In our readings this morning we encountered the presence of God in three very different contexts. The child Samuel meets God in the silence of the darkened temple, lit only by the flickering light of the lamp which burned until dawn before the ark of the covenant. By contrast, in our gospel reading, we join a cheerful throng of pilgrims and holiday-makers, attracted by the growing reputation of John the Baptist, as they enjoy a day out, laughing and joking with one another on the sun-lit banks of the sparkling river Jordan. Leaving the crowd behind, we step aside with Philip and Nathanael, and suddenly we become aware that with Jesus we are in the presence of the Son of God. And finally, in the awesome, dazzling splendour of the throne room of Heaven itself, we see a vision of the Lamb of God, radiant with glory.
What binds these readings together is the sense that in all three contexts, the truth about God is waiting to be revealed. The child Samuel is being prepared to hear what God is going to do about Eli and his family. Philip and Nathanael, who make here a first leap of faith as they see in Jesus the Messiah, the anointed King of Israel, are embarking on a journey which will ultimately lead to their seeing ‘heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of God’. And that is pretty much the vision which St John the Divine shares with us, as he witnesses the triumph of the Lamb of God, who is declared worthy to take the scroll of destiny and break the seals to reveal the mystery of sacrificial love which is at the heart of all things.
And yet the way in which these life-changing truths are revealed is astonishingly low key. Samuel thinks that Eli has called for him because he needs something in the middle of the night – nothing unusual or spiritual about that, just the frailty of an old man, and the patient dutiful response of his young acolyte. But the voice in Samuel’s ear is the voice of God, whose servant and prophet he will now become. Nathanael is sceptical when Philip enthuses about the afternoon he has spent with Jesus. Can anything good come from Nazareth, he sneers. Nazareth is obviously not up there with NW3, but Philip ignores the jibe. Come and see, he says. It’s as simple as that, no lengthy confirmation classes, just a straightforward invitation, followed by a sensitive welcome. But the encounter with Jesus, which takes Nathanael as he is, affirming his sincerity of heart, quite bowls him over, opening his heart to the truth about Jesus, and giving his life new meaning.
You will have received with your pew sheet this morning a note about the pastoral groups, or parish networks as I prefer to call them, which we are setting up as part of our new Mission Action Plan. The concept is as simple and as open as the invitation which Philip extended to his friend Nathanael. In a large congregation, we can’t all get to know one another as well as we would like. I have enormous admiration for those who do in fact know a high proportion of the congregation, but we don’t all have that facility. There are clusters of people who know one another in different neighbourhoods, as well as overlapping networks of young families, choir parents, concert goers, thespians, older members, evensong people, 8.15 people and so on. Within these networks and even more generally, I know that some of you are very good about keeping an eye out for one another, but we also know that people do sometimes slip through the cracks, and newcomers can find it difficult to break into what may seem like a whole range of self-sufficient networks to which they don’t belong.
We want to make sure that nobody feels isolated or excluded, whether they are pillars of the congregation or shy newcomers hiding behind the pillars. We have therefore been experimenting over the past year or so with loosely structured networks of about 20-25 people, which usually implies about 15 households, who meet socially from time to time – perhaps no more than twice a year. There is no heavy agenda, the purpose of each group is simply to establish a network of people who will get to know one another well enough to be aware when someone is under pressure and in need of support for some reason. In my case I have found myself linked to a group of people, of whom I knew about one third quite well, another third only by sight, and some not at all. The experience of all the groups has been very positive, and that’s why we have decided to roll the experiment out to the whole congregation. It is rarely possible to get as many as 20-25 busy people together in one place, but that doesn’t matter too much – one hopes to catch up with the others next time. The meetings – parties is really a more accurate description – are in any case a nice way to include partners and other household members who for one reason or another come to church very rarely or not at all, and if numbers are a bit low for some reason, the host may choose to invite a few friends or neighbours who have no connection with the church at all. If they discover that church people are quite normal, quite good company even, they may decide to come and see what goes on here.
Come and see. If you want to be part of one of the next groups to be set up, do sign the list at the back of church, or complete the form in your additional pew slip. The sign-up lists give you the opportunity to indicate what days of the week or times of day would be most likely to suit you. That will help us to set up groups which can actually get together. You don’t have to sign up. Sooner or later you will receive an invitation anyway. You can of course refuse to have anything to do with it, but I hope very few people will turn down their invitation. Or you may sigh, and say you really can’t cope with anything more in a busy life. I know what that’s like. You may only be able to meet with your group very occasionally, perhaps just once a year, but I hope everyone will feel they can take part, if only on a rather limited basis.
Come and see. The object of our network groups is quite modest – we just want everyone who comes to this church to feel welcome as part of our community – but then, Philip simply invited Nathanael to come and see Jesus. We don’t have to be earnest and pious about it, but if people feel welcome and valued in our company, which is after all the company of those who, like Philip, have met Jesus, and want others to meet Him, then we shall have opened the door by which Jesus himself may enter into their lives.
Come and see.