Short Reads

The Episcopal Church is doing just fine (sort-of)

Short Reads

Despite what the title of this post may imply, I am not a fact-denier and I do not have my head buried in the sand. I know all of the talk and blogs and tweets that are circulating about the decline of the Episcopal Church and the decline of the “mainline” denominations across the board. I do not deny that the numbers show a steady decline. I do not deny that the numbers are alarming for people who judge the church by attendance numbers. I do not deny any of this.

Did you catch what I did there?

The decline in attendance numbers are alarming for people who judge the church by attendance numbers. That’s it.

When did church become about how many people show up?

My reading of the New Testament tells me that church is much more about a group of people (two-two billion, the numbers are not whats important) that come together to share a meal, praise God, and then go out into the world, take care of the folks that can’t take care of themselves, and spread the Good News that death and the slavery of sin have been defeated.

Instead, for some reason, we only understand church as a building in which, for a healthy church, 100-500 people gather on Sunday mornings to do “the service”. If this truly is the meaning of the church then the Chicken Little’s throughout the church are right: the sky if falling!

But what if we let that image of the church die?

What if we let go of our need to be “successful” in the eyes of church growth experts and ecclesiological  abacus movers?

What if we found our success in the strength of the relationships formed within our church communities? What if the sign of a healthy church was the service that happened apart from Sunday mornings?

My last post was on the “Doomsday Preppers” of the church. With this new post it seems that I am holding the bludger and preparing to beat the poor, deceased horse.

I’m sorry if you are tired of hearing about church decline.

I am going to keep writing on it until we finally stop looking at the declining numbers and then immediately to our navels for the solution. There is no secret fix or ten step blog post that is going to “save” the church. (*Full disclosure: my last post contained a list. So did the one before that. I am not averse to blog lists in general, only when the list proposes a solution to an imaginary or misconstrued problem.)

The church has never been about success or numbers or strategic growth.

Unless I have greatly misunderstood my professors in my time so far in seminary it would appear that the church is all about failures, small numbers, and inefficient growth. If we really want the church to stop shrinking and to grow we should start living like the church. We should join people who are radically different from ourselves to worship, share, and serve. We should get out of our cells of individual convenience and into the untidy, complicated mess of community.

For all of the talk of decline, there are so many wonderful Episcopal churches that are doing amazing things. Big churches, small churches, urban, rural, “missional” (whatever that word means) ministries of all shapes and sizes.

The Episcopal Church has got it all. If we showed off what we have and refused to add another voice to the never ending waterfall of pessimism and cynicism about church numbers, maybe we would see our churches grow.

The Episcopal Church is doing just fine, as long as you judge the success of a church based on lives changed and good work done in the name of Christ.

For those still hung up on attendance numbers, I pray that God would so enlarge your heart that you would see the people in front of you. If there is no one in your church on a Sunday I have good news for you – there are a ton of folks out in the world who could use your help (yes you), so lets get to work.

Doomsday Preppers (Church Edition).

Short Reads

People love to talk about why the church is dying. They have graphs, numbers, and possible causes.

What people don’t have is a solution. Some suggest that churches need to be more open and accepting; others say the church needs to be more tech savvy; while others say that denominations, themselves, are the problem. There are endless posts bemoaning the slowly dying church. But much like the character in Monty Python’s Holy Grail who is trying desperately to put his father on the cart of dead bodies before he is actually dead, I see this conversation about the dying church as a little misguided.

In fact, I say its all rubbish.

In keeping with the increasingly popular blog format of list-making, I propose a few reasons why the seemingly endless talk about the “end of the church” is not helpful or needed.

1. “The Body of Christ has died once, it cannot die again.” I wish that I could claim this wonderful insight, but it comes from Bishop Susan Goff of the Diocese of Virginia, where I am a Postulant. It came in the context of a talk she gave to my seminary class during our retreat last year. She said that the church can never die because its mission is too serious, its existence is too needed, and, most importantly, it is called for by God. This does not mean that the church will always look like it does right now (but more on that below). The Early Church would be shocked if they saw the church today – not because of any failing morals, but because there is no way they could have imagined what the church/world would look like two-thousand years in the future. In the same way that Martin Luther (whose actions were seen, by some, to be killing the church) could never have imagined a church that would produce Martin Luther King, we have no frame of reference for what the church will look like hundreds of years from now – let alone twenty-five years from now. They kept fighting the good fight because they believed that the Body of Christ would live on and that it would continue to be guided by the Holy Spirit.

