January 20, 2002
2nd Sunday of Epiphany
Year A
Title: Seeing Is Believing
Theme: To go on a Faithquest with the Christ means letting go of all our
pat answers and to enter onto a journey of mystery—Christ’s invitation to
“come and see” is an invitation to a journey, not a destination.
I know that a few of you here have seen the recent movie THE LORD OF
THE RINGS, as have I, actually I’ve seen it a couple of times already and
am probably going to see it again one more time. I love these types of
picture—you know, these kind of epic journey movies where the hero or
heroes go off on a journey towards a quest to save the universe from
evil. It’s a formula that works over and over again, and it’s the reason
that films like STAR WARS and THE LORD OF THE RINGS are and will
remain classics—because they tap into stories and stories that go deep
within our hearts and souls and we can, oddly enough relate to them,
even though we may be stuck in our nine to five jobs, living in some
house in the suburbs. The heroes of these mythic stories go through
experience of discovery both in the world and within themselves—the
outward journey becomes the inward journey as well. Maybe we all
secretly want to be Luke Skywalker or Frodo Baggins—ok, maybe not all
of us, but I think a lot of us secretly want to be the heroes of our stories,
the heroes in our personal epics. And I don’t even think such a desire is
so far-flung—maybe we won’t be going to galaxies far, far away fighting
the Empire or that we’ll be saddled with a magic ring that we have to
dispose in Mount Doom before it causes the ruin of Middle Earth, but we
are called to go on a quest, we are called to be the hero of a story and
that story is our own. In the passage that we have from the Gospel of
John today, we see Jesus invitating people, invitating people to go on a
journey with him, and he asks his disciples to do something
extraordinary, which is to let go all of the pat answers, all the certainties,
and enter into a journey of mystery. For you see, this invitation, Christ’s
invitation to “come and see” is an invitation to a journey, not a
destination, to a time of travel and exploration, even to a time of
purposeful wandering, not an invitation to an end, but to a lifetime of
constant beginnings.
The incredible thing is that the spiritual journey that we’re invited on is all
about revelation, its all about what the Christian season of Epiphany is
all about, which is what we are celebrating right now. Epiphany is the
time in which we, the Church, celebrate and give witness to God’s
shining forth into the world through the life of Jesus Christ. It’s a time
when we prepare ourselves to be startled by a new revelation, a time in
which God reveals God’s own self to us in new and surprising ways. But,
you know, I think one of the truths about revelation is that its sometimes
NOT one of those burning bush experiences, sometimes its not one of
those “ah-ah!” moments when we finally get it. No, sometimes, I think,
there are moments in our lives when God’s revelation to us, God’s
shining forth into our lives is very much an invitation to live our lives in a
time of mystery, to go on a journey without a clear and exacting map. I
mean, its an odd thing to say,
I admit, but I think the passage from the Gospel of John gives us a
glimpse of one of those moments when God’s revelation to us is actually
a call to live into, and to live with, and to live through a time of mystery in
our lives to go on a journey towards an unknown land, much like the
heroes of all great stories must do.
The passage before us this evening begins with John the Baptist and two
of his disciples standing around. The next thing we know, Jesus is
walking by, and John loudly says “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” At
this point, John’s disciples leave him and literally, LITERALLY follow this
Jesus. But then Jesus does this stunning thing: he turns around and
confronts them, these new disciples of his, and he asks them “What are
you looking for?” What an incredible question—its so stark, its so “to the
point.” And you know, you would think they would have had some sort
of answer, some sort of response!
I mean, I have a couple of ready answers if they need to borrow them—“I’
m looking for joy, I’m looking for peace, I’m looking for God.” And I bet
each of you have your own personal answer to that question. If this was
some sort of quiz Christ was testing them with, its not as if they didn’t get
a couple of clues to the “right” answers the day before when John the
Baptist was doing his thing in the Jordan which we heard about last
week. Maybe something like “I want the Lamb of God” or “I want to be
saved from my sin.”—all of these sound like reasonable answers based
on what John the Baptist said the day before. BUT they seem
awestruck, they seem to fumble around, they don’t seem to know HOW
to answer Christ’s question. Like you and I, they probably had some
answer all prepared, but when that moment came when Christ, when
God, asked them what they REALLY wanted, all the years of prepared,
pat answers drained away in an instant. In my imagination, I see them
shocked, trying to fumble through some sort of answer that makes sense
and you know what? The only thing they can seem to blurt out is “Rabbi,
where are you staying?”
