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John 1.43-51
In the mid-eighties I spent several summers on the staff of a month long summer program for children in low-income neighborhoods in Florida. The heart of the program was spending our days with children, playing with them, teaching them in Vacation Bible School, offering swimming lessons and tutoring and field trips to zoos and parks.
However, this program was also urban immersion course for a cohort of young adults, ages 16-21, urban and suburban, black and white, well off and not so well off, local and from far away places like the Dominican Republic and Ohio. Our evenings were spent bonding over cooking dinners together, and group meetings on the topics of poverty, white privilege, racism, biblical studies, all of which required intense self reflection. This experience was exhausting and life changing for many.
My favorite part of the day was when each morning we would go out in dilapidated vans and cars to collect children from different neighborhoods (“dilapidated” meaning one day, the door of one of the vans flew off, and we had to tie it to the van with twine for the rest of the summer. Did I mention this was a bare-bones operation?)
We would then cram into a church basement, any where from 80 to 100 of us, to sing and have devotions before the days activities. Everyday, there were children and volunteers and staff, sitting on the floor, sitting in laps, older, cooler kids, leaning against the walls pretending to not care, but when we sang this song, everyone exuberantly joined in:
I am Somebody, Yes I am Yes I am…I am Somebody, yes I am Yes I am…
You, are Somebody, Yes You are, Yes you are….
This was the mission of the program:
We just wanted children, from forgotten neighborhoods with very few resources, with higher incidents of crime and illegal activities, to be affirmed that they were Somebody, and that who they were mattered…to others, to this world, and even to the Mystery of God. We wanted our leadership to know they were Somebody, even while they were dealing with their own prejudices and misconceptions, they were offering their very selves to something that mattered, a program that needed their “somebody-ness.” The song we sang so many times was not to affirm rampant individualism, without care for community. Rather, we wanted them to understand that each of them were sacred and unique, with something important to share with others, should they choose to accept the invitation to help change the corners of the world in which they lived. That invitation was simple.
Know. You. Are. Somebody.
In those summers,
Because children and youth knew they were somebody,
I knew, even more profoundly, that I was somebody.
I am not so sure Nathaniel, comfortable under his fig tree, knew he was somebody. I think he was used to being not noticed, or maybe choosing to not be involved in life around him. Mature fig trees can be quite massive, and depending on the type, have these incredibly thick trunks with undulating wrinkles that would be easy to nestle in, hidden in the shade of voluptuous branches and leaves. The gospel writer is trying to tell us, Nathaniel was removed from it all as we imagine him sitting under the shelter of this tree.
It is understandable that Nathaniel meets Philip’s testimony about finding the Messiah with cranky skepticism. And when accepting the invitation to “come and see” it is possible that Nathaniel is appeasing his friend, fully expecting to return to his content space under the fig tree.
But in his encounter with Jesus, he learns that not only he was noticed under the tree, but that he was Known to the core of his being. He was Somebody. Nathaniel’s meeting with the Divine changed the direction of his life. No longer content to sit under the comfort of a tree, Nathaniel chooses a path of discipleship that will challenge him, and change him and change others. He intentionally puts his “skin in the game” of the teachings of this Rabbi who believed in peace and justice, and radically loved this world, and all people. Nathaniel was being who he was supposed to be—a follower of God, not an under-the-tree-sitter. But Nathaniel was only to become who was supposed to be because Philip his friend, was able to be who he was supposed to be.
Dr. King, nailed it when he wrote:
We are tied together in THE a single garment of destiny.
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.
And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made.
We are all part of this great web of humanity that has the potential—the enormous power--to solve the great challenges of our time.Many of you gathered this morning have put a lot of skin in the game of radically loving this world, working for justice, marching for peace, fighting discrimination, especially during the civil rights movement of the sixties, believing in hope and change, for a better world for your children and grandchildren. And because of Martin Luther King, Jr., and you, and countless others, it is a better world. Because of whom you are, and were, we and many others can be more of who we are. It is true; we are tied together, inextricably. And this week, we will witness a historic moment in our time, when Barack Obama, son of an African father, raised by a single mother and grandmother, will be inaugurated as our President. He is able to be who he ought to be, because so many before him were who they ought to have been.
There is more. Probably no other new president has ever had to face such an impressive and chaotic world scene that Mr. Obama will face beginning Tuesday. From global warming to an alarmingly shrinking world economy to multiple wars and beyond, indeed, it is no wonder that our president will invite us to engage in change and keep hope alive. He knows that in order for his office to be all that it can be, we must be all of who we ought to be. Change won’t happen, hope will cave if we do not intentionally, each and every one of us, at least try to be who we ought to be. When change is invited, we must be courageous, even if skeptical, to accept that invitation. We must get our “skin in the game”.
Undoubtedly, this civic call to change is to everyone in our country, and even though I am adamant about the separation of church and state, I believe that as people whose beliefs are steeped in the teachings of a renegade rabbi of the first century, who showed us that God’s love is unfettered, the Church must be a transparent and obvious agent of change, and a beacon of Hope. Why? Because we believe that all are God’s children, we believe in peace and justice and a better life for all in this world. The Church cannot sit comfortably under fig trees—we are called, in the global challenges we face, to “put our skin in the game.”
We must a place of comfort for those who suffer,
We must be an advocate for peace.
We must be the voice for a silent and very sick mother earth in need of healing.
We must engage in the actions of divine and radical love.
The world needs the church to be who it ought to be,
So that the world can be all of what it ought to be--The realm of God, on earth.
Sisters and brothers, You are somebody. I am somebody.
And we are all tied together in the single garment of destiny.
Let us go forth, and put our skin in the game.
Amen.
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