Come and See

John 1:43-51

Rev. Monte Marshall

An invitation can be a powerful thing.  As Civil Rights activists were attempting to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965 in support of voting rights for our African-American brothers and sisters, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. issued an invitation.  On the evening of “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965—the day that Alabama law enforcement officials launched a violent attack on the Edmund Pettus Bridge against the peaceful demonstrators as they marched toward Montgomery—Dr, King began a blitz of telegrams and public statements inviting religious leaders from all across the nation to join in a resumption of the march on Tuesday of that week.

When the march resumed, Dr. King led 2,000 demonstrators, including hundreds of clergy who had responded to King’s invitation on short notice, toward Montgomery.  When they arrived at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they knelt in prayer and then withdrew to Selma. 

Finally, several weeks later, the march was successfully completed.  Dr. King’s invitation on March 7, and the impressive response to it, played a role in securing passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.[1]  An invitation can be a powerful thing.  

I know this from personal experience.  After I graduated from high school in 1970 and left home to attend Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX, the last thing I wanted to do was participate in a church regularly.  After all, I had spent the first eighteen years of my life being compelled to attend church by my parents.  I now cringe to think of the misery my brothers and I put my parents through on Sunday mornings.  It was as close to hell as we could make it for them! 

In my adolescence, I found church boring and irrelevant to my life.  Sitting through a worship service as a teenager was like enduring some kind of water torture. 

Since going to youth group on Sunday evenings was more tolerable for me, I negotiated a deal with my parents whereby I would forego worship, but attend youth group.  I guess all those years of staunch resistance to church must have finally worn my parents down because they actually accepted the deal—much to my delight!  At that point in my life—even though I had received many gifts from the church that I was unwilling to acknowledge—including a relationship with Christ—I was asking the question:  Can anything good come out of the church?  And my answer was:  “No, not much!”

For my first three years at Tech, I only attended church when I was visiting friends in Muleshoe, TX on weekends, or when a friend in the dorm invited me go—and this was pretty infrequently.  My fourth year I was living off-campus and attended church hardly at all.  But then in my fifth year (I had changed majors), a fraternity brother named Stan Wood, whose dad was the pastor at Oakwood United Methodist Church, invited me to sing in the Oakwood choir.  We discussed my reservations, but he finally said:  “Just come and see what it’s like.”  And I said, “Okay.”

I now know that through his invitation, Stan intended more for me than a positive experience in the church choir.  He was inviting me to meet Christ again through singing and worship and the people. 

And sure enough, I got more than I bargained for.  I found at Oakwood United Methodist Church a renewed connection with Christ that was facilitated by the singing, the worship, and most of all, by the loving kindness I experienced among the people of that congregation.  And the catalyst for making this happen was Stan’s invitation:  “Just come and see what it’s like.” 

Stan’s invitation was my gateway back to Christ and the church.  And there is  a direct link between my first appearance at Oakwood United Methodist Church for a choir rehearsal, and my presence here this morning.  An invitation can be a powerful thing.

Did you know that 80% of all persons who come as first-time guests to worship do so because of the invitation of a friend?  Did you know that half of all persons who are not connected with a church say that they would consider checking out a church if only they were invited?  But did you know that only 21 percent of active church-goers invite anyone to church in the course of a year?

Well, it seems to me that after hearing this morning’s scripture reading, being an invitational people is part of what it means to follow Jesus.  In John’s gospel story, Jesus decides to go to Galilee.  He finds Philip and says to him, “Follow me.”  And Philip follows.  He becomes a disciple of Jesus.  And what does he do?  He speaks of his experience with Jesus to Nathanael.  Philip says:  “We’ve found the One that Moses spoke of in the Law, the One about whom the prophets wrote:  Jesus of Nazareth, begot of Mary and Joseph.”

Nathanael responds with skepticism:  “From Nazareth?...Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  And Philip responds with an invitation:  “Come and see.”

In spite of his skepticism, Nathanael accepts the invitation.  He meets Jesus.  And what does he find?  He finds someone who knows him and engages him, and that’s enough for Nathanael.  Nathanael says:  “Rabbi,…you’re God’s Own; you’re the ruler of Israel.”  Jesus then says to him and to us all:  “But you ain’t seen nothing yet!  You’ll see even greater things than this.  You’ll see what Jacob saw in his dream:  You’ll see heaven opened up and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Chosen One.”  This is John’s way of saying that in Jesus, we see God at work.

So it seems to me that this gospel story calls us to follow Jesus by being an invitational people, and this is exactly a word that we need to hear at Travis Park United Methodist Church.  We’ve got two things going for us that create conditions ripe for invitation:  the Spirit of Christ is still present and at work among us; and, believe it or not, we have new neighbors moving in all around us. 

