“…What are you looking for” (John 1:38)
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John 1:35-51 |
Year B: 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, 17th January 2021
The past few days have brought home, yet
again, the trauma faced by thousands of women and children in various
institutions in Ireland over many decades.
In some respects the ‘County Home’ continued the harsh traditions of the
19th century workhouse. The ‘Mother and Baby’ homes were grim places
where punishment, stigma and control were the order of the day. Too often the
mother was literally left holding the baby as the father was nowhere to be
seen and then the baby was literally taken from the mother. Church and State
were complicit in the arrangement and a culture of clericalism along with norms
of deference, fear and shame sealed the fate of thousands of women and their
children. Yet, none of this could have
happened were it not for the silence, complicity and inaction of large section of
civil society. This is not to shift blame or lessen the culpability of the institutions
and persons working there. However, many families but especially the fathers ‘looked
the other way’ and did not stand by their own. Neither did those in authority
follow up on complaints or act on the patently disturbing numbers dying in
excess of what was the normal rate of infant mortality.
Ireland was by no means unique but it stood
out to the extent that the collusion of state, church and a conservative civil
society ensured a level of control and in some cases gross cruelty far from the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
As we engage in a national conversation of
anger and mourning we might pause to consider two questions:
- How significant was the contribution of other loving borthers, nuns and lay persons who continued to provide selfless care for children whatever the circumstances of their families? Let us not forget the good done by many and lives given in devoted service for the genuine good of others.
- Might there be realities in contemporary Irish society that future generations will condemn and be ashamed of? Are we ‘looking the other way’ when children suffer neglect or are denied their rights? Might we be afraid as many were in the past to speak out and act for social justice in today’s Ireland?
It is easier to condemn the actions of
previous generations but much harder to face the bitter truths of Ireland
today.
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Notes on the Gospel reading for this Sunday
Preliminaries
The choice of passage is all encompassing:
it combines John 1:35-41 with John 1:42-51 as, respectively, these correspond
to the typical choice of Gospel reading on this Sunday in the Roman Catholic
and most of the Reformed Churches.
Perhaps, by accident, the former emphasises Peter and his brother Andrew
while the latter emphasises Philip and Nathaniel.
35-36:
John bears witness
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’
On ‘the next day’ (the third day), John
bears witness in front of two of his own disciples. John’s Gospel attaches
great importance to time, night, day and numbers signalling key parallels and deeper
significance beneath the stories and words.
This is where Galilee and Judea meet up:
the disciples of Jesus, according to John the evangelist, were disciples of
John the Baptist. Where ‘two or three’ were gathered there was the Messiah in
their midst. This prefigures what is to come after the resurrection of Jesus.
I was
ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did
not seek me. (Isaiah
65:1)
37-39:
Time to come and see
The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.
It was late in the day and as often happens
in the Gospel of John, light and darkness, day and night play out in a deep
exchange of meanings.
The two disciples who followed Jesus
belonged, initially, to John’s people (was Jesus also associated with
them?). John lets go of his own
disciples. These disciples were prompted by John and they set off on a new and
unexpected course.
(We should always remain open to the
inspirations and promptings of the Holy Spirit especially when they come
through someone wise and someone we can trust).
‘What
are you looking for?’ is the same question posed by St Benedict to those would
follow in the monastic way of life. What do you seek? Do you really seek God?
Andrew and another disciple sought the
Saviour. Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist and there is a possibility
that, his brother, was at least connected to the Johannine dessert
movement. Note that, according to this
passage, Jesus does not say to them, at this stage, ‘Come and follow me’ but,
rather, ‘Come and see’. Jesus respects the freedom and responsibility of the
disciples who will be called. In reality, this day is the decisive day for
Andrew and the other disciple. By
following Jesus to where he stayed they were being led to a new reality. This
was more than an individual call. The two disciples sought and followed Jesus together
and not each of them alone. Might it be possible that the other disciple who is
unnamed by John the evangelist was John the evangelist himself? Or, might it
have been – perish the thought – a woman who could not be named but had been a
follower of John the Baptist !
