What, Why, What, What?

John 1: 35-39, Luke 2:46-49, Mark 10:35, 36, 49-51

 

 

          Questions. Who, what, where, when and why. These are the questions any good journalist seeks to answer in order to write a story. This is the method to find answers. If you’re good at it, you get the who, the what, the where and the when and that tells you the why. Many of us spend most of our lives trying to get such answers. Why am I here? What am I looking for? What’s the point of it all?

          The first words of Jesus in the gospel of John are in the form of a question. The day after Jesus is baptized by John, he walks by John, who is standing with two of his disciples. John says: Look, it’s the Lamb of God. The two disciples start to follow Jesus. We are told that one of them is Andrew. The other is speculated to be John, but we really don’t know that. Jesus turns around to see them following him and asks them: “What are you seeking.”

          Turn to Luke’s gospel. Jesus is a twelve year old with his family in Jerusalem for the celebration of the Feast of the Passover. They are probably traveling in a caravan of pilgrims and many would have had their own families with them. So it would not have been uncommon for the older children to congregate away from their parents. In this way, Jesus goes missing, but his absence is only discovered after a day’s journey. At that point, his parents turn back to find him. After another day to get back and three days in Jerusalem, they find Jesus in the Temple. They are astonished and amazed. But they are also parents of a twelve year old boy who has been missing for five days. When they confront Jesus, he has this to say by way of explanation: “Why were you looking for me?”

          Mark’s gospel offers the question that in many ways is the intersection of the first two questions. What are you seeking and Why were you looking for me merge into “What do you want me to do for you?” And at the end of Chapter 10 of Mark, we hear Jesus ask the question not only of his disciples, but of a blind beggar named Bartimaeus.

          First, James and John approach Jesus with a request. They frame it generically, but Jesus dodges the open ended approach. He asks the question: “What do you want me to do for you?” Later, a blind man asks for mercy. Jesus calls him and asks the same question. The man is healed because of his faith.

          What’s it all about? This life we lead, where does it go? Is there supposed to be meaning? What is my job? Am I sent here and if I am, for what purpose? The journalist asks who, what, where, when. When she gets all the answers, she puts it all together to answer why. Why do people do the things they do? Why don’t we do the things we mean to do? Why? “What are you seeking? Why were you looking for me? What do you want me to do for you?”

          In the passage from John, the evangelist who is famous for using double entendres has Jesus asking two would-be disciples: What are you seeking? These two seek their teacher. In the Jewish tradition of that time, they seek to bind themselves to one who speaks the truth. What are you seeking? asks Jesus. John is stirring the pot. He’s not just talking about Andrew and his friend. He wants us to ask not only what we are seeking, but whom. He wants us to look for the why that will send us on a journey for life. John is not just talking about spending quality time with Jesus. He’s talking about apprenticing ourselves to the Master.

          Perhaps these two men have been looking for their reason to be. They are young; working in their family’s fishing business. Maybe they have other aspirations. Maybe they yearn for money or power. Whatever their motivation, chances are that it is selfish. But they look for leadership, a role model, a hero, someone to whose star they might attach. So these would-be disciples answer his question with one of their own: “where are you staying?” The implication is that they want more than an interview. They want the full baptism. They want to follow him in all its implications. And as they will find out only too well, the implications are considerable. He is about to take these young men on a journey not toward wealth and fame, but toward God. What are you seeking? asks Jesus.

          Luke gives us the story of the twelve year old Jesus in the temple, sitting among the teachers. It is a foreshadowing of things to come. His concerned parents chastise their son for what looks like carelessness or disobedience. Jesus responds with a question that strikes to the essence of their search. Why were you looking for me? On one level, it seems impudent to ask such a question of his parents. But Jesus is not on that level. He has gone to another plane. The emphasis has shifted. For the first time in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is the subject of the action. When the scene opens, Jesus accompanies his parents. By the time it closes, Luke tells us that they accompanied him back to Nazareth.

          What did you expect? he might have said. I am only your son physically. And what are you looking for? Are you looking for me because you think I’m lost? Do you really want to find me? Look more closely and you will see me as I really am and what I mean to you.

          This is the son of God, looking at a crossroads in his life. While he will remain obedient to his earthly family, he has already left the building. Robert Ismon Brown puts it this way: “This Jesus who asks ‘Why are you looking for me?’ actually wants to know the answer from us in precisely the place we find ourselves, even if  responding to him feels embarrassing, as perhaps it might have felt to Mary and Joseph in the Temple that day.” Do you hear Jesus talking to you? What are you looking for?               

