Intimacy with God: Authenticity

John 1:43-47

There is a lot of speculation about Nathanael, about whom we heard in the Gospel lesson for this morning. His name appears only twice in the Bible, here in this account and then in John 21 where he is listed among those who had breakfast with Jesus after his resurrection. There is no mention of him in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Not in the lists of the disciples, not anywhere. Does this mean he was not one of the twelve disciples? If so, why is he, the two times he is listed, firmly embedded in the names of other of the twelve disciples?

But then, Matthew, Mark and Luke mention a disciple, Bartholomew, who does not appear in John’s gospel. For these and other reasons, it appears that Nathanael and Bartholomew are one and the same person.

The story begins with Nathanael sitting under a fig tree. Jesus saw him there before Phillip came to tell him about Jesus. There is an interesting theory about this passage that makes some sense to me, but it is of course speculation and we cannot know for sure.

But rabbis and teachers often taught from the shade of fig trees and used fig trees as an analogy for the Law of Moses. For these reasons, a tradition arose early in the history of the church, that Nathanael had been a scribe or rabbi. Further evidence of this is that when Phillip came to him, he used the Law in his invitation to Nathanael to come to see Jesus. John’s Gospel is a very intentional, literary gospel and what seems to us to be subtle might have been far more clear to the initial readers of his gospel.

This theory speculates that Nathanael was sitting under the fig tree, studying the Scriptures and when Phillip came to him telling him the Messiah had been discovered in Nazareth, Nathanael was dismissive. Why? Because any scholar of the Scriptures worth his salt knew there was no mention of Nazareth in the Bible. It was clear that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem, certainly not Nazareth.

So Nathanael, with his study of the Scriptures, dismissed Phillip’s invitation with, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?”

But Phillip persevered and persuaded Nathanael to come.

It is the greeting of Jesus that makes this story so interesting for me and that makes me wish I knew more about Nathanael.

When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.”

Other translations say, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!”

Why does Jesus say this? What does it mean to be one in whom there is nothing false, no guile? What does this announcement tell us about the character of Nathanael?

One of the ways to understand this is to look at someone in the Bible who did have a lot of guile, who was false. And there is no better place to look than in Genesis and the account of Jacob, son of Isaac.

When you talked with Jacob, you always kept a hand on your wallet. Jacob cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright and his blessing. He met his match in Laban, the father of Rachel and Leah, but even with Laban, Jacob came out the winner. He left with the stronger herd of sheep and goats because of his manipulations.

When Jacob told you something, you needed to withdraw and consult a team of lawyers to see where the catch was before you went ahead and made an agreement and you could only hope that your team of lawyers was a match for Jacob.

You couldn’t trust Jacob. What Jacob told you was not necessarily the whole truth. The news Jacob reported might not be true. The advice Jacob gave you could not be trusted.

There was always something going on behind Jacob’s lips and eyes that you did not know about.

Nathanael was the opposite of this. Nathanael spoke his mind. What he said was exactly what he believed. He did not hide from the truth and he was not afraid of the truth. Even when it was not to his advantage, he spoke what he knew to be true.

Nathanael was who he represented himself to be. He did not pretend to be greater or more powerful or smarter than he was. He was real. He was honest. He was an authentic person.

When Jesus announced the arrival of Nathanael, why did he single out this quality of authenticity? Why did Jesus consider authenticity to be an admirable quality?

To see why Jesus admired the quality of authenticity in Nathanael, let’s turn to the Old Testament reading for this morning, Genesis 3 and the story of how sin entered the world.

When God created Adam and Eve, he set them in a paradise with a lush banquet of food to eat. But he warned them not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

But then the serpent, as an agent of the devil, persuaded Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and then Adam joined her. At this point, the free choice that God gave to them led to the creation of sin. Sin entered the world and in the few verses that follow the eating of this fruit, the effects of sin are revealed.

The first effect of sin is discovered in verse 7
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

We need to have more than a literal understanding of this passage. It is not simply that they noticed for the first time that they were not wearing clothes. You can imagine Eve saying to Adam before the fall, “Honey, how can I go to the party? I haven’t a thing to wear.” (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that.)

I think much more obvious is the meaning that they had nothing to hide from one another. They were naked and not ashamed. There were completely open and honest with each other. They were open and transparent. In the words of Jesus, They were two people in whom there was nothing false.

But what happened with the advent of sin? They separated from each other. They began to hide from each other. They were no longer like Nathanael, a man in whom there is nothing false. They were now clothed and separated so that they were now able to be less than honest with each other.

