Corrected Vision

A Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Paul Debenport

January 31, 2010

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Hear God’s good Word from John 1: 43—51:

The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee.  He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”  Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.  Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth.”  Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Philip said to him, “Come and see.”  When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him , he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”  Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to  know me?”  Jesus answered “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”  Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!  You are the King of Israel!  Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?  You will see greater things that these.”  And Jesus said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

The Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

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          I didn’t get my first eyeglasses until I was a freshman in college.  I didn’t even know I needed them until one night at a football game, perched high in cheap seats, I discovered that everyone else could read the players’ numbers.  I couldn’t.  I knew I had been having headaches and always sat near the front of the class to read the blackboard.  But as a vain 18 year old, I did not want to wear glasses.

          But I forgot all that when I put on that first pair of glasses in the wonder of a whole new way of seeing.  I marveled at being able to see every single leaf on the trees, and street signs, and peoples’ faces.  Even my own face staring back from the mirror, outlined in startling clarity.

          This story of Nathanael is about seeing, and about being seen.  It’s about seeing what’s right in front of you.  It’s about a person who learns to see things—including himself and others—in a whole new way, because of how Jesus sees him.

          Simon Peter and Andrew had just been called and immediately followed.  Then Jesus calls to Philip,  “Follow me,” and without even stopping to fill in a time and talent survey, Philip signs up for the evangelism committee and goes off to find Nathanael, exclaiming that “We have found the One of God…Jesus of Nazareth.”  But unlike all the other callings, Nathanael doesn’t just drop everything and follow.  In fact, he’s rather unimpressed and quite skeptical,1. condescendingly asking Philip, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Philip doesn’t argue with him, but simply repeats the invitation that Jesus gave the day before to Andrew and Simon Peter, “Come and see.”

          But it’s Jesus who’s the first to truly see, to see the true Nathanael, and states, translated literally, “Look!  Truly an Israelite in whom is no falsehood (treachery or deceit).”2.  Jesus sees more than the figure in the road; he sees Nathanael’s heart, knows him through and through, and sees the goodness beneath his surface prejudices.  But Nathanael can’t see Jesus, because he’s looking through the clouded lens of his own prejudice.  “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”; out of Espanola?; Iraq? Texas?

          Nathanael just sees someone he considers a “them”…a “those people,” so he brushes off Jesus’ compliment, and asks, “Where did you get to know me?”  Can’t you hear his unspoken question, a frosty, “Do I know you?”  To which Jesus answers, “I saw you under the fig tree,” which indicated more than some kind of clairvoyance.  It links seeing and knowing deeply, a recurring theme in John.  For Nathanael it is evidence of divine omniscience, and he “sees” Jesus for whom Jesus really is, and, completing the links from “seeing” to “knowing” to “believing,” he replies “Rabbi, you are the Son of God…the King of Israel!”

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          “Seeing is believing,” “I saw it with my own eyes, so I know it’s true,” we sometimes state.  But it turns out that seeing is a lot more complicated than that.  What we see has a lot to do with what we expect to see, and what we already know—or think we know—about what we’re looking at.  If you’ve ever stared in the refrigerator looking for something in red Tupperware and not seen it at all, because it’s in the blue container—as I too often do—then you know how what we expect to see can color what we do and don’t perceive.

          Yes, it can be hard to see even what’s right in front of you, as with Nathanael seeing Jesus as only a Nazarene, as with us sometimes, even in church.  What do you see when you see the children in church, drawing, squirming, seemingly not taking anything in?  Are they just a distraction or are they the kingdom of heaven, learners at the feet of Jesus, taking in and teaching us far more than may be apparent.  And likewise, if you’re a youth or a younger adult here, what do you see when you see all our older members?  Just a bunch of slower moving “gray hairs” with nothing to teach and show you about life well lived?  Or, do you see the fullness of the kingdom of heaven, faithfulness and wisdom and perseverance?  Sometimes it is hard for us to really see what is in front of us.  Sometimes we can’t even see the people who are closest to us—family, friends, co-workers, because we think we already know everything about them.  And sometimes, too, like before we get our first pair of glasses, we can’t even see ourselves, because our vision is not corrected, is blurred by our own insecurity and self-depreciation, that often comes out as other-depreciation —like Nathanael’s first view of Jesus.

          But Nathanael is changed by how Jesus sees him.  Before Nathanael has known Jesus, Jesus has seen and known him—seen and known the good in him that Nathaniel couldn’t even see in himself.  Being known, being truly known, and valued and loved for who you really are is a deep need of all, and it can be a holy, life-changing experience.  Being seen like this changes Nathanael and gives him new vision to see the One of God who’s right in front of him.  He could easily have broken into the psalmist’s song:  “Lord, you have searched me and known me…[and] such knowledge is too wonderful for me.” 

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          Being seen this way can change us, too, and open our eyes to see the Holy, God, Jesus right in front of us.  Some faithful people have done that for me along the way.  I’ll mention two of them, hoping you’re thinking about who has really seen you and changed your vision.  Norris Brown was an elder, and in my eighth grade mind, elderly Sunday school teacher.  He probably was all of 50 at the time.  I had begun to “act out”, as they say, in my Sunday School class.  But rather than failing Sunday School, I was promoted—to teacher.  Mr. Brown came to me and said he needed me to help him teach his class of feisty fourth graders.  “Me?  Help you?  Me? Teach?”  Norris Brown was wise like a fox, I’m guessing now; but through him, something in me began to grow, and looking back now, I know it was a blessing that began to change my view of me, through his eyes, and eventually, my view of God and God’s view of me.

          Fast forward a decade plus to my first year in Seminary.  Don Purkey, a young, visionary Pastor serving a newly developed church outside Princeton came knocking at my door one noon.  I had never met him before, but he had at least heard about me [under the fig tree, the Seminary’s coffee shop where visiting Pastors and Professors gossiped?], but what he saw in me took a real visionary, someone who could discern deeper than what was standing at the door in front of him.  There I was, rumpled, unshaven, having slept through Greek Class where he had tried to find me earlier.  And the next thing I knew I was in a full blown interview to be the student pastor at one of the most vibrant churches in Northern New Jersey.  Probably depressed and clearly far from sure about perhaps becoming a minister, he saw something I couldn’t see in myself.  And over the next two years, he and that wonderful congregation saw me in such encouraging ways that I began to perceive Christ’s will and way for my life.

          Jesus sees you this way.  And being seen like this, being known in deeper ways, can open your eyes with corrected vision, to see yourself as God sees you, to see others as God sees them, and most of all, to see Jesus as he really is, right before you, calling you to:  “Come and See.”

Thanks be to God.

Amen.