In a recent Zoom session where many of us did not know each other, we each did our best to briefly introduce ourselves, just as we might have if meeting in-person. While on-line interaction is some arenas may grant a certain degree of anonymity, the more human response to most social relation is a desire to be known, to be recognized as the person you are.
In our Gospel text this week, John 1:43-41, we find the story of Nathanael’s encounter with Jesus beginning with Nathanael presuming to know something about Jesus based on from where Philip tells him Jesus comes. Nathanael’s “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” in verse 46 reeks of the sort of baseless and often vicious prejudice by which we are often prone to characterize others, whether it is a matter of geographical origin, race, language, political affiliation, or even gender.
Philip’s response to Nathanael is a profound example for us in responding to all kinds of unreasonable presumptions of knowledge, both personal and otherwise. The apostle does not chastise Nathanael for the regional bias he exhibits by his rhetorical question about Nazareth. Instead Philip encourages Nathanael to investigate for himself, to “Come and see.”
Would that more of us were willing, like Nathanael, to let our prejudices and biases be challenged by a deeper examination of the evidence. In verse 47, Jesus Himself recognizes a special quality in Nathanael by declaring him “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Perhaps one aspect of that lack of deceit was a lack of self-deceit, a lack of imagining that he already knew all there was to know about a person from Nazareth or other subjects as well.
The great surprise for Nathanael as he willingly comes to see Jesus for himself is, of course, that Jesus already knows him. It’s not a failure of humility that he recognizes that Jesus has some insight into Nathanael’s character when He says that he is without deceit. That honesty was apparently something for which Nathanael was striving, and was probably connected to his willingness to go see Jesus at Philip’s invitation.
That same spirit of open honesty gave Nathanael the opportunity for a moment of genuine revelation when Jesus responded to his inquiry regarding the source of His personal knowledge of Nathanael. Delightfully, we’re not told what Nathanael was doing under the fig tree Jesus mentions in verse 48, maybe it’s just where he happened to be when Philip came to invite him to meet Jesus. But Nathanael’s keen and attentive and honest mind was swift to realize that the only source Jesus could have for such knowledge was supernatural. So much for Nathanael’s own supposed knowledge of the inferiority of those from Nazareth.
In the end, Nathanael came to knowledge far truer and far more important than the false “knowledge” he thought he had about people from a certain town. In verse 49 he correctly identifies Jesus as both the Son of God and the Messiah (“King of Israel”). At least in the way the Gospel stories are told, it will take others far longer and require far more persuasion for others to arrive at the same solid conclusion.
In his essay, “The Will to Believe,” philosopher William James suggested that there are two principles for acquiring knowledge. Succinctly, those are “believe truth and avoid error.” In other words, one should make oneself open to believing what is true while at the same time doing one’s best to avoid believing what is false. While many philosophers would argue that it’s a little more complicated than that simple slogan, it is not at all a bad principle for those seeking knowledge of God to follow, as did Nathanael. Be willing to lay aside error caused by one’s own prior biases while at the same time being willing to embrace truth when it is plainly displayed by evidence. Nathanael is a role model desperately needed in our times.