Epiphany 2
John 1:29-42; Isaiah 49:1-7: I Corinthians 1:1-9
Have you ever noticed how some people seem know from the day they were born what they were going to do with their lives while another group of people seem to spend their whole life seeking after their intended calling. There are young people in this congregation who, when we learn what their major is in college or what they have chosen as their career course we find ourselves thinking, if not saying, “of course.” Most of us have met people who have known their whole life that they were always going to be an engineer or a musician or a doctor. Even more impressive to me are those people of faith who have absolutely no doubt about what they believe about God and Jesus. People who have always unequivocally known that they were saved, that God is in charge and all is right with their personal spiritual life. For most of us, the story of our faith is not so clear and simple. I was voted class cynic of my high school class. I was actually proud of that distinction although I‘m not sure that more than half the class actually knew what a cynic was. As a teenager I questioned everything, but especially God. And at regular intervals in my adult life I have encountered situations, evils and challenges that have caused me to return to some of my greatest doubts. I used to worry about such ambiguous moments in my faith journey until I ran across an observation by the preacher, Frederick Buechner. He wrote: “If you tell me Christian commitment is a kind of thing that has happened to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say….you’re either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine. Every morning you should wake up in you bed and ask yourself: “Can I believe it all again today?” No better still, don’t ask it till after you’ve read The New York Times, till after you’ve studied that daily record of the world’s brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible. Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If you answer always Yes, then you probably don’t know what believing means. At least five time out of ten the answer should be NO….The No is what proves you’re human in case you should ever doubt it….”
Our lessons for today presents these two kinds of faith. One is the “I-found-it-that-settles-it” kind of faith. And the other is the meandering, probing kind of faith. And God seems to be equally a part of both. In our first lesson from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah we hear the prophet declaring that while he was yet unborn God had chosen him to be a prophet. Certainly the Apostle Paul who wrote our second lesson knew what it was to have a life changing absolute for certain conversion experience that defined his purpose in life from that time forward. And our Gospel lesson for today begins with a similar certainty as it describes John the Baptist “finding” Jesus in one glorious, instantaneous moment. Granted, John has been preparing for this moment all his life. Granted God has previously told him to look for a particular sign—the descending of a dove. Nonetheless, when the dove finally does descend on Jesus during the moment of this baptism John knows, absolutely, unequivocally knows, right then and there, that this Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In fact, John is so sure, that he stakes his life on it, witnessing fervently wherever he goes. And he ends up beheaded because his certainty and his passion threaten the entire status quo of the political and religious establishment. Good for John the Baptist! How wonderful it must have felt to be so sure. How important it was that he shouted out his faith. After all, without him, Christianity would never have gotten off the ground. But I know that I am no John the Baptist. And neither are most of us seated here today. Thankfully our Gospel lesson also provides another model of faithfulness, another model of discernment.
In the second half of our scripture lesson, we meet two of John the Baptist’s disciples. Idling away in their perfectly predictable lives, their ears perk up when John calls Jesus “the Lamb of God”. They recognize this vivid image as an allusion to the suffering servant, to the sacrificial lamb language in Hebrew scripture, language that had always hinted at the coming of the Messiah. And so it is out of curiosity that these two men decided to follow Jesus. Note that it is out of curiosity, not commitment, not conviction. Just plain old curiosity. Who is this Jesus? What does he have to offer? And what if anything can he tell us about the purpose of life.
Curiosity and seeking answers to questions, doubts and uncertainties are the real stuff of which faith is made. Some of the greatest heroes of the Christian faith started their faith journey the very same way. St. Augustine spent years wandering intellectually and spiritually, indulging in every appetite of the flesh until finally he committed his soul to God. He was never absolutely “sure” in his head. But somehow he was willing to trust his heart, as expressed in his famous prayer: “O Lord, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” G. K Chesterton was a feisty frenetic journalist who set out to disprove the orthodoxy of the Christian faith, only to find himself years later embracing the very thing he had tried to demolish. Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson were both deists. Christian agnostics at best, never fully embracing the mysteries of miracles or the reality of the resurrection. And yet both of them became convicted enough by the ethical ideals of the Sermon on the Mount that they committed their wills to what their minds could never fully grasp.
