January 19, 2014
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
As your pastor, I know that when my alarm clock goes off at 6:15 on Sunday mornings, I know why I need to get up. I have a sermon to preach. But the question I have for you today is: “Why are you here?”
I have an assumption that most of us, myself included, are here at church for the wrong reasons. Some of you may be here because you have an afternoon meeting to attend or that you’ll be going to the CCU dinner later this evening. Some of you come because this is your number one social outlet.
Someone says, “I come to church to receive answers to my deepest questions.” But the trouble is that in church, we do business with the Bible and sometimes listening to scripture leaves us with even deeper questions, or gives us answers that we don’t like.
Somebody else says, “I have a demanding job and I come to church for some peace and quiet!” But the trouble is, being with Christ does give us a new sense of peace and well-being, but sometimes Jesus agitates us, confuses us, and we come away from church more highly agitated than when we arrived!
Calling Disciples
Our lesson for today opens with the testimony of John the Baptist. Jesus appears as just an ordinary person—no miraculous qualities about him. No clues are given in Jesus’ words or in his deeds. All the information about Jesus is told by John.
And John provides a rather remarkable witness utilizing all sorts of metaphors—the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus is the mysterious one whom John did not know except he did when he was still an unborn baby in Elizabeth. John goes on and describes the Holy Spirit descending like a dove and remaining on Jesus. And that in the future, Jesus will baptized with the Holy Spirit while John would only baptize with water. Is this the one you came looking for?
Jesus notices these disciples following after him and speaks his first words in John, “What are you looking for?” Better translated, “What are you seeking for?” Or, “Why are you here?” It’s a fundamental question put to all those who are looking for Jesus.
The disciples respond with a question about Jesus’ address, “Where are you staying?” Perhaps they ask this because they want to know where Jesus resides so that they can go to be with him. So on this Sunday during Epiphany a fundamental question is put to us by Jesus. His first words in this Gospel, “What are you looking for?” Are we following Jesus for Jesus or for some other reasons?
And what is the response from Jesus? “Come and see.”
This question, “What are you looking for?” and his response, “Come and see” continue to set the agenda for the church and continue to be at the heart of the meaning of the Gospel today.
There has been much discussion on the future and vitality of the church in the future. A seminal book a number of years ago is entitled, “The Once and Future Church” suggesting that the church of the past is no longer relevant for today. The purpose of the church’s Long-range Planning Committee is ultimately to answer this question: “What are you or we looking for?”
Recently, National Public Radio ran a five-part series called, “Losing our Religion.” The series was partly in response to a new poll that shows more Americans are declaring themselves to be “unaffiliated” with any organized religion than ever before: one fifth of the US public and a third of adults under 30.
So, fewer people, particularly young people, are religiously affiliated today, and of course, even among those who are affiliated, fewer are as deeply committed and involved as their parents and grandparents were. Now for the most part, most of us here this morning are in this generation of valuing affiliation with American Baptists. Missionaries like Astrid Peterson and Debbie Allen connected us with organized religion. But this is not the case for most of today’s younger generation.
These are a couple of the big challenges that all churches are dealing with today. While it is easy to lament and look for people to blame, just lamenting and blaming is not a good strategy. We are still called to make disciples, even if that means changing the way we think about leading and doing church today.
Church Today
From our lesson today, there are four themes that stand out and may instruct us in knowing what we are looking for. First, when John the Baptist introduced Jesus as the “Lamb of God” and the “Son of God,” he was saying that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus understood that people are always looking for the Messiah, that they are often looking for different and even wrong things, and that such looking may lead in dangerous directions for everyone concerned, especially the person expected to be a Messiah.
So, Jesus asked an important question: “What are you looking for?” When the church asks this question, we too often treat this question more as a marketing question than as the profoundly spiritual one that it is. As consumers, people are conditioned to make a wish list of the things that they think they would like in a congregation. It’s not really about parking spaces or breakfast at church or even dynamic sermons. But rather, there is a deep spiritual need and hunger that cries out to be met in our world. It cries out in our relentless consumption of things that do not satisfy. It cries out in our many addictions, cravings, and the fears they both conceal and reveal. “What are you looking for?” is the question for our time today. Are you looking for Christ, the Lamb of God, the Son of God who can satisfy your deep spiritual needs and hungers?
The second point is that Jesus invites the disciples to “Come and see.” This is an invitation congregations must imitate more often if they are serious about making disciples. It’s not inviting people to come and see the size of our congregation or the effective solar panels or the beautiful sanctuary, or the long list of programs. We want people to see what we are doing to be the hands and feet of Christ when we are teaching students at Friday Night School or leading the children at Day Camp or sending another team to Thailand or sending funds from the Lanna Coffee Project to help the House of Love and the New Life Center. Seekers want to see our lives living out what Jesus would do.
I remember the story of how Nelson Wong used to drop off their three daughters at church and he would stay in his van to read the paper until that day when Dr. Chuck invited Nelson to come inside the church. James said to Nelson, “Come and see.” And he did and Nelson has been in the church ever since.
