what are you looking for?

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, January 16, 2011 – Jesus bids us, “Come and See”

Texts: Psalm 40, Ephesians 4:1-6, John 1:25-42

Eric Massanari

What are you looking for?

“What are you looking for?”

Jesus' question to the two

curious disciples of John the Baptizer

is one of those BIG questions.

It leaps off the page;

it jumps right out of the story world

and into the life of any curious seeker

or would-be disciple:

“What are you looking for?”

I was with a group of people

reflecting on this story this week

and someone pointed out

how humorous this scene is,

with the two men tagging along behind Jesus,

and Jesus confronting them with this

not-so-simple question.

And their response:

“Rabbi . . . where are you staying?”

Ummm, okay . . .

Doesn't that seem like a complete dodge of Jesus' question?

I wonder if in their response we get some glimpse

into what they are looking for:

Rabbi . . . teacher.

Their initial address of Jesus tells us something

about how they see him, at least at first glance -

or, perhaps more precisely,

it tells us what they want to see in him.

A rabbi, a teacher.

And if this is what they're looking for

then, for the time being,

this is what they see in Jesus.

It may take some time before they see more.

Which is what often happens to many of us;

we look for something, we set our hearts on something,

and sometimes – at least for a time -

we may see what we want to see.

And sometimes, we come to find,

that there is much much more there

than we first thought or assumed.

“What are you looking for?”

In Susan Trott's book, The Holy Man*,

she tells the story of a man who lives

on the top of a mountain in a hermitage.

The perfect spot for a holy man, right?

There are a few companions who live

on the mountain with him.

And as his reputation for wisdom and insight spreads,

more and more people seek him out for counsel.

People come and line up along the narrow

trail that leads up the mountain to the hermitage.

Most days the cue seems impossibly long,

and it moves at a slow pace.

Those who are patient enough to wait

are finally rewarded with an arrival

at the door of the mountaintop hermitage.

For each pilgrim the door opens,

and they are invited in by a small,

rather nondescript old man

dressed in ragged monk's robes,

who simply says to them, “Yes?”

The typical pilgrim replies, “I've come to see the holy man.”

“Follow me please,” says the monk

and he leads them through the main hallway,

through the hermitage and all the way to the back door,

which he opens for them,

and then smiles at them, and says, “Goodbye.”

“But I've come to see the holy man!”

most pilgrims protest.

And the man gently replies, “And you have seen me.”

What are you looking for?

And because of what you are looking for, what do you see?

And because of what you are looking for, what do you not see?

Trott's story of the holy man

is much like the gospel stories of Jesus

and how the people who encountered him

saw him in some dramatically different ways:

a rabbi,

a healer,

a prophet,

a priest,

a king,

a messiah,

a threat,

a heretic,

a criminal.

Some were not able to see him at

all for what he was.

Others – often those whose

vision had been laid bare by

suffering or grief – could see him clearly.

Those who chose to spend time with him

learned what we all come to learn

through relationships that extend over time:

that when we get to know someone,

often our first impressions frequently fall away

and we begin to see much more there

than we first thought or imagined.

Notice what Jesus does in this story

after the disciples of John give their

rather non-answer answer to his question.

“Rabbi . . . where are you staying?”

“Come and see,” said Jesus.

Like Jesus' original question,

this response seems BIG -

something more than just “come and see where I'm staying.”

Perhaps something closer to,

“Come and see what kind of teacher I am . . .

Come and see who God is . . .

Come and see who your neighbors are . . .

Come and see who you are . . .”

Jesus wisely understood that there is no

substitute for real-life, lived experience,

and real-life, lived relationships.

He could have tried to explain some things

about himself to Andrew and John,

and he could have simply told them

where he was staying, but instead

he invited them to join him in the journey.

As Jesus reveals, this is how we discover what it is

that we are truly looking for.

Who Jesus was, and what Christ calls us to in life,

cannot be summed up in wordy explanations,

or propositional statements.

To discover him, to understand him,

and to find what it is we are looking for,

we must risk living the way he lived – with one another.

There is a meaningful lesson for us in this story,

especially in this week when

there has been a great deal of public discourse

about the angry, toxic and fearful ways

we have been communicating with on another.

We the people of the United States of America

have been acting like a scared and wounded people.

And when we are scared and wounded

we tend to see the world in a certain way.

We look for an enemy and we inevitably find one.

We look for some explanation or reason for our pain,

and we never fail to find at least one person to blame.

We look for the reason why we are dissatisfied with life

and we usually find it somewhere out there, beyond ourselves.

When we are hurt, fearful, angry and resentful,

it is all too easy to look for and find in the world

all that confirms our hurt, fear, anger and resentment.

This may be when it is most difficult for us

to follow Jesus' invitation to “come and see.”

Or, as the Apostle Paul later put it to the Ephesians:

“Come and lead a life worthy of your calling from God,

with humility, gentleness, patience,

bearing with one another – including your adversaries -

in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit

and the bonds of peace.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. re-echoed this same call to “come and see”

when he spoke out against the Vietnam War

in April of 1967. He said,

We are bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism [or, we could add, political parties or social and religious convictions] . . . [Our call is] for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all.

When the holy man of Susan Trott's story

ushered the surprised and incredulous pilgrims

out the back door of his hermitage,

he said one more thing to them before they left.

After saying, “Goodbye,” he added,

If you look on everyone you meet as a holy person,

you will be happy.

And who knows,

if we practice this

we might discover

what it is we are looking for,

and much more.

Amen

* Trott, Susan. The Holy Man New York: Riverhead Books, 1995.