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Sermon St. David's, Jan 15, 2006. John 1:43--51. W.P. Mahedy

The Reading John 1:43-51

43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me." 44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
46 "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked. "Come and see," said Philip. 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit. 48 "How do you know me?" Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you." 49 Then Nathanael declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel." 50 Jesus said, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that." 51 He then added, "I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

Reflection on the Reading

So Nathaniel is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit, no guile. The dictionary defines guile: insidious cunning; duplicity; artful deception. Deceit is: concealment or distortion of the truth for the purpose of misleading.

Why does Jesus refer to Nathaniel as an Israelite and why is it important that he is without guile? This is a profound issue and still relevant today. The word used in John's Gospel for deceit or guile is dolos It is the same word used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament in use at the time of Jesus in which Isaac describes the treachery of his son Jacob. Jacob disguised himself as his older twin, Esau, and fraudulently obtained both the birthright and the blessing promised by God. Isaac tells Esau: "Your brother came with guile, with deceit, with dolos, and took your blessing." God's blessing, obtained by fraud, was passed to the world through a deceiver. Jacob even received a new name: Israel. This became the name of the peopl. As the New Testament people of God, we are also descendants of this deceiver.

There is a huge theological problem here, one that greatly perplexed the early church. Since so much of the Old Testament is taken up with the prophets castigating Israel for their hypocrisy and self deception, the lies and deceit which always precede acts of injustice and wrongdoing, how is it that the people bear the name of the greatest deceiver in their history?

Jesus himself spent a good bit of time castigating religious leaders for their deceptions, lies and hypocrisy. In a faith which abhors lying, guile and deception, how explain the lie which underlies the very foundation of Israel? No less a mind than St. Augustine came to an impasse. He copped out by saying: "it's not a lie, but a mystery." Well, yes, it is a mystery, but it remains a lie, dolos, guile, deceit.

So when Jesus sees Nathaniel, he calls him by the name borne by their people: He calls him an Israelite, and then states that in this Israelite there is no guile. To this Israelite with no guile, the promise is given of what he and the entire new people of Israel will see. This time around there is to be no guile. The new people cannot be founded upon dolos, deceit, but upon the honesty and guilelessness personified by Jesus and exemplified by Nathaniel.

Real guile does not mean necessary "tactical statements," such as: "My mommy isn't in now," rather than "my mommy doesn't want to talk to you." Or how you respond when asked: "Dear, does my new outfit make me look fat?" Or, when the boss comes in and says: "Okay, here's the new plan of how we are going to do things around here. What do you think?" Not guile, tact.

Guile is distortion of the truth for the purpose of misleading. Some examples you may have heard: "We don't meet the specs on this product, but we tell our customers that we do." Or "It's very difficult for anyone to actually collect on this policy we're selling, but we tell the clients how easy it is." Or, "We do not tolerate torture." Or, "we do not conduct surveillance without a warrant." Or "I never take bribes, I have never even smoked marijuana." Or, "I never had sex with that woman." Or "We didn't manipulate the California energy markets." Or, "San Diego's city pension fund is sound. Or "We invaded because they were developing nuclear weapons."

Pervasive deceit renders civil society impossible. The Church should be in a very real sense the sacramental sign to the world of the transcendent honesty of the One who is Truth itself. The Church must be guileless. But how does it get there?

Following the lead of Augustine for whom this was a major problem, we begin first by looking within ourselves. His simple prayer "O God, let me know myself, let me know you." (Sol 2.1.1) If we go this way into the deepest part of our soul, we begin to discover who we really are. God's light shines within our cracks and crevices. We begin to see our flaws and sins as well as our bright spots. But as Augustine writes in his own autobiography, this should not be disheartening, but rather the occasion to discern the glimmering of God's grace. Within our own inner darkness, the brightness of divine light becomes clear. There is deceit within us, but we see it and allow it to be transformed in the light of grace. Here Augustine simply follows Paul, who was confronted with his own "sting of the flesh." When Paul asked God to remove it, the answer came: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor 12:9). Only then was Paul able to boast of his own weakness. Augustine is open about his own sinfulness and weakness in his most famous work The Confessions. For Augustine, as for Paul, the self is not the center. God is.