2. Judge a tree by its fruit. Jesus was big on tree talk. He talked a lot about how some trees produce good fruit while other trees produce bad fruit. The good fruit producers go on producing good fruit, while the trees that produce bad fruit or don’t produce fruit at all are cut down or left to wither. It is a simple concept that applies to churches. If a church is producing good fruit (committed disciples of Christ, just and fair communities, healthy programs for kids and young adults, etc.) the church tends to grow or at least remains a stable part of its community. If a church begins producing bad fruit (increased in-fighting, cult of personality around a pastor or leader, little or no outreach, scandals, etc.) or no fruit at all, it tends to wither – sometimes slowly over years, other times quickly in a matter of months. Churches closing is not the worst case scenario if the church is not producing good fruit. Of course, the rub is that some of the churches that appear to be producing “bad” fruit (from the correct position of educated, liberal, “mainstream” Protestant denominations [please read sarcasm into this aside]) are growing at an incredible rate. I have no answer to this phenomenon except to say that the anecdotal evidence I have heard about mega-churches and their (often) “prosperity Gospel” message is that they are great places to worship… until something goes terribly wrong in your life. When life takes a turn towards tragedy and pain, being a face in the crowd at church is no longer a good thing. When it seems like your life is going to hell in a hand basket, it is refreshing to walk into a service where people know your name and can recognize the pain in your eyes. I want it to be clear that I am not bashing all mega-churches and I am not saying that every mega-church preaches the “prosperity Gospel”. Even the biggest and best-run mega-church has small groups, because they recognize that Christian community needs to be intimate enough for personal building-up and relationships.

3. Change is not bad. Repeat this phrase as many times as it takes for you un-clinch your fists and see straight again. The church will never again be like it was when you were growing up. Ever. There is no returning to mythological “good ole days” of the church. I say mythological because I am not convinced that the “good ole days” were all that good, but we humans have this nasty habit of making every memory a little better than it actually was. The church of the 1950s is gone. So is the church of the 1960s-1980s. In fact, the church of 2012 no longer exists. The church of December 17, 2013 is about to disappear. In the Gospels, Christ was always moving forward, always pressing on to his goal: Jerusalem. In the same way, the Body of Christ (the church) is always moving forward towards the goal of the New Jerusalem . Rob Bell’s new book, “What We Talk About When We Talk About God” has some great insights into this matter. We so often think that anything that is good has to stay the same or it will stop being good. Think about this: is the person (or pet or family member or performing artist) you are in love with the exact same that they were the moment you fell in love with them? I sure hope not. Both you have grown and matured and learned and changed. And yet, you are still in love. Without opening a huge can of worms, it is also worth noting that the “good ole days” of the church were only “good” for a select group of people. Minorities of all types did not share in the same “good ole days” of the church. Some of these minority groups are living in what could be considered their “good ole days” as we speak. We need to check our own perspectives before we start speaking for anything as big, diverse, and mysterious as the church.

4. Young adults are not actually leaving the church. The “breaking news” in church life for the past fifty years has been how the new generation (pick one: Generation X, Y, Z, Millenials, etc.) is lazy, disrespectful towards tradition and is leaving the church in record numbers. Someone will no doubt point out the surveys and polls that show that a growing number of young adults self-identify as “Nones” and that every year the number of non-church goers rises. Here is another figure: the median age of my class at seminary is 27. You read that right. Half of the Class of 2015 at the largest Episcopal seminary in the United States is under the age of 27. Young adults like my classmates and myself are so drawn to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to the Episcopal Church that we would go to seminary, in the face of this false narrative of decline (check out this lecture by the Dean of VTS on this myth), and give our lives to the service of Christ and the church. Many parishes and Dioceses across the Episcopal Church have thriving youth and young adult programs that are attracting tons of people. Folks like Jason Evans in the Diocese of Washington are doing great work to bring young adults into the church because they recognize this fact: the Episcopal Church is in a wonderful position when it comes to young adults. Survey after survey shows that young adults want authenticity, tradition, and reverence in their worship (for more on the research see Dr. David Gortner’s book). Right off the bat you should have noticed that these are three descriptions of the Episcopal Church: authentic in our worship, supported by the Anglican tradition, and with a healthy dose of reverence that is missing from most other places in society.

