What are you looking for?

John 1:29-42

Do you remember when your life changed?

Maybe it’s when you met your spouse.  Or realized what you always wanted to do when you grew up.  Maybe it was realizing that you do like brussels sprouts, after all.  (As long as they are properly cooked.)

Pregnancy and birth; physical injury or illness and their healing; relationships and accidents are just some of the ways our lives change in noticeable, markable ways, great and small.

Some of those threshold moments sneak by, so that later you can tell it happened, but the how and when are fuzzy.  But others are crystal clear.  The sort where you vividly remember the day and the time and the circumstances, years – even decades – later.

For two disciples, it was at four pm, the day after John saw Jesus.

Getting a notice of timing like that in the gospel is rare and odd.  I suspect that the whole reason it’s there today is so we, the readers, can recognize this little story for the threshold moment it is: The moment when life changes.

Years later, those two could probably describe just how it was – sunny or cloudy, what they were doing, and thinking, who was nearby – when at four that particular afternoon they really saw Jesus, the Messiah – and thus became his disciples.

I love those kind of memories – love the sense of place and vividness and occasion they give to my life story. 

I can still see the tangled maze of classrooms and offices I was looking at when I realized I was going to attend this new math and science high school we’d been touring - even though I thought I hated math.  That experience profoundly changed my life. 

I vividly remember the setting and conversation when I finally decided to come out about my desire to be a priest.

And the angle of the sunlight in the office of the diocesan deployment officer as I described an idea of ministry with a congregation much like Calvary, just a few months before you sent out your search profile.

But I don’t have any memory like that about deciding to follow Jesus.  No sharp, clear memory of becoming a disciple. 

I suspect some of you do have vivid memories of that life-changing experience of seeing, believing, and following Jesus – and that many of you, like me, have no such thing.  For the most part, we’ve grown up in a world that takes the story of Jesus for granted.

So I admit, I’m sometimes a little envious of the disciples in the gospel and the fresh, firsthand experiences that revealed God to them in Jesus.  So I read the stories carefully for clues to sharing that experience. And there are two things in particular I noticed about today’s story.

The first is that these disciples found Jesus by listening to other people.  Simon listens to his brother Andrew.  Andrew and his buddy listened to John the Baptist, their teacher and leader.  John listened to the One who told him how to recognize the Son of God. All of them listened and responded when someone said: Look!

That’s critical. I hear stories – and perhaps you do, too – that just sound ridiculous to me.  Announcements and claims about the end of the world, or the next big thing, or a powerful spiritual experience.   My rational mind has doubts, and I nod, but don’t respond – I don’t act on the news.  That’s a way to protect myself from both anxiety and boredom, but I’m sure I’ve also missed some real gifts that way. Because listening, and acting on it, opens doors.

And then there’s the other piece in today’s story.  A pivotal question:

What are you looking for?

That’s the first question Jesus asks – the first words he speaks in John’s entire gospel.

Two people have peeled off from their own teacher, John the Baptist, and started trailing after Jesus around town.  So he turns to them and asks:  What are you looking for?

It’s an entirely reasonable question, given the context, and their response: “Where are you staying?” makes some basic sense, even if it might feel a little stalker-ish between strangers in our day and age. 
But there’s so much more to it.

These two first followers are telling Jesus they want to join in, to hang out with him, to abide – a term with true relational depth.  They are looking for a home with the Lamb of God. 

They may not know they’ve said that much.  They might just be curious. 

But Jesus answers their desire – simple or deep – with a practical, physical answer and an invitation to expanding relationship. 

“Come and see,” he says. See for yourselves, and see what God is doing.  So they see, and they abide. 

And it was four in the afternoon when their lives changed.

What if Jesus, in the flesh, here today, turned to you right now and asked, “What are you looking for?”

What would you say?

Listen seriously and deeply to yourself for a moment, now.  What are you looking for, right now? 

There are no wrong answers.

Honesty with God about your simple curiosity is just as important an answer as a quest for the meaning of life.

I was just looking for a less boring Saturday afternoon when I agreed to tour the Math and Science Academy.  Twenty-mumble years later, I can tell you that what I found (at about two o’clock in the afternoon) was rich relationships, permission to believe in myself, and that gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works that we pray for at baptism. 

So what are you looking for?

That’s what changes your life. 

That’s what lets God in to guide your journey, to walk beside you, to teach, to hang out, to heal. 

That’s what lets you commit your whole heart to God.

What are you looking for, right now?

Write it down. 

(Yes, really. Write it down.)

You can offer that desire to God, putting it in the offering plate (we won’t read them – just offer them to God).  Or you can take that note home, put it on your fridge or in your datebook, keeping that response in front of your eyes.

I want to encourage you to answer that question two more times this week.  Once when you’re relaxed, and once when you’re busy.  Listen honestly to yourself, write it down, offer it to God.

Maybe you’ll remember - vividly - the time this week when your life changed. 

Maybe you won’t.  Many of the changes God makes in our lives are subtle and slow.

But listen to others, and listen for the voice of Jesus.

Because God is asking you:

What are you looking for?

Yes, you.

