“CONFORMING TO THE WORLD’S EXPECTATIONS”
John 1: 44-51
December 2, 1979
There is a well known line of cameras that uses this slogan in its advertising, what you see is what you get. Now this may be true of cameras, but with human beings the claim ought to be slightly changed. What you seek is what you get. Expectations determine perceptions. Or to put it plainly as possible, you usually get what you are looking for
go to the opera expecting to be bored, and you will end up with a boring evening. Newspaper for evidence that the world is going to hell, and you will find a lot of horror stories. Make up your mind that you won’t have a good time at the party, and you won’t. Determined that the church is a haven for hypocrites, and it will be for you.
This is not a religious insight, it is much more a fact of life. What you expect, what you seek, is what you get.
That is why nathaniel’s words ring so true. You will recall from our gospel that a friend, Philip, came up to Nathaniel with the news that he had encountered the Messiah. Who, when and where? Nathaniel asks. And he is told that messiah’s name is Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, and that he is from Nazareth.
Nathaniel reacts just as many of us would. He reacts with some reservations, a great deal of doubt and a whole lot of skepticism. Out of Nazareth? You said. You have got to be kidding! I know that Tom. I grew up in Canada only 3 1/2 miles away. I know its streets like the back of my hand. I know the people. There is no way that a Messiah could come from that place. Nazareth cannot produce anything heroic, outstanding or godly.
The thing those words are the words of one who has limited expectations. Nathaniel is the patron St. of those who have prematurely focused on what they will find. They don’t expect any more than what they know from the past. Consequently they don’t find anything more than the past continued. What they seek is what they get and Nathaniel didn’t seek anything but mediocrity from Nazareth.
I wonder if this isn’t the root problem for many of us in terms of our beliefs, our understanding of religion, our inability to find God. We have prematurely foreclosed on the way things are and nothing can change our ideas.
This story is told of a man who went to a psychiatrist because he thought he was dead. After several hours, the doctor realized that the man was not to be reasoned out of this fantasy. So he gave him this prescription. Come back in a month but during those 30 days stand in front of a mirror three times a day and say 100 times, dead men do not b 30 days later the man returned to the doctor and told him, this every day for a month, three times a day, I stood beside a mirror and said 100 times, dead men do not bleed. At this point the doctor reached over, gently took his hand and pricked his finger with a needle squeezing the finger and producing a tiny drop of blood grid he looked into the man’s eyes and said, ….Well?
Dear God, the man said, dead men do bleed!
If you have already decided how it will be, if you’re not about to allow any new data to sway your opinions, if you have already hardened your expectations, if you are going to judge the future simply by the past then no one can force new possibilities upon you. You will be like Nathaniel and answer in the same way.