This list is not exhaustive or authoritative. It is not my thesis and has not been researched as such. This post is simply to observation of a young adult who is tired of being told that people my age don’t go to church and that the church is quickly dying. I reject this narrative and propose instead that we keep our eyes on Christ and keep being the church (to each other and to the world).

As Christians, we claim that there is a King and a Kingdom coming that will make everything right and new, therefore we have no time for the cynicism that pervades much of American culture. As this wave of negativity and ‘what-if’ seeps into the life of the church, we must stand against it and with the cloud of witnesses proclaim, “Alleluia!” To paraphrase the book of Esther,  we were made for such a time as this. We do not know what the church will look like in the future, but we can be sure it won’t look like it did in the past. There are already many groups that have stepped up to the task of working towards the changes that need to happen in the church. The Task Force for Reimagining the Episcopal Church  is hard at work on the national level and individual Dioceses have started groups to come together, pray, and imagine what the church can be. Honoring those who have come before, helping those in the church today, and laying the foundation for a church that will serve the people of God well into the future.

We are not called to put on sackcloth and beat our chest at the end of the church. We are called to proclaim that that God we serve is not a God of the dead but of the living. Doomsday is coming, sure. Until that time, let us be the Body of Christ to a world in desperate need.

Stories.

Short Reads

My dad loves to tell stories. Growing up I remember hearing him tell stories in the car, around the dinner table, sitting in his big arm chair, and anywhere else that a story from his life seemed appropriate. As a man with a finite number of years on this Earth he only has so many stories to tell, so after a short while I heard most of his stories.

Did this keep him from telling his stories?

Absolutely not.

I remember being frustrated by the repetition and annoyed with the same stories: the same beginning, climax, and end.

In spite of my occasional frustration I must admit that there is a great comfort in hearing the same story repeated again and again. I was comforted because I knew how the story would end. No matter how many things changed around me, I knew that my dad would always tell the story about the old farmer building miles of wooden fence along a back road or about going to New York City with his dad (my grandfather) or being on the original survey crew for Highway 98.

I can repeat his stories because I found peace and comfort in them growing up.

John Berger said, “When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story’s voice makes everything its own.”

A few Saturdays ago I participated in the funeral of a teenage girl at my Field Education parish. The young girl died tragically in a car accident, which made the funeral a time of deep grieving and sharp pain. As I stood at the graveside, holding the processional cross, I watched the girl’s mother and extended family use a shovel to cover her ashes with dirt. Her boyfriend walked forward slowly, reached down, and clutched a handful of dirt. I tried (and failed) to hold back tears as he sprinkled the dirt over her ashes with his bare hands.

The next morning I attended the Sunday services of the parish. At the main service for the day the church baptized two little baby girls. I tried (and failed again) to hold back tears as I watched the Rector carry the two girls around the church, introducing them to their new family.

In two days, in two very different settings, I saw the end and the beginning of a story.

I saw the joy that comes at the beginning of the story. Joy for the possibilities, the hopes, the dreams for what lies ahead.

I saw the sorrow that comes at the end of the story. Sorrow for the things undone, the words unsaid, the possibilities that will never be.

We gather together as Christians every week to remind ourselves of a simple fact: we know how the story ends. We have peace and comfort because we know, deep down, that this story has a happy ending.

I don’t mean to say that everything is sunshine and roses. There is a dark night for every new morning, and you can be sure that if you are not in a crisis at the present moment, one is just around the bend.

But that is what is so compelling about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. By overcoming death and the grave, Jesus has rewritten the story. The Apostle Paul talks about death entering the world with Adam and everlasting life entering the world through Jesus of Nazareth. Death no longer has the last word, for Love has trampled over death by death.

This doesn’t answer the question of theodicy and I can’t give you a quaint theological blurb for why that young girl died in a car crash or why wars happen or why evil exists.

The question of “why” becomes less important when we see that the end has already been written. The story provides a roof and four walls and what happens next exists within the established boundaries. We know the beginning and we know the end, so everything that takes place happens within the boundaries of the story written by God.

This is not to say that our actions are not important. Knowing the ending does not give us freedom to coast through life. Our actions are of the utmost importance because God has included us, all of humanity, in the plot. It is our job to work towards the Kingdom of God. To be loving when met with hate, generous when met with greed, peaceful when met with violence. We can do all of this because of the confidence we have from knowing how the story ends.

