Have you heard of the butterfly effect? It is the idea that small events can have big effects.
The term was coined by a meteorologist who explained that weather prediction is hard, because you have to take into account a butterfly flapping its wings… or to quote the title of his papers: Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?
This idea has outgrown its initial boundaries of weather prediction, as an all-encompassing term to talk about small changes having large consequences.
For example, did you know that the first Bishop of the ELCA became religious in the first place because his dad was fired for smoking on the job,
and part of the family making ends meet involved little Herb Chilstrom—the future Presiding Bishop—ringing the church bell of the local Lutheran Church at 6pm every day
—and the rest, as they say, was history.
Small events that have larger consequences
—the butterfly effect.
Let us pray
Philip tells him,
“I’ve found the one we’re looking for!
I’ve seen him!
The one of whom scriptures sing!
Jesus of Nazareth!”
To this Nathanael scoffs: “Nazareth? What good can come from Nazareth?”
There are different theories why Nathanael is down on Jesus’ hometown…
-perhaps it’s just not Nathanael’s home town, and that’s enough of a strike against ‘Nazareth.
-Perhaps he’s read his scriptures so literally that “Nazarene” has to be a type of vow, not a town.
-Perhaps he’s prejudice against that little town sitting in the shadow of big city Sephoras.
Or maybe, Nazareth is just too real.
Too concrete
—when God acts, God will act in a fairytale place at a fairytale time
—Once upon a time…
a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.
I know when I’ve visited Nazareth it seemed…
less than pristine
—dirty even,
walls with shards of glass baked in to keep out intruders, bars on every window, sketchy.
I’d went hoping to see where Jesus once resided…
and the place was full of people, living breathing people, people just living their day to day life…
And that’s where we often end up when we seek God
—there is a famous poem “The Preacher’s Mistake” about a preacher who climbs up on a church steeple to be closer to God,
and stays there until he is at death’s door, at which point…
well let me just read the end to you all:
In his age God said,
“Come down and die!”
And he cried out from the steeple,
“Where art thou, Lord?”
And the Lord replied,
“Down here among my people.”
We can get this idea, that to be part of God’s story, you need to experience something grandiose,
we need to climb up to heaven where it isn’t sketchy or small or clogged with people…
There is a religious impulse to seek God in the tornado—in big grand acts,
and our lives are too little to contain such things—we affirm:
Our stories are too small for God to be at work there, right!
And when we do that we miss seeing the butterflies moving the world, taming or inflaming the tornadoes.
We miss seeing God, we miss our moments to point and say, “Look, there is God at work!” because we’re caught on the steeple.
I’ve told you about this study before
—but I repeat myself, because I hope you hear what I’m saying
—there was a study where folk were asked to watch an inning of a baseball game, and then asked what jumped out at them as strange, and they replied “nothing” but there was a man in a gorilla suite walking back and forth across the field the whole time
—people weren’t looking for it, so they didn’t see it, they couldn’t find anything out of place…
so too with God,
God at work in our lives,
if we don’t know to look for it, we’ll never see it!
And just so, Philip says to Nathanael, “Come and see!”
Have you thought about the strange ripples of butterfly wings that get Nathanael to Jesus’ side?:
-Nathanael heard about Jesus from Philip,
-who was a neighbor of Peter.
-Peter, heard from Andrew,
-who heard about Jesus from John,
-who heard it from the Holy Spirit…
Come and see,
and be seen,
and found,
and find
and follow
after him in whom God is doing a new thing!
I can think of my own Come and see moments
—An ordained minister in Rural New Jersey because
-a faithful first call in central Jersey that lasted a decade, because,
-Communities in North West Baltimore and West Philly trained me up on internship and Field Ed, because
-Dr. Falk and Pastor Kegel shepherded me through college in Oregon, because
-Pastor Sarah preached about a Gracious God and took my questions seriously in Wyoming, because
-I was obsessed with the musical Jesus Christ Super Star for longer than was probably healthy, because
-my grandma sang “Jesus loves me this I know” to me when I fell asleep at her house in the summer, because
-my parents entrusted me to a wild eyed, chain smoking, chaplain in Fargo, who baptized me, because… because… because
Take a look at those cards you filled out—who shaped your faith? Find someone near you, tell them at least a little about that person you are thankful for, for their because, that they flapped their butterfly wing and it kindled your faith!
Butterfly wings
—I think of one of Bishop Chilstrom’s most moving moments as Presiding Bishop
—he was about to go to Ethiopia to celebrate the church there,
and he remembered a note in his mother’s Swedish Psalm-Bok, that had been in the family for generations.
In the back there were some notes, family trees, that kind of thing, and a special note about donating a few pennies to a collection for “the black man Onesimus in Stockholm.”
Onesimus, who would later translate the Bible and Small Catechism into his own language and is seen as one of the founders of Lutheranism in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Church, which is now the largest Lutheran body in the Lutheran World Federation.
The Butterfly effect—God showing up in Nazareth.
The Butterfly effect—the spirit prompted words “come and see.”
The gift of seeing beyond prejudices and visions of grandiosity.
Seeing what is right in front of our nose.
Being seen by God and found through the gentle witness of our neighbors
—sharing God’s story with those all around us.
Amen.
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