Sunday Sermon 2 Epiphany

            "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” John 1:47

                        Second Sunday of Epiphany 2018

In today’s Gospel we hear an interesting conversation between two young men who will become two disciples of Jesus, Phillip and Nathaniel. Phillip, a newly called disciple of Jesus who hailed from Bethsaida on the coast of the Sea of Galilee, while talking to his friend, Nathanael, added “from Nazareth” to Jesus’ name as a means of identification since the name was a common one, and it located exactly who he was, and where he was from.  Nathaniel’s response certainly shows his personal bias and prejudice against the town from which the longed for Messiah sprang. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” He sort of scoffs, and as we close our eyes, we can easily imagine him with a condescending smirk on his face. He has some strong pre-conceived notions about that tiny village. Why is this local prejudice showing? Well, Nazareth was the decidedly quintessential “backwoods” town, a far flung hamlet of a massive empire whose population might have topped 500 when Jesus was living there. Smallest of the small potato towns in the smallest and most inconsequential part of immensely important Roman Empire, in our modern jargon: a real nothing burger.

And yet, I feel drawn to the plight of that little town because, even though we live in one of the largest cities in the world, our piece of the city, in the words of the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield, gets no respect. We are the Nazareth of the Big Apple. There are some folks who don’t even realize we are part of New York City.  Listen to the hordes of tourists who cram onto our beloved ferry to get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.  I think every travel agent in the rest of the country and overseas tells each person who comes to New York that the ferry is free, and to ride it, and get right back on to return to Manhattan because there is nothing to do in Staten Island.  I have heard tourists tell each other that Staten Island is where the rest of New York City sends their garbage…not so.  Just FYI: the city’s garbage is sent by barge or trucked to a landfill in Pennsylvania (I learned this from my son who works for the Sanitation Department).

I have also heard that the people of Staten Island are very backwards compared to those who live in Manhattan or Brooklyn. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people at Diocesan meetings ask me if I have my passport with me…and then laugh. I usually tell them it takes me less time to get there by mass transit with a metro card than those folks who travel from the mid-Hudson region, and, please note, they never ask them the same question.  (If I sound a bit annoyed, well I am)

I have read in the national media that we who live on this rock, hold old fashioned ideas and are intolerant of others, including immigrants. These folks don’t know what the truth is.  Here on Staten Island we are home to the largest Liberian population outside of Liberia and the largest overseas Sri Lankan community on earth. Take a walk up Victory Boulevard and you will see Caribbean beauty parlors, Latin American bakeries and florists, Sri Lankan restaurants, and Halal supermarkets next to Chinese, Columbian and Italian restaurants.  Immigration comes in waves on our island and many hardworking immigrants are making an impact on the makeup of our island and its commercial enterprises. Statistically the 49th City Council District that encompasses our North Shore, is the most diverse in the whole city.

And we know something else; something we need to broadcast more than we do.  Many faithful Christians live out their faith live here.

 And just as Nazareth, that small, insignificant town filled with hill-billies and small-minded, unimportant people, was the place from which sprang the one who was to be the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world; here in this corner of the world, on the streets and in the schools, in the offices and in the parks, in the restaurants, pubs and the churches of our little island, there are the people of God every day who are living out their faith in both small and glorious ways: bearing witness to the truth at work and at play, expanding their faith in Bible study groups, visiting our neighbors in hospitals, hospices and homes,  engaging in prayer groups, bringing the concerns of the world to the church, to this altar, and hastening the Kingdom that is to come.

Despite the concerns of Nathaniel, we know that everything good came from Nazareth, and from that “good” the “good” continues to grow from here, our small corner of the greater Kingdom, as well.