Second Epiphany
Jn 1:29-42
One of the sermons I read as I was preparing for preaching this Sunday had what I consider a wonderful title. "Not all Epiphanies are sky openers", not all epiphanies are sky openers." I like that. I like it because we often think that we need to be brought to faith and affirmed in our faith with great earth shaking, cloud rending, light reflecting events. John the Baptist had such an event. Here he is knee deep in the Jordan river doing what he was called to do, haranguing the crowds for repentance and cleaning them up with the water when Jesus appears. He knew. He instantly knew and as he recounts "I saw the Spirit of God descending from heaven like a dove and it remained on him." Now that's an epiphany you could write home about. A lot of our Biblical models have those kind of epiphanies. Moses sees a burning bush, Job hears God out of the whirlwind, the wise men see a star, Paul is bowled over by a blinding, blazing light. A lot of epiphanies are sky openers.
But our lesson this morning goes on to talk about another epiphany. This epiphany is so mundane and so ordinary we might well have missed it in our hearing of the gospel this morning. And yet I think, no I know, that this epiphany is probably more common to our experience than any of those other sky opening events.
Okay, pay attention. John is standing with two of his disciples and Jesus walks by. John says, "Look here is the Lamb of God!" and the two disciples follow Jesus. Jesus turns around and sees them following him and says to them, "What are you looking for?" What are you looking for? The first words out of Jesus mouth in the Gospel of John. We've had all this build up, the gospel writer has taken us to the genesis of creation to introduce us to the one who was in the beginning with God and who was God and who is the Word incarnate and he casually walks by and profoundly states "What are you looking for?" How utterly, completely mundane.
I say those words all the time. I go from searching the pockets of my clothes in the bedroom to unstacking the papers on my desk to the sink in the bathroom looking for my glasses and by the time I get distracted in the kitchen I'm asking myself "What are you looking for?"
What are you looking for? What a sorry excuse for an epiphany. But then the disciples weren't exactly bowled over either. We don't see them kneeling down to kiss Jesus feet and pledging their undying loyalty. No they answer, "Rabbi where are you staying." And we are told " they remain with him that day till four o' clock." I guess then they had to go home for dinner.
This little exchange is so simple as to almost escape our attention. But then, in truth, the way many of us came to faith is probably just as ordinary and just as simple. And the epiphanies that draw us in begin with just that question, "What are you looking for?"
The preacher Thomas Long tells the story of a woman who was looking for a place to sing. To put it more bluntly, she loved to sing in front of other people, and she warmed to the lavish compliments and enthusiastic responses generated by her lovely voice. The local church choir was not exactly show business, but it was as close to that as she could come, so she sang there. The rest of the worship was of no interest to her, and she would often secretly read a paperback novel in the choir loft, awaiting her chance to perform.
Then, somehow, the words of the solos and the anthems began to have a certain power for her. "Worthy is the lamb who was slain," and "I know that my Redeemer Liveth," began to speak to her beyond the concerns of musical phrasing and pitch. She was gradually acquiring not only an acquaintance with the vocabulary of the faith, but also a relationship to the One to whom those words point. Now, when she sings, she does so with a new name. She is no longer "performer." She is "witness." (from Shepherds and Bathrobes by Thomas Long, p. 68)
In our lives, day in and day out, what are we looking for? Perhaps Jesus always meets us with this question. It is the starting point and though we may not yet have an answer, Jesus does want to know. And He will let us stay all day trying to find the answer -- until four in the afternoon or four in the morning... or a lifetime. And Jesus will let us begin where we are, with little things, if that's easiest. With things which often seem insignificant. we need not speak theodocy or metaphysics or theology. We can stand like children who dare to speak before they learn to censor themselves.
Jesus will also tolerate silence, probably more than we can, and He'll let us talk about ourselves. Preacher/novelist Frederick Buechner says that this may be the place where prayer begins ... not for everyone perhaps, but for those who cannot find other words. Buechner gives us permission to begin there...
"Talk to yourself about your own life," he says, "about what you've done and what you've failed to do, and about who you are and who you wish you were and who the people you love are and the people you don't love, too. Talk to yourself about what matters most to you, because if you don't, you may forget what matters most to you..."
We may discover that as we are praying ourselves deeper into the question, "What are you looking for?" We are starting to hear an answer.
The answer will be shaped within our own skin, but it will be connected to the One who is beyond our own skin. Our small words will be heard and come to rest in the one who is the eternal Word.
I'm not speaking in the abstract - but of something real, down to earth ... something that happens in people's lives when they hear Jesus' question, "What are you looking for?" when they know the question is serious, and so is Jesus' invitation to "come and see."
I knew a man. He was baptized one Sunday afternoon when he was 2 ½ in the kitchen sink of a pastor because for some odd reason his mother got it into her head that he should be "done". The closest he ever came to a church as he grew up was when he went to boy scouts down the street. But then he met a lovely young woman and her family always went to church so he began to tag along. When the children came it seemed important that they have a Christian education so he kept going almost every Sunday, maybe out of habit. Oddly enough it all began to come together when the pastor of the church asked him to use his contracting knowledge serving on the building committee for a new church. This church in fact. "What are you looking for?" became a question not so much of wood and windows but of the experience of the holy. Of a place where you might meet God. And the answer to the question what are you looking for was less, what can you build and make and more how can you receive and how are you loved and accepted. I know that man because he is my father and that short term on the buiding committee led him to over thirty years of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.
If you follow Christ home and stay with him and with his family, the church, the other disciples who have followed him home, you will not ever become anything more than a sinner saved by grace. You will still sing, in part, because you like the sound of your own voice; and you will still lapse into reading paperbacks, when you ought to be intent on other things. But you will grow. The Spirit and the values and the lifestyle of the kingdom of God will begin to be reflected in your spirit and your values and your lifestyle. You will realize more and more that you are not your own, that you belong to God who has called you to himself in Christ; and you will begin to know that hearing and responding to that call is life's highest opportunity and life's deepest joy. And what an epiphany that is!
Amen