John1:48
John 1:43-51
43The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." 44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." 46Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."
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!" 50Jesus answered, "Do you [singular] believe because I told you [singular] that I saw you [singular] under the fig tree? You [singular] will see greater things than these."
51And Jesus said to him, "Very truly, I tell you [plural], you [plural] will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
The Gospel According to Saint John
Because Mark is the shortest gospel, during Mark's lectionary year we'll hear quite a lot from John that doesn't have its own year. John is the rogue, outlier gospel that has a different perspective than the three synoptic gospels Mark, Luke, and Matthew.
Scholars believe the community gathered around John the Beloved Disciple that compiled this version of the Gospel or Good News of Jesus Christ had at least two written sources: the Signs source and the I Am source.
• John refers to Jesus' signs rather than to his "miracles."
• Jesus describes himself as"I Am," referring back to God's self-revelation to Israel as "I Am."
Time + Place
From now through the Sunday before Ash Wednesday (Transfiguration for Western protestants), we get a segment of Ordinary Time with the season of Epiphany. This season draws upon the primary Epiphany symbols of stars and light, and focuses on the Holy Spirit shining forth within God's people.
Last Sunday for the day of Epiphany we read about the religious, ethnic, and geographic non-Jewish magi visiting Jesus. You may remember visitors from the East – from the other side of the world! – found Jesus by following sky signs and by reading their own scriptures. After interpreting their dreams, they took a different route home.
Recognition of God's embrace of all humanity beyond the Jewish people has made Epiphany a time for reaching out with the Good News of the Gospel. Call, vocation, and evangelism are closely linked and inextricably tied to the Holy Spirit of Pentecost. Like stars in the sky, our lives shine with the good news of God among us.
Call + Response
Nest Sunday we'll hear Mark's version of Jesus calling his first followers, but today Jesus calls his first disciples according to John. They include Simon-Peter, Andrew, James, and John. John includes Philip in this call story (the other gospels list him among the twelve), but only John includes Nathanael anywhere.
Our baptism initiates God's call to us! Whatever our place on planet earth, whatever communities we identify with, whatever our gifts, interests, and opportunities, baptism bathes us in grace and sends us into the world. People sometimes have an overall sense of God's calling to a certain activity, ministry, or occupation. (Maybe especially) people in direct service professions such as teacher, pastor, nurse, frequently have a strong sense of call, though that doesn't exclude people who absolutely delight to balance financial books or create a beautifully presented dinner.
But that's the bigger picture! We spend a lot of our time at the micro level, with one-on-one, face-to-face, five or ten minutes' worth, so our call and our immediate callings include smaller, shorter mini-ministries or micro-ministries.
How do we determine long-term or shorter term callings? As the Epiphany Magi did: read the signs (who where needs what and how soon) and within us (what are my skills, interests, aspirations); interpret scripture (love your neighbor, feed the hungry, hydrate the thirsty); heed both waking and sleeping dreams.
Geography + Context
Today's gospel mentions Galilee, the larger geographic area of Jesus' hometown Nazareth. Andrew, Peter, and Philip were from Bethsaida; Nazareth was typical small-town. Nathanael's question, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" reveals more than a little dismissive snark.
Having relocated to Los Angeles from San Diego, I can tell you San Diego has a small town feel, has an inferiority complex from being in the shadow of megalopolis LA, possesses a border town sensibility in both wonderfully positive and disparagingly negative ways. Philip's "Come and see!" reply is the kind of basic invitational evangelism that pervades the gospels, that extends to "Come and see the stone rolled away" of Easter dawn, into the Acts of the Apostles, and then into our own twenty-first century.
The gospel accounts, all of history, and our own lives take place in particular contexts or settings: geography; climate; time of year; time of day; biological and chosen family; religion or none; workplace; friends; class/ethnic culture… A website I follow observed how all of us now live on the worldwide continent of the internet.
Sign + Symbol + Interpretation + Figs
John's gospel refers to Jesus' actions as signs. We talked about sign, symbol, and meaning almost as much in design classes as we did in cultural anthropology! Maybe it's no surprise that linguistics is a branch of anthropology—the study of human culture, artifacts, habits, and communication. Whether words printed on a page, spoken out loud, or silently conveyed by signing with hands, arms, face, and body, languages symbolize realities beyond and other than themselves. I've heard that most interpreters don't wear masks (though at the height of Covid I noticed a few did) because facial expression is a critical aspect of interpreting the audible word.
A street sign or a product label isn't the actual object, but points beyond itself to something else. Signs and symbols lead to substance. We sometimes refer to Scriptures and Sacraments as the church's symbols; theological traditions that include Lutheran and Reformed sometimes refer to their Confessions (Catechisms, Creeds) as symbolic books. As interpretations of scripture, they point beyond themselves into scripture and finally to Jesus Christ.
Jesus told Nathanael he knew him because he saw Nathanael under the fig tree. I couldn't find a precise historical or scholarly consensus about the meaning of this phrase, but figs were one of the seven agricultural gifts of the promised land [Deuteronomy 8:7-10]; the sycamore fig was Israel's national tree, with fig fruit representing the people.
According to Micah 4:4, during the "days to come" or Messianic age, each person would sit under their fig tree without fear (this is the famous "swords into plowshare; spears into pruning hooks" promise); and especially there was a tradition of studying Torah underneath a fig tree. Jesus' cultural background would have told him someone reading underneath the fig was a son of Abraham and a follower of the Sinai Covenant.
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