Scripture: Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 40:1-11 I Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42
Today’s
Gospel reading takes us on a detour out of Matthew’s Gospel and into John’s
gospel. We’re back in the wilderness
with John the Baptist, and this time it’s immediately after Jesus was
baptized. John sees Jesus coming and
points him out to his followers. And he says
something odd: after pointing him out as
the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, John says – twice – “I
myself did not know him.” So apparently
Jesus did not walk around with a halo visible over his head, or wear a phosphorescent
white robe stenciled with the words, “I’m the one”. It would seem that, by all appearances, Jesus
was just an ordinary guy. John goes on
to say that when God told John to baptize with water, God had also told him that the one on whom the
Spirit descends like a dove is the one who would baptize with the Spirit. God
didn’t give John any other info – didn’t tell him Jesus’ height, weight, hair
color, eye color, distinguishing scars
or tattoos, none of that. And so until
John baptized Jesus and saw the Spirit descend on him from heaven like a dove,
he couldn’t have picked Jesus out of a police lineup. John
just faithfully kept baptizing all comers until he came to the one on whom the
Spirit descended. For John, the Spirit
descending like a dove was his version of a big neon sign from God saying “this
is the one”.
Apparently
on the next day, Jesus walked by John and his entourage again, and John pointed
Jesus out to two of his disciples. They
started following Jesus – and I don’t want to make them seem too much like
stalkers, but apparently they followed him for a little while at a distance. Jesus picked up on the fact that he was being
tailed, and turned around and said, “what are you looking for?” If it were me, it would have come out more
like “What are you looking at?”, like when
you catch someone staring at you on a train or in a public place. Likely Jesus
caught them a bit off guard, and they said, “Rabbi, where are you
staying?” Now if I were Jesus, I think
I’d have sent these two stalkers to a phony address….”Hey guys, I live right at
this intersection called Kensington and Allegheny, you can’t miss it…..I have to hang out here
for a while, but you guys go on ahead, I’ll meet you there, promise……”, but
fortunately for all of us, that’s not what Jesus did. Instead, Jesus just said, “Come and
see.” We’re told that they went and saw where Jesus
was staying, and remained for the rest of the day. The next day one of the two, Andrew, called
his brother Simon and brought him to Jesus, who gave him a nickname, Peter (which
means Rock).
I can’t help
wondering: what did they see that attracted them so to Jesus, that they stayed
the day, and that the next day Andrew
recruited his brother Simon. I doubt it was the décor of this room in which he
was staying. Really, we don’t know-
we’re given no specifics about their time with Jesus, except that it went on
all day and, for Andrew, the next day as well.
Certainly Jesus’ words must have
inspired, but likely there was just something about him, a way that his words
connected with his actions, that led them to say, “I want that. I want to be with him. I want to be like
that.” Apparently in that time, Jesus
gave Andrew, and later Simon, something to live for – and later, something to
die for.
As we read
this story, I think we should give thanks for the Andrews in our lives, those
who led us to Jesus, led us to “come and see”.
Maybe it was our parents, or a teacher, or a friend – for me, I guess it
was really a youth minister who was at our church for a year when I was in my
teens - but whoever it was, give thanks for them. Think
of how different our lives would be if it hadn’t been for that person, if we had
never come to know Jesus. Of course,
we’d probably be doing something different on Sunday morning. But think of the prayers we wouldn’t have
prayed – or that wouldn’t have been
prayed on our behalf – the people we wouldn’t have met, the hope we wouldn’t
have. Of course, it’s hard to say
exactly how our lives would be different, and it’s entirely likely that God
would have sent somebody else to bring the message – but still, be thankful for
those persons in our lives who said, “Come and see”.
Having given
thanks, can we – can you, can I - be that person for somebody else? Can we be like Andrew for someone we
know? Can we be the person to tell
someone about Jesus, not to beat them over the head or threaten them with
hellfire, but just to give a friendly invitation, “Come and see”? I think sometimes there’s a tendency to leave
the work of inviting people to church to the pastor – and indeed, I do a lot of
inviting. The website, the Facebook
group and page, periodic newspaper ads, as well as inviting those who call me
at Thanksgiving and Christmas for food and toys and now and then throughout the
year for help, to show up on Sunday and check us out – these are all ways in
which I invite people to an encounter with Jesus. In fact, I’ve been going door-to-door with
door hangers again, after having taken a break for a year or two. It’s taking me a little longer – I get
winded a little more quickly than I used to – but I’m getting it done, a couple
blocks at a time. But the work of Andrew,
the work of inviting, is work for all of us, not just for me – and some people
hear the invitation better if it isn’t coming from the pastor. Sometimes the collar gets in the way of
reaching people; there are people you can reach that I can’t, at least
initially. And we’ve had some Andrews among us, members
who’ve invited others to come and see, and because of them, some of you are
here today.