My dad loves to tell stories and I love to listen, even when I know the end, because when I am wearied by the “changes and chances” of this world, it is a great comfort to have something that remains changeless.

Like my dad sitting in his big arm chair, Jesus gathers us around his feet and tells us our story. We come together as a Christian community to hear the story, even though we know the ending, because there is great comfort in being reminded that, in the end, Love wins.

David Wilcox says it best in his song, “Show the Way”, “It is Love who makes the mortar/ And it’s love who stacked these stones/ And it’s love who made the stage here/ Although it looks like we’re alone./ In this scene set in shadows/ Like the night is here to stay/ There is evil cast around us/ But it’s love that wrote the play./ For in this darkness love can show the way.”

Believing in Grace.

Short Reads

“For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…” -Romans 3:22-24

 
I grew up going to church. I was baptized as an infant, receiving my “membership” before I could walk into a church by my own free will. I have heard the lectionary read through several times and sat through my fair share of sermons.
 
I say all of this to say that I know all about grace. I know that grace is the gift of God’s unmerited favor. I know that I have done nothing to deserve it. I know that it is freely given.
 
I know all of these things because I have heard them said over and over by the church and because I have said them myself. I have preached sermons and talked to youth and prayed with sick people about the overwhelming grace of God.
 
Here’s the thing: I never found it that overwhelming.
I never really believed it.
Let me tell you what it is like to be a “Christian” who doesn’t truly believe in grace: it is painful, dark, and lonely. It is all of these things because you can see the grace of God in the lives of all of those around you but at the end of the day you still go to sleep with the lingering doubt that you qualify.
I would venture a guess that I am not the only person in the Church who has felt this way; who has heard the Good News and yet not believed it in the depths of their soul. Of course I could be way off base and completely on my own on this topic. If this is the case, bear with me for the rest of this post. However, if my assumption is correct – if you have ever known the deep pain of unbelief, unworthiness, unlovablity walk with me for the rest of the page.
There are two (main) reasons that I did not – could not – believe in grace.
The first is that my experience of love in the world has always been conditional. The zeitgeist in America at the present moment carries a lot of the blame too. In our society you are only worth what you can do.
We are bombarded with messages from the media and advertisers telling us that we need to do more, earn more, be more than we currently are. There is some goal (perfection?) that is completely unattainable and yet, still the focus of much of our attention. That last ten pounds. That next degree. That higher salaried job. There is always something more that you can do to be better.
The flip side of this sort of thinking is that if you can’t do enough of something or get something right or be the person you are supposed to be, you are nothing.
The only thing that is freely given is failure, rejection, and pain.
So when I heard that the grace of God is freely given, my completely American reply was, “What do I look like? A sucker.” There had to be a catch. I had to do something to earn it. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
This is where the counter-cultural God of Jesus Christ comes roaring in. As far back as the Israelites people have been trapped by the notion that they are human doings and not human beings. When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt they were defined by what they produced. Brick after brick, they toiled in the hot desert sun for their masters. When they were led to freedom by Moses, God sought to guarantee that they never forget their true identity as human beings beloved by God.
One day a week – do nothing. That was the simple command. One day out of the week be good for nothing except praising God for your freedom. Remind yourself that you are not what you make or do or know. Your identity hinges on one fact – you are loved by God just as you are; no upgrade required.
The second reason that I did not believe in grace is that I was trapped in an academic understanding of the work of Jesus Christ. After a B.A. in Philosophy & Religion and a year of Seminary I sometimes thought the work of Jesus Christ to be an elaborate equation worked out by God and Karl Barth at some point that provided the solution to sin. I thought it was an abstract event that fixed a technical problem in the afterlife and led to arguments between seminarians and Twitter theologians.
Then it clicked.
It is not some abstract theological doctrine, but a world-changing, life-altering, Truth-exposing moment in the history of the world.
When the Word of God died and was buried, only to rise again, the whole tide of existence shifted. No longer did death have the last word. No longer could darkness overcome the Light.
We have been given power over the darkness: of our own lives and of the world.
Our past, present, and future cannot speak louder than the still small voice of God saying, “You are my beloved. In you I am well pleased.”
All of this came to a head a few Sundays ago as I sat in the pew at St. Anne’s, Episcopal Church in Reston, VA (my Field Education parish for the next two years).
As the congregation began to pray the Confession of Sin, I found myself really praying the words. And not just praying the words, but trusting that God had the power to forgive me of my sins through the grace of Jesus Christ.
When the priest stood in front of the altar and pronounced the absolution I found myself in an odd place:
I believed her.
I believed that God had forgiven me of all of my sins.
I believed that I was worthy to receive this pardon, even though I had done nothing to deserve it.
After over twenty years in the Church, I believed in grace.
My prayer for you is that you would believe in the grace of God for you. No matter what you have done, no matter where you’ve been: you are worthy of the pardon and love of God.
You deserve it simply because God delights in giving it to you.
You don’t need a degree or a new workout routine or a good resume or even a lick of sense.
You don’t need anything because you already have it.

