1 I waited patiently upon the Lord; *
he stooped to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the desolate pit, out of the mire and clay; *
he set my feet upon a high cliff and made my footing sure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God; *
many shall see, and stand in awe,
and put their trust in the Lord. (Psalm 40:1-3)
“What are you looking for?” It’s a powerful question. It seems that even John the Baptist didn’t know the answer. As the one sent to testify to the light so that all may believe, as the voice crying out to make straight the way of the Lord—he didn’t know the identity of the Lord. Twice he says, “I myself did not know him.”
But we shouldn’t be too hard on John. The gospel says though Jesus came into the world and the world came into being through him, the world still did not know him. Even his own people, his family his neighbors did not accept him.
People in Jesus’ time were not looking for a carpenter’s son from Nazareth as their Messiah. They were not looking for someone who would waste time at a well speaking with a woman from Samaria. They were not looking for one who would cause trouble with the religious authorities. They were not looking for someone who would teach, “Blessed are the meek.” They were not looking for the Messiah to put his Spirit driven power to use offering care for the most vulnerable, reaching out to all he met refusing to be controlled by religious or cultural rules or failing to see God at work in every person. They were not looking for someone who would be convicted and hung on a cross to die as a common criminal. Jesus, on whom the Spirit of God rested and remained, was rejected time and again because they were not looking for him.
It leads me to wonder how much of what God is doing is hidden in plain sight and we are missing? What are we missing because we are not looking as God is moving and acting in our world?
God is always at work in our world. God acts through all kinds of people. Sometimes they are obvious like our friends, those we love, our church community. It is not hard to see God at work at the Lee Food Pantry or in Gideon’s Garden or at the Multicultural BRIDGE summer camp or as we gather together to worship. But God is always at work. Sometimes it can be hard to see. What are you looking for?
Annette Dove dropped out of high school and had a child when she was young. Her difficult past led her to seek to help other struggling young people. She got her GED, went to college, and became a star special education teacher. Now she runs a widely respected program, TOPPS, Targeting our People’s Priorities with Service in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It is an uphill battle in this poor majority-black town of 50,000. She knows that her effort cannot compensate for a government that spends vast sums of money on building prisons, but will not fund programs to help impoverished children. But she will not give up. Her after-school program feeds 600 children a day in the summer and offers mentoring, tutoring, help with college admission tests and applications for scholarships, and coaching to help young people secure a job. The first children to go through the TOPPS program (http://www.toppsinc.org) are now in college—33 of them. No headlines proclaim her efforts or her successes, but through the sheer force of her hope and courage children without much expectation are given some.[1]
All of us have stories about people with compassion who stretch and work to serve others. God is at work in the lives of us all.
In this Gospel, Jesus’ ministry begins with the question, “What are you looking for?” This question is broader than our English translation. It also means “What are you seeking?” “What do you need?” “For what do you yearn?” These broader questions help us go deeper because often what we look for is shaped or clouded by what we seek or what we need. Without being willing or able to “come and see” we can miss the opportunity to experience God at work.
If we are struggling with an overwhelming life event—financial struggles, health issues, relationship challenges, we may not be able to look for God at work without the support of a trusted community. If we are living life large, running from one activity to another, keeping a never-ending list of things to do or accomplish, we can fail to look for God at work, missing an opportunity to rest, finding what gives us true life, and be grateful for our blessings. If we believe that we have nothing to offer, we avoid looking for God’s opportunities right in front of us. If we allow ourselves to become filled with despair over our world, we may not look for ways the Spirit is guiding us to Come and See in our very particular lives—volunteering to tutor, bringing a friend to get help with their citizenship application, providing food and clothing to a family in need, offering transportation for a trip to the doctor’s office, to work, or to church.
John the Baptist points out Jesus to two of his disciples and they begin to follow. Jesus turns to them and asks, “What are you looking for?” We can only imagine what they expected. They called him “Rabbi” so they were probably expecting to listen, to question, to learn—they may have hoped they would be accepted as a member of the winning team. Jesus offers a significant invitation, “Come and see.” By morning, one of the disciples, named Andrew, goes to his brother, Simon, and says, ‘We have found the Messiah.” It must have been quite a conversation! What did they hear? What did they see? But I imagine that even with this profound encounter, Andrew did not know what he was looking for. He certainly could not know what he would find or what following Jesus would mean. His journey with God’s son and with the others who followed could not be known without their daily, hourly, willingness to “Come and see.”
Tomorrow we will remember the life and the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We often remember him in the glorious splendor of his magnificent oratory speaking in front of thousands of adoring and committed people who traveled hundreds of miles to hear him share his dream. But God and Martin did not always arrive at the same station at the same time. Though Dr. King had a deep and abiding faith in God, his challenges and the violence he daily faced wore him down.
There is a powerful story of Dr. King one night. It was the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott. Rosa Parks had been arrested for her audacity to sit down on the bus. Dr. King became the focal point of this boycott that would stretch on for more than a year. He had to withstand constant threats on his life and the life of his family, receiving sometimes 40 death calls a day, while standing strong to support the people who walked many miles to work rather than ride a vicious segregated bus.
One late night he came home exhausted and found his wife asleep. He paced trying to calm down from another long meeting. The phone rang. The voice on the line was nasty and menacing. Once again his wife and little children were threatened. He felt his spirit breaking. He remembered going to the kitchen making himself a cup of coffee. He was ready to give up. He writes that he sat down, put his head in his hands and began to pray. “I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my power. I have nothing left. I have come to the point where I can’t face it alone.”
Dr. King wrote, “At that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced God before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: “Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.” Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.”
Three days later a bomb exploded at his house. When an angry mob gathered, Dr. King mounted the destroyed porch, raising his hands he implored the people, “We must meet hate with love. Remember if I am stopped this movement will not stop because God is with this movement. Go home with this glorious faith and radiant assurance.”[2] The angry group went home, their hearts filled with the message of the gospel non-violence.
What are you looking for? God is with us always—as we gather in Word and in teaching, as we come to the table to receive the food of life, as we go out into the world in service to those we know and to those we are yet to meet. God is always with us.
John went to the wilderness and came back baptizing in the name of one he did not know, taking no claim or advantage, witnessing to the light. Andrew boldly followed Jesus opening himself to the Lamb of God. What were they looking for? What are we looking for? Jesus invites us all to come and see—to come and see how God brings hope out of despair, love out of anger and violence, life out of the places of death in our world. May we like John move from places of not knowing to see and testify to God’s son and may we like Andrew bring others so they may know the grace and peace of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
[1] Nicholas Kristof. Finding America’s Mother Teresa. New York Times, Sunday, December 4, 2016.
[2] Martin Luther King, Jr. Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. New York: HarperCollins, 1987>