First Saturday in Lent

"Philip found Nathanael and said to him, 'We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.' Nathanael said to him, 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?' Philip said to him, 'Come and see.'" (John 1:45-46)


When Nathanael questioned Philip's religious belief and commitment, Philip did not argue or explain or attempt to persuade him. He just invited him to come and try for himself the experience that meant something to Philip. Too much time and energy is spent these days, I think, arguing and explaining and persuading about Christianity, when what matters is the quality of the experience. Churches and creeds and ceremonies are intended to help us to love God and to love our neighbors -- that's it. Because our notion of "love" is often superficial, and because we are often overly selective about who we will consider a "neighbor," and because we can adopt some very silly notions about God, it is often the role of churches and creeds and ceremonies to call us out of ourselves, to set goals before us that are greater than those we'd choose for ourselves -- and that can often be less than comfortable. So the Christian experience can be demanding, and sometimes that comes off to people as being authoritarian or guilt-inducing or controlling, especially to people who do not "come and see," who do not enter into the experience but only observe it from the outside. And sometimes churches and creeds and ceremonies forget their own central purpose of love, and become actually controlling and repressive, and then they need to be reformed. But things like the fasting and self-denial and discipline of Lent, which can look so negative from the outside, are at root only about learning to love, clearing away the distractions so that we can love God and love our neighbors more genuinely. And that is something best understood by experience, not by arguing or explaining or persuading. That's why the great invitation of Lent is to "come and see."