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?