I found myself saddened and shaken on discovering how a colleague had decided to leave the Church behind before even finishing his curacy. A former policeman ordained Priest, a popular affable capable and mature man married with several children, he was a formative influence on many others like me. He had sacrificed much and been a gift to the Anglo Catholic Church and I imagine he continues to regard himself as a priest. It was an unexpected twist, highlighting not just the hidden-ness of God, but the sometimes uneasy relationship between faith and fact.
Meanwhile another friend of mine was reminded of unpredictability by trying to organize the journey of some Los Posados figures through a busy English city. If you’ve never heard of Los Posados, it’s a Mexican tradition in which the nativity story is celebrated by passing small Mary and Joseph figurines along the street. Occupants of every business were to receive the figures and read some liturgy and prayer before publicly displaying Mary and Joseph for 24 hours and passing them to the neighbouring business the following day. The idea was for strangers to become acquainted over Christmas and observers to discuss the progress of the figures along the street. An otherwise fragmented community would thereby be connected by a Christian message of hope. But for my friend there was another unexpected twist.
The pubs and bookmakers and late night kebab shops would accept the Los Posados, while the Salvation Army shop said no, because the display was too religious for them.
The Chinese have an ambiguous saying: “May you live in interesting times,” and frankly I think we do. We need to look beyond the surface to read the signs and see into what’s hidden.
But so did the first hearers of John’s gospel. For a start they were becoming less Jewish. Their trusted route to God was beginning to look different.
Jesus the Jew read the Torah, the Jewish scripture. He had Jewish followers, and the first Christians were Jewish, but by the time today’s gospel was written, Christianity and Judaism were already parting company.
Remember, when Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false."
"How do you know me?" Nathaniel asked. Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree, before Philip called you."
Then Nathaniel declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel."
Jesus said: "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that. I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."
For the community who first heard this no longer was religion simply a case of passing on inherited meaning - it was about looking for hidden messages.
Messages like the fig tree under which Nathaniel sat, and the angels descending upon the Son of Man.
Figs growing upon the tree grow at staggered intervals. So the more often you search a fig tree, the more you are going to find on it. This is why Rabbinic tradition always had a fig tree symbolizing Torah. The more often you returned to read the Torah prayerfully, the more flavor you would find for your life.
Since the fig tree is Jewish scripture, and the true Israelite sits under a fig tree, the writer of John’s gospel is portraying Nathaniel as the enlightened reader who can recognize Jesus not just as Rabbi but as Son of God and King of Israel. Here, it is claimed, is the direction of a true Judaism.
Because in the Torah, a Son of God is any person who has a special relationship with God – an angel, a king, a judge, or a just man.
But in the New Testament, Son of God means a unique link between God and humankind for all types of people, Jewish or not.
So when Nathaniel is described as a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false, the relationship between faith and fact is shifting.
In Hebrew, Nathaniel means ‘God gives’, so the writer of John’s gospel uses Nathaniel to represent those Jews who understand what God gives, ie. the revelation of Jesus as unique Son of God for everyone.
Christianity was emerging as a new way to God.
These must have been interesting times. To his first readers, the author was saying that by accepting the Gospel as well as the Torah, a believing community would see the heavens existentially open.
Angels of God would ascend and descend, not just for Israel and upon a ladder as they had done back in Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28:12, but for all types of people, upon the risen Son of Man, Jesus.
But these must also have been uncomfortable times. In fact we know that people were being ejected from the synagogues in this period.
We too are in a time when the familiar patterns of religion are changing. There can’t be anyone here who hasn’t noticed the phenomenal pace of cultural change over the past 40 years, and we are now confronted with an unpredictable juxtaposition of secularism and religion.
In a recent and fascinating book called the Spirituality Revolution, the author claims the precious vase of inherited faith once carefully passed from one generation to another in our society has unfortunately been dropped onto the floor and smashed. What, he asks, are we to do next? Pick up the pieces of the old vessel and find some glue, or look for a new one in our-selves and in our community?
The landscape is changing.
What is for sure is that we are not going to be able to rest content to be merely Sunday Christians or weekend worshippers.
As I was driving past some of the new headstones on vivid display at an undertaker’s recently, alongside the stone Angels and the stone Crosses I saw a headstone in the shape of a stone football shirt, next to a large stone football shaped flower vase.
The landscape was also changing for the readers of John’s gospel - were they Jews, were they Jewish Christians, or were they Christians?
And if we are on a living journey, the landscape should change. But there are still revelations to be had by following Jesus, and there is still a deeper dimension underneath the play of opposites, an abiding presence, an uncaused Being. God the Holy Spirit still communicates with his secularized children.
But we need to be prepared to deepen and to revitalize and to expand our spiritual journey, and not to rest content. It has never been comfort that the gospel offers, but peace.
In John’s gospel Jesus calls Philip explicitly. He calls him in person, just as he had called Levi explicitly and in person in Mark’s gospel, saying: ‘Follow me’.
The gospel of Christ is inspired, but it can only live if it lives in us. It is we who must follow and be inspired if we are to bring faith and fact together.
An unexpected twist, but we will engage with the spirit or become irrelevant in the world.
Only by engaging prayerfully can we be inspired by the supernatural Love of the Father, the redeeming grace of the Son, and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, who has never been comfortably in the club, and cannot be confined to a text, a building, an organisation or a religious ritual.
May God bless you all.
