"What Are You Looking For? (2nd Sunday after Epiphany)"
Pastor Roger Gustafson
Sunday, January 16, 2011
John 1:29-42; Isaiah 49:1-7
Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus. Amen.
On February 27 there will be a large and thought-provoking event in the life of our nation: The Academy Awards. I say that it’s large because it is estimated that more than 40 million Americans will tune in to watch the show. Forty million! Chances are excellent that I won’t be one of them, but many people will watch, and they’ll watch for a variety of reasons. Some will want to sample just a bit of the magic, the glamor, of Hollywood. Some will want to see if their favorite movie wins the Best Picture Award. Some will want to see their favorite celebrities emerge from their limos and proceed down the red carpet into the theater amid the sea of camera flashes. Forty million viewers. A large event indeed.
But I say that it’s also a thought-provoking event because of the radical contrast it sets up with our Gospel lesson this morning. The celebrities who you will watch at the Academy Awards – they won’t be wearing nametags. They won’t have to, because most of them will be household names. Yet when the Savior of the world appeared on the world stage, no one noticed. In fact, he had to be introduced twice before anyone even began to catch on and his significance began to sink in.
Sink in, it did, though; and for all who accepted his invitation to enter into a close relationship with him, life would never be the same. Things haven’t changed a bit.
I’d like to focus on just two phrases in this Gospel lesson this morning, two phrases that appear in the very last verse, in fact. “You are,” and “you are to be … .” Both of those phrases were spoken by Jesus to the same man, Simon Peter. Their encounter came at the end of a process that was begun by John the Baptist. Like many teachers in the ancient world, John the Baptist had disciples, literally “learners,” who listened to his pronouncements and teachings. They traveled with John and heard him spread his unique message, which was that the Messiah, the savior of the world, was coming, and that people needed to prepare themselves for his arrival.
So they were ready when John pointed to Jesus and said, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” That announcement set into motion a chain of events in which Andrew shifted his allegiance from John the Baptist to Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his own brother, Simon, and bring him to Jesus for an introduction; but Simon didn’t even have a chance to say, “Nice to meet you,” before Jesus took over the conversation: “You are Simon son of John,” he said. “You are to be called Cephas.”
Simon was the first person to encounter a two-part discovery that I believe is universal, and it certainly applies to you and to me, each day. The first part of the discovery is this: When you encounter the Savior of the world, you encounter someone who knows you thoroughly, intimately. Psychologists tell us that a universal human need, one that cuts across religious, cultural and national lines, is the need to be fully and completely known, and to have the person we are valued and respected for the unique people we are.
That’s a universal need, but oh, how we struggle with that need. Several years ago a British author named John Powell wrote a book titled Why Am I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am?, in which he highlighted the difficulty many people have in opening up and revealing themselves to other people. He also wrote about how expensive it is in terms of one’s own development as a full person when that fear takes over and inhibits interaction. You might know people (I certainly do) who live almost in fear of being rejected by friends, and even by members of their own family.
When we encounter Jesus, that fear of rejection is a non-issue. He already knows you through and through, better and more honestly than you know yourself. And the good news is: He’s still with you. Knowing what he knows about you, he wouldn’t leave you for the world. Part One of the discovery is that Jesus knows exactly who you are, and he loves you with a love that is beyond your comprehending.
Part Two of the discovery is this: “You are to be.” Jesus not only knows you; he knows who you will be, and he has something significant for you to do. In Simon’s case, it involved a name change, but Jesus knew that was only symbolic, that he had something significant for Peter to do.
Peter might have heard it this way: “Simon, I know you. You’re brash, impulsive; you talk before you think, you have these flashes of enthusiasm but they burn out quickly; you have good intentions, but they don’t last long. Yes, Simon, I know you, and so do you. But Simon, when I look at you, I see more. In fact, I see something you don’t see. I see someone who will preach with such power and conviction that 3,000 people will be converted in a single day. I see someone who will stand toe to toe with the most powerful authority on the planet and say, ‘We must obey God instead of you.’ I see someone whose loyalty to God will be absolutely unwavering and consistent. Yes, Simon, I know exactly who you are, and I know who you will be.”
