Can anything good come out of being part of St. Mark's Church?  

That's a play on the question of Nathanael in today's Gospel narrative from John. While we are centered on the Gospel of Mark in this year, the brevity of that Gospel led the drafters of the Lectionary to supplement the assigned Gospels from John, since John's Gospel is not one assigned in the three year cycle (see Prayer Book, p.888). 

Two obvious insights leap out of this Gospel passage. The first is the fact that some one invited Nathanael to come and see what Jesus was all about. In this case, Philip did the inviting. We who are disciples of Jesus have become so largely because someone invited us. If Baptized as a baby, the someone was our parents and godparents who believed we should be raised in the knowledge and love of the Lord as this would be for our benefit. 

While some folks want to suggest leaving kids alone until they can decide for themselves, I like to think of my great grandfather who brought his two sons from Germany to America because he believe life would be better for them here. He did not wait until they were of age and then ask them if they wanted to go. We don't do that with many aspects of raising our children. We lead them into areas which we know are for their well being even if they cannot yet understand it. 

While others may have invited us to become a disciple of Jesus by presenting us for Baptism, we have to come to a decision at some point in our lives if we will live into that reality. We have to come and see for ourselves if anything good can come out of being a disciple, a member of the Christian Community. Some Christians have not made that decision but just coast along because that's how they were raised. For them going to Church is just what you do, but such an outlook deprives them of the significant growth that can come for the conscious decision to follow Christ and pattern our life on His words and deeds (see Prayer Book p. 855). 

Do you have questions? A few among us may have become a disciple because they independently decided to investigate what it would mean to be a disciple and participate in the life of the Christian Community. Here too they were perhaps influenced by a Philip, by the example they saw in another disciple of Jesus. All of us, however, have questions. I welcome heartily those who question what life and faith and Christianity are all about. The unexamined life is not worth living to paraphrase Socrates. 

Here at St. Mark's we welcome "church shoppers," persons who are seeking, and we encourage them to walk with us for a month or two and decide then if we can assist them in their call. If not, we encourage them to look at another branch of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, as we say in our Creeds. 

The second obvious insight we can learn from this Gospel passage is that Jesus can read our hearts and see if, like Nathanael, we are deceitful, self-centered, greedy, or whatever. We frequently open our worship with the prayer that stresses that "to You all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid..." We can lie to others and even to ourselves, but the good Lord sees what is at the core of our hearts and minds and spirits. That's part of the good that can come out of being part of the Christian Community. In our prayer, in our confrontation with the words of the Lord in Scripture, in our response to the call to serve, we learn who we are and what we are about, and frequently learn that something has to change in our lives is we are to be truly happy and at peace, if we are to inherit "the peace of God which surpasses all understanding..." (Phil 4:7). 

Most of us are here because we have come and seen what good can come out of this Christian Community we call St. Mark's. Our lives have been touched, our hearts enlivened, our spirits nourished, and now it is our turn to invite others to come and see for themselves. How are we doing with the invitation? 

Joseph+