January 27, 2008 Third Sunday of Epiphany
Sermon Title: “What Are You Looking For?”
Series: None
Text: John 1:29-42
Dr.
Delivered on January 27, 2008
“When Jesus turned and saw them following,
he said to them,
‘What are you looking for?’” John 1:38
What Are You Looking For?
I got one of those emails the other day about the “good old days” – you know the kind. This particular one was about the year 1955. Most of us here this morning don’t remember 1955, but that was the year that a lot of things started that, in time, would have an impact on many of our lives, especially us “baby-boomers.” For instance,
·
·
Polio shots were first given in
public schools signaling the beginning of the end for the disease in the
·
The
·
Rosa Parks refused to give up her
seat on a bus to a white man, defying
· Home microwave ovens went on sale for the first time.
·
The first automobile seat belt laws
were enacted in
·
Kentucky Fried Chicken’s
finger-lickin’ good chicken is available nationally and Ray Croc opened his own
first McDonald’s hamburger stand in suburban
· Crest, the first toothpaste with fluoride which is (join me) “clinically proven to fight cavities,” is launched.
There was one
other thing that happened in the summer of 1955 I want to mention. And that is the
appearance in the summer of ‘55 of a summer fill-in television show known as “The
$64,000 question.” The $64,000 Question was a quiz show where contestants
were asked questions where each question was slightly more difficult than the
preceding one. After answering a question correctly, the contestant had the
choice to “take” the prize for that question or “leave it” in favor of a chance
at the next question. In fact, the original name of the show was “Take it or
leave it.” The final and most difficult question was worth $64,000 if the
person could answer it correctly. An interesting side-note is that the winner
of that first season was an unknown housewife from
This past week
as I was meditating on the passage I just read you from the Gospel of John a
question Jesus asked his first followers caught my attention. You’ll find it
there in verse 38 of today’s reading. It says, “When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are
you looking for?’” The more I
thought and prayed over that sentence, the more I realized that, for me, and
possibly for you, that question from Jesus is indeed the $64,000 question. This
timeless question is one Jesus still asks everyone who seeks to follow him even
today, 2000 years later.
It’s also the question I want us to ask ourselves this morning. What is the “it” you are looking for?” Let’s begin by looking back over the text. After beginning his gospel with his famous prologue (“In the beginning was the Word…”) John the gospel writer immediately sets out to show that John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus and not the Messiah himself. In the passage we read this morning he makes that clear when John the Baptist tells two of his disciples that Jesus is the Messiah. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,” he says, pointing to Jesus as he walks by. The next day the scene is repeated and this time two disciples standing there immediately begin following Jesus. When Jesus notices these two followers, He turns around, looks them in the eye and, “What are you looking for?” The NIV reads “What do you want?” There and the old King James reads, “What seek ye?” At any rate, the disciples are caught completely off guard by Jesus’ question so they ask Him a question. “Where are you staying?” Always inviting, Jesus welcomes them into his life. “Come and see,” he says to them. The disciples spend the rest of the day with Jesus and then one of the followers named Andrew immediately goes and finds his brother Peter and says, “We have found the Messiah.” The story is amazing, in one afternoon we see these first followers of Jesus hear the word, seek Him, experience Him, and then share Him with others. For most of us it doesn’t happen that quickly. But that’s not the point this morning. The point is that it starts with the seeking – it starts with the question: “What are you looking for?”
And so as I’ve already said, I want us to think about that question today. And I’ll tell you in advance I’m not going to answer the question for you. I can’t. Only you can answer this question. What I am going to do is to give you a Word of Truth, a Word of Warning, and a Word of Encouragement concerning that question. What you do with them, and how you ultimately answer the question, is up to you.
A Word of
TRUTH: Knowing and naming our desires holds great power.
Let’s start with the Word of Truth that this question teaches us. The Word of Truth is simply this: Knowing and naming our desires holds great power.