Deception and guile result from our desire to present ourselves to others in ways that are not true. We want others to think well of us, to do our bidding. We want to enhance ourselves at the expense of others. Sin begins with pride and immediately becomes deceit. Before we can deceive others, we must first deceive ourselves. Guile is first practiced on oneself. The paradox that troubled Augustine is resolved when we discover that God can allow the promise to be passed through a deceiver only if God redeems and transforms deceit into honesty. Like Nathaniel we are to be people in whom no guile is found. This is possible only through God's grace and our honest response. Here is the bedrock of Christian life. It begins within ourselves.

As we open ourselves to God's invitation in prayer and honesty, we discover the truth of Augustine's prayer where he says: "You were more inward to me than my inmost parts and higher than my highest reach." (Conf, 3, 6.11) Yes, God is both more intimate to us than we are to ourselves and at the same time further beyond us than even the cosmos itself. When we grasp this, we begin the outward movement towards others, arising now from the deepest wellsprings within us. We can see that God has formed a bond with each of us even in the depth of our dishonesty and sin. God now calls us out of ourselves into community--a common bond with others who are also mired in deceit and sinfulness. From this most profound moment of grace, we are called out into the world to form a common life with all we meet. As the guileless Nathaniel saw Jesus and recognized him as the Son of God, receiving the promise of what is to come, so we too are able to invite others, to come and see.

Augustine uncovered the root of his own sin when he pondered why it was, as a troublemaking adolescent, that he joined with a gang of other young thugs and stole some pears from a neighbor's orchard. They didn't want the pears; they didn't eat them--they actually threw them to some pigs. An adolescent prank, yes, but why? He pretended to want the pears when he really didn't. He realized in retrospect that he did it because he wanted companionship, the friendship of the other pear thieves.

He saw that the desire for companionship and friendship can lead us into sin as well as into grace. Genesis describes the man and the woman in the garden as companions in both in deceit and in sin. It never changes. Mutual deceit destroys the soul, ruins families, renders commerce impossible and collapses nations, i.e. USSR

So we are surrounded by deceit and mired in guile. This is not particularly new. Near the turn of the 20th Century, Congress was owned by and operated for the big three: the railroads, the steel industry and Standard Oil. Corruption was pervasive. The wars in Cuba and the Philippines at that time involved at least as much deceit as did Vietnam and Iraq.

What is new and troubling, however, is the communication transformation wrought by 24/7 television and the pervasiveness of the internet. Theater has always been influential. The ancient Greeks knew this. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet: "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." But as news and entertainment become indistinguishable from each other and are purveyed by mass media on a global scale, a new element has been added. The internet is great but it invites identity theft. Chat rooms allow for and sometimes necessitate disguise and the use of false personas. Predators lurk on the internet and some subterfuge is necessary. The media are now not just the message, but a large slice of life itself.

So the Church must become that place where guile is transformed, where deceit is redeemed. Our transparency must be that of Nathaniel as we recognize Jesus and then invite others to come and see. This parish is about to open a new mission center. We are planning a renewal weekend. We must realize there are no shortcuts to the inner search I have described. No programs, no models will do this for us. There must be a full commitment to a personal and corporate search for God that is without guile. This takes place both in the depths of our own hearts and in our life together.

As Augustine tells us, there is not only a community of sin, but also one of grace. Christian spiritual life consists essentially of our common life together. We cannot discover God at a profound personal level and remain mired within ourselves--we are impelled outwards. As a parish we cannot be a "mission center" if we are not first a community transparent in grace. If we are so transformed others will come to us to discover what about us makes us different.

Scripture tells us that we are "partakers of the divine nature." (2 Peter 1:4). We are called as "adopted children" to enter with Christ in some way into the totally transparent common life within the Trinity, to share in some way within the mutual love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then at last "we shall know even as we are known." Augustine goes so far as to say that within our inmost parts there is a glimpse and faint awareness that our inner selves are configured to the Trinity. (On the Trinity,7.6.12)

So let our lives be this prayer: "O God, Let me know myself, let me know you--for you are more inward to me than my inmost parts and higher than my highest reach--and so to you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be all honor and glory now and forever. Amen."