Sin separated Adam from Eve.

The second effect revealed in this story is found in verse 8
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Not only did sin cause them to separate from each other, it caused them to separate from God. Whereas they used to have free and open communion with God, now they hid from him. Before the fall, when they spoke with God, their hearts were open to him. There were no dark, secret corners they tried to keep hidden from God. There was no distance. They had a close intimate, open relationship with God. Now they closed off parts of themselves, tried to hide part of who they were from God. They moved away from God. They hid from God.

Sin separated them from God.

The third effect of the advent of sin revealed in this story is found in verses 12 & 13.
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Why didn’t Adam admit his fault? Why didn’t Eve admit her fault. Were they trying to hide what they had done? Adam did not say, “No, you’re mistaken God. I didn’t eat the apple.” He admitted he had eaten the apple but he did not believe it was his fault. In the same way, Eve blamed the serpent. “It’s not my fault, the devil made me do it.”

Neither Adam nor Eve were able to admit to themselves that they were at fault. They were not able to be honest with themselves and so they were not able to be honest with God.

Sin separated Adam and Eve from themselves.

When sin entered the world, we became separated, cut off. Cut off from God, from each other and from ourselves.

Throughout the Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, you can see how sin counteracts God’s purposes. God’s love unites us. Through his love we are brought into peace with God, unity with each other and honesty with ourselves. Sin separates us, divides us, cuts us off from ourselves, each other and God.

I’ll give just one example. In John 4, when Jesus encountered the woman at the well, what happened? The woman hid from Jesus. She tired to hide the fact that she was a woman with a terrible reputation in town. In her conversation with Jesus she put as many obstacles as she could between herself and Jesus and only because of his persistence and love was she able to overcome all those obstacles and come to Jesus.

This is why Jesus pointed out Nathanael’s authenticity. Sin set in motion a process by which we moved away from God and Jesus saw in Nathanael a quality that helps us to return to a relationship with God. Our goal is to be completely open and honest with God. God wants us to draw close to him. God wants us to live in harmony with our brothers and sisters. And we can do neither very well if we are not willing to be honest with ourselves.

After a three week absence, we are returning to our series of sermons on intimacy with God. What does authenticity have to do with intimacy with God?

It’s pretty clear, isn’t it, that you can’t have an intimate relationship with someone if you are not honest with them. I’ve read about men that have had more than one wife and a family with each wife (this is in the west where having more than one wife is not acceptable). The two wives do not know their husband has another wife. So the man keeps going on business trips, spending one week at one of his families and then the next at the other family. Amazingly, this goes on for a long time, for many years, until his bigamy is finally discovered.

I don’t know more than what I’ve read in the papers about this kind of thing, but can you imagine that he had an intimate relationship with either of his wives? His life had three separate compartments. There was who he was with family #1 and who he was with family #2 and then who he really was. He lived his life behind a set of lies that he had to work hard to keep from getting tangled up.

Men who live such lives cannot be honest with themselves, others or God. Intimate relationships are impossible.

To be in an intimate relationship with God, we must be honest with him. So, if you want to have an intimate relationship with God, you must deal with this issue of authenticity.

There are a lot of ways of examining authenticity. This morning we will look at just one aspect. In 1954, Robert Boyd Munger wrote a little analogy of inviting Christ to come into our lives titled, My Heart, Christ’s Home. He used the picture of a house with Christ coming in and exploring together with the owner of the house, all the rooms. So in the library, Christ suggested he get rid of some books and magazines and replace them with others. In the dining room, they discussed his appetites. In the workroom, they discussed how he might better use the talents he had been given.

But then there was a small closet in the hall that was locked.
One day I found him waiting for me at the door. There was an arresting look in his eye. He said to me as I entered, “There is a peculiar odor in the house. There is something dead around here. It’s upstairs. I think it is the hall closet.”

As soon as he said the words, I knew what he was talking about. Yes, there was a small hall closet up there on the landing, just a few feet square, and in that closet behind lock and key I had one or two little personal things that I did not want anybody to know about and certainly did not want Christ to see. I knew they were dead and rotting things. And yet I loved them, and I wanted them so for myself that I was afraid to admit they were there.

I went up the stairs with him and as we mounted, the odor became stronger and stronger. He pointed at the door and said, “It’s in there! Some dead thing!”

I was angry. That’s the only way I can put it. I had given him access to the library, the dining room, the work shop, the rumpus room, and now he was asking me about a little two-by-four closet.

