Sermon - 2d Sunday After Epiphany (1/19/2020)
Is. 49:1-7; Ps. 40:1-11; 1 Cor. 1:1-9; Jn. 1:29-42
“When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’”
Two disciples – two students – of John the Baptist are standing with John when John notices Jesus walking by. Just the day before, John had noticed that the Holy Spirit had come down upon Jesus like a dove and remained with him. Just the day before, John had not known who it was that he was waiting for – only that he was looking for the person on whom the Spirit would descend and with whom the Spirit would remain. And so as the crowds came to John at the Jordan River to be baptized, I’m sure John was carefully observing them, trying to discern, who is the one on whom the Spirit of God has descended and with whom the Spirit of God remains? And then, one day, John sees that it is Jesus. And then he tells people what he has seen.
The very next day, John is standing there with two of his students, and the ever-observant John notices Jesus walking by. John says to his students, “Look. Here is the Lamb of God.” John sees, and he tells his students what he has seen. He doesn’t tell them what to do, he just tells them what he has discerned. And the two students leave John and start walking after Jesus.
So Jesus continues walking, and then he turns around and sees two people following him. And his first words to them are a question: What are you looking for?
It’s a good question. What are you looking for? One might ask the same question this morning: What are you looking for? Why did you leave the warmth of your house and head out into the cold to come here to church this morning? Jesus sees two people who have made the effort to walk along after him, and he asks them what is making them do that? What are you looking for?
It’s interesting to me how open-ended the question of Jesus is. What are you looking for? You heard someone tell you something and you started walking towards me, so you must be looking for something. What is it? When modern Christians try to evangelize, you rarely hear such an open question. The stereotypical Christian questions are much more specific. Have you accepted Jesus? Do you know where you’re going to go when you die? The kind of questions that are intense, that presuppose a particular worldview, that maybe even come across as threatening. But the question that Jesus asks is not like that. I notice you’re looking for something. I’m genuinely curious. What is it?
The two disciples of John respond to Jesus with a question of their own: Teacher, where do you stay? And Jesus does not answer with the address of his hotel. He answers with an invitation: Come and see. They do, and then the cycle begins again: Andrew notices things about Jesus, and the next day he goes to his brother Simon Peter and tells him what he has seen, and invites him to come and see for himself.
Notice. Share. Invite. This is what this story from John’s gospel models for us as the practice of following Jesus as the Messiah gets off the ground. John notices the Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove, shares what he has seen with his students, and invites them into the freedom to follow that news even if that takes them away from him. Jesus notices two people walking along behind them, shares his observation with them, and invites them into a relationship with him. Andrew notices that Jesus is indeed the one John taught him to look for, shares that news with his brother Peter, and invites Peter to come and see for himself.
Notice. Share. Invite. This is how the gospel spreads – not with threats, not with guilt trips, not with pleading or slick advertising or the latest social media platforms. Not with church language that no one is really sure what it means. Just noticing, sharing, inviting. That’s all we need to do.
One thing I have noticed, however, is that Lutherans have never been very good at evangelizing. Some of you were in D.C. last September when Pastor Lenny Duncan was speaking about his book, and he asked the question: What do you get when you cross a Lutheran with a Jehovah’s Witness? Someone who knocks on your door and doesn’t say anything. For whatever reason, we Lutherans seem to find sharing the gospel to be very difficult.
So let me try to be a bit more concrete. And let me start with noticing. Remember, John the Baptist noticed the Spirit descending on Jesus – because that’s what he was looking for. So I would invite you to take today and try to notice, as you go through the day, where you saw or felt the presence of God in your life or in the world. Or, if that seems too strange, try to notice the places that you see where God needs to be – places of tragedy or distress and hurt – and just name those situations. Noticing God’s presence, or even noticing God’s absence, doesn’t just happen. We have to look for it and pay attention to it. It takes time and practice to develop the capacity to see God in our lives and the world.
And then share what you’ve noticed. Tell somebody in your family or someone you know from church: I really saw that God was present when …. I really wished that God had been present when …. If there isn’t anybody you feel you can tell, write it in an e-mail and send it to me. I’m game. If sharing what we have observed about God’s presence in the world seems intimidating or scary, it’s probably because we don’t have a lot of practice. And the best way to learn is to start. And if you feel called to the “invite” stage, “Come and see” is simple and friendly and it’s all that Jesus needed.
But it all starts with noticing. Which is, I think, why Jesus asks his first two potential disciples, What are you looking for? It’s a profound question and one not easy to answer in words. One answer is given by the seer of the Book of Revelation, whose poetry has articulated a response on behalf of many down the ages: I’m looking for the New Jerusalem, the city of God, where the river of life flows, where food and healing are abundant, where the way of the Lamb prevails over the way of the Lion, where there is no darkness, where every tear will be wiped away, and where the gates are never shut. And I have noticed that the way of Jesus, the way of compassion and love of enemies and identification with the broken and the hurting and the lost, this is the way that leads to what I am looking for. Others have gone much further along this path than I, but they have told us that the way is true and sure. Come, and let’s see it together.
(For the “notice-share-invite” scheme, I’m indebted to the reflections of Pastor David Lose, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3002)