A couple of weeks ago Olivia, our church secretary, came into my office and said, “There’s a gentleman in the hallway who wants to talk with you.” I went out and immediately recognized him. I’ve know and helped him, or at least tried to help him, for years. He’s one of those people who when I see him I think to myself, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? You know people like that, right?

I find myself asking that question more and more often these days when I read the news about our country’s political dysfunction, the upcoming presidential election, wars throughout the world, the plight of immigrants and refugees, desecration of our environment, and a hundred other things. Some of you have expressed to me similar sentiments.

There are broken, painful, and difficult parts of my life and the community of Uvalde that leave me wondering if anything good can come out of Nazareth. I suppose you might have wondered the same about your life. 

I think we all come to those Nazareth moments described in today’s gospel.

When have you asked Nathanael’s question? What are you asking it about today? Who or what are your Nazareths? In what ways do they challenge you? What do they offer you and what do they ask of you?

The gentleman who was standing in the hallway came into my office and sat down. He said, “I’m not asking for anything today. I want to tell you something.” He then told me about changes he was making in his life and how his life was turning around and going in a better direction. He actually looked and sounded different, better. He said, “I know there were times you weren’t sure about me.”

Unlike Nathanael, however, there was some deceit in me as I said, “Oh no,” and denied my skepticism about him. But he was right. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Here’s the thing about that. Nathanael’s question isn’t really about Nazareth. It’s about Nathanael. And it’s about you and me. That question says more about us than it does Nazareth. It points to what is going on within us. 

That question is about our beliefs and unbeliefs in others, ourselves, and God. It’s about our biases and prejudices. It’s about the boundaries and limitations we impose. It’s about our fears and frustrations. It’s about feeling overwhelmed and powerless. It’s about our wounds, losses, and sorrows. It’s about our guilt and shame. It’s about the assumptions, conclusions, and judgments we make. It about all the many filters through which we see the world, others, ourselves, and God. Ultimately, it’s about deceit, not so much of another but of ourselves. 

For us Nazareth is a blind spot. For God, however, Nazareth is a place of epiphany, a place where God shows God’s self and invites us to see, reimagine, and consider new possibilities. 

Isn’t that what happened to Nathanael in today’s gospel (John 1:43-51)? He didn’t declare Jesus to be “the Son of God” and “the King of Israel” because Nazareth had changed but because he had changed. 

And I don’t think he made those declarations because Jesus had some supernatural or clairvoyant power by which he saw Nathanael under the fig tree. No, this was an epiphany for Nathanael, a recognition that God was in a place, a situation, a person that Nathanael never expected possible. There was more to Nazareth than Nathanael had previously allowed or thought possible. And what if that’s true for our Nazareths? 

Haven’t there been times when someone or a situation surprised you by revealing there to more there than you thought possible? Haven’t there been times when new possibilities and opportunities you never expected came from Nazareth? 

I don’t know how that happened for Nathanael. I only know that he was willing to get up and leave where he was. He moved to a new place. He went and saw. Maybe he went out of curiosity. Maybe he went to prove his point. Maybe he went hoping against hope that something good really could come out of Nazareth. 

Maybe it doesn’t matter why he went. Maybe what matters is that he went. Nathanael was willing to accept the invitation to “come and see.” He was willing to reconsider, to look again, to reimagine possibilities, to question his own assumptions and beliefs, to name his biases, to open himself to the unexpected. Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

What about you and me? What would it be like to live just a bit more like Nathanael? And what would that take?

Can anything good come out of our Nazareth? Apparently so. Isn’t that why we are here today?

Come and see.

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Image Credit: Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash.