January 18, 2015 – John 1:43-51
John 1:43-51
Come and See and Follow Me
Second Sunday after Epiphany – January 18, 2015
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
A few years ago a few of us went out and put invitations to worship in several hundred
neighbourhood mailboxes.
It was a nice Saturday afternoon.
Lots of people were out and about and
would talk with me as I went from one mailbox to another.
Near the end of the afternoon, just as I was returning to the church building,
one fellow asked what we were doing.
So I said,
“We’re inviting people to worship with us at First Lutheran Church just down the street.”
He looked at me like I was crazy and said with some astonishment,
“It’s such a beautiful Saturday? Why would you be doing that?”
And without hesitating I just said, “Because I think the world needs more grace.”
I regret lots of things I say when people ask me stuff.
I think I could have been clearer or answered more simply or differently.
But I’ll hang on to that one: because the world needs more grace.
And that’s what we receive here from Jesus week in and week out: grace upon grace upon grace.
I was saddened by the news of Target’s decision to pull out of Canada this week.
Many of you know I love going to the Target store at Polo Park.
I especially love taking my goods in the shopping cart down the shopping cart escalator
while I ride beside it on the people escalator!
Fun! And yes: that is my idea of a large time!
Our Congregational Ministry Assistant Melinda first broke the news about Target to me
on Thursday morning.
We started wondering what would become of that nice new building with the aforementioned
shopping cart escalator.
Melinda suggested maybe Wal-Mart might take it over.
Or maybe someone would buy it and turn it into Winnipeg’s newest megachurch!
Even better I said, maybe First Lutheran Church should buy it.
We love our coffee and it’s got a Starbucks.
Melinda suggested it is so big we would have room for roller skating and disco lights.
And let’s face it, no one would be able to complain about parking anymore!
And . . . that cart escalator would come in might handy for people when they leave in order to
take with them all the bucket loads of grace they receive in worship and
get to take with them: all the love, all the forgiveness, all the acceptance,
all the healing, all the inclusion, all the peace.
Take it down the cart escalator and ride beside it and take it all with you.
Wouldn’t that be fun?
The world needs more grace. And that is what Jesus gives us.
It’s what he gives every single person he encounters.
And John’s Gospel is full of such encounters.
In some the grace is healing. In some it is acceptance.
In some it is inclusion. In some it is forgiveness. In some it is simple invitation.
Just before today’s reading, Andrew and Philip have both encountered this grace in Jesus.
And it has changed them.
And in today’s reading, Philip tells Nathanael that he believes he has found the one that Moses and all the prophets foretold in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Nathanael is, to say the least, skeptical.
Uh huh, we hear him say. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Really?
And in response to this nasty, snide comment, Philip does an incredibly gracious thing:
a grace-filled thing, a thing Jesus himself had done a little earlier:
he invites Nathanael to simply “come and see.”
Come and see Jesus for yourself.
Come and see what kind of work Jesus is inspiring in our community.
Come and see what Jesus is up to and the kind of community Jesus is creating.
It would have been easy, I think, for Philip to dismiss Nathanael,
or get fancy, or offer long explanations, or maybe even threaten or intimidate.
Instead, having himself experienced the life-changing grace of Jesus,
Philip does what has been done to him and graciously invites Nathaniel to come and see.
I doubt Philip ever regretted what he said. I think he hung onto that one.
It was his equivalent of saying to Nathanael, “I just think the world needs more grace.
So I’m graciously inviting you to just come and see.”
I was visiting one of you this week and you said that what you value above all in our worship
and in the preaching at First Lutheran was how Jesus is at the centre.
As I say to the confirmation students, without Jesus, we’ve got nothing.
You can have the Starbucks coffee, you can have the parking, you can have the disco lights and
the roller skates – but if you don’t have Jesus and his grace, you have nothing.
There is nothing to put in the cart and send down on the cart escalator to take with you.
There is nothing to compel you to do the single most important thing about Christian life,
and that is following Jesus.
Why would anyone want to follow in Jesus’ footsteps?
It’s hard work feeding the hungry and healing the sick and forgiving the sinful and
welcoming the stranger and turning the other cheek and loving your enemies.
Only the unimaginable grace of God embodied and made concrete and real in Jesus
could compel you to do that.
So this morning I’m thinking that most of us here have been invited, one way or another,
to come and see Jesus.
Ultimately we have been invited, like Philip and the other disciples,
to come and see and follow Jesus.
But one way or another we were first invited to come and see.
Some of us at Sunday School.
Some of us by a family member – a parent or sibling or spouse.
Some of us by the pastor!
But one way or another we were invited to come and see what Jesus and his grace and his
Spirit of love have been doing in our community.
I guess I’m wondering what you would say if I asked you what is the most important thing about
the life we share at First Lutheran Church.
How have you seen Jesus at work most powerfully in our life together?
Take a moment to think about it, and write an answer down on the little slip of paper provided.
Wanna know what I wrote down?
There are lots of things I could say – and have said!
But this week it has given me indescribable joy and wonder to look at the
Community Meal sign-up Sheet and to see that you have filled that sheet till
the end of May!
That is wondrous to me. That is amazing to me.
That just says Jesus to me in big capital letters.
That is better even than Starbucks coffee and roller skates and disco lights.
That just says: Jesus is at work here. Powerfully. Through you. Feeding the hungry. Providing
hospitality. Welcoming everyone. Sharing you’re your gifts. Sharing God’s grace.
When people come into the building and I’m showing them around,
I always take care to show them this sheet.
I make sure they know that the food to feed 80 or 90 every other week is
provided by our members at their own expense. There is always some amazement at that.
That it is prepared and cooked and served by people from our congregation.
That it is a lot of work.
And then I invite them to come and see – to just come and see for themselves.
The world needs more grace – desperately – and the world around 580 Victor Street is getting it –
the tremendous grace of God in Christ – through you.
You have received the invitation to come and see Jesus – and now you follow him.
You have received the grace of God in Christ week after week right here and
you are taking a shopping cart load of it away with you to share out there.
In the many neighbourhood ministries of our congregation, to be sure,
but also in your homes and workplaces and schools and communities.
The world – this neighbourhood – is a different place, because of you.
The invitation is come and see and follow.
You have received that invitation and you have accepted.
You are invited to make it to others when you tell them what is important about this
congregation and its ministry.
Like Philip’s response to Nathanael, it is a gracious thing to do.
It is not coercive or smug or threatening.
It’s like . . . it’s like the way Frank Sinatra sings.
I once saw a television special with Frank and his buddy Sammy Davis, Jr.
After listening to Sammy belt out a song in the way only Sammy can at the top of his lungs,
Frankturns to him and says when the song comes to an end, “You don’t need to yell.”
And you don’t. An invitation to come and see and follow is not yelling.
It is gracious and compelling and open.
And it is an invitation you too receive again on this day.
To come to the table. To receive the grace love forgiveness and healing and life and inclusion
contained in a little bread and a little wine freely and graciously shared.
And it’s an invitation to take the cart load of grace you receive in that bit of bread and wine,
and take it on out with you, so you too can follow Jesus – and give it away.
Simply because the world needs more grace.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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