Of course, that was the right answer. You know why? Because it
acknowledged the reality that these disciples were about to begin a
journey, a Faithquest into the heart of mystery itself. The disciples
thought they knew what they wanted—and then they met this One from
Nazareth and from that point on, all they knew was that they wanted to
go where this One was going to, and to be with this One wherever he
was. Do you remember the story of Ruth and Naomi from the Old
Testament? Do you remember when Ruth, in loyalty and love for her
mother-in-law says to her “Where you go I shall go, and where you stay, I
shall stay. Where you die, I shall die, and there shall be buried.” And so
like Ruth, these disciples enter this journey not knowing exactly where
they’re going or where this Christ will take them—BUT THIS THEY
KNOW—they must be on this journey with this One. Wonderfully and
beautifully, Christ responds to them by inviting them on the journey with
these words: “Come and see.” You see, I think the epiphany these
disciples had when they were called by Christ was that they were going
into this journey with no idea about what they were looking for. Before
Christ turned around and asked them “What are you looking for?” I think
they had some neat, nice answers like you and I do. But when Christ
turned around and asked them that question, they realized that they
were being called to live into the mystery of what it means to be a
disciple of this One from Nazareth. Their moment of revelation was an
invitation to discard all the platitudes and all of the ready-made answers
and all the religious cliques, and to follow this Jesus into mystery itself.
Sometimes epiphanies, sometimes revelations, come to us NOT in order
to give us all the answers, but to give us the harder questions, the more
difficult questions. Sometimes revelation “REVEALS” ambiguity, not
certainty, sometimes it reveals a question, not an answer, sometimes
revelation reveals a journey, and no clear destination. Sometimes the
heroic journey, the quest for a more authentic faith that we talked about
a few weeks ago, means that we begin our journey with no agenda other
than following the Christ, than following the ONE who goes before us,
knowing that he knows the way to whatever place we are going. I think
the decision of these disciples to go with this Christ into at time of
mystery, a journey where they would have more questions than answers
is this moment where they totally allowed Christ to be their guide, rather
than trusting the maps that they had been given by others, maps that no
longer should the strange land and moment they were living in. Sure,
the disciples would get some of answers to their questions on the
journey, but the journey toward the answers was what Christ was calling
them to at that moment.
The invitation to come and see, to throw out our maps, the invitation to
trust the only guide that matters, the living Christ, will mean some scary
things for us—let me be honest about that. But heroic journeys don’t
come without adventures and lots of scary moments, and sometimes
moments where you just have to trust the guide to get you where you are
supposed to go, wherever that may be, and no matter how vulnerable
you may feel any given moment. But you know, I trust this guide, this
ONE who has gone before us on his own journey of faith, which included
friends, and a few enemies amongst those friends, a journey which
included the loss of so much as well—friends, family, a chance to grow
old, a chance to rest. The Christ, the only guide worth following, went on
the journey before us so that when we took our first tentative, hesitant
steps towards revelation, when we responded to his invitation to “come
and see,” he would know what we were to expect, which was a lot of
surprises, a few tears, some disappointments, but so much joy, so much
life and the powerful truth that the journey of faith is worth embarking
on. The Christ, the living One who goes before us to the cross, and who
rises from the grave, the guide who knows the way, calls us to our
Faithquest, to our own journey of wonder and hope. I say we take Christ
up on his invitation, scary as it might be, this invitation to go on our
journey without the usual maps and compasses. But I think the guide is
worth trusting, don’t you, because he’s been there before, he’s gone on
the journey before us, so he knows the landscapes, the pitfalls, the
crosses, and he knows what meets us at the end of journey, wherever
that is, which is resurrection, which is hope from a grave, life out of
death, hope out of hopelessness. Come and see, says the Christ to his
disciples some two thousands years ago—that invitation is the same one
he is making to us in this very moment. Amen and amen.
