How well do you know people that you work with, or go to school with? How well do you know the people who sit in the same pew with you in church each Sunday? How well do you know your neighbors? Do you at least know their names? I started watching a new comedy series called Ted Lasso. It’s about an American football coach who happened to go to England and coach one of the soccer teams (and he doesn’t know anything about soccer). What struck me from the beginning of this show was that Ted Lasso, the coach, wants to get to know every person he meets. There is a moment when he asks a young, insignificant-looking maintenance man, ‘What is your name”? That rendered him speechless, shocked. “No one ever asked me for my name before; I am only a cleaning person here,” he said. Ted Lasso is a very positive character in the series, always smiling, always interested in another person. Today in the Gospel reading, Jesus calls Nathanael by his name and even tells him that he knows him. That also left Nathanael speechless. ‘How do you know me? I am nobody’ I think today we are reminded that we should respect each person, no matter what they do or how they look. We all should get to know at least the names of people we work with, or we go to school with, and also people in our churches. That’s what Jesus would do. He knows each one of us very well and He loves us.
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