That’s precisely what Jesus says to each of us. He knows who we are, he knows who we will be, and he has something significant for us to do. I believe that that dynamic was powerfully at work in the life of John Kralik. Kralik was a 53-year-old attorney who realized that his life had tanked. The small law firm that he had founded was failing. He was struggling through his second painful divorce. He was feeling increasingly distant from his three children. Physically he was in terrible shape. He was living in a tiny apartment that froze in the winter and boiled in the summer. He was at the end of his rope.
During a walk on New Year’s Day, Kralik hit upon an idea. He wondered if his life might become at least tolerable if instead of focusing on what he did not have, he concentrated on being grateful for what he did have. It’s certainly not a new concept; it’s the old “is the glass half empty or half full” question. But when it’s your life-and-death question, how you address it is vitally important.
So, encouraged by a thank-you note that he had received from an ex-girlfriend for a Christmas present that he had given her, he decided that would set for himself the goal of hand-writing a thank-you note to someone each day for the coming year. He thought back as far as he could remember, to high school friends, college professors, neighbors from old neighborhoods, store clerks, doctors, former colleagues – anyone who had done him a good turn, large or small. He wrote them all notes, one each day. And sure enough, shortly after he began his project he discovered that his life was changing in some surprising and positive ways. He chronicled his experience in the book, 365 Thank Yous: The Year the Simple Act of Gratitude Changed My Life.
I’ll wager it changed far more than his life, and that’s the point: Christ knows who we are, he knows who we will be, and, in knowing that, has something significant for us to do that will impact others. Exactly what that “something” is will be different for each of us, because God has constructed us all differently and continues to place different opportunities before us. But you can be assured of this: God’s horizons for your life are larger than your own.
Remember our first lesson this morning, from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah? God’s messenger feels like a failure because he has not, in his estimation, been successful in the relatively confined, specific task that he has been given. “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing … .” God listens to that lament for a while, and then says, “Well, I see things a little differently. The first task that you were given, that was too small. Instead of that – instead of making my name known only to Israel – I’m going to send you to the entire world in order to proclaim my authority. And just to make sure that you don’t start thinking that this is all about you, I’ll be with you myself in order to grant you progress. I’m going to accomplish great things through you.”
God knows exactly who you are, he knows who you will be, and who you will be is much more than you think.
It all starts with a relatively simple but powerful question, one that Jesus asks us each and every day: “What are you looking for?” That’s the question that he asks his disciples at the beginning of the gospel lesson: What are you hoping for, what are you seeking; with all of your thinking and working and striving, what is the goal of all your living? It’s a bold question, and the disciples come up with an equally bold answer, which is also a question: “Where are you staying?”
They’re not asking for his address; they don’t want to know where his village is located or who his neighbors are. The word “staying” literally translates as “abiding” or “remaining” or “dwelling,” and so they’re asking, “Where are you at home in this world? Where are you active? Where can we go to be with you and share in your living?”
“Where are you staying?” It takes courage to ask that question, courage and the willingness to give up control of our lives in favor of God’s direction of our lives. But when we make that choice, when we turn that corner, we identify with this One who has done for us what we could never do for ourselves: he has brought us into right relationship with God so that we can truly become the people who God intends us to become, so that we can truly become ourselves.
Where is Jesus staying? Where do you see the life of Jesus being worked out in the world? Where do you see healing and its cousins, compassion, forgiveness, and reconciliation taking place? That’s where Jesus is staying, abiding, dwelling; and it’s where Jesus is inviting you to join him – not to watch, but to participate, to live as he lives, to do what he does.
Gabrielle Giffords is the Arizona congresswoman who was so seriously injured in that mass shooting in Tucson just over a week ago. She was so fond of a saying of Mother Teresa that she had it framed and placed on her office wall. The saying is this: “In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”
If you seek to know where Jesus lives, do “small things with great love,” and there you will find yourself in the company of this One who knows exactly who you are, who knows who you will be, and who has great plans for you. My prayer for each of us is that we will have the courage to ask the bold question, “Where are you staying?”, and the courage to follow through, and to follow. Amen.