The call of God to Samuel to be a prophet and a charismatic leader of the tribes of Israel is an important event in the history of the Jewish people.  As Holy Scripture suggests, the many years before that call was a time of confusion, uncertainty, and error -- the Word of the Lord was seldom heard, we are told, . . . and no vision was granted to the people.  By which, Holy Scripture means that the people of Israel could not see God in their lives; . . . they had no vision of their place in the economy of God’s Providence.  Worse yet, they had no vision of God’s place in their lives; . . . all their plans and all their day to day activities had no place for God in them.  . . . The people of Israel had no sacred vision; . . . much like the Republican Party of our own day, they simply bickered among themselves.  . . . But then; . . . then God spoke to Samuel.  When Samuel was but an Acolyte in the service of Eli the priest, . . . God spoke to him, . . . and by that young Acolyte’s simple and enthusiastic response to God’s Word, . . . the Lord God Almighty began a great and profoundly significant epoch in the history of His chosen people.  For, by God’s Word to Samuel, a king -- first Saul and then David; . . . by God’s Word to Samuel, a king was given to the children of Israel, . . . and a loose confederation of twelve tribes hiding out in the hills of Canaan . . . became a Nation -- a holy Nation dedicated to the principle that they would be ruled by God.

    And some one thousand years later . . . our gracious God takes things a step further.  And you have heard an account of it from the Gospel according to Saint John:  the Incarnate Word of God -- Jesus (Whose incarnation we just celebrated on Christmas . . . and again on January 6th); . . . the Incarnate Word of God becomes a mature, learned rabbi . . . and calls to Himself disciples; . . . Jesus calls to Himself disciples, who, following Him, the Incarnate Word, will behold and proclaim this Son of David to be the Christ, the King of kings, . . . and a loose confederation of sinful humanity will become a Holy Nation -- an Ecclesia; a Church . . . dedicated to the eternal rule of God.  Those first disciples, by their faith in and faithful obedience to Christ, have passed on to us the blessedness to be found in our own discipleship.

    Last Sunday . . . I told you that your lay ministry (your discipleship); . . . last Sunday I told you that your lay ministry is a vocation; . . . it is a call by God for you to do the work of making the goodness and grace of Jesus plainly visible in the things you do to make a living; . . . to do the work of being the agent of Christ’s power to change lives and effect good; . . . or, as Isaiah puts it, . . . your lay ministry is a call by God . . . a vocation . . . to do the thing you are good at and take enjoyment from . . . so as to be a light to the nations (or at least your neighbors) in such a way that they may see Christ Who overcomes their sin.  . . . But just as Samuel’s call was a subtle thing, fraught with false starts, and was something in which the young Samuel required guidance, so it is for your own discipleship.  . . . And Nathanael exemplifies this perfectly.  For, you see, the Lord God Almighty, by the agency of Philip, beckons Nathanael to enter the ministry which Christ is preparing for him, . . . but Nathanael is blocked by two obstacles which threaten to prevent Nathanael from allowing God to make the work of Nathanael’s life sacred.

    The first obstacle which Nathanael must overcome is one which hampers us all from time to time.  It is a mistrust in the Church’s sacred vision.  When Philip tells Nathanael that the very Breath and Presence of God has come down from the hills of Nazareth, . . . and that He is Jesus, son of Joseph, . . . Nathanael is immediately put off.  He is skeptical, and even amused that anyone would think, that anything so good and tremendous as the Messiah -- the Christ -- could come from so ordinary and profane a place as Nazareth.

    And so it is for us.  When I tell you that the sanctification of the world is to be accomplished by God having beckoned you to be an auto mechanic . . . or nurseryman . . . or insurance underwriter . . . or teacher . . . or student, . . . there is a tendency to look at yourself . . . and to look sidelong at your neighbor . . . and, beholding all the foibles and shortcomings and fears and divided loyalties which beset you and the person beside you, . . . there is a tendency to respond just as Nathanael did to Philip . . . and ask, “Can anything good come out of Morris . . . or Edmeston . . . or the town of Butternuts?”  . . . And that is a failure of vision.  Not one in which we see that we are too good for God, . . . but one in which we see that we are too ordinary for Him (!); that our ordinariness somehow prevents God from being present among us and in us in all of His great power and glory; . . . that our ordinariness somehow prevents God’s grace from assisting us to accomplish the good that He desires.

    This can be a very real and disheartening obstacle to you and to your growth and to the growth of this Parish into a more profound and joyful knowledge of God.  The guidance Philip gives to Nathanael is, “Come and see.”  And it is sound advice to all of us.  Come and look for Christ at the center of your life and at the center of our life together.  Because, you see, there is more to each of you than mere personal choices or mere personal circumstances.  There is more to each of you than the world can see or name.  By your Baptism each one of you has been made holy.  By your Baptism there resides in each one of you a magnificent good which must be searched out and comprehended . . . and to be responded to as Eli counseled Samuel to respond:  “Speak, Lord, for your servant listens”, . . . because the truth about each one of us is just as Saint Paul has said it:  “you do not belong to yourselves; . . . you were bought with a price.”  So, glorify God in and with your life.

    The second obstacle which Nathanael must overcome in order to be a disciple of faith and an agent of grace . . . is at the moment Jesus describes Nathanael’s character even though they had never met.  . . . Ah, supernatural prescience!  Nathanael is impressed.  This must truly be the Son of God Who is going to fix everything to our liking.  But Jesus asks him, “Is this the ground of your faith?”  And it is an important question.  What is the ground of your faith?  Is your expectation of the Son of God that He be some supernatural Santa Claus Who exists to bestow good upon those who earn His love and favor and blessings?  . . . From time to time people come into this Church for a few Sundays . . . and then wander off not to be heard from again.  They come with the baseless belief that God will fix to their liking the things they can’t control; . . . that their worship of God will repair the cause of their cares or their doubts or their uncertainties and make them confident and happy, . . . and they are disappointed when it doesn’t happen.  They come looking for a miracle . . . and never understand that we and they and all of us together are the miracle.  For, it is exactly as Jesus has said to Nathanael:

In truth, in very truth, I say to you all, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

In other words, Jesus is telling Nathanael (and us) that in Him -- in the very ordinariness of Christ’s humanity and the manner of His life; in His patient suffering and death; in His forgiveness bestowed from the Cross; in His glorious Resurrection, . . . in these things the temporal and the eternal meet; the corporeal and the spiritual . . . the earthly and the heavenly . . . are joined and made one:  the sinful children of Adam are redeemed and are now the adopted sons and daughters of God, if they will but open their hands to receive all that the Father desires to give them.  And tragedy and death becomes meaningless . . . and all the ordinary things of our lives become expressions of God’s eternal and abiding love for us . . . and are cause for our eternal hope in God.

    The Lessons appointed for today exhort you to the good work of being faithful lay ministers, and, like Nathanael, to persevere in removing the two obstacles to good discipleship.  Set aside your mistrust in the Church’s sacred vision and fervently search out the Presence of Christ in your life and in our life together.  . . . And be suspicious of founding your faith upon the supernatural; rather, make the teachings which Jesus has given us and the example of His most holy life the basis for your faith.  Because, you see, in Jesus heaven and earth are gathered into one, and no good thing will be withheld from those who surrender themselves as an offering and sacrifice to God.