It occurred to me in thinking about this question that sometimes we think that religion, and life in general, is all about having all the answers. But in reality life is often more about the process of wrestling with the questions. Parents know this. Questions, questions, and more questions, that’s how it is when you have young children in the house. “Why is the sky blue?” “How do fish breathe underwater?” “Why do zebras have stripes?” “What are toenails made of?” That’s how children learn – by asking questions.
That’s also a great way to help grown-ups – by asking questions and getting people to wrestle through them. I believe that’s why Jesus asked so many questions as He went about His ministry. He wanted people to stop and think. Jesus wasn’t an “answer man.” He was a “question man.” He was always asking questions. Questions like, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:13) “What do you want me to do for you?” (Matthew 20:32) “Do you love me?” (John 21: 15) “Why are you looking for me?” (Luke 2:49).
Other great
thinkers through the ages affirm that it’s the questions that are really
important. It’s the questions that hold great power. St. Ignatius Loyola, the
founder of the Jesuits, knew, way back in the sixteenth century, the importance
of questions and holy desire. He taught that every time we pray we should ask God
to give us “What it is we are looking for.” If you’re going to do that
it’s obviously important to know what it is we’re looking for. The Buddhist
monks of
And the reason knowing our deepest desires so important is because knowing what is driving you holds great power. If we can name it – what we really want out of life– then we can focus our physical, emotional, and financial power to attain it. More importantly knowing and naming our desires allows us to partner with God as we seek what it is we really want.
When it comes to
knowing our desires, to knowing the answer to the question, “What are you
looking for?” Far too many of us are like poor
“Would you
tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don't much
care where,” said
“Then it doesn't matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“So long as I
get somewhere,”
“Oh, you're
sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
As we stumble upon Christ’s question to his first two followers two thousand years after the fact let us acknowledge the fact that everyone is looking for something. Good, bad or indifferent, the simple fact of the matter is you are looking for something. Each one of us is striving for something as we plod through this life. We’re looking for that something that “makes us tick,” the thing that “shakes our tree,” “rattles our chain,” “floats our boat” and “scratches us where we itch.” The word of truth we can take away from this is this: knowing what that “something” is holds great power in our life because when we do then we can begin to travel towards in the power of God instead of just wandering along.
A Word of
WARNING: Following Jesus is not just a way to get what we want.
But that leads me to the second thing I want to point out concerning this $64.000 question; a word of warning. The Word of Warning is that following Jesus is not just a helpful way to get what you want. I am greatly indebted to Will Willimon, a Bishop in the Methodist church and a very good preacher for this insight.
I am ashamed to say that sometimes in my preaching and teaching I have turned the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the message that following Jesus is the answer when it comes to helping us get what we really want out of life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Christianity, following Jesus, is not merely another helpful means of helping us get what we want. Instead, following Jesus is the means whereby God gets what God wants.
How can I say that Jesus isn’t just another helpful therapeutic device, another path among many to help us get what we want before we met Jesus? I can say it because the Gospel teaches that we really don’t know what we want or need until we do meet Jesus.
This startling realization was crystallized in my thinking recently as I began studying the gospels again. Check me out on this. The basic message Jesus had when he came preaching was to repent, to change. Jesus was baptized, tested by Satan in the wilderness, and then began to preach. Our reading this week in our Matthew Bible Study included Matthew 4:17 which says, “From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
What that means is Jesus didn’t come along to ask what our deepest desires are – what we’re seeking – to simply “baptize” those desires making them holy and acceptable. Instead Jesus came to change our lives – to transform us so our desires would reflect God’s desires. Christianity presupposes that we do not know, and in fact cannot know what is good for us. Instead it is God alone who knows. And that means following Jesus is not just a way to get what we really want instead it’s about getting to know our Creator – it’s about a relationship so that our desires match his own and thus the work and will of God goes forward. And that will call for change on our part (repentance).
