Sermon for January 7th

John 1: 35 - 51

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!"

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?"

They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" 

Jesus 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.  

One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.

 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed ).

 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter ).

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me."

 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.  Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth."

 Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

Philip said to him, "Come and see."

When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!"  

Nathanael asked him, "Where did you get to know me?" Jesus answered, "I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you."

 Nathanael replied, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"

 Jesus answered, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these."  And Jesus said to him, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."  

The message

Today, we can really experience what is going on in this reading, in the calling of Jesus first handful of followers.  They are the ones who answered the question “what are we thinking” with faith and hope.  I found myself asking “what I am thinking” a lot recently

On New Year’s Eve, Jen and I went to the city for a few hours.   We went to 42^nd street to eat at a restaurant we liked and do some food shopping for New Year’s morning. We assumed it was early enough that things would not be closed yet.  The place we wanted to eat was closed, the second, back up place we wanted to go to was also closed, the supermarket we anticipated going to was closed and much of the area was already shut down for security reasons.  We ended up walking about a mile downtown, found a place and open market.   As we walked in the freezing cold and wind, I wondered what brought us out there that night, why we couldn’t just sit home in the warm house.  Part of it was I grew up being told what you did on New Years would be what you did all year. I was never sure if that meant new years eve or new years day but I didn’t want to risk spending the year staying home just because of uncomfortable weather.  Part of it was I didn’t want to miss something, a lot of new years eve Jen and I have had some wired, good or memorable experiences. We wanted to come and see what was happening. Another part was I knew New Years Breakfast was important to Jen and we wouldn’t easily find what she wanted in our neighborhood.

This Friday, I had to wait for a delivery for our food pantry.  As I walked to Bethany to wait for the truck, it was cold, probably colder than new years. I wondered why I was doing this too.  Again why I left the warm house to walk through the post blizzard community and get a delivery that could wait. The next pantry is not until January 20^th, so I could just move the delivery date.  I knew it was important to the grant coordinator at LSS to have this food delivered by Friday, it would make his life a lot easier, I knew the food wholesaler worked in all weather and moving dates would make a mess for people who already dealt with enough (the delivery guy had some stories about working through the blizzard the day before, just urgent deliveries, hospitals and stuff but still a rough day).  If they bring the food, I could certainly be there to simply open the door. I wanted to be dependable, to show everyone we have relationships with that St Jacobus’s food pantry does what they have to do to keep commitments.

That leads me to wonder why we are here this morning, what did you go out for. It cold, I think it’s a record low for this area, the heat up here sucks in this temperature and we are still cleaning up after a bomb cyclone (I must admit I love the new names for weather people are making up, blizzard is so not cool anymore). I think most people would understand if I canceled service this morning for safety concerns.  Even though I was just inspired by the number of people who came to church on the 4^th Sunday of Adventmas, the morning of Christmas eve, I wondered if anyone would show up today.  I thought, I had to come and see.  After all, there are 4 other churches who will worship here today. We are accountable to each other. What would their members who show up think if we did not. What would that say about how important church was.  What if someone decided to show up at church for the first time in years and found it not available. What if someone in our neighborhood was unable to get to their regular church and really needed to hear God’s word. What if someone in our community really needed some prayer and encouragement?  What if someone wandered in with a tremendous need for help, for warmth, prayer or food.   I like to think of the weather as a sort of metaphor for the word made flesh, the church open at all times, God with us at all times, good and bad.      

For Jesus earliest disciples, they probably asked the same questions.  Why are we here. why have we left our work, families, lives, stability to follow a wandering preacher with no name recognition or accomplishments to speak of.  This starts with the outreach and encouragement of John the Baptist.  He played a prominent role in the opening prologue we heard on Christmas, when the active, engaging, creating, sustaining and powerful word of God is made flesh and dwells amongst us. John is the first person to realize what happened on Christmas, telling his followers and his enemies, the Messiah is here. When John sees Jesus, he declares  "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!   Jesus, the word made flesh can do what John, Moses, Abraham or anyone else could not, he could save us from sin in ways repentance, baptism or any ritual could not.  John does not just say these things.  He stops his work, dismisses his followers and points to another unauthorized, untrained wandering preacher, You came to me for something, the best gift I can offer, the best word I can share, the best wisdom I have is knowing what I am done, is to direct you to Jesus.   This was unexpected. Many of John’s followers anticipated a crescendo to his work. A revelation that he is the messiah or the prophet returned or that he will do some great thing. Instead, John points to Jesus.

Today, we get the picture of how John did this.  There are two main parts to how things go viral, how this child born on Christmas in a little known and even less respected area of the world shows everyone that he is the Messiah (God will be revealed in physical, earthy ways, In John’s Gospel there is a series of 7 signs or miracles that are focused on to show, to verify, to convince, to teach that Jesus is the messiah).   It all starts when 1: John says what he sees and 2: Jesus invites others to follow, to come and see.  That is all there is to it,  John says what he sees and Jesus invites others to follow, to witness and make their own decisions.

This work of opening our mouths and opening our eyes, of seeing God present in the world and telling people what we experience is not for history books, it is as much our mission as it was theirs.  Our stories may well start with why we are here this morning, what we came out to see in the cold and ice, that our God is always around, that the word was made flesh at Christmas. Our reading today ends with Jesus promise, You will see greater things then these, next week and a few verses later, we begin experience those greater things.