Sermon: “What Are You Looking For?” In my boyhood days, my best friend Tony had a subscription to Mad Magazine – maybe you remember it. An American humorist magazine – a bit irreverent - it started in 1952 - and still being published today: $16.00 for 14 issues. Using parody, satire, cartoons, jokes – it pokes fun at us, and helps light up our culture – particularly so in the early days of the cold war. Sometimes it goes a bit too far - but like it or not, Mad has had a level of influence in our pop culture. Mad also published books, collections from their magazines. One that Tony and I poured over was Mad’s Silly Answers to Stupid Questions – cartoons with one person asking a question, the answer to which should be obvious – but then the other person responds with a silly answer – sometimes a crass, biting answer – answers you wish you could say just once - when someone asks you a stupid question. A man is putting on his raincoat, holding his umbrella, opening the front door - and you can see it’s raining outside – just pouring. And a woman asks, “Honey, are you going out in this kind of weather?” To which the man replies, “No dear, I’m going out to change it into some other kind of weather.” Or one of my a favorites, as I was thinking about becoming a pastor, and learning what not to say when you visited at the hospital – someone walks into a hospital room, bouquet of flowers in hand – the patient in lying down, eyes closed, quietly resting. The person asks, loudly, “Are you asleep?” To which the patient replies, “No, I’m dead. Leave the flowers and get out.” Then this one: a woman is down on her hands and knees, on the grass, carefully moving her hand across the grass, her face close to the ground, eyes scanning. A man comes along and asks, “Did you lose something?” The woman replies, “No, I’m grazing.” In this situation - the better question – the more helpful question would have been one that we hear in today’s gospel lesson: “What are you looking for?” Followed with another good question: “Can I help you find what you have lost?” We hear this first question in today’s gospel lesson. This is, in fact – the very first thing Jesus says in John’s gospel – the first words out of his. I never noticed this before. Here this first utterance of Jesus is this winsome, gentle question: “What are you looking for?” In Marks gospel, the first words of Jesus seem rather pushy: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” In Matthew his first words are those we heard last Sunday, at Jesus’ baptism by John - this discussion about who should be baptizing whom – and Jesus says, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Matthew’s gospel is very concerned about righteousness, about right living before God. But here in John – Jesus begins with this invitational, engaging question: What are you looking for? Jesus asks this question of two people - two disciples of John the Baptist – one named Andrew – the other unnamed - who come up to Jesus that day out of curiosity – wanting to check Jesus out, since their teacher John the Baptist had twice said that Jesus is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” – a theologically loaded description – about one who brings forgiveness, the removal of all sin – of all that separates us from God. So they come up to Jesus – wondering maybe what a Lamb of God might look like – and before a word is out of their mouths, Jesus asks them this question. This same question, it seems to me, is one we still ask; it is on our minds. And even if the question is not asked out loud, we are all seeking to answer it in many and various ways. What are we looking for? Some of us are looking for love – companionship – friendship. As Waylon Jennings would sing it, sometimes though we are “looking for love in all the wrong places.” Many are looking for wealth – money – commodity – status – and the power that comes with it. For some that consumes much of their lives. They rise and fall with the Dow Industrial Average – and now many are feeling rather down. A survey of young people – young high school students – some years back now – asked, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” The number one – highest percentage answer, “Make a lot of money.” That’s actually a sad and a frightening answer. Hopefully you young folks – and even the rest of us – hopefully we are looking for some sense of a call – for a “vocation” – something that Frederick Buechner defined as “that place where your deep desire and passion - and the world greatest need – meet together.” We would certainly be much better off looking for that – which really is better than looking to make a lot of money. Some are looking for a good education – training for some career track – which takes this sense of call and vocation seriously. I hope we are looking sense of purpose for our lives – some meaning and significance to our presence on this planet at this time. Some among us may not think they have that kind of luxury – they are looking for the basic necessities of live – each day, every day – looking for food and shelter – for medicine – for help to pay rent and utilities – they are “looking to survive.” For some their search brings them here to our doorstep – and thanks to all of you we can help a bit. Soon I suspect more will come to our location, as the new Fern Creek / Highview United Ministries building is almost finished – and we will hopefully be able to help even more. Some are looking for justice. As some in our congregation know all too well - a terrible wrong was done to a loved one in their family – and there is a desire for justice – for some appropriate settlement of the matter – to help bring some sense of closure. And surely we are a world – a nation, a community – a self – all looking for peace, and happiness – a sense of well-being – what the Bible calls shalom. We are looking for peace in Iraq so our loved ones in the military can come home. We want a sense of well-being in our families – and in our own inner lives. Sometimes we find it, and sometimes it seems to allude us. Maybe we have trouble finding this peace and well-being because we spend too much time looking for it in all the wrong places. “What are you looking for?” Jesus asks. And these two disciples – they do not answer Jesus directly. Maybe like a lot of us, they are not sure just what they are looking for – the answer is allusive. Right here I think there is great wisdom for us. Perhaps it is best not to answer this kind of question right away, but to ponder the question over and over again – daily and seasonally – to discover what is very likely a whole variety of answers that will come over time. So instead of answering the question directly, these disciples respond to Jesus’ question with one of their own: “Rabbi - Teacher – Lamb of God Jesus – where are you staying?” Now here in John’s gospel – like a lot of the stuff in John’s gospel, this is not a simple, informational, geographic kind question. “Jesus, where in town are you staying?” “Oh – I’ve got a nice room at the Seelbach.” Like those commercials: “Are you really the Lamb of God?” “No, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.” That’s not what’s happening here. None of the questions and answers here are simple, information seeking questions. They are deep questions - theological questions – God questions. “Jesus, where are you staying?” Again, Jesus he does not answer the disciples question with a direct, informational answer. Instead he answers with an invitation: “Come and see.” Come and See. This is an open, welcoming invitation to the disciples to seek out and find the answers to the first question – to do what we call the work of discernment – the task and the journey of discovery. Friends, Jesus asks this same question of you and of me. And he offers us the same invitation. First - What are you looking for?” And we would well to follow the wisdom of these two disciples – and not try to answer that question right away. Instead we would do well to ask the question these two new followers asked: “Jesus, where are you staying?” “Jesus, where are you abiding in the world today - where are you present and active and available and seen and known and looked to? That is where I want to be.” Jesus – through this text – through the Holy Spirit – in our baptism - offers you and me this same word of invitation – and invitation to journey - – to come and see – and to “stay with” Jesus – to abide with Jesus for the day – and even for the whole of our lives – to discover this way of life which Jesus offers to us. We are cordially invited - To come and see - to stay and abide with Jesus. Answering this invitation will – in the here and now and in the future – it will help us find what we are looking for. Answering that invitation will mean abiding with Jesus – the one who can and will help us find ourselves when we feel lost and alone. And abiding with Jesus - the Lamb of God can and will take our guilt and sin away - and restore us and connect us back to God’s own self. This is what Jesus asks and offers to us all. And it is all very, very good news. And all God’s people said. Amen.
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