When we give ourselves to Christ, we open ourselves to him, but often keep a part of us hidden. Even after years of being in a relationship with Christ, there can be a small closet in the hall that we keep hidden from him.

What are some of the things we keep hidden?

I know that the Holy Spirit is bringing to your mind something you don’t like to think about, something that needs to be brought out into the open. Let me talk about a few of the things that might be on your mind.

Sexual sin is something that we stuff in a closet and are afraid of bringing out into the light. Pornography is found in many locked closets. Good, decent people, respectable people, church leaders sometimes live with a hidden closet full of pornography. It is less and less magazines and printed pictures and more and more television and internet that feeds this lust.

It shames us and we don’t like being honest with ourselves or anyone else. And yet, if we do not bring it out of the closet and get it cleaned up, we will be unable to have the intimate relationship with God he wants us to have.

Maybe it is anger that is locked in the closet. You prayed for someone you loved and your prayers were not answered. Someone you love died leaving you behind. And so you became angry at God. But because you are a good Christian person and because you think good Christians do not get angry at God, you buried that feeling deep in the closet and beneath everything else there is this hidden resentment that prevents you from having an intimate relationship with God.

Maybe you are jealous of someone else. Maybe someone hurt you and you have a desire for revenge. Maybe what you would most like to see happen is for that person to trip crossing the road and get run over by a car. But good Christians do not think like that so you put that feeling in the closet and then wonder why it is you cannot have a more intimate relationship with God.

Maybe you are not so sure that there even is a God. After reading news reports of mutilations and amputations in fighting in Rwanda and Sierra Leone you find it difficult to believe God, if he existed, would allow such atrocities to happen, even to children. Maybe you are feeling weak and abandoned and wonder if this is how it is. We are alone in this world. This world is all there is and after death there will be nothing.

But good Christians do not have such doubts so you bury them in the closet where no one will be able to see them.

There are a lot of things we lock in the closet and they desperately need to come out. How can we do this?

The first thing we need to do is to be honest with ourselves and admit that they are there. We may not be able to take them out ourselves, but we need to acknowledge they exist.

An alcoholic must admit he is an alcoholic before he can begin the process of recovery. We must admit to the sin in our lives before we can begin to deal with it.

If the Holy Spirit has spoken to you during this sermon and you are aware of something you have buried in a locked closet, keep it in mind. Don’t let it’s existence slip away.

The next thing you need to do is to invite Christ to come to the closet with you and discuss what is in there. This can be terribly difficult because you have to admit its existence yourself and then you have to admit before God that this thing exists.

It is rather silly, isn’t it, to imagine that there is any part of your life God does not know about. But we are often like my youngest daughter, Caitlin, when she was 2 or 3 years old. She had gotten some cookies she was not supposed to eat and was eating them by the side of the piano with her hands over her eyes. She was in plain view, but thought that if she could not see anything, she was invisible and we would not be able to see her.

God knows what is in the closet. He wants you to admit it before him. He wants to talk with you about what is in the closet. And what you will discover is that if you talk about it with him, it will become easier to take it out and clean up the closet.

This was the process for the psalmists. They said many things to God we would be horrified to say.

Psalm 137
O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us—
9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

Psalm 69
23 May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see,
and their backs be bent forever.
24 Pour out your wrath on them;
let your fierce anger overtake them.
27 Charge them with crime upon crime;
do not let them share in your salvation.
28 May they be blotted out of the book of life
and not be listed with the righteous.

Psalm 58
Break the teeth in their mouths, O God;
tear out, O LORD, the fangs of the lions!
7 Let them vanish like water that flows away;

The psalmists say many things we would have difficulty praying, but read the psalms and see how an expression of anger, depression or doubt allowed the psalmist to rise above those feelings into praise and trust in God. It is by expressing negative feelings that God is able to work in us and raise us up.

The way of healing is to invite Christ to come with you to the closet and discuss it’s contents.

This is a scary thing to do. If it was easy, you wouldn’t be keeping those things in the closet. It is scary but because Christ is with you, because Christ loves you, because while you were still a sinner Christ died for you; because you are much loved, you can open the closet door and allow it to be cleaned out.

I invite you now, in silence, to speak with God. Invite Christ into your house. Invite him to the closet you keep under lock and key. Begin the process of cleaning it out and then continue with God this week, walking through the house and cleaning out the closets.

This will lead you to a deeper and more rewarding intimacy with God.

Talk with God about the things you keep in the closet and you will discover that you will be able, with Christ, to clean out the closet.

God loves you. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Let God speak to you this morning.