His friend ran up to him, breathless. “I have found the Messiah!”

“Oh yeah,” he responded, trying to keep his voice from dripping with sarcasm. “Where was he hiding?”

“Nazareth,” panted Philip.

“Nazareth?!” Nathaniel sneered. “Can anything good come out of there?!”

Nathaniel was being more honest than he knew. The truth is, we all have our Nazareths. Places we think are backwater. Beneath us. Places filled with backwards people with strange values.

I come from such a place. In Tuscarawas County, there’s a saying about my hometown of Dennison, and its sister city of Uhrichsville. All of the landline numbers there start with 922. The saying goes, “If you have trouble, call 911. If you want trouble, call 922.”

Can anything good come out of such a place?

Dennison was just a spot along the railroad line. Chosen as a good place for a depot and a spot for trains to get tuned up at the roundhouse. Yet out of Dennison came the story of the Salvation Army Canteen. It was the third largest canteen during WWII right after New York and Chicago. It was the first and probably only time that Dennison has ever been named with those two metropolitan cities.

It was an outpouring of hospitality and goodwill to the stranger at the gates, those passing soldiers on their way to the European theatre. The women at the canteen even fed trains of Germany POWs that rolled through. This was in a time of rationing for the war effort. Communal sacrifice for the common good, and love of neighbor.

I was told this story growing up. The depot was remodeled in 1988 when I was still in elementary school. We had a lot of field trips there. I even volunteered there for a summer. I know that story inside and out ,and I still aspire to it.

I also hold that in tension with other things I learned in Dennison. Even a small town of 2,000 has its Nazareths. Can anything good come out of Uhrichsville? They used to be the across-town rivals. Then the population dropped, and the schools merged. So we had to change who was our Nazareth to another rival school, like Indian Valley High School. Nothing good came come out of that place.

Nazareth has a geographic component to it. Dennison thought, “We might be rednecks that Jeff Foxworthy makes fun of, but at least we’re not hillbillies from West Virginia or the yuppie coastal elites from New York. Can anything good come out of there?”

In every place we have lived… The DC area, Lancaster, PA, the Toledo area, and here… each has their own little Nazareths. Places we’re surprised to hear someone say good things about. I have heard the term “Brunstucky” about Brunswick, and in Pennsylvania, they called certain areas “Pennsyltucky.”

Nazareth is also from the “other side of the tracks.” Or from this street or that street. Nazareth can reside within the same town. In Dennison, it was the apartment complex down the street that was a weekly feature in the police blotter. Or it was where the black families lived.

It’s strange to think back on it… I didn’t really know what my neighbors did. The immediate ones, sure, but three-four doors down… no idea. Yet I knew where every black family lived and where they worked.

I say all this to say that even people from Nazareth have people from Nazareth. Those who are suspect. Those who are completely written off. Those who are worthy of our contempt and scorn. I guess it’s the way of the world to have some group to look down on as well as one to aspire to.

Tomorrow is the Medina’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr service. Area churches are joining together in worship to give thanks for the life and witness of the good reverend doctor. This is my 3^rd year helping to plan this service with Pastor Arthur Ruffin from Second Baptist. Someone suggested in my first year that Second Baptist host it. “Oh no,” said Pastor Ruffin. “I heard some folk in the community won’t visit Bronson Street. It’s “too dangerous” for them. It has to be hosted somewhere else.”

I was floored at that statement. It’s a story Pastor Ruffin has repeated for 3 years as every year his church is considered to be the worship location.

Not one of us is free from having the concept of Nazareth within us. Not a single one of us. I give thanks for Nathaniel’s words, some of my favorite in scripture. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” We all have our little “Nazareths” if we’re honest. Even if we are one “in whom there is no deception.” Yet I’m sure some of you are trying to deceive yourselves, right now. Here’s a little test…

If I were to say, “Go Blue!” or mention something positive about the University of Michigan right now, I’m sure the comments on Facebook would light up, and some watching on the livestream would close your browser. I wouldn’t fault you for it… We all have our little Nazareths after all.

