sermon – ephiphany 2B

Revd Dr Lance Stone, Minister, Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Cambridge

1 Samuel 3: 1-14
John 1: 43-51

Something new…

Well, here we are just a little more than two weeks in to the New Year and already we could be excused for wondering why we persist in calling call  it ‘new’. There is a depressing familiarity about the first days of this year, a sense of dismal repetition, an awareness that there is indeed ‘nothing new under the sun’. Our headlines have been dominated by events in Gaza and the problems of Israel and the Palestinians – nothing much new there – and all the other world events that greet us each day seem to be very much business as usual, with a tired old world spinning endlessly, one more time…

Then we turn to our appointed Scriptures for this Sunday and we find ourselves in familiar territory. ‘Now the boy Samuel was ministering in the temple under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rarely heard…’ In other words this was a time of spiritual famine, a time when people seemed only to reach God’s answering machine, a time when the most evident feature of God  was God’s absence. We’re told that in this time visions were not widespread. In other words people groped in the dark, and they lacked direction and God didn’t seem to be communicating too well. Tellingly, we are told that the priest Eli’s sight was dim and his sight failing and surely in this context this blindness was not just a condition of the retina but is a metaphor for the state of his soul. These were dark times. Then, furthermore, there is the striking phrase, ‘while Samuel slept in the temple of the Lord… Before the lamp of God had gone out…’ (verse 3). Of course the setting of the story is night-time and at one level the reference is doubtless to the actual lamp that illuminated the temple and that was dimming to a faint glow. But surely there is something deeper here: it was the very light of God’s presence that was flickering and stuttering and about to be extinguished, leaving the land in a state of utter spiritual abandonment.

What is so depressing is that there is no way out of this scenario, no way through, no hope of a better tomorrow, for where is ’something better’ to come from? Where are the resources that might kick-start something genuinely new and different? There is a weary sense here of a tired old priesthood represented by Eli and which has now run its course and has nowhere to go. It’s reached a dead end. Likewise Israel is barren and sterile and lifeless and people yearn and long for some new initiative, some new configuration, something unexpected, some surprise that will bring transformation and usher in something different. But nothing. Just more of the same.

Depressing, isn’t it? But realistic. There really does seem to be nothing new under the sun – only endless repetition. And we turn to our reading from John’s Gospel and we can sympathise with Nathaniel’s cynical, jaded  reaction to Philip’s excitement. Philip claims to have found the one foretold in the law and the prophets! But what is Nathaniel’s response? ‘Nazareth! Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ We all know Nazareth! It’s a place for losers and always has been. I was talking recently to someone who knows Nazareth well and they said, ‘Oh Nazareth! What a bland and boring place it is!’ Nothing changes – a  dull place back in Jesus’ day and a dull place now. Nothing good can ever come out of there. Nothing can ever change there. Nazareth is typecast.  Maybe we could re-phrase Nathaniel and ask, ‘can anything new come out of Nazareth?’, or indeed, for that matter, can anything new come out of Gaza, or out of Jerusalem, or Washington, or Whitehall?

But then we return to Samuel. We return to the silent darkness where the lamp of God glows so dimly and so faintly and if we listen very carefully, what do we hear? In the stillness there is a faint voice to be heard: ‘Samuel, Samuel…’ And the voice of the child replies, ‘Here I am…’ Of course in the fading, tired order of things Samuel can only interpret what is happening in terms of the old, the familiar. It must be Eli that is calling. And Eli likewise. At first he cannot discern the voice of God in Samuel’s story for God doesn’t speak any more. But it is not Eli calling and Samuel is not mistaken. It is the voice of God, gentle but firm, easily mistaken, yet persistent. And so God enters into that dark, empty place and suddenly something new is stirring. God is there, and at work.

And so too with Nazareth. What we need to know about Nazareth is that it was more than just a dull and despised place. It was also a dark place. Around the time of Jesus there were a number of rebellions and uprisings against the Roman occupiers in the area where Jesus lived. Such rebellions were put down ruthlessly. The Romans did not meet insurrection with half measures. One such rebellion occurred in a place called Sepphoris, just a few miles north of Nazareth, around the time of Jesus’ birth. The Roman response was swift, capturing and burning Sepphoris and reducing its inhabitants to slavery. And what do you think happened to small villages adjacent to Sepphoris? What do you think happened to the tiny hamlet of Nazareth just four miles distance? Well, we don’t know. But we do know what happened next time a rebellion  broke out at a place called Gerasa, which also features in the Gospel story. We’re told that the Roman general ‘put to the sword a thousand of the youth, who had not already escaped, made prisoners of women and children, gave his soldiers licence to plunder property, and then set fire to the houses and advanced to the surrounding villages. The able-bodied fled, the feeble perished, and everything left was consigned to the flames.’ Locals in the vicinity of places associated with rebellion faced murder, rape and enslavement. As was said of the Romans ‘they make a desert and call it peace.’[1]

Nazareth, it seems likely, was not just a boring place but a scarred place. A place of tears  – and of memories. And when Jesus was growing up the one traumatic recent event in the village’s life would have been the day the Romans came. Yet out of this place there suddenly there emerges Jesus. Here Jesus is nurtured. Here he grows and is taught and learns about God. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Yes, something, someone does.

So maybe there is something new under the sun after all. History has been memorably described as ‘just one damn thing after another’ but perhaps that is wrong. The voice of God is heard in a time of God’s absence. Something new does come out of scarred and despised places like Nazareth. But the task is to discern it. Like Samuel, Like Eli, we can all too easily fail to recognise it. Like Nathaniel, our prejudices and presumptions can cloud our eyes so that we are oblivious to it.

Last Sunday the readings directed us to Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan, and there is a very striking phrase in the description of what happened there. We are told that as Jesus emerged from the water John ’saw heaven being torn open’. Then the Spirit descended on Jesus and a voice came from heaven, declaring Jesus to be the beloved of God. That’s dramatic, eye-catching stuff! The skies splitting apart – this is an epiphany, a manifesting of who Jesus is. Here something new is breaking in from above, tearing open the skies, invading the world. But that is not how it usually happens. More often, rather than breaking in from above, God emerges without fanfare from below with offers of new life and new hope – a voice in the night, a stranger from Nazareth.

Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Yes, to our surprise, Jesus does. Can something new emerge from old, tired, scarred places? Yes, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, it does. And in dark places today, places like Nazareth, God will be at work. In Nazareth itself, as well as in Gaza, in a land where Palestinians face all kinds of oppression and humiliation, people will be caring for one another, sharing with one another, supporting one another. And in other places like Congo, or Somalia, or Zimbabwe there will be stories of heroism and love and self-sacrifice. Here God will be found and God’s voice heard, if only in whispers, and Jesus will emerge.

And in the church too – our church. Here we are in our rampantly secular world where we are so familiar with the litanies of church decline and sometimes it can feel a bit like Samuel’s day. It can feel sometimes as if the word of the Lord is rarely heard and there doesn’t seem to be much outpouring of vision. And to many Nazareth is a good metaphor for the Church – a dull place, a bland place: can anything good, anything new come from this Nazareth?

Well, yes, it can and it does. For it is from such unpromising places and situations that we will indeed ’see heaven open and God’s angels ascending and descending’. If only our eyes ands ears – like the skies – are open.

Amen

[1] For the above, see The First Christmas by Marcus J Borg and John Dominic Crossan, p.76f (London: SPCK, 2007).

Tagged as: gaza, homiletics, hope, justice in gaza, Lawrence Moore, palestine, Revd Dr Lance Stone, revised common lectionary, the united reformed church