Come and See

By Rev. Heather J. Blais, Rector

What are you looking for?

This is the question that Jesus poses to two of John’s disciples. They  had heard John testify that Jesus was the Messiah.  In John’s Gospel, John the Baptist is better known as John the Testifer.* While that title never stuck, testifying is John’s primary purpose in this gospel. We do not receive any commentary on his eccentric fashion or dietary choices, nor the backstory about John’s parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah. Nor do we witness John actually baptize Jesus; instead the event is referenced. 

In this gospel, John is here to give witness to God’s Chosen One. In our lesson, he gives evidence that at Jesus' baptism, the Holy Spirit descended from heaven like a dove, and remained on Jesus. John tells his disciples, and anyone paying attention, that God spoke to him, making clear the one whom the Spirit remained on is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.  And so, John testifies to those listening:  Jesus is the Son of God. Twice he refers to him as ‘Lamb of God’. Commentator Corey J. Sanders suggests this imagery, as well as that of the Spirit descending like a dove at Jesus’ baptism, are ecological embodiments of the incarnation.* God’s Spirit is in the dove, just as God is in Jesus, the Lamb of God. 


What are you looking for?
When John’s two disciples heard this question, they focused on logistics. ‘Rabbi, where are you staying?’ They were clear that this man was the Son of God, their teacher had just told them as much, and now it was time to follow Jesus. Except this remarkable statement from John - seemed to shift their minds more than their beings. Because their response to Jesus’ question was about temporal anxieties. Where are your lodgings? Where will we be staying now that we are following you? What are the directions on how to get there?
Will we have enough supplies? What does this change mean for our day to day lives?

I don’t know about you, but I can certainly resonate with that response. When faced with unimaginable change, it is easier to focus on the small pieces we can digest, the pieces we can control, and even manipulate. Not because we have nefarious plans, but because we are trying to cope. The staff and leadership knows when I’m overwhelmed with a big picture challenge, that’s when the bulletin boards need to be redone, and when the office needs to be tidied. It reflects a physical need for our bodies to have some sense of things when everything before us feels so unknown. So many of us respond to Jesus’ question like those two disciples. ‘God, what do we do next?’

And I love Jesus for his response. God’s embodiment in human flesh knows us, knows our anxieties; our insecurities; and our fears. Christ does not chastise or shame us for our need to know more. Because Jesus is the human embodiment of God’s Love. He responds in the most loving, non-judgemental way possible. An invitation that meets the disciples exactly where they are. 
Come and see.  Come - with me - and see. God is not waiting for us to walk a certain distance by ourselves before they will journey with us. God is with us from before the beginning, the entirety of the way, and long past the hereafter. 

What are you looking for?
No really, what are we looking for? What brought us to church today? Do we need answers to all the questions we face? How will we:
    … pay all the bills this month?
    … live with this diagnosis?
    …get through this grief?

What are you looking for?
Do we need to find a place to bring all: 
….our fears about our fraught world amidst startling shifts in geopolitics? 
…our uncertainties about whether the constitution could possibly bend anymore without breaking? 
…our anger and heartbreak at the manner in which ICE is treating our neighbors as animals to be hunted, beaten, and killed?

The questions and uncertainties we carry may leave us: 
…wanting to hide and flee.
… feeling frozen and stuck in place.  
…like we are ready to fight til the last. 

These are our instincts at work, and they are a God given gift to help us survive.  Yet God wants so much more for us than mere survival. God wants us - and all of creation - to thrive.  To know a life that moves beyond fear, anxiety, and anger. To instead know a life that is grounded in an inner peace, trust, and love, that comes from being in an ongoing and active relationship with God. Where we are guided by a sense of God’s justice and righteousness, knowing a taste of God’s dream of Love for this world, and letting that inform our thoughts, words, and deeds.  Grounding our very lives in the promises of our baptism.  Come - with Jesus - and see. 

The inner peace, trust, and love that comes from an ongoing and active relationship with God does not mean that the world around us will be much less volatile or perilous. But it does mean our inner lives will be less volatile. And it means that we refuse  - with our very lives - to be part of the evil and violence done in the name of wealth and progress. Instead we actively chose another way entirely - the nonviolent Way of Love, as embodied in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We look to the communion of saints who have looked injustice, violence, and evil in the eye and drew on God’s strength as they chose once more, God’s nonviolent Way of Love. Folks like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that we celebrate Monday; his mentor, the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, and their contemporary, the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray. Like them, as the Church, we are called to draw on God’s strength for the facing of this hour. 

This past week, the Episcopal Church in Minnesota and the Episccopal Church’s Public Policy, Partnership, and Witness Division hosted an online vigil to mourn, lament and remember people who have died by immigration enforcement actions in and out of detention.** Their bishop, the Rt. Rev. Craig Loya, spoke precisely to how we as the Church respond to the facing of this hour.  A word we as the Church need to hear and carry with us.  Bishop Loya reflected:

“The forces of evil that all of us promised to resist in our baptismal covenant always want us to meet anger with anger. They want us to meet hatred with hatred. They want us to meet fear with fear, and they want us to meet scorn with scorn. The forces of evil in the world are always fed by mimetic anger and hatred. You can be sure those forces are out there tonight, as they ever are in a fallen world, daring us to become its food.  And beloved, we’re not going to do that. 

We, as followers of Jesus, are going, in this moment, to make like our ancient ancestors and turn the world upside down by mobilizing for love. We are going to disrupt with Jesus’ hope. We are going to agitate with Jesus' love. Not because we are weak, or not because we have given up. And for God sake not out of some naive wish that everything will be just fine when it is so obviously not fine. We are going to choose to turn the world upside down with love because we know, we know, the cross of Jesus Christ settles forever that love is the most powerful force for change and healing in the universe.”***


I especially appreciate his naming that as the Church, we can collectively acknowledge, things are not okay right now. And the only way to face the challenges before us, is together as part of a movement of Love modeled by Jesus. A love that will agitate and give hope when others want hope snuffed out.  This is the path we can journey on when we come - with Jesus - and see. 

So will we come and see?
Whatever has brought us here today…
Whatever we have carried in with us…
However we are coping - or not coping - with the state of things…
The invitation awaiting us is the same as the invitation these two disciples received, and it is the same as Bishop Loya offered the Church this week. 

Come and see. 
Come - with Jesus - and see.
Come and see with the disciples then, and with the Church now. 
Come and see the values of God’s love as articulated in our baptismal promises.
Come - with Jesus - and see what it means to resist evil. 
Come - with Jesus - and see how God will strengthen us to disrupt with Jesus’ hope and to agitate with Jesus’ love, turning this world upside down with love. 
Come - with Jesus - and see. Amen. 


Lectionary Texts:

• Isaiah 49:1-7
• 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
• John 1:29-42
• Psalm 40:1-12

* Gratitude for WorkingPreacher.org podcast and commentator Cody J. Sanders for emphasizing this difference. 
** ENS: Thousands join Episcopal Church vigil to lament violent immigration enforcement actions, unite in pursuing justice
*** https://www.instagram.com/theepiscopalchurch/

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