          When we look more closely at the first passage from Mark, it’s not hard to see ourselves. James and John, young and cocky, so much so that they are called the “sons of thunder”, come to Jesus and say: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” It’s like asking for a blank check. It’s no surprise that Jesus countered, wanting to know what they really wanted. They have found Jesus, but having found him, they are at a loss as to what they really want from him. How familiar is that! The task of our lives is not so much to find Jesus, as many of us have accomplished that. It is, rather, what we want from him. Do we want something to which we have affixed our dreams and aspirations? Or do we aspire to kingdom things? What does being with Jesus really mean? There is a cross in Jesus’ future. There is a cost to discipleship.

          Bartimaeus dares to say what he means and dares further to believe that Jesus is quite possibly who he says he is. Bartimaeus, an outsider, has better vision without sight than do the disciples, the insiders, with sight. Think back to our text from John where Jesus invites Andrew and his companion to “come and see.” The vision to which Jesus is referring does not require eyes.

          Discipleship. The two disciples had faith and acted on it by following and responding to Jesus’ invitation. Bartimaeus had faith and acted on it. His faith made him well. Neither acted knowing the outcome. They just acted on faith. James and John, insiders without perception, had to wait and watch to find out about faith. Jesus’ own parents did not understand. Jesus challenged them to take a real look not only at him, but also at themselves. Sometimes you have to take a step back to see what is right in front of you.

          Bartimaeus had an answer for Jesus. “Rabbi, I want to see” He understood the question and he was ready with the answer. Mark tells us that he recovered his sight and he followed Jesus on the way.   

          Jesus asks us: “What do you want me to do for you” Are you ready? Do you have an answer for him? “What are you seeking? Why were you looking for me? What do you want me to do for you?” In all the questions from Jesus, he is giving us an invitation. He wants us to follow on the way.  Jesus asks what are you seeking, why were you looking, what do you want from him. He asks us these questions and he is standing right there in front of us.

          There he is. Jesus is both the question and the answer. Do you have the vision, not of Joseph and Mary, not of James and John, but of blind Bartimaeus? Can you see?

          What do you want him to do for you?

Linking the Chain      

                                 1 Corinthians 12: 12, 13, 24b-26

 

 

          What do you do when you need a rope and none is to be found? What if there is no time to go find one? What if lives depend on that rope?

          In the twelfth chapter of his letter to the Romans, Paul talks about spiritual gifts; how they are different; how each of us is gifted with some special aptitude from our Lord that will enable us to serve him. Paul also talks about how all these gifts come together; how they merge into a unity that he compares to a human body. Our bodies function inter-relationally. We need all kinds of parts to make a whole. Eyes, ears, mouths, hands, feet all come together to make one body. Take away one of those parts and the body may function, but not as well as when all are together working as a team.

          Just recently, Roberta Ursrey was enjoying a day at the beach with her family. Her sons had taken out the surfboard near the pier at Panama City Beach. The rest of her family was also there enjoying the day when she suddenly realized that her sons were missing. As she went looking for them, surveying the landscape, she found them, foundering in the water where they were caught in a riptide. They were trapped and a good hundred yards from the beach.

          There was no lifeguard. There was no rope or buoy or boat. Against advice from others, Roberta acted as a mother acts. She started swimming. Five other family members joined her. It didn’t take long for them to find out how hard it is to do things by yourself. Now ten people were trapped by the current in water fifteen feet deep. They tried swimming in. They tried swimming with the current. No matter what they tried, they made no progress.

          Paul tells us that “just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body though many, are one body, so it is with Christ…for the body does not consist of one member but of many.” If only there were a rope. If only there were some way to come together instead of all those individual efforts. If only those bodies could become one.

          Jessica Simmons and her husband were at the beach. They had come for dinner and were taking a walk. Jessica had just claimed a discarded boogie board when she noticed people pointing at the water. At first, she thought they had sighted a shark. As she focused her gaze in the direction pointed, she realized what was happening. Simmons, a strong swimmer, started swimming to them.

          Paul goes on to say that God arranges us, just as he does the human body. We can’t all be eyes or we would only see. It takes many parts to make up a body. To make one takes many. To become stronger than yourself, you must unite with others.

          Jessica would have made little difference by herself, no matter how strong a swimmer she was. Her husband knew this. He and a few other men started making a human chain, linking arms and elbows, stretching from the surf into the ocean. Everyone helped. No one was too small. Those who couldn’t swim stayed in shallow water. It didn’t take long before about 80 people, pretty much total strangers, had formed a human chain that stretched almost a hundred years into the water, just a few feet from the now desperate swimmers. What do you do when you need a rope and there is none to be found? You make a chain.

          Are you too little or too weak or too insignificant to help? Paul says that the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. There is no such thing as too insignificant. As surely as the human body needs all of its parts to function the best, so does God arrange us to be part of a flourishing whole. Separate, we function. Together, we conquer.

          The chain worked. Jessica and a couple others swam to those in trouble. One by one, they were passed along to the chain, and then passed down the chain to safety. One woman rescued, Ursrey’s mother, was actually having a heart attack. She too was rescued, gotten to the hospital, and survived.