When the Baptist’s two curious disciples begin to follow Jesus, Jesus turns to them and the first words he speaks in the entire Gospel of John are in the form of a question that meets them where they are. He doesn’t proselytize or push or manipulate or control or judge or punish. Instead he immediately gets to the heart of our human experience: “What,” Jesus asks, “are you looking for?” Encouraged by his approachability, by his humanness, by his openness, Andrew and his friend decide to follow Jesus a little bit farther and so they ask Jesus a question: “Where are you staying?” This was a colloquialism in its day. The disciples were not asking for Jesus’ address. What they were really asking was, “What are we supposed to make of you? Where to do you belong?” Jesus responds to them with an invitation to, “Come and see”. It is an invitation to enter into relationship, dialog and community. The new disciples end up staying with Jesus all day, the beginning of a staying with Jesus for the rest of their lives. Stay. Remain. These are crucial words in the Gospel of John. They have the same root as the word “abide”, perhaps the most important word in John’s vocabulary. Abiding, resting, staying, remaining, an intimate togetherness, overtime, in the presence of one another’s company, allowing experience and familiarity and trust to cement a relationship that the mind cannot even fathom. This is faith. But it begins with curiosity. It is rooted in question and human contact. It often leads to commitment and conviction. But it all begins with curiosity. Jesus is not only the Word become flesh. Jesus is the Way become flesh. Jesus is a journey. Subtle, emergent, flexible and flowing. Jesus is a journey toward the answer to the most important question of our lives: “What are you looking for?” One of the biggest changes in my more than 30 years in parish ministry has been the attitude toward church membership. Joining a church used to be a no-brainer, something every Christian just automatically did. You went to school. You brushed your teeth. You registered to vote. You joined a church. You joined the church to become part of the church community. It was like the prophet Isaiah’s experience. From the moment of your birth and baptism you knew where you belonged. But in recent years there has emerged a growing distrust of institutions and the birth of a more cynical society that questioned the truthfulness of institutions and was unwilling to make or believe in binding commitments. We have become a consumer based society that commits to what meets our needs for the moment. When my children were in grade school I coached baseball and soccer teams, when they were in high school I worked with substance abuse prevention programs. I still affirm and support those who do such work but my commitment of time has shifted. Many of the programs I worked with and in have phased in and out of existence as I knew them. In the unbearable stress of our over stuffed lives we regularly join some cause or group for a while but we always doubt that there is any absolute answer to the question of what we are ultimately looking for. We know that the activity we support today may well not be here in five or ten years. The exception to that truth is the church. The community of faith endures because it is not founded on human commitments but on God’s faithfulness to humanity. From the very beginning of the story of salvation God has placed humanity in community. And the clearest expression of community throughout history has been the church, the Body of Christ.
It is in this community that the story of Jesus is told, that Jesus’ story gets up and walks around, and eventually makes its way out into the world where it really belongs.
On this Sunday of our congregational meeting it is particularly appropriate that our lessons witness to the earliest stories of Jesus gathering the curious and the faithful. This is where it all begins. Knowing Jesus is not about intellectual certainty. It is not about ethical perfection. It is not about somehow declaring that organized religion is the best thing since sliced bread. On the contrary, to “know” Jesus is to embark on a journey, to ask ourselves the question “What are you looking for.” To know Jesus is to come and see, to remain with him, to abide with him, maybe to even simply hang out with Jesus for a while, and see what happens. To join with him in worship, to sit down with him in Bible study, to work along side him at the PADS shelter. To follow Jesus, whether out of curiosity or conviction, is to be a Christian, to be a little Christ.
I do not believe that Christianity is the only way to find God. But I do believe that for me personally, it is the way that God has called me to follow. And it is the way that God has called me to preach and teach and proclaim through the works of this congregation. Jesus invited Andrew. Andrew invited Peter. We are to be repeating Jesus’ invitation. Come and see. Come and see that Christianity is not simply a good idea, it is a lifestyle. Come and see that Christianity is not a destination. It is a journey. Come and see that Christianity is not a product. It is a process. Christianity is not a routine. It is a relationship. It is not an individual thing. It is the life of community. All that Jesus asks for in return is our commitment to abide, to stay, to hang out with him for a while. And God will do the rest.
What are you looking for? Come and see.
Amen