There is a strong echo of John
20:15-16 here. At the resurrection (the ‘third day’), Jesus is sought by
Mary who does not recognise him at first.
When she does acknowledge him she addresses him as ‘Rabbi’ just as
Andrew and Peter do.
Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew,‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher).
This coming to Jesus to see is a very
striking way of telling us that the first disciples had a personal encounter
with Jesus. Following Jesus was, in the first place, a personal encounter and
experience and not a detached intellectual discourse followed by assent. They
simply saw where Jesus lived and how he lived and related to them and others.
‘Staying’ and ‘remaining’ with Jesus that evening ought to chime with our lives as disciples. We may stay and remain in the blessed Trinity.
40-42
Seeking, finding and responding
One of the two who heard John speak and
followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his
brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated
Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said,
‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated
Peter).
Andrew could not contain himself. He had to
go and tell his brother Peter and invite him to join up. He declared to his
brother ‘We have found the Messiah’. John the evangelist is drawing important
theological conclusions, here, and is careful to explain the meaning of terminology
such as Rabbi, Messiah and Cephas to a non-Hebrew audience. Jesus ‘looked at’
Peter. Using the underlying Greek word, emblépō,
it would be accurate to understand this ‘looked at’ as the equivalent of
looking in a concentrated
and sustained way.
The call to discipleship is pressing,
urgent and appealing. In fact, irresistible. Our first and natural instinct is
to share it with others and, perhaps, they too will follow.
There is a touch of irony here. The one to
be called ‘rock’ was not quite rock-like when confronted with an opportunity
for martyrdom on the night of Jesus’ betrayal.
Not even Peter could resist his human nature and betray his Lord at a
crucial moment. Did this stop him from going on to witness to Jesus and,
ultimately, be led to death for his sake? No.
Jesus would say to Peter much later in the
Gospel of John:
Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ (John 21:18-19)
Following Jesus is the road to freedom. But
the paradox is that it leads to constraint too. This is especially so in those
called to lead as Peter was. Grace is never lacking.
43-46
Jesus calls Philip and Nathanael
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip 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.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’
A third person from the ‘city’ of Bethsaida
is called and this time it is Philip. (It may be that all three came from
Capernaum which is 10 Km down the road from Bethsaida by Lake Galilee. By now, the village must been buzzing!
However, Nathanael (probably the same person as Bartholomew Matthew
10:3) was added to the small band. A distance of over 50 Km separated
Bethsaida from Jesus’ home town of Nazareth.
Jesus was in search of followers and, perhaps, he already knew Philip or
knew of him. His invitation was simply
‘follow me’. There are scarcely any
occasions where the invitation to ‘follow’ is used in the New Testament except
on the lips of Jesus. It reminds us as 21st century disciples that we are
invited to follow Jesus and Jesus alone. However, we do not follow him on our
own. We travel together with others. This is, also, a key point of this passage
of scripture. Nathanael is, initially, sceptical when Philip tells him of the
Messiah that he has found. The invitation is
extended by Philip to ‘come and see’.
47-48
what you see is what you get
When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’
Were it only possible to say about every
politician, church leader, minister, doctor, lawyer, plumber, car mechanic,
economist, employer and trade union official: ‘Here is someone in whom there is
no deceit – what you see is what you get’!
49-51
The dream of Jacob come true
Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’
Nathanael’s declaration of faith is more
gradual in the synoptic gospels. John compresses a lot to bring theological
matters to the fore. There is no mistaking it – Jesus is the Son of God and the
King of Israel and it takes an Israelite without deceit to declare it.
Speaking of ascending and descending is
very much rooted in scripture. There are
plenty of stories about people ascending up to heaven (e.g. Jacob’s dream of
angels ascending and descending in Genesis
28:12, Jesus’ conversation with Nathanael in John
1:51, Elijah being taken up in a ‘whirlwind’ to heaven in 2
Kings 2:11). In many different
cultures of the ancient world people had a three-tier idea of the universe: the
heavens up there, hell down there (a hot place!) and the earth right here where
we stand. Over time, other categories were stitched on such as limbo and
purgatory to meet various theological conundrums (necessity being the mother of
invention!).
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