Come and See

John 1:43-51

 January 15, 2017

Mark S. Bollwinkel

Have you seen the movie “Hidden Figures” (20^th Century Fox, 2016)?  It’s the story of a long forgotten aspect of our nation’s space program.  It focuses on the lives of three brilliant African American women in the early 1960’s; Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson.  They were among the mathematicians and engineers who got the first astronauts into space.   Yet along with a number of other African American women at NASA their contribution has gone ignored for years.  

            The movie depicts the challenges and obstacles they had to overcome as women and as Blacks at a time when science was considered an exclusive male domain and African Americans were legally segregated from equal access to education, employment and even bathrooms.   

As reported in the media across the country one of the amazing things about this movie is how at the end of the film people applaud.  We are inspired by the personal perseverance, faith and courage of these three women.  We also applaud because their story illustrates one of those historical moments when the American dream takes a step forward; the dream that there is equality, justice and opportunity for all.  It’s one of those moments when we take a step closer to all that America can be. 

Thank you all for the greetings on my 65th birthday.  Birthdays are a time for reflection as is the MLK weekend. 

You’ll remember that on July 22, 1961 the San Francisco Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati by the score of 8-3.  Giants scored five runs in first inning knocking Reds pitcher Ken Hunt out of the game with only one out; Willy Mays and Orlando Cepeda each had one RBI, 3rd baseman Jim Davenport had a 2 run home run in the sixth inning; only bright spot for the Reds was Frank Robinson's 2 run, home run in the bottom of the ninth against Giant's pitcher Jack Sanford who went the distance.   

I don’t remember much about the game.  There were 14,343 in attendance including 6 Bollwinkels.  But I'll never forget the tension at breakfast that morning. 

            My father’s favorite Aunt and Uncle lived in Cincinnati while we were living in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.  When the Giants would come to Cincinnati we would often drive down to Aunt Ruth and Uncle Elmer Senn’s home and take in a game.   

            During 1961 the City of Cincinnati ended the racial segregation of the public swimming pool at the Coney Island Public Park.  Up until then only White people could use the pool.   This was the focus of many demonstrations, protests and law suits over the years.  That day the newspaper reported that demonstrations by local African American leaders were going to be held at the swimming pool.  My parents and their relatives spoke in hushed tension, wondering if “there were going to be troubles”.  As a nine year old I didn’t really understand all that was going on but I clearly understood their fear that morning. 

            Years later I would learn that one of the protesters at Coney Island that morning would be the young African American wife of a local Methodist pastor.  She brought along with her, two kids in a stroller.  The church they served had a long history of opposition to racial segregation and was part of the “underground railroad” during and following the Civil War.    

That young mother would eventually be ordained a United Methodist pastor and commissioned the first African American women Bishop in our denomination, Leontine Kelly.   Her son John Current, in the stroller that day, is now my colleague and Pastor of the South San Francisco UMC.  His spouse, Rev. Staci Current is my boss as the Superintendent of the El Camino District.   

This is not a "look how far we've come” moment.  Although the legal segregation faced by those in the 1960’s has changed dramatically, I'm not sure how far we've come.  We still have a long way to go to deal with racism in our country.   

But the amazing and powerful lure of God’s intention to justice and equality is certainly an affirmation of how God works in the lives of ordinary people of faith; like a young pastor’s wife demanding equality for her children or a nine year old white boy becoming aware of the fearful suspicions of his own family.  

At the beginning of his ministry Jesus calls the twelve disciples.  The Fourth Gospel’s version of this call is significantly different than the other three.  Philip is named on each list but only John describes any words or behavior of this disciple.  Nathanael is only mentioned in John and is not listed as one of the twelve although he is very much part of the drama of discipleship.   

The call to follow is all that Philip needs to come to faith in Jesus as Messiah.  Upon meeting Nathanael, Philip announces that they have found “him about whom Moses…and the prophets wrote”.  Nathanael responds incredulously when Philip identifies Jesus’ hometown, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Commentators suggest this phrase may reflect ethnic and class prejudice. Philip doesn’t respond to the slur but simply responds by repeating Jesus’ words (: 39) “come and see”. 

The disciples become apostles and saints after the resurrection but at this first meeting with Jesus we find some pretty mediocre people.   Phillip, who is a hometown buddy of Andrew, will have a pathetic career as a disciple.  He is the one who tries to send the people away to find their own food in a nearby town at the miracle of the feeding of 5,000 (John 6:1-8).  When Jesus preaches, “I am the way the truth and the life…if you know me you know the Father”, it is Phillip who blurts out to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father that is all we need” (John 14:8[NRSV]).  Phillip continually misses the point about Jesus.   

Nathanael is academic and pious.   Which is why he is sitting under the fig tree, where Rabbis’ traditionally held their classes on the Torah.  Jesus sees this and Nathanael gets all excited that Jesus’ knowledge of him is miraculous.  Jesus discounts his confession because faith born solely on the miraculous is superficial and unacceptable.  He says to Nathanael, in effect, “If you think that is a big deal, you ain’t seen nothing yet!”            Nathanael is like us ordinary Christians who love to read about religion and love to come to church but are holding out on real faith until God gives us a miracle. 

Nathanael doesn’t make it into the final 12 but will be there at the end of the story (John 21:2).  We can only guess what happens to Nathanael between his call and the appearance of the risen Lord on the Sea of Galilee.  He is part of the disciple crew hauling in an unexpected catch of fish following Jesus’ instructions to cast their nets into deeper water.  He will eat a communion of breakfast with Jesus on the shore.  In that fellowship he, too, will know that his redeemer lives.  He, too, will know what good can come out of Nazareth. 

The disciples were a motley crew, not much superstar material there; just ordinary, normal, average people, with the same fears and doubts and inhibitions as you and me.  How can it be then, that this group will literally change the course of Western Civilization?  How is it that such mediocre people as the disciples will be the first to offer the world a new relationship to God that thousands of their peers will accept and in so doing will change the face of history?   

Dr. King’s leadership took him from Montgomery to Selma to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, filled with a vision of how things could be, empowered with God’s spirit demanding a restoration of justice and peace in human society.   How could a young, Black preacher in the South, at times frightened, unsure, an all-too mortal man find the vision and the courage to confront centuries of racist hatred and institutions in America?   

At the heart of the human condition God can be found.  Even in our limitations, failings and fear, God is with us.  Is it so ironic then, that God uses human beings to change the world? 

People like Phillip and Nathaniel, Rosa Parks, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson….or Melvin G. Talbert, one of the college students locked up in the Birmingham, Alabama jail in 1963 along with Dr. King who would become the presiding Bishop of our United Methodist Conference for 12 years…or an all too human, young and brilliant Baptist preacher Martin Luther King, Jr. 

What they have in common is not that they ended up famous and successful disciples of Jesus, which is incidental.   What they have in common is the journey of faith.   Each is given gifts and graces.   Each is given challenges to overcome, weaknesses to confront.   Each is given a certain time and place in which to be faithful. 

Including you and me. 

The best way to follow Jesus is to “come and see”, to go and live with him.  It is in sharing our lives with this Jesus and bringing along our average, ordinary doubts, anger and dreams that we are transformed from people paralyzed by our humanity to those who move ahead because of it.

 Amen.