Come and See

 Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, Epiphany 2

What a strange little conversation we hear in today’s Gospel story. “Come and see,” Jesus says, to two complete strangers. And they do. And the world changes, just like that. Not only for Jesus, and those two strangers, but for us as well.

 

We are in the season the church calls “Epiphany,” which means “showing forth” or “manifestation.” We celebrate not just any manifestation, but the great manifestation or showing forth of Jesus as the Son of God and savior, not just of the Israelites, but of the whole world.

 

 

Epiphany begins with the three wisemen from other parts of the world arriving in Bethlehem. They seek “the king of the Jews,” and upon seeing Jesus—at that point a toddler—they bow down and pay homage to him. By their actions, the three wisemen declare Jesus to be the King of All.

 

The Epiphany story continued last week with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. John himself recognizes something different about Jesus. He is hesitant to baptize this one, whom he says is greater than he. But Jesus prevails, John baptizes, and the universe speaks: This is my son, the beloved. None other than God manifests Jesus as the one and only son of the living God.

 

Today’s Eiphany story begins with a couple moments of great clarity on the part of John the Baptist. He is still preaching and baptizing on the banks of the River Jordan. He has baptized Jesus, the baptism itself was remarkable, but as yet nothing remarkable has come of it.

 

Now John sees Jesus approaching and loudly declares him to be the savior of the world. Still, nothing happens—at least nothing that the New Testament authors thought worthy of recording.

 

But the very next day, Jesus walks by John again, and this time—when John cries out his striking testimony, Look, here is the Lamb of God, John’s two disciples go off and follow Jesus.

 

Thus begins this strange little conversation that issues a real challenge to us today. It begins with Jesus turning to these two sketchy guys who have just walked away from the even sketchier guy—dressed in camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey and preaching hellfire and brimstone along the bank of the river—a truly sketchy guy… Jesus turns to the two following him and says, What are you looking for?

 

Well, that’s not an entirely strange question, although I would have probably been way less polite! But Jesus seems open to a reasonable explanation of why they are suddenly following him. So he asks, What are you looking for?

 

Here’s where it gets kind of strange. They do not answer. It’s a simple question, but they do not answer. Rather, they ask a question in return. Where are you staying? Not “where do you live?” which is what makes sense to me, but Where are you staying?

 

So it seems to me, first, that there was something enigmatic and compelling about Jesus, something they couldn’t quite put their finger on. I suspect they didn’t answer Jesus’ question because they just weren’t sure what they were looking for, only that Jesus seemed to have something to offer—something so powerful that they turned on a dime, so to speak, from following John to following Jesus.

 

Second, it seems to me that they also somehow sensed that following Jesus was a whole new ballgame. Whatever it was that they desired and that they thought Jesus had to offer, it was going to be a whole new kind of adventure. Jesus was not going to take them “home” to meet his wife or mother, or to some established carpentry workshop where he would learn the trade, or to the family farm or sheep herd where they would settle down and live happily ever after.

 

Later on in the New Testament we hear Jesus say, The foxes have holes and the birds of the heaven have nests, but the Son of Man does not have a place where He may lay His head” (Matthew 8:20). So I have to wonder if somehow these, his first two followers, sensed that from the very beginning.

 

Where are you staying? they ask. And now Jesus says the strangest but most compelling thing of all: Come and see. Come and see, he says, and invites these two strangers into his life.

 

Surely it is the kindest, gentlest, most gracious invitation into having one’s life turned completely upside down and inside out the world has ever known! Because that’s what it was. Those two sketchy guys quickly become a third when Andrew runs off to get his brother, and those three sketchy guys hook up with Jesus, and the consequence today is us—a whole bunch of sketchy guys and gals—looking to be followers of Jesus!

 

Here’s the two ways this story challenges us today. First, what are we looking for from Jesus? We’re here, in this church. So it is fair to conclude that we’re here seeking Jesus. (If we aren’t, then maybe we’re in the wrong place!)

 

I can only speak for myself, but I’m certainly looking for Jesus as a source of help and comfort in dealing with the challenges and concerns of daily life on planet earth. I’m looking for assurance of my own salvation. I’m looking for a refuge from the storm, and the older I get, the more I’m looking for safe passage to a better place—not soon, but eventually. Am I alone in that? No!

 

 

But here’s what I also know: Andrew, and his brother Peter, and whoever the third sketchy guy was… they got all of that, and more. Whatever they were looking for, they got way more than they bargained for. Their lives were turned upside down and inside out. At some point, the going got so rough that every one of them ran away from Jesus, because the way of Jesus is also the way of the cross.

 

So when Jesus says, Come and see, and we go, we are not just going to a place of comfort and reassurance, to a world of “what Jesus can do for me.” We are going instead to a place that can be quite discomforting and challenging. We are going to be stretched by our encounters with others. As we learn to love what God loves, we are going to suffer the pain of the world.

 

And here’s the second way, Jesus’ invitation challenges us. As the body of Christ in the world today, we are the ones called now to issue the invitation, Come and see. We are to be the bearers of the Good News of the love of God for all people and all creation. We are to be the ones to heal the sick, welcome the stranger, and share with those who have less.