This is a fact of our living. A truth we all have. I don’t think it’s a sin, per se. We all need a good rival in sports. Where it becomes a sin is when we won’t afford those folks in Nazareth the same comforts we enjoy. When those from Nazareth ask for the same rights that you and I enjoy, we complain. We talk up our sleeves about them. Complain that they’re asking for “special rights.” We make jokes about them which become stereotypes. And those stereotypes are used to further dehumanize them. And then we’re not letting THOSE PEOPLE into our clubs. We won’t admit them to our church rolls. We make sure they live in only certain places in town. We refuse to let our children attend the same school as theirs.

Some go so far as to form echo chambers online and plan the overthrow of democratically elected systems. There’s a lot of talk about unity and reconciliation in the wake of the events of January 6^th. Those who stormed the Capitol are still children of God. Those who are acting as apologists for their actions or trying to cast blame elsewhere are still children of God. Yet I don’t want to unite with those responsible for the insurrection… I want us to unite in holding them accountable for their actions. That’s the danger when you take this type of thinking to the extreme. And folks need to be held accountable, and we all need to repent from such thinking. Yet some have more work to do than others.

If we cannot see the humanity in those we oppose … if we see them as only objects of derision. When we actually believe that we are better than they are. Sometimes good-natured teasing can become more than that. It can be hard to see where that line is where jokes cross the line into prejudice and hate.

It’s why we need honest self-reflection. To aspire to be one “in whom there is no deceit.” For as much as I thank Nathaniel for his honesty in asking, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” I admire Jesus, the guy from Nazareth’s, response much more.

Jesus calls Nathanael to follow him. Jesus adds Nathanael to his growing ranks of disciples, prejudice and all. Maybe because of his prejudice, and not in spite of it. And Jesus says, “Are you impressed because of what I said? Buckle your seat belt, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” That’s the Pastor Luke 922 Paraphrase.

The good news is that Jesus call us all to discipleship. Come with all your prejudice and preconceptions. Come with all your labels and assumptions. And buckle your seat belts. If we were serious about this Jesus character we claim to follow, we would show up here with crash helmets and ask property and grounds to install 5-point harnesses in the pews.

Over the course of his journeys with Jesus, Nathanael and the rest of the disciples see Jesus talking to all the wrong people. All the wrong labels. Gentiles. Samaritans. Women. Sinners. Lepers. The poor, the lame, the blind. He speaks to rival religious denominations of the Sadducees and Pharisee. He talks to the political rivals of the Roman Empire, even healing the servant boy of a centurion. He disciples a tax collector or two. People from all the wrong places.

Because Jesus knows what it’s like to be from a place where people wonder if anything good can come from it. Thanks be to God. We don’t have to pretend to be anything other than what we are. We don’t have to hide part of ourselves from God, because God already knows. God meets us with grace and calls us to join in the work of the kingdom. And when we’re humbled that God would include us, God says, “Just hold on… you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

This is a radical message in our digital age. Where we’re bombarded by all the happy images of beautiful people with the right pedigrees who were born in the right places. I think it’s more like what the author Fredrick Backman writes in his book Anxious People. “The truth of course is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves.”[1]

The good news is that you don’t need to get your life together to be called by God. Jesus sees you just as you are. With all your prejudice about people who live in Nazareth. You are called to go from your comfort-zone, out to the surrounding area, and then to the ends of the earth.

After following this Jesus guy for a while, you’ll start seeing that your concept of community and family has expanded. That you don’t hate a single person. That you pray even for your enemies and do good to those who harm you. You treat your neighbor like you’d treat yourself. To love your neighbor as yourself is what the whole Bible hangs on anyway. So if you’re doing that… you’re doing the whole thing. That’s what good can come out of Nazareth… and Dennison… and Medina… and wherever you’re from. Thanks be to God!

Works Cited

^[1][1] Anxious People, chapter 20. The quote was found on https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/67840009-folk-med-ngest but I recommend the whole book to you. This sermon was largely inspired by that great book.