The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City
January 17, 2021
Year B: The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
1 Samuel 3:1-20
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
John 1:43-51
Found By God
You know, one of my all-time favorite passages of Scripture comes right at the start, in the garden.
The first man and woman have done what’s really the most human thing of all. They have done the exact thing they were told not to do.
Suddenly equipped with unsettling knowledge, Adam and Eve are filled with the new and distressing emotions of shame and fear.
And they do what we do when we’re ashamed or afraid. They hide. They even try to hide from God.
And, in the most poignant moment, we’re told that God walks through the garden, looking for his beloved creatures, calling out to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?”
God has never stopped calling out to us, asking, “Where are you?”
And, God won’t give up until we are found.
Now, of course, God knows our precise location. That’s not what we’re talking about.
No, God seeks our hearts.
God wants us to be as close with God as we were always meant to be.
As the Psalmist writes, “Lord, you have searched me out and known me.”
Found by God.
Today’s Old Testament lesson and our Gospel lesson are both about God calling out and finding.
At the start of today’s Old Testament lesson from First Samuel, we are told that “The Word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”
Perhaps, back in the days of old Eli and the boy Samuel, people were trying to hide from God, or had somehow closed their eyes and ears to God’s presence among them.
But, the boy Samuel, maybe because he was too young to hide or too innocent to shut his ears, the boy Samuel, he has no trouble hearing the voice of the Lord, although at first he mistakes it for the voice of old and blind Eli in the next room.
God calls, and the boy Samuel answers, “Here I am.”
Found by God.
And then, in today’s lesson from the Gospel of John, we have the story of Jesus calling two of his disciples, Philip and Nathanael, who also don’t hide and are willing to listen.
With almost comical brevity, Jesus “found” Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”
And so he does.
Found by God.
And then we’re told that Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote…”
Nathanael is not as quick to follow, though. He’s skeptical of Philip’s claims when he hears that Jesus is from Nazareth.
Nathanael asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
That may sound to us like Nazareth had a bad reputation, but Nathanael probably just meant that it was unlikely that anything great – let alone the long-awaited Messiah – could come from an out of the way, famous for nothing much, town like Nazareth.
Nathanael’s skepticism about Nazareth is a good reminder that God finds goodness and power in some of the most unlikely places, among some of the unlikeliest people.
It’s interesting to me that Philip says that they have found the one spoken about by Moses and the prophets, because, in fact, if you look at the story, it’s Jesus who’s doing the calling. Jesus is the one doing the finding.
The boy Samuel and the disciples Philip and Nathanael and so many others throughout the Bible, all of them were found by God.
Found by God.
And throughout history, there have been people who don’t hide, who hear God’s call, who allow themselves to be found by God.
This weekend we honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., someone who had imagined he might live his life in pretty safe places like a seminary or university, might spend his days in the relative ease of a church pulpit
Yet, just like the boy Samuel, and like Philip and Nathanael, a young Martin Luther King, Jr. heard the call of God to step out beyond the safe and the comfortable – to march into the mix – into the mess – of life in the America of the 1950s.
Found by God.
Dr. King heard God’s voice, following a call that took him from the relative obscurity of a church pulpit into the civil rights movement, stirring people’s imaginations and hopes, worrying lots of white people who felt he was moving too fast and causing too much trouble, while also frustrating some Black people who felt he was moving too slow.
Dr. King heard God’s voice, following a call that took him to embrace non-violence even in the face hatred and brutality, a journey that led him to oppose the war in Vietnam, and to embrace the plight of all poor people, no matter the color of their skin.
Dr. King heard God’s voice, following a call that took him to martyrdom, a fate he fully anticipated as a disciple of the crucified – and risen - Messiah.
Found by God.
And now here we are today, still somewhere in the middle of a deadly pandemic, the economy straining under unprecedented pressure, and most of our teachers expected to teach and our kids expected to learn by looking at screens all day.
Here we are today, coming to the end of four tumultuous years, less than two weeks after insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol – some carrying crosses and singing Christian songs – some carrying “Blue Lives Matter” flags – some of those same people attacking law enforcement, even killing one officer – some of these same people seemingly determined to kidnap or kill our elected representatives, committed to overthrowing our government.
Here we are today, with our capital city heavily fortified ahead of Wednesday’s inauguration, and all across the country, governments and other institutions, including churches, prepare for the worst.
We could talk all day about how we got to this point. It’s a tragic story that stretches at least as far back to the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in this land in 1619 – the original sin of racism that should make all of us white people feel at least as ashamed as Adam and Eve.
What’s been happening over the past few years has been a great uncovering, a revelation of the ugliness we would have preferred to keep hidden, buried, not spoken about in polite company.
But, here we are today, and I don’t know about you, but it feels like we’re living back in the days of old Eli and the boy Samuel, when the Word of the Lord was rare and visions were not widespread.
Perhaps today, as in the days of Eli and Samuel, many are trying to hide from God, or somehow closing their eyes to God’s presence, closing their ears to God’s call – or maybe we’re just too exhausted and depressed to see and hear God at work.
But, just like the boy Samuel long ago, at least some of today's children have no trouble hearing the voice of the Lord.
In my weekly message, I wrote about the decision made by our Girl Scout troop to boycott this year’s cookie sale because they learned that the cookies are made with palm oil, which is often collected using child labor in faraway places like Malaysia and Indonesia.
We all know it’s cookie money that keeps Girl Scout troops going, and especially during a time when most organizations are cutting budgets and scrounging for every penny, this was a risky and courageous move by the girls and their leaders.
Something good has come out of Jersey City!
These girls followed God’s call to set aside safety and self-interest, and instead offer compassion, and insist on justice, even for people they don’t know and will probably never meet.
Found by God.
So, I don’t know what the future will bring, but I suspect there’s quite a lot of trouble ahead.
But, I know that God is still calling to us, “Where are you?”
And I know that God will not give up until God finds us.
Just like God found the boy Samuel, and Philip and Nathanael, and Martin Luther King, and, yes, a Girl Scout troop from Jersey City.
Amen.
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