John 1: 47-51
When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Let God In
God knows us. And this changes everything.
What Nathaniel was doing under that fig tree we cannot know, but it must have been something deeply personal, perhaps something embarrassing or shameful. The series The Chosen depicts this well, having Philip undergo a moment of personal and professional crisis as he sits under the fig tree. But what matters is this: those areas of our lives that we keep hidden, that others do not know about—God sees us precisely there, and he loves us in those spaces, and he calls us to follow him.
We disqualify ourselves on account of sins or failures, but the Lord wants to say: “Here is someone in whom there is no deceit.” Our honest awareness and acknowledgment of our sin is all that God wants. He does not need perfection; just a way in.
What will it take to let God in today?
—John Stein, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic of the Midwest Province studying theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
Prayer
Lord, take, O take me as I am;
summon out what I shall be;
set your seal upon my heart and live in me.
Amen.
—Adapted from the hymn, “Take, O Take Me as I Am” by John Bell and Graham Maule