Negativity.

Short Reads

At this moment in my life I have no time for negativity. I have found that my witness does not work if I am constantly negative or snarky. This does not keep negativity from creeping in from time to time, but like fleeting thoughts during meditation, I try to acknowledge it and let it pass.

It seems that negativity has overtaken our culture. There seems to be nothing but bad news. Brokenness. Pain. Suffering.

Terrorist attacks, war, natural disasters, murders.

One glance at any news source paints a picture of a world that is in desperate need of some cheering up.

So we have things like this and this and even this.

We look for anything to cheer us up for a few minutes. And then it’s over. And then we ridicule it and bury it in negativity.

There are entire television programs that revolve around making fun of popular videos and quasi-popular people. Tune in to one of these shows and you can laugh away your own pain and sadness at the expense of someone else.

This brings me to something I heard in the last few weeks that changes everything:

When interacting with another person just assume that they are doing the best they can.

If you meet someone who is different or other or “less than”, try to remind yourself that they are (most-likely) doing the best they can in their specific situation.

There have been times in my life that I look back on and wonder, “What in the world was I thinking?” I can’t know for sure what I was thinking, but I would venture a guess that I was doing the best that I could at that moment.

I just finished a great book by Jonathan Martin called Prototype. The premise of the book is that Jesus is the prototype for the perfect human, in part because he is the Son of God, but also because he never lost sight of his “belovedness”. When Jesus comes up out of the waters of baptism, God says, “This is my beloved.”

The thing is, God calls us all beloved. We just have a tendency to forget our own name.

The world is so negative and the focus, more and more, seems to be on “spinning” the truth.

We create new avatars for ourselves online. We make ourselves into someone that we are not, mostly because we have completely forgotten who we are, but here is the Truth that doesn’t need to be “spun”:

You are God’s beloved.

When you operate out of the knowledge that you are beloved by the Creator of the universe, in spite of your failings and missteps, there is nothing that the negativity of the culture can do to you. You have conquered the death that this world is trying to sell you.

This is the Good News:

You are loved. You are good. You are wanted.

When everything in the world pulls you toward negativity and shame, you can rest in the knowledge that you are beloved of God and there is nothing that anyone can do to change it.

If that doesn’t cheer you up, maybe this will help.

Reconciliation.

Short Reads

God is merciful .

This seems so obvious that it is almost pointless to write.

Here’s a question:

Is it really that obvious that God is merciful? To the average person on the street, is it clear that God has mercy ready to go for them?

In my life I have done things that I regret. Many things. I have hurt people and acted foolishly. Over and over.

In my life I have also gone to many Episcopal worship services. At most of these services there is a moment for the Confession of Sin, where the congregation collectively confesses their sins (or corporately, if you want the seminary language). At the end of this confession “the Priest alone stands” and pronounces the Absolution (or forgiveness) of God.

So let’s recap: I have done many things that I regret and committed many sins. I have also confessed my sins and have been absolved (forgiven) many times. That’s simple enough. It’s cut and dry.

It’s not really that simple, is it? I would like to think that when you read that last section, your mind went to the unresolved mess of regrets (big and small) that you hold onto. If not, I congratulate you, good and faithful servant. If so, its good to see that we are in the same boat.

I would be remiss if I did not bring some scripture into this post, so I will start with the lectionary text from several Sunday’s ago. The story of the two sons (or the Prodigal Son) is the classic reconciliation text. A son, who has committed a laundry list of sins, comes back to his father, repents, and is forgiven (in a very fantastic way).

Hold on to this story, I’ll come back to it.

My biggest issue with confessing and being forgiven of sins is that I don’t know where to begin. On top of that, confessing means bringing someone (or Someone) into the mess that I have created for myself. That last point has less do with my concern for others and more to do with my pride, but that’s for another post.