So…any gospel void of repentance is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s interesting how this understanding has changed over the years. The great theologian, Karl Barth, writing in the middle of the last century said people come to church asking, “It is true?” Tom Long, a preaching professor I had back in seminary says that today people no longer ask the “Is it true” question as much as they do another question, “Will it work for me?”
Thus, I confess that over the years in my preaching I have occasionally attracted people to the Gospel by appealing to their essentially selfish needs (“You can have happiness in your life!”) and then pulled a “bait and switch” on them, offering them instead the unselfish Gospel of Jesus. There is precedent for this in Jesus’ own ministry though. Jesus fed people at many of his preaching events and, in time it seemed that many were coming simply for the bread and not for the spiritual nourishment. He eventually called them on it though. The story is told most plainly in the sixth chapter of John’s gospel. There, in verse 26 Jesus says to them, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” And then there’s the woman at the well in the fourth chapter of John’s gospel, where he says to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked and he would have given you living water….a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:10, 14).
Yes, Jesus sometimes used physical, material, regular old everyday needs and desires we all have to lead people into a relationship with Himself. Jesus always said, “Come as you are.” But he never left people that way – the people who left old ways behind to follow him were always transformed. Jesus was about something larger than meeting our wants and desires. Jesus is trying to do something to us, just like he did with the two who followed him that day. Consider yourselves warned; following Jesus is not about just getting the desires of your unregenerate heart met. Jesus wants to change you from the inside out.
A Word of
ENCOURAGEMENT: Jesus promises to show you the way.
And that leads me to the final word of the day, a Word of Encouragement. The Word of Encouragement is found in what Jesus said to those first two followers who posed him the strange “Where are you staying?” question. The word of Encouragement is that Jesus promises to show you the way. He said to the two, “Come and See.”
Look at the
passage again and notice that the question Jesus asks does not address the two
followers’ sins, failures, lack of faith, or disobedience. His question isn’t
accusatory or hostile. Instead it’s rooted in compassion and love. Jesus is
meeting these followers right where they are. It’s a question full of hope; “What
are you looking for?
As you hear him ask the question, take a good long look in His eyes. As you do, feel his sincerity and love, and notice his complete lack of judgment or anger. Seeing the love in his eyes, you know he’s not going to laugh at or reject you when you tell him what it is you seek.
Jesus didn’t say, “Go and figure things out and come back with your answer in a week.”
I’m reminded of the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz. Remember? When Dorothy and company came to him with what they wanted he kept sending them out on missions by themselves to try and earn their reward – bring me the witch’s broom – remember? No, instead of sending them out to fend for themselves, Jesus said to the two, “Come and see.” Come and see what? Where he was staying? No…what difference did that make”? He was inviting them to come and see what it is they were really after in life; that something deep down inside that we have so much trouble putting in words. He was inviting them to come and see what it was they were really looking for and he offered to be their guide as they went.
And so this morning, without offering you any pat answers about what you should or shouldn’t say to Jesus when you answer his question, I just want you to imagine Jesus looking at you with loving kindness and asking, “What are you looking for?”
I will say this much. If you sit and wrestle with his question for a while, you will discover, perhaps to your astonishment, that you are not looking for money, power, fame, or control. Instead what you’ll discover is you are really looking for love, goodness, truth, peace, happiness, justice, mercy, and joy. You’re looking for meaning and significance. You are looking for God. You, like those first two followers are looking for Jesus.
And if you’re just not quite ready yet to answer Jesus’ question; if you’re not sure what’s deep within you. Then if you’ll simply go with him as he bids you “Come and see” then I promise you - He will show you. He’ll show you a whole new life where God’s desires will become your own. It begins with admitting that you at least may be looking for him, that he may be the answer you seek. Following Him starts there. If you can trust that He is inviting you to join him on his journey He will lead you to where he lives. Are you willing to go with Him this morning? Are you willing to follow? I pray that you will. Amen.