Phillip said to him “Come and see”.

Today’s scripture lessons bring us some people who knew what reality was.

Eli was a realist, he knew that visions from God belonged to a different era in history.

Samuel was a realist, he knew that someone was disturbing his sleep by calling his name.

Nathaniel was a realist, he knew that Nazareth was not the place to look for anything good, certainly not the place to look for anything holy.

And how are you with reality?

Do you use it, as a friend of mine does, as a weary crutch to explain away the unfairness of life, the unpredictability of illness and accident and failure? He says “oh, well, I guess that’s just reality” to describe the bad things of his life, never realizing that the love of family and friends is just as real.

Or do you see reality as Christ say it?

Do you see the reality of the dream that lies as yet unfulfilled? A career, a school, a wedding, a birth, a move, a retirement, things that are out there ahead of you, are they real to you even now? Do you taste a piece of the joy, in anticipation?

Do you see the reality of the promise that can only come to pass with years of fidelity? Those of us who have stood at that baptismal font and made our promises for little babies who are now grown and navigating their way through school and life with a deep faith, learned here, we can tell you of the starting out years: persevere! Keep the promises today and then do it again tomorrow and the day after and the day after that and you will get to a day when you will see the fulfillment of those promises.

Do you see the reality of the potential that lies untapped within yourself? Those of you who knelt here to be ordained as Elders and Deacons 25, 30 years ago, as you look around today at the mission work, the educational work, the music program, the mutual support that is provided here, and you think back, you know what I am saying: there was no reason to believe that we would still be alive as a Church today – except one: faith in what God could do with us. And so those of you who serve today, those of you who are ordained today, understand that you, we together, can do far more than anyone would reasonably think possible if we let God loose, first within us and then within the Congregation.

I don’t want to say that being realistic is not a good thing, but I do want to be sure that I, and we, are following God’s version of reality, not limiting ourselves to our version.

The key question, for all of us, is this: Is reality the world as it is or the world as it is meant to be?

Fifty years reality in this country was that public restrooms in the south were labeled “Men”, “Women” and “Colored”, that is very different from the reality of this week in Washington.

Whenever I have conversations with people about reality, I think about the story that was a favorite of Ronald Reagan’s. It is the story about two brothers, one a pessimist and one an optimist. Their parents worried that they were developing extreme, unhealthy personality traits, so one Christmas they decided to give each of them a dose of reality.

The boys came down the stairs and the pessimistic son saw, with his name on it, a new, shiny bicycle.

“Oh no” he said to his parents, “what are you trying to do to me? You know I don’t know how to ride a bike, I’ll probably fall and break my collarbone and be in such great pain. How could you do this?”

The parents looked at each other and sighed, then turned their attention to the other son, telling him that his Christmas gift was in the back yard.

He immediately sprinted through the kitchen and out onto the deck where he was greeted by the sight of huge pile of manure. His parents watched as he ran to the pile and started digging into it with both hands and a big smile.

“What are you doing?” they asked.

He turned to them with joy and appreciation and said, “With all of this manure, there must be a pony in here somewhere”. And I have read that Reagan would be sitting in a meeting with advisors who were presenting him with a list of bad options and he would stand and say “find me a pony’, and then go take a nap!

Now, I’ve used that story many times and encouraged us to be the boy, to go digging into the stuff of life and expect to find a pony, but it occurred to me this week that before we even do that, what we need to know and believe and act on is this: God is the optimistic boy in the story.

God is the one who is willing and eager to go digging into the most distasteful and hostile environments, in order to uncover the pony, in order to find, with us and for us, the things of joy and meaning in life.

Today we find God digging into the life of Eli. Eli was near the end of a distinguished career as the priest of the temple, he served at a time when religion was not well respected, it seemed as it God had abandoned the people and Eli’s sons – who were supposed to succeed him – were betraying that holy trust of ordination, placing their personal gain and goals above those of God. Into that pile of spiritual weariness and corruption, God went digging and showed Eli the boy, Samuel, and reminded him that God might not speak to us when we want to hear, but will always speak to us when we need to hear; God might not say the things that will make us happy, but God will always say the things that will make us better.

And today we find God digging into the life of Samuel. Samuel couldn’t believe that God was with him in such a personal and intimate way, so he kept going to Eli, like a student who can’t let go of a mentor and teacher. Yet it was only when Eli trusted his own relationship with God that he was able to hear what God had to say to him.

And today we find God digging into the life of Nathanael, exposing the same weariness that Eli had, the certainty of those who know reality and know that common places like Nazareth do not produce holy people.

And today we find God digging into the lives of men and women who serve on Consistory, called by God to holy tasks.

And we have surrounded ourselves with so much stuff that needs to be dug through, haven’t we?

We are just as weary and jaded as Eli.

We are just as unsure of our relationship with God as Samuel.

We are just as cynical and bored with life as Nathanael.

Yet into that weariness and uncertainty and cynicism God digs and digs and digs.

Phillip understood. Phillip had just met Jesus and he knew who and what he was dealing with, perhaps better and sooner than any of the other disciples, and he couldn’t and wouldn’t keep it to himself, he went to tell Nathanael about Jesus but he was smart enough to know that words were not enough, if Nathanael was going to believe him it would only come through his own experience. Philip knew that the only way to find an answer to the great and deep questions of life is to live them out, “come and see”.

Realities change in the world, in our lives and in our Church.

Jesus knew that reality, especially the reality of human nature, is always just a snapshot, an impression of what is true at a given moment and is subject to change with new experiences and information and relationships.

The other night I confessed, to the people who gathered for our discussion on being Reformed, that I don’t know what being a member of this Church or serving on Consistory would be like for someone, because it tends to be different for everyone. Each of us, as with Eli, Samuel, Nathanael and Phillip, brings a different set of circumstances, a different history, a different collection of dreams, and – I’ll try to say this delicately – a different pile of stuff.

And God digs into it.

Through worship, through conversations, through friendships, through shared experiences, God digs through it and finds us, not a pony, but our lives if we heed the words of Phillip “Come and see”.

I have been rarely accused of being a realist, my life has been built upon the dreams that God has given to me. Some have come to pass, others never happened, most of the big and grand dreams that I have presented to Consistory over the years have been gracefully rejected or just ignored.

And while it would be polite for me to say, “they probably weren’t good ideas in the first place”, the truth is I still think that they were good ideas and that we are poorer for their rejection, but that’s not what’s important, what’s important is that we keep digging along with God, keep searching for our very lives, keep dreaming and planning.

And as we dig, as we dream and plan, it is essential that we always remember the wisdom of the prophet John of the Beatles of Liverpool who wrote: “Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.”

Phillip said to him “Come and see”.