          The Corinthian Christians are told that “there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” After the rescue event, Simmons commented how impressed she was with everyone working together to rescue the family. This is her comment: “It’s so cool to see how we have our own lives and we’re constantly at a fast pace, but when somebody needs, help, everybody drops everything and helps.” When it was over, everyone walked away. No names were taken. The 80 plus people became anonymous again. There is something very beautiful about that. It shows compassion, unselfishness, a willingness to be part of the body when the body is doing something good.

          Ursrey, the mother who had to be saved while trying to help her sons, commented that “These people were God’s angels…I owe my life and my family’s life to them.” How about that! Just another morning at the beach and you are called an angel! It happens that way when you become part of God’s chain.

          You know, the Corinthian church to which Paul was writing probably would have let that group of people drown on the beach while they were busy debating who was in charge and what should be done. The whole reason Paul was writing to them was because they had, in the words of the Old Testament writers, gone their own way. They had little direction and no unity. It happens with churches. It happens when they are healthy and it happens when they are sick. They lose their ability to respond to that still, small voice that guides and directs and spurs them to something and someone bigger than themselves.

          Was Roberta Ursrey right? Were God’s angels on the beach that day? I’d like to think that they were just like us, that they were going about their business when they heard a call. And they answered. Maybe they had no particular reason to be unified. But when the reason appeared, they stopped what they were doing and got in line. They literally became links in a chain of life.

          Our church, our little church in this little community, has taken a beating. We have lost our buildings and some of our resources. But this is a temporary thing. The buildings are not the church, but in the coming months there will be times when we wonder if we can be the church that God has called us to be. We will be prone to argue, to disagree, to think that whatever is on our hearts is the only way forward. To get our answer about how to move forward, we can look to stories like that of Roberta Ursrey and Jessica Simmons. Their paths crossed on a beach and both women and many more on the beach that day were changed. They experienced discipleship. They didn’t have to think. They just acted unselfishly. And they were called angels.

          Disciple is another word for messenger. That’s the job we are called to do. Spread the news. Bring the message. If, as Paul reminds us, we can do that message on a beach by joining arms to make a chain, that is just as true a testimony as standing in any pulpit. Just ask Roberta Ursrey.

          Sometimes we find discipleship. Sometimes discipleship finds us. No matter which way it comes, the call is there for us to answer. Answer the bell. You won’t be by yourself, and God needs you!

In Plain View      

                                         Romans 1: 18-23

 

 

         

         In many states, it’s illegal to hide a handgun. If you have it where it can be seen, then you are legal. The weapon must be in “plain view.” The theory is that if one can see something, one will take appropriate action in response to that information. That makes sense, doesn’t it? If something is plain to see, you know more about what to do and how to act. If you can see it, it’s easier to believe and much easier to plan your actions in accordance with what your vision informs you. If it’s a snake, you back away. If it’s a carousel, you get on it and take a ride. And yet, when it comes to God, the plain view approach doesn’t seem to illicit that kind of response.

          God has been in the revelation business since the dawn of creation. Mankind was given a garden full of everything we need, from perfect weather to bountiful food. Adam and Eve were blessed with not only resources, but dominion over all that they saw. But it wasn’t enough. Evil tempted them to think about playing God. They had it all. Why couldn’t they know it all? Our ancestors had a revelation of the wrong kind. They wanted to be God instead of obeying God. That was our first mistake, but far from our last.

          Our Reformed tradition tends to classify revelation into two categories. Special revelation is that form by which God makes himself known through the Word, both living and written. In other words, God has specially revealed himself to us through Scripture, the Bible, and through Jesus. But God also reveals himself through general revelation. General revelation is that form by which God has made himself known through his creation. That is, God can be seen not only in what he has created—mankind, animal life, plant life, birds and creatures of the sea, mountains, prairies and oceans—but also in its preservation and order. Why doesn’t the sea overrun the land? How are the tides ordered so efficiently four times every day? Why doesn’t the earth slip off its rotational axis with the sun and burn up? Can gravity or the seasons or any of the laws of physics really be something random? Our answer is of course not! The continuing order of our planet experienced over millions of years is the act of a loving and powerful God, and his is an ongoing presence in the world.

          The Belgic Confession is a confessional statement adopted by many Reformed churches. It is still the official confessional statement of the Dutch Reformed Church. This is how the Belgic Confession describes General Revelation:

We know Him by two means: First, by the creation,

preservation, and government of the universe, which

is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all

creatures, great and small, are as so many characters

leading us to see clearly the invisible things of God,

even his everlasting power and divinity, as the Apostle

Paul says in Romans 1: 20. All which things are sufficient

to convince men and leave them without excuse.

     Belgic Confession Article 2.