John doesn’t tell us what the new followers saw when they found out where Jesus stayed. John expected his readers to discern by omission that it was humble and unimpressive, nothing lavish for a king. So, what they most likely saw was that they stayed only to see Jesus teaching, healing, feeding the hungry, and bringing good news to where he was needed most.
As important as inviting people to come and see is making them want to stay awhile. The third point our lesson invites us to consider is what will people find in our church when they come and actually stay. Most churches are pretty good at providing caring and supportive environments for those who come and stay, but that is not enough. People who stay in the church for a while should be able to say, “This is a place where I have been challenged and able to grow as a person of faith and a disciple of Jesus.”
Our church needs to be in the “growth” business more than the “numbers” business. We need to have people deepening and enriching their faith experiences intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Knowing how to ask the big questions will lead to knowing the big answers that come from God. Stay for Sunday school. Stay and be active in fellowship groups. Stay long in order for you to dig deeper into your faith and what it means in your living.
Finally, this lesson invites us to think about the gifts we will recognize and call out from those who come and stay. The lesson ends with Andrew inviting his brother Simon to come and see Jesus. Jesus quickly sees something in Simon that leads him to call him by a special name “Peter.” Even when Peter disappointed Jesus, Jesus continued to recognize and call on his gifts until Peter became “the rock” that Jesus saw in him from the beginning.
What are your gifts and talents for ministry? Even large churches like ours, find it challenging to recruit enough people to help in the work of the ministry. When you serve in the church, you are sharing your God-given gifts in the world.
What Are We Looking For?
So what are we looking for? What are we looking for in worship today? Why did you come to church? Some of us are here because it is out of habit—voices lodged in our minds and we can’t get rid of it. Some of us are here because it’s easier to come than argue with our spouse about it.
Most of us didn’t come with great expectations. The religious reasons we have for being here are mixed at best. We’re interested in thinking about how we could live better lives, but only up to a point. If we are in worship today for no good reason that you can think about; that’s okay too. Lots of people find their way by accident.
Jesus says, “Come and see.” The disciples stumble along, following without knowing where they’re going, discovering well after the fact that they have wandered onto a path that leads to grace. “Come and see,” Jesus says, and in John’s gospel the disciples soon taste water turned into wine, watch in horror as Jesus clears the temple, and listens with amazement as Jesus tells Nicodemus that the Spirit of God blows wherever it wills.
There’s a woman who begins going to church because she loves to sing. To put it more bluntly, she loves to sing in front of people, and she loves the compliments she receives. The choir isn’t exactly show business, but it’s as close as she can come, so she sings there. The rest of the worship service is of no interest to her. Sometimes she secretly makes her grocery list as she sits in the choir loft.
But then slowly the words of the anthems begin to have power for her. The hymns begin to matter. The music begins to speak beyond the concerns of phrasing and pitch. She gradually acquires not only the vocabulary of faith, but also hope in the God to whom the music leads. When she sings, she begins to do so as one who follows.
What are we looking for? Deep in our soul we’re looking for something to believe in and hold onto, something important enough to live for, something big enough to claim our passion. We are looking for challenge and purpose. We’re looking for God.
What begins with you out of curiosity becomes a step towards grace. The emptiness we feel from time to time is God calling us to the paths that lead to meaning. God is the one who makes us long for something that lasts. God draws us towards life even when we don’t recognize what’s happening.
“Come and see” is how the disciples’ story begins. It’s a wonderful line and a great way to start a story. “Come and see” is the invitation to explore, discover, and travel without knowing exactly where we’re going, but to know that if we catch a glimpse of God, we’ll also catch a glimpse of who we can be. Come and see and look for places where we’ve never been. Come and see what it means to hope, believe, and follow.
When you got up this morning to come to church, you may not have been clear what you are looking for. But we have come to this place to discover the places we’ll go. We are in church to open ourselves to God who will lead us to new places. The people who follow Jesus end up doing the things Jesus did. They care for the hurting, listen to the lonely, feed the hungry, pray for the broken-hearted, bandage those who are wounded, do more than is expected. They look for God and find extraordinary lives.
We come to seek the meaning of life, join with people on the journey, and ask God to help us see where grace invites us. We’re here to look at the gifts we’ve been given and match them with the needs of the world. We come to this place to discover the possibilities that extend way beyond what we can do individually.
If we worship God, if we share our lives with other people looking for God, we’ll see beyond what we’ve assumed. We will still sing, in part, because we like the sound of our own voices. We will still lapse into making grocery lists when we ought to be paying attention. We will still take some steps without watching where we’re going. We will still catch ourselves wondering why we are at church. But if we look for God, we will find that God has been out looking for us offering us life all along.
What are you looking for? Jesus said, “Come and see.”
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, we have come to church today in order to come to you. Some of us are seeking peace. Some of us are seeking an answer to a perplexing question in our lives. Others are simply lonely and desire to be with other people.
And yet, deeper than our desires, more pressing than the answers we give ourselves, we come to be with you. We come to be with you because in your incarnation you have come to be with us. Help us to see you as you are, God with us. Reform our desires, push us toward even deeper questions, give us answers we could never come up with on our own. Grant us your presence we pray. Amen.