Date: January 19, 2020
Scriptures: John 1:35-42
When Jesus turned and saw (John’s two disciples) following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. – John 1:38-39
This Sunday and next in this season of Epiphany, Jesus is revealed to us – ’midst our winter’s darkness – through the unquenchable, incomprehensible, inescapable light of our callings.
And today, the light of our calling is made manifest to us through the simple curiosity of Jesus’ first disciples. Summoning us in the frantic mobility of our daily affairs to discover where Jesus is staying – dwelling – in our midst.
To join them in their quest: “Teacher: Where are you abiding?”
And then to come and see, as Jesus invites them – and us. To change our location, perhaps. So we can find Jesus in his.
Wherever that might be. “Come and see,” he says, “Come … and see!”
With his open-ended invite: What a great freedom that gives us!
Freeing us from playing savior of our own little world.
Freeing us from clinging to the certitude of belief.
Freeing us from knowing what the nexty chapter must read.
“Come,” Jesus says, “Come – and see.” See where I am abiding – in your life, for your life.
What a great freedom that invitation is! What a liberation – just to “come and see”. Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty …
But not so fast! For what a frightening freedom that invitation, as well! To trust in this call to see where he abides. To change our location – perhaps. Or, at the least, our location within – known as our perception.
Change our location – our perception? Change? We are reasonably settled church folk: isn’t that enough? Accustomed, as the old spiritual puts it, to be “leaning on Jesus, leaning on Jesus, safe and secure from all alarms, leaning on the everlasting arms.” Most of us would rather be rule-followers than liberation-seekers. More willing to be led by the crucifixion of duty – where our security abides, do-this, do-that, check-check-check – than by the risky resurrection freedom of discovering where he abides.
“Come and see,” Jesus says? Let’s not get imprudent here. That freedom brings risks … and we cherish our security. Economic – homeland – national security. We’d rather cling to that cross – save us, save us, anybody but Trump – than be liberated for God-knows-what.
The crucifixion of security – or is it, the security of crucifixion? Either way: No resurrection need apply. More prone we often are, I believe, to say with John the Baptist, “Look, the Lamb of God!” and be done with it: hard stop. We’d rather declare that with the Baptist, than to take seriously Jesus’ query of us today: “What are you looking for?”
To see for ourselves where he is dwelling. To see for ourselves – to dwell there with him. Not so we can know where he may lodge with us. But so we can know where we may lodge with him.
For that’s all that mattered to the first disciples. “Where are you dwelling?” Where can we find – and abide – with you?
It’s our eternal question of holy curiosity – of teachability – of humility. A question that lies close to the heart of spiritual maturity: Where can we locate, and camp out, with you, Jesus? Where are you?
He is not found through the crucifixion of duty – a world many of us know all too well.
He is not found through our desires for security through fear.
He is found through our freedom from fear.
To come, and to see. See, where his spirit dwells …
A few months ago – on Pride Sunday in June, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of a great exodus event of our time known as the Stonewall uprising – I related a piece of this story I am about to share. A story of striking out to follow Jesus, and discovering from the seeking that I could see where he dwells in a whole new and unexpected and painful way.
In 2004, while I was pastor of my last charge in Michigan, official complaints were filed against me by a shadowy accuser in our larger denomination – someone to this day I have never met. For thanks to my congregation’s leadership more than my own, I had been participating in ordinations of LGBT elders and officiating at same-gender weddings. And some of you may recall – beyond the legal question of it all – ordaining and marrying LGBT persons were activities not considered kosher in our Presbyterian Church at that time.
The upshot was that, for over a year, while I was being investigated by a presbytery judicial committee on these charges filed our shadowy friend, I was not allowed to serve in our Presbytery of Detroit and my resume on national file was rendered inactive.
I continued to attend presbytery meetings as a voting member – I could do that. And it was there in a presbytery meeting during that time of suspension that an epiphany occurred – a light shone unto me. It was if that light spoke to me! And it said, “Chuck, you can be a voting member of this presbytery, but you cannot serve in its leadership in any way. Does that sound familiar to you?”
I could vote – but I could not lead. Not unlike my lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender sisters and brothers at that time.
Hmm …
“Teacher: Where are you abiding?” “Come, and see.”
I did not like what I saw. But now – at least – I could see.
See – in my exclusion, now with the excluded – where Jesus just might be dwelling.
Speaking of the excluded, and where Jesus dwells: I have been invited out late tonight for a few hours with other clergy and church leaders with Bethesda Cares staffers to visit our friends on the streets of Bethesda and Silver Spring. Providing blankets to them, and encouraging them to find shelter ‘midst this evening’s cold blast. I’m letting you know this especially because Drs. David de Souza and Ana Santana of our congregation – the couple from Brazil with three small children – have also arranged to come. They have both done much work like this with those suffering homelessness in their homeland.
Now, it’s not that difficult to discover where Jesus dwells through an excursion such as this one. And it was not that difficult to discover where he dwelled in my unplanned solidarity with our LGBT sisters and brothers. Painful and surprising – but not that difficult to discover.
But sometimes – sometimes – it is quite difficult. Difficult to discover the Jesus we are looking for ... or at least are open to. To know where – or how – to come, and to see.
This Christmas Day past, I was walking across the front lawn of the house where I now live with my wife Rosa. A house in a neighborhood filled with predominantly people of color: most of them, the hue of my beloved.
Twenty feet from me: a deafening crash! A 16-year-old driving without a license and speeding as he drove slammed into the rear of a car – a car pulling away from the curb of the house across the street. Sending that poor woman in that car sailing into two parked vehicles at the house next door, and nearly trapping her inside.
Miraculously, everyone walked away from the accident. The whiplash sure to come had yet to settle in.
What I remember most about that accident – other than its sound – were the halting interactions between our neighbors descending on the crash site with the police and firefighters – who all looked like me.
Halting interactions I began to understand as I stood on the street with Rosa and her two longtime boarders, a Bolivian couple. Watching the drivers sharing their statements across the street with law enforcement, I said quietly to our household, “I hope the police don’t share their information with ICE.”
All three of them shot me daggers. “Don’t mention that!” they growled. “Don’t bring that up!”
As if I would. But their reaction jolted me into an awareness of what was not being said. How little could be shared by the neighbors with the first responders. How so very careful everyone felt they had to be.
So: Where can we find Jesus abiding – where to come and see – when we are residentially segregated not only from one another … but from one another’s truth? From an entire people’s truth? From black or brown or red earth truth? Where resurrection from fear is rightfully hard to find?
Want to know where the truth lies? In the lives of excluded dark-skinned itinerants such as our Jesus? Want to know where this Jesus dwells?
Come … and see.
More accurately, still: Come … and seek.
For when we do: How God’s grace is made know! What joy awaits!
Whoever has ears to hear … let them hear.
