Grace United Methodist Church
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
John 1:43-51
“Come and See”
These businesses could have just run sixty-second commercials, but they paid a lot more money to get me to come down and they did so for a very specific reason. I did the afternoon program on WZZO in
I love this piece of scripture. I think that nearly everybody can find themselves in it. You may find who you are, who you want to be, or even who you wish you weren’t sometimes.
We have Philip, the Bible’s foremost expert on church growth. Just moments after Jesus has said “follow me,” Philip is inviting Nathanael to church! We, as a church, would have never asked Philip to do that. We would call that “evangelism” and we reserve that for more experienced Christians. We never expect that of new people, but instead leave it to those with some training.
What about Nathanael. Maybe you don’t see yourself in Nathanael, but I do and we can all learn something from him. Nathanael is the typical cynic. “Can anything good come out of
If we can see ourselves in this interaction, if we can take anything from it, it is how Philip, this man who has just started following Jesus moments ago, handles Nathanael’s objection.
“Can anything good come out of
Put yourself in that place. How would you answer that objection?
“Can anything good come out of
If someone really knew the Hebrew scriptures, they might argue scripturally. “Of course something good can come out of
Someone else, especially someone like Philip, who just starting following Jesus, may react defensively, “How dare you question the credentials of the Messiah?” But Philip didn’t do that.
Another person might try to turn it around on the person, “What the heck do you know?” But Philip didn’t do that.
I am sure someone else would just give up. But Philip didn’t do that.
Philip simply said, “Come and see.”
“Come see for yourself!”
When I did a remote broadcast, I didn’t answer possible objections. I didn’t get into the specifics of the price of a new Tahoe or the trade in value of someone’s ’89 Cavalier. Sometimes businesses would want me to talk specifics. I always talked them out of it. I always told them, what I really needed to say was come and see.
Think about it in modern terms. You tell someone about church and they say, “What good can come out of the church?”
You could pull out your Bible and quote them scripture. You could get defensive. You could try to turn it around on them. You could just give up. Or, you could say, “Come and see.”
Here is the really scary part, what Nathanael did next,
46bPhilip said to him, “Come and see.” 47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him
Philip said, “Come and see!” and Nathanael did!
Back when I was a D.J. and I did those remote broadcasts, I always had to be careful about where I chose to go and do a broadcast from. If I said, “Come and see! Outten Chevrolet has the best deals in town” and people came and saw and were treated poorly or paid way too much for a new car, the next time I said “Come and see” they might say, “no, I tried that once.”
My credibility was on the line. For me, at the time, my credibility was worth money. If I kept saying “Come and see!” and people came and saw and were disappointed, after a while no one would come and no business would pay me to go there and say “come and see!”
In today’s passage, Philip is risking his credibility with Nathanael. He says “Come and see” because he believes once Nathanael sees, he will understand. Let’s see how that works out for him.
47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” 48Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 49Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
This works out pretty well for Philip because Nathanael has and encounter with Jesus, and experience of the living Christ. Jesus greets him, embraces him for who he is, and says, “I have been expecting you!
If we were pretty sure that was going to happen when we said “Come and see!” perhaps we would say it more.
When I talk to people about inviting people to come to church, I hear lots of reasons not to. People say that they are uncomfortable talking about religion or they are afraid they are going to offend someone, but I think that a lot of what is going on is about fear of losing credibility. You may know the joy of knowing God through Christ, of having a church family, of being involved in fellowship and in mission. You know that your friend or loved one would feel the same way, if she or he could truly experience it when they came to church
Has anyone ever invited someone to church and had them come? This may not be true for everyone, but I bet for some of you found yourself nervous the day that came. The people we tend to invite are our friends and family and coworkers, people who may have accepted our invitation because we have some amount of credibility.