 

Come and see. Every Episcopal church I know and love and serve in some way, wishes for more members. Maybe we’re even kind of good at saying, “Come.” But what kind of keeps me awake at night is, what if they do? What if people do, in fact, come? What will they see? A handful of folks focused on their own comforts and future? Or a sketchy bunch of Jesus followers seeking to do what Jesus would do? Loving their neighbors—and all that implies—in his name? That, my friends, is the most challenging question of all.

 

  In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN

What's in a name?

 Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, La., Feast of the Holy Name

In case you don’t remember, or have never noticed, the Hebrew Scripture—which is our Old Testament and is also part of Islam’s Koran—contains two creation stories. The first one that occupies the first chapter of Genesis is by far the better known. That’s the one that goes, “On the first day, God” did thus and such and on the second day God did other stuff, and so on.

 

I’m not sure why this story is more popular or better known. Maybe just because it comes first in the Bible, maybe because it is more detailed and satisfies our sense of order by enumerating God’s creation schedule.

 

In any case, the second creation story that occupies most of Genesis Chapter 2 gets relatively little attention. About the only thing most people recall from the second story of creation is that’s the one where God puts Adam to sleep and takes out a rib to make Eve. Sadly, not much good comes out of people remembering that because they tend to turn it into a rationale for a lot of nonsense about gender relationships! But.. we will not go down that rabbit hole this morning.

 

Something else happens only in that second creation story that I want to bring to our attention today. I’m reading now, Genesis 2:18-20a: 

 

Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field. 

 

Today is the Feast of the Holy Name. Our Gospel lesson from Luke tells the story. On the 8^th day after his birth—to us, the 8^th Day of Christmas—Joseph and Mary take Jesus to the temple to be circumcised and named. And they name him “Jesus,” the name given Mary by the angel Gabriel. Jesus means “salvation.”

 

I connect these two stories—the naming of the animals and the naming of Jesus—to make the point that naming is a profound act. We call things into being by naming them.

 

Have you ever noticed that? That once you have a name for something or someone, it or they exist for you in a new way? That you see things you never noticed before once you have a name for them?

 

Here’s a small example. I went hiking yesterday in the Russell Sage WMA with several friends, two of whom are very knowledgeable about mushrooms. We were standing beside a fallen tree trunk covered with various fungi and I had photographed the ones I recognize.

 

That’s actually something I noticed about my nature photography. If I know the name of something, I am way more likely to make photographs of it. I love learning the names of all kinds of plants, animals and mushrooms, but I have to discipline myself to take pictures of them so I can then look through field guides and learn their names!

 

So… we’re standing beside this log and one of my knowledgeable friends said, “Look, this one is called ‘violet-toothed polypore.’” And I looked and sure enough, there they were. Little fan-shaped mushrooms with a purple rim on the side of the log. I had not noticed them.

 

What do you want to bet that next time I go to Russell Sage—or any other bottomland hardwood forest—I’ll see them everywhere! Because now I have a name for them. Violet-toothed polypore!

 

Naming matters. God invited the man to name the animals, and thereby called humankind into the role of co-creators. Throughout Hebrew Scripture, people and places are given meaningful names, that is, names full of meaning.

 

For example, “Moses” means “drawn out” because he was drawn out of the water by Pharoah’s daughter, and he goes on to “draw out” the Israelites from Egypt. Jacob names the place where he wrestles with God in a dream “Beth-el,” meaning “house of God.”

 

These names are not merely identifiers we need to keep characters and places straight. That’s kind of how we do names today. Rather, Old Testament names speak of calling and destiny.

 

“Jesus” literally means “salvation.” And that is who he is to us. That is his calling and his destiny. Of course, he has other names that point to other aspects of him: Prince of Peace, Counselor, to name just two. But his first and given name, from God the Father through the angel Gabriel, is Salvation. Jesus is our salvation.

 

And what a comfort it is to say the name Jesus and to know him as Savior, the one who brings salvation to us—not once, but over and over again, as often and as long as we need it, which is to say always and forever!

 

One of the several online sources I typically consult in preparing a homily suggests that we might want to “write the name of God above the new year,” mentally and emotionally, just as we might physically chalk the first initials of the 3 wisemen above our doorways on Epiphany: C + M + B (Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar).

 

Writing the name of God above the new year in our hearts and in our mind—and I did it in my journal last night—will then help us enter the practice of breathing the Holy Name so that it might eventually become one with the beating of our heart. This is a way to experience and understand what it means to “pray without ceasing.”

 

 

But if we leave it there, if saying the Holy Name becomes merely a comforting moment that wipes away our sin, if praying the Holy Name is merely an act of piety, then we have taken the name of Jesus in vain.

 

That’s the “boom” of this homily. The name of Jesus is not just the calling of a babe born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. Claiming that name is a calling for us. To claim the name of Jesus is to do the work he has given us to do. Otherwise, we take his name in vain.

 

You probably don’t need me to enumerate once again what that work is. But I’m going to anyway. It is to love our neighbors—ALL of our neighbors—as ourselves. It is to heal the sick and feed the hungry, to give one of our coats to someone who has none. It is to see God in every other human face and all of Creation. It is to seek justice and the common good.

 

Let us pray, as we claim the name of Jesus today, that we will in the coming year walk the walk of service that claiming that name calls us to.

 

  In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.