Matthew 3:13-17

Do you remember your baptism?  Did your family tell you stories?

My entirely unscientific Facebook survey this week suggests that baptism stories are often joyful and holy, but that just as often, the details that are remembered and passed on are the ones that are a bit odd.  Or embarrassing:

What Uncle Joe said to the priest; tears; misuse of candles; chewing on the prayer book…. 

And, in fact, that’s the kind of story we heard today when we heard the story about Jesus’ baptism. It’s all about the part that was embarrassing.  Did you notice?

You see, Matthew knows he has to tell us about Jesus’ baptism, but he thinks it might be kind of embarrassing that the Messiah gets baptized at all. 

After all, there’s John, dunking people in the Jordan to symbolize their repentance, and here comes the Anointed One, the Son of God, lining up with everybody else for this ritual of cleansing and repentance. 

Does Jesus have so many sins against God he needs them washed away??  What would that mean?

Plus, by the time Matthew writes his gospel down, Jesus’ followers have been going around for years baptizing people in Jesus’ name.

No wonder Matthew reports to us that John would have prevented Jesus, saying, “oh, no – I need to be baptized by you.  What are you doing trying to be baptized by me?!?”

I have to say, it’s a reasonable hesitation.

What would you think if Jesus came to you, today, and said: “Pray for me – I need help.” Or asked you for forgiveness?

If you know you’re talking to the Son of God, the Messiah, I’ll bet you’d say just about what John said: oh no, Jesus, that’s what I need from you. What does it mean that you’re asking me to forgive you, to pray for you??

I sympathize with John. 

And Jesus might, too – he’s relatively gentle in his response:
“Just let it be, here and now,” he says.  It won’t hurt us to do a right thing for God.”

And so John agrees. Jesus is baptized.

And the heavens open, and the Spirit descends like a dove, and there’s a voice from heaven that everyone can hear, saying: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Amen!  Alleluia!

To hear the voice of God, from heaven, announcing Jesus’ holiness, and belovedness – you think anyone there at the Jordan was impressed?

It’s a transformative miracle, as stunning as if God plucked off the roof of Calvary right now and announced, loud and clear, that Luke or Jacob here is chosen and beloved.

But what if John hadn’t been talked into it? What if he was too uncomfortable?  If he’d stuck to his conviction that he wasn’t holy enough, good enough, ready enough to baptize Jesus?

Do you think the dove would have been there anyway? 

Or would it be a non-event, quickly forgotten?

If John refuses this baptism,

there’s no miracle.

No one sees and hears the wonderful proclamation of Jesus as God’s beloved Son.

Everyone misses the opportunity to know beyond doubt that God is here, and active, paying attention and making a difference.

That would be tragic.

And it happens all the time.

Missed miracles like that are so common.

There are all kinds of opportunities in our lives, yours and mine, that we brush off, miss by accident, or turn down flat. Maybe Jesus doesn’t walk up to you and ask for baptism. But there are opportunities in each and every one of our lives to reveal God.

And it is oh, so tempting to feel that you are not good enough, not holy enough, not ready enough, whatever enough, to take them up.

And if you decline, there’s no miracle.

No wonderful revelation of God as present, and active, and fiercely loving.

I’ll tell you a truth: every year, I’m a little embarrassed about Ashes to Go.

I worry that it’s flashy. Even though it’s a tradition now, and national, I ask myself: who am I to decide what the church does about holiness, who am I to declare that the church breaks the rules and moves the walls?  And isn’t there something silly about repentance and ashes at the train station??

Sure, I’m a priest, but that doesn’t make those doubts any less real.

And I let myself do it anyway.  I risk embarrassment (a little), or rejection (which does happen), or misunderstanding – along with several of you, to give me courage!  We risk that to greet people at the Metra stop, remind them it’s Ash Wednesday, and ask if they want to pray, to repent.

And miracles happen.

Time stops, even as the train is pulling in, and grace comes over face after face.  The presence of God is real. Tangible. Unmistakable for bystanders as well as for the people who pray and receive the ashes.

It’s not just me, you know.

It’s you, too.

It might be that God has work for you at the train station, or in a pulpit, or on a street corner – yes, you. Or it might be another sort of thing. Something a little out of your comfort zone.

Maybe you hear yourself thinking:

“Oh, all my friends already have a church.  They don’t want me to invite them to mine.”

“It would be too weird to offer to pray for someone at work…for a client…for someone I just met.”

“I don’t know enough to answer those questions; I wish she’d talk to a priest instead.”

It might be something else, even just a feeling, but any time you hear one of those variations on “I’m not good enough, I’m not holy enough” in your head –

well, listen to Jesus talking to John the Baptist:
“Don’t worry about that.  Let it happen, here and now. 
It can never hurt to do a good thing in God’s work.”

Because, in all seriousness, this is what you and I were baptized to do:  to proclaim Good News by word and action, and to make space in this life for the vivid, unexpected presence of God.

So go ahead.  Get out of your comfort zone and get wet. 

It might just be the start of a story that gets remembered long after you’ve moved on: A story of awkward revelations, messy and holy, and the unmistakable voice of God, sounding loud and clear, full of love and delight.