I probably invited more people to church before I was a pastor than I do now, because I worked with and hung out with a lot more people who weren’t already members of my church. When I would invite them to “Come and see” and they did I would be exceptionally nervous at church that day. As I drove in, I would look at the parking lot. I hope there is a spot. If my friend gets up early on a Sunday and comes down here and doesn’t find a place to park, I really blew it. As I would walk in, I would look to see who the greeters were. I hope they are our best greeters. I hope they are paying attention so my friend isn’t greeted by someone’s back. At the church I was at the time, I would hope it wasn’t raining so there wouldn’t be a garbage can in the isle to catch the leak from the roof, I so wanted it to look like we had our act together. I would scan the bulletin to see which pastor was preaching, what was the text. Had I seen the pastor around the office that week, had they put any time into this sermon? What is the choir singing? I hope our best soprano isn’t away on vacation this week. I would look at the hymns hoping were weren’t singing the hard ones that nobody knew.
I was a nervous wreck, because my credibility was on the line and I knew that the person I had invited might be as cynical as Nathanael. Perhaps the person trusted my credibility, perhaps my friend trusted me enough personally to “come and see.” However, that didn’t mean they weren’t still asking, “Can anything good come out of
They might want to trust me, but part of them is just looking for confirmation of what they had already believed. When Nathanael had followed Philip to Jesus, Jesus reacted with:
47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”
Imagine if instead, Jesus didn’t show up that day, or Jesus was in a bad mood, or Jesus disciples were all standing around blocking the way. Nathanael response would have likely been, “See, I told you nothing good could come out of
But think about Nathanael,
“Can anything good come out of
He is almost looking for an excuse not to come! A cynical person, who has only accepted the invitation on someone’s credibility, is still looking for an excuse not to come. “There’s nowhere to park, I can’t find the door, I can’t find a seat.” A cynical person may be looking for an excuse not to come. We have to make sure they don’t have one.
The outside invitation to “come and see” must be followed up with the welcome here at the church that says, “we have been expecting you and YOU are welcome here, just the way you are.” Not just a welcome from a person at the door, but a welcome that is built into a very DNA. A welcome that reflects our name, Grace. A welcome that says we accept you for who you are, wherever you are, no matter what.
Oftentimes people suggest to me the idea of a church open house, a time to invite our friends and members of the community to come to the church. When churches do these sorts of things, they usually go all out. They mow the lawn and trim the hedges and maybe even paint the trim. They vacuum the carpet and pick up all the stuff that is laying around the church. They put out some food and drinks and when the people come, they make sure that they are greeted by a smiling face and a warm handshake.
When people suggest the idea of an open house to me, I usually say no. I say no because every Sunday is an open house. Every Sunday is a day when someone may be responding to the invitation “come and see” and every Sunday is a day that we have to do everything we can to say, “we have been expecting you and YOU are welcome here, just the way you are.”
You may have already heard something about our Welcoming Team. Some of you have been praying for them. You may think about a welcoming team as just a group of people who stand and welcome people to the church or who puts ads in the newspaper, but this team is a whole lot more than that. This team is working to make welcoming part of the DNA of the church. They are working to make sure that we are doing all that we can to make sure that when someone “comes to see” that we will not stand in the way of their opportunity to experience Christ, but instead open our arms to welcome them and make them feel welcome and comfortable. I want every member to be aware of this group because the work they do will, in some ways, affect everything we do here at Grace and it should. At some point something they do might even get on your nerves and that might be a good thing. They might ask you to do something you are not used to doing. Or, they might move something or change something. They may even ask you to sit in a different place!
They will look at everything from how the church looks to new visitors, to how we personally welcome them to how we let them know more about this church, to how we begin to integrate them into the life of the church. They will try to see through the eyes of first time visitors and see things that we do, that we don’t even realize that we do that may put off people coming here to see God.
They are going to help us do the work of treating every Sunday like an open house, making sure we are always ready for someone new to enter our doors! Then it will be our turn to be like Philip and say to someone, “Come and see!”
[1] Matthew