As a result of the research done during our Holy Conversations strategic planning process, we learned that the City of San Antonio is committed to creating 7,500 new housing units in our downtown neighborhood by 2020.  The City is actually ahead of schedule in meeting this goal.  These new neighbors are predominately young adults—members of the so-called millennial generation. 

Now quite obviously, these young adults—are not asking the question:  “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  But many of them are asking—as I once asked:  “Can anything good come out of the church?” 

In his book The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg describes how his students at Oregon State University respond to this question.  He writes:  “When I ask them to write a short essay on their impression of Christianity, they consistently use five adjectives:  Christians are literalistic, anti-intellectual, self-righteous, judgmental, and bigoted.”  Research done by others adds descriptors to the list: “anti-homosexual, hypocritical, old-fashioned, out of touch with reality, insensitive to others, and [my old favorite] boring.”[2] 

In writing about the millennials who are leaving the church, Rachel Held Evans, herself a member of the millennial generation, says this:  “You can’t hand us a latte and then go about business as usual and expect us to stick around.  We’re not leaving the church because we don’t find the cool factor there; we’re leaving the church because we don’t find Jesus there.”[3]

She outlines what millennials expect from a church that follows Jesus in this day and age:  “We want an end to the culture wars.  We want a truce between science and faith.  We want to be known for what we stand for, not what we are against.  We want to ask questions that don’t have predetermined answers.  We want churches that emphasize allegiance to the kingdom of God over an allegiance to a single political party or a single nation.  We want our LGBT friends to feel truly welcome in our faith communities.  We want to be challenged to live lives of holiness, not only when it comes to sex, but also when it comes to living simply, caring for the poor and oppressed, pursuing reconciliation, engaging in creation care and becoming peacemakers.”[4]  

Now granted, I’m biased, but it seems to me that if Rachel Held Evans is anywhere close to being right in her perceptions of young adult expectations of the church, then those of us here at Travis Park United Methodist Church are well positioned to offer the invitation “come and see” with some integrity.  After all, our commitment to extend unconditional love and justice to all, embodies the Spirit of Christ, and provides what millennials and so many others are desperately seeking. 

But here’s the challenging part:  To extend the invitation, we have to reach out and build relationships with people as they are, person-to-person, one-on-one, and in the places where our neighbors live.  We have to do what Stan Wood did with me. 

We might even learn a thing or two from a group of kids who were challenged by their pastor to be invitational.  The Rev. Barbara Galloway from Coker United Methodist Church tells about the Sunday she gathered all the children down front during a worship service to make a point about inviting others to church. 

As she faced the congregation and the children, she could see down the center aisle through the fellowship hall to a house out in a field.  Now the kids knew who lived in that house.  It was a couple named Ernest and Delores.

Barbara chose a six year old “volunteer” name Roddy.  She said to him, “Roddy, you are in charge!”  Immediately Roddy stood up to take charge of whatever was to be done.

Barbara then said, “Roddy, you are to go to that house today and tell Ernest and Delores three things.  One, tell them that we prayed for them by name.  Two, tell them God loves them.  Three, tell them that you want them to come to church next Sunday because they are your friends.”

Roddy repeated his three “charges” while counting on his fingers so as not to forget.  When Roddy asked how he was to get to the house, Barbara told him, “Work that out with the grown-ups.”

After arriving back at his pew, Roddy turned and said, “I don’t need no grown-ups!  I’ll ride my bike!”

That afternoon Roddy and three of his friends rode up to Ernest and Delores’ house.  When Ernest opened the door Roddy announced, “I’m in charge, and I have come to tell you three things.”

By the time he reached the third finger, Ernest was on his knees weeping while Delores stood by.  Ernest thanked Roddy and told the boys that no one had ever invited them to church before.

That evening Ernest had a conversation with an aunt of his.  He told her the story of Roddy’s visit with his three friends.  Ernest said to her, “Tia, that’s the first time anyone ever invited me to that church, and I’ve been living there for 10 years!  I’m going next Sunday, and I’ll never miss again.”[5]

My brothers and sisters, an invitation can be a powerful thing, so why not invite someone to “come and see” what the Spirit of Christ is doing through Travis Park United Methodist Church?  Why not invite someone to a small group, or to the Prayer and Recovery Circle, or to serve at Café Corazon, or to participate in worship?  Why not invite someone to come and see?  If a 6 year old name Roddy can do it, then why can’t we?  Thanks be to God.  Amen.