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Rector Sermons

January 15, 2012: The Second Sunday after Epiphany

1 Samuel 3:1-10; Psalm 139; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51.

The Church blows hot and cold about spiritual/mystical experiences.  In charismatic and Pentecostal circles they’re welcomed and trumpeted, especially in the context of personal testimony telling of extraordinary sensations of God’s presence or revelation, of “words of knowledge” and prophecies.  But in more traditional Christian circles, these things tend to be kept under wraps.  That’s not to say they don’t happen though.  To the surprise of sociologists, the BBC Soul of Britain survey conducted in 2000 claimed that 76% of those polled admitted to having had a “spiritual or religious experience”, and the majority were not even regular churchgoers.  Whether there was a common thread in those experiences other than the fact that they were “spiritual or religious” in some sense is impossible to tell, but they were clearly meaningful to those who responded.  Such experiences are perhaps more widespread than we might suppose, although we shouldn’t be too sweeping, since there are plenty of Christians with a sincere and deeply-held faith who say they’ve never had them.  In any case, outside of charismatic and Pentecostal circles there is often a timidity or reticence to speak of such things; religious experiences are often felt to be deeply personal, and there is a degree of hesitation or even embarrassment at revealing them to others.

Spiritual experiences (revelations) form a prominent motif in the Scripture readings for this day, and help to give us at least one set of parameters for how to reflect upon them in our modern world.  The theme of divine revelation can become a little overworked in the Epiphany season, especially if it is seen largely within the context of the story of Jesus.  But these readings help to bring a wider focus.

Theologian John Hick describes four categories of religious experience, widespread throughout the world religions.  There’s encounter with the grandeur of nature—the starry-sky or mountaintop experience—this can be so humbling as to overwhelm us with a sense of God’s transcendence.  Or there’s the fleeting but overpowering sense of divine presence, sometimes gained during prayer, but often at unexpected moments.  Or there are visions or “auditions”: the voice of God.  Or there are ecstatic feelings of unity with God.  All four of these categories feature in today’s readings.

The passage from First Samuel, describing the call of the prophet Samuel, is chock-full of references to divine revelation.  Samuel has a classic “auditory experience”—he hears the voice of God but sees nothing.  Still, it is described by his mentor, the priest Eli, as a “vision” (v. 15), and the passage has many other references to sight as a medium for divine revelation.  Significantly, Eli’s eyesight has grown dim, we are told, in tandem with the ominous note that “the word of the Lord was rare in those days, visions were not widespread”.  The implication is that revelation was rare precisely because there was no one capable of seeing it, and the passage comes after a lengthy description of the misdeeds of Eli’s “worthless” sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who effectively desecrate the worship of the tabernacle with their lawlessness.  But there’s still hope, because we are told that, as Samuel lies down to sleep that evening, “the lamp of God had not yet gone out”—the divine presence is still available to those with the ears to hear and the eyes to see.  Samuel, whose youthfully innocent senses are wide open, cannot but experience God’s presence as a persistent voice.  Persistent, and with a fearful message: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle” (v. 11).  Whatever else it does, the passage gives us the clear indication that our extra-sensory ability to hear God’s voice is directly linked to our moral vision, to our ability to perceive the impact that our lives, wills and desires have on others.

This was also a subject close to Paul’s heart, and he warned the Corinthians in no uncertain terms of the impact their lawlessness could have on their ability to perceive God in their lives.  Samuel may have been in the temple at Shiloh when he heard God’s voice but the Corinthians are a temple of the Holy Spirit themselves, disclosing the presence of God in their flesh.  “Glorify God in your body”, Paul tells them (v. 20)—reveal God by who you are and what you do, and do not desecrate the temple of your body by your actions.  And the Psalm gives us one of the most eloquent explorations of the human body as the locus of God’s revelation.  The Psalmist’s wonder at the divine secret which was his making in his mother’s womb, a secret known only to God, is matched only by his sense of wonder at the divine purpose being shown in his very human life.

And this brings us fittingly to the subject of the incarnation and to divine revelation at its fullest extent in a human being.  This is a subject which is always explored so thoroughly in the Epiphany and the weeks following Christmas—and so thoroughly in this Gospel reading from John which describes part of the calling of the disciples.  More clearly than the other gospels John communicates the sense of progressive revelation that is gained by deeper and deeper commitment to Jesus, and we see this telescoped into the calling of Nathaniel.  “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” he asks.  Bultmann speaks of the offense of the Messiah coming from Nazareth, an offence that belongs to the offense of the Incarnation.  It is easier to see the offense if Nazareth is a real, living but insignificant town near you, not known for anything but mediocrity and harder to see it through a telescope that looks back 2,000 years.  But we have to make sense of the offense that the universal God is simultaneously both confined and revealed through a particular set of mundane circumstances.  “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  The answer must be “yes”, but it is easier to affirm it if we don’t know Nazareth, and much harder once we do.  Grim reality is always a disappointment compared to our dreams.  To find that the best we can hope for is actually “Nazareth” is shocking at the same time as it must be inspirational, otherwise all this is meaningless.

Nathaniel somehow manages to overcome the offense though, and he experiences a flash of pure disclosure: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!  You are the King of Israel!”  He will see greater things than these though.  He will see the Son of Man upon whom the angels of heaven alight, the Son of Man who is the bridge between heaven and earth, the Son of Man who is the mirror of the Father, the Son of Man whose divine glory is most clearly revealed as he bleeds and dies on a cross of wood.  These are religious experiences indeed, religious experiences of the greatest significance, but none that easily fit John Hick’s categories.  These are religious experiences that do not require a miracle or tangible sense of the divine before they can be fully grasped.  They are religious experiences of faith, miracles in themselves, although rarely tangible and rarely overpowering.  But it is only faith that can make sense of our experiences, and only faith that can put them in perspective, and only faith that, with or without spiritual experiences, can lead us into deeper and deeper commitment.  Amen.