 

          I love how the Dutch put it. We can see clearly the invisible things of God—and we are without excuse.  Of course, the confession only repeats the words of Paul in our text for today. Paul says to the Romans and to us that God’s otherwise invisible attributes have been clearly perceived from the creation, by looking at what he has made! So we are without excuse as to the presence of God. The Bible and Jesus make things more clear, give us more complete direction, but they only amplify from the beginning of creation until this very day a continuous, divine and powerful presence that cannot be denied. 

          We live in a time that is being referred to as post-religious. Do you think we are post-religious? What is religious? Everyone seems to have his or her own definition. Mine is that which is done regularly, like being on a diet. Do you come to church regularly and have you joined a church? Then you would be considered religious. Do you practice the tenets of your church, of the Bible? Then you are religious by most definitions. But there are many Americans and Europeans who don’t do that anymore. The great majority still claim to believe in God, but they do little to demonstrate that belief.

          Thus the term “post-religious,” an age in which the church and religious beliefs in general have become part of a menu of beliefs and practices from which many choose as if going through a cafeteria line. That doesn’t sound at all like what Paul had in mind. That doesn’t sound at all like clearly seeing the invisible things of God. It sounds a lot more like there are many in our society who look at the same things we look at and rather than seeing God, they see science or technology or progress. Worst of all, oftentimes they see themselves as the architects of those things good in the world. That’s nothing less than changing lords. When we do so, we hand ourselves over to ourselves or some other creature rather than our Creator. How ignorant is that! For the sake of being our own boss, our own Lord, we end up foundering around in a confusing sea of dysfunction.  

          The words of Paul to the Roman church remind us that we may be religious or non-religious or post-religious or any other term that might fit the order of the day. But regardless of the terminology, the presence of God is not hard to find. It’s in the songs of the birds right outside our kitchen windows. It’s in the breezes of the evening that we will never see, but can feel as sure as we can hear those songbirds.

          Do you ever just stop and look around at this creation we live in? We are loaded with God’s presence. It’s not just nature, though nature may be the most beautiful part of God’s creation. It’s in technology too. Last week when we saw a ladder truck pouring water on the roof of our fellowship hall, we were glad to witness the technology of modern firefighting. The technological advancements God had allowed us to make are no less impressive than the mountains of the Blue Ridge. It’s just that sometimes, all that advancement can confuse those of less discernment, allowing them to think that they did it all by themselves. God allows us many advancements. He loves us and wants us to succeed. After all, it is his image in which we were fashioned. But we can never catch God. He is the divine author.

          Stop right now and just think a moment about the prettiest, or the most profound, the most awe inspiring thing or person you know. Now try and disconnect whatever makes you awed by that person or thing from God. If you have found God, you won’t be able to make that disconnect. Our world as Christians is inextricably bound with God’s presence.

          We are privileged to know God, to know of his presence through the natural revelation of his creation. But we should take heed. The very passage where Paul reminds us of what God has done also goes on to caution us not to take credit and not to ignore the plain language of his creation, God’s silent manifestation of his power and sovereignty. The message in Romans 1 is not of mercy and love, but rather of divinity and authority.

          We cannot get to where God put us. We can plant trees, but we cannot create them. We can deliver babies, even perhaps clone life, but we cannot begin to replicate the unique makeup of each and every being of God’s creation. The danger, perhaps, is to think that imitation is somehow synonymous with creation. It is, in the words of the poet, only the sincerest form of flattery.

          Natural comes not only with orderly tide charts and beautiful scenery. It also comes with hurricanes and earthquakes and floods. Mankind has never ciphered how to stop such events. Our attempts are centered on early warning and containment. We would do well to apply such principles to our knowledge of God. No matter what level of knowledge mankind acquires, we still continue to fall woefully short of anything more than theorized explanation of how we came to be here. Those who require empirical evidence before they accept the presence of God are cautioned by Paul to, in today’s words, take a look around. He is present. He is manifested everywhere we look.

          It’s hard to tell the difference God makes when you look at people. Jesus tells us as much in the fifth chapter of Matthew’s gospel. Jesus says that God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” [5:45]. But Paul cautions us here that we can become so immersed in the idols we create, from money to power to plain old selfishness, that although we know God, we do not honor him…that we become futile in our thinking, and our earthly wisdom will betray us for the fools that we become. We swap glory for pleasure and our hearts become darkened and distorted from the shape in which we were cast by God.

          It is a privilege to know God. He has made it easy for us. We have so many natural signs to inform us of who he is and how magnificent he is. What do you see when you look around? Do you see the strife and envy and prejudice that permeate our society? They are there to see. But you should also see and feel the freshness and love of our God, who brings us the newness of each day, the wonder of life all around us.

          God is in plain view. And we have no excuse for not having seen him. Open your eyes and see the majesty!