lukewarm support. They wondered why Dr. King would go to Birmingham, which prompted him to write in his famous letter while he sat in a jail cell: “I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

I have said at one time or another something to the effect of “I don’t see color” or “I’m colorblind.” This statement seems innocent enough. But I have since learned that this idea erases and dismisses the real experiences and struggles of people of color. This is also why saying things like “Just be kind to one another” is not enough, because no amount of “kind acts” on the part of individuals will answer for the 400+ years of racist history we must wrestle with if we are indeed serious about healing and unity. We must name the evil if we are to cast it out on Jesus’ name. And as we can see… we have our work cut out for us.

Can anything good come from …. Any of this? We don’t know it yet. We can’t see it yet… at least not with our own eyes. Nathaniel took a chance on what he did see, he took the risk of being wrong… and Jesus told him – you are going to see greater things than these. And he did. As a follower of Jesus, Nathaniel saw water turned into wine, people being healed of their illnesses, the hungry being fed, and the dead being raised.

Can anything good come from… any of this? This weekend, our Bishop, Leila Ortiz shared this message: “This is not the first time that the church has been in the midst of utter chaos, destruction, and crisis. Through it all, and in every age….  God has not and will not abandon God’s beloved.” That means, God loves and will not abandon all the Nazareths, the Birminghams, the Milwaukees or the Trentons of the world. And God will not abandon US. Thanks be to God. Amen.