I’d invite
you to read the brief message on the back of the bulletin cover – in fact, the
messages on the back of the bulletin cover are almost always good, but this
week’s message is especially on point.
It speaks of the need for all the members, not just the pastor, to
invite. But when people show up, we need
to have something to show them. And so
I’d like us to focus for a moment on a sentence about halfway through the 3rd
paragraph: “Without a congregation that
is excited about its life together there will be no energy for growth.” Excitement! Enthusiasm! Are we here because someone told us we have
to be here or because we want to be here?
Are we excited about being here together? Do we enjoy being together? Believe me, when somebody walks through the
front door for the first time, they can get a sense of the temperature of the
room pretty quickly, what kind of place this is, what kind of people are here,
what makes this church tick.
And I’d like
to lift up the first sentence in the last paragraph: “If people see that their lives will be
transformed and that with you they will discover opportunities to serve their
community, then they will be drawn to you.”
Transformation – that’s the reason we’re here. Transformation is why people went to be
baptized by John, why John’s two disciples followed Jesus, why Andrew invited
his brother Simon. And I hope it’s why
we’re here as well. We come here seeking
transformation because we’re dissatisfied with our lives as they were and come
here in faith, believing God has something better for us, and that maybe we can
find that “something better” here. And for it to work, I’d lift up the rest of
that last paragraph: “It all begins with us. The church is more than our always
less than perfect and hardworking pastor.
It is ALL the people.” That’s
why, at the top of the bulletin, I have the line, ‘Ministers – All Members of Emanuel
UCC’. I’m the pastor, but all of us are
called to carry out some kind of ministry on behalf of the church. All of us are in the business of inviting,
just as we were invited; all of us are in the business of transforming lives,
even as our lives are being transformed.
So we are
called to invite people, to consciously call people to “come and see”. But sometimes, we invite even when we don’t
know it. We can and should invite with
our words and actions, but sometimes our words and actions invite and inspire even
when we don’t know it. This Martin
Luther King weekend reminds us that the influence of King’s life continues to
spread decades after he was murdered – every time you see or hear of a
nonviolent march or protest against injustice, those people, most of whom never
met King personally, are acting on King’s teachings, as King acted on the
teachings of Christ. Christ gave King something to live for, and
ultimately something that he died for. A
local connection: Bob Smith, head of the
Brandywine Peace Community, is a friend of mine, and Bob often tells the story
of how he was at the Riverside Church in New York City on April 4 1967 to hear
King’s sermon “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence”, in which King spoke
against what he called “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and
militarism”. King gave that sermon
exactly a year to the day before he was assassinated.[1] Bob Smith was in the audience that day, and
that one sermon, that one moment, literally set the course of Bob Smith’s life
from that day to this, as he and his group have worked continually and
tirelessly for peace for the past 40 years, up to this day. Christ gave King something to live for, and
King gave Bob Smith something to live for.
And a
personal example - Certainly the youth minister at my home church, First United
Church of Christ, Hamburg, PA, had no idea how much of an impact he would have
on my life – he was only there for a year, his middler year in seminary, and I
was just another kid in the newly-formed youth group that he organized – and I
was quiet and tried very hard to stay in the background. But my home life in my teen years was chaotic for a variety of reasons,
and that youth minister had no idea that for me, from about age 12 until I
graduated high school, church was the only consistently safe space I
experienced , the only place where I could breathe and let down my guard just a
little, where I didn’t feel like I was walking on eggshells, and he’d pulled
together the youth group that created that safe space, and even after he’d
left, others stepped in to keep the youth group going. Christ gave that youth minister something to
live for, and that youth minister gave me something to live for.
“Where are
you staying,” the two disciples of John asked Jesus. Jesus replied, “Come and see.” They came, and they saw, and their lives were
changed, as they had something to live for, someone to live for. May we encounter the Risen Christ in such a
way that our lives will never be the same again, that we’ll have something to
live for – and through our words and actions, may our neighbors, too, find
something and someone to live for. Amen.
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