The issue of not knowing where to begin when confessing is where we come back to the story of the two sons.

Something interesting happens when the father sees the son walking towards the house. Fr. Jim Papile says that the father most likely recognized the gait of the son and remembered him sulking as a child, causing him to immediately realize who it was sulking toward him. Before the son can even get close to the house, before he can begin the long speech he’s devised to confess his sins, the father is running out the front door towards his son.

The son doesn’t even get around to apologizing before the father forgives him. The mere act of returning home, of turning from the sin and walking back into righteousness is enough for the father.

It is the same way with God.

God is ready to forgive before we are ready to confess. When we ready our hearts but have no words, God is ready to forgive. As we sulk our way back home, ashamed of ourselves and unable to imagine forgiveness, God is running towards us – furiously trying to communicate the Love that God feels for us.

If I look up from my shame I can see that God is in front of me, waiting to embrace me and welcome me home.

God is ready to forgive, in fact it has already been taken care of.

The question is: am I ready to be reconciled?

Look up. God is running towards you. Open your arms and embrace the Love that has been there all along.

God’s Peace.
CBG

Remain.

Short Reads

Reading: John 2-12

In this reading we find the famous and first miracle, or sign, of Jesus – turning water into wine.

The story is rich with double meaning and imagery, as most of the stories in John’s Gospel are. What stands out to me is the very last line in this story:

“After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there for a few days.”
“They remained there for a few days…” That line is so full of possibilities. Jesus just performed an act that is inhuman, an act that points solely to the supernatural – to the Divine. He performed this miracle and then skipped town, as He liked to do. The next story in John’s Gospel occurs in Jersusalem, so it can be assumed that this time in Capernaum was spent alone with his disciples. Praying, eating, discussing, laughing – Jesus spent these days with his disciples, showing them the Love of God and being in community with them. It is from these experiences that the first disciples built the Christian Church. Something happened in the time they spent with Jesus Christ that changed them and made them able to start a movement of love and connection with the Living God (something we now call the Church). They remained in that place with the Lord. They weren’t worried about this or that, running from meeting to meeting. They remained in the presence of the Lord.
The same thing that happened in their conversations and dinners with Jesus happens to us in the Breaking of the Bread on Sunday mornings (and whenever we gather in God’s name)…at least in theory. Eucharist is so much more than a religious ceremony or rite. It is real chance for us to gather around the Table of the Lord and to experience the same presence and fellowship felt by the women and men who remained with Jesus.
The ball is our court now. God is here. Jesus is here. The Holy Spirit is here. The Triune God is present in the Breaking of the Bread. Are we present to receive that presence? Do we remain with God? Are we ready to accept the duty and responsibility that comes with taking the Body and Blood of Jesus, in being present in the Eucharist?
The responsibility to “seek and serve Christ in all persons” and to “strive for justice and peace among all people” is real and is placed upon us when we claim to know and to love Jesus. When we share in the Feast that the Lord has provided, when we remain in the presence of the Risen and Living God we are bound to operate by God’s rule – “To love God with all your heart, soul and mind; and to love your neighbor as yourself”.

Reflection on Nathaniel’s Call

Short Reads

Reading: John 1:43-51

When Nathaniel is told of the Teacher from Nazareth his first reaction is disbelief. It isn’t disbelief in the simple, pleasant, “I don’t understand” sort-of way…it is snarky, almost cocky disbelief. “Nothing good comes from Nazareth.” Nathaniel knew the badlands of Nazareth and he knew the sort of people who came from Nazareth. How could the Great Shepherd come from a place like Nazareth? It’s a country village. It’s backwoods. It’s not as progressive. It’s too simple.

Then, in a way that only Jesus could, the whole conversation is flipped on its head. Nathaniel comes to the conversation full of doubt, but he leaves full of hope in the One, True Christ. His faith is in it’s infancy, but Jesus tells him to look ahead – ahead to when he will see “angles ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”.

We all come to Jesus with doubts. Our preconceived notions cloud our vision of the Divine. “The Christ can’t be from Nazareth.” “God can’t forgive me of all I’ve done.” “I am not worthy to be used by God.”

When the smoke clears and the Divine comes into focus we can taste and see that Jesus is calling out to us, saying, “I saw you when you were sitting under the fig tree…but you will see greater things than these.”

Jesus says, “I saw you” and because of that, we will see greater things than we could ever imagine.