Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent

‘How can these things be?’

We only hear about Nicodemus is John’s Gospel.

We meet him here, in which is the first real dialogue in John.
We meet him again in chapter 7, when he defends Jesus to his Pharisee brothers when they are discussing how to arrest Jesus, saying:

‘Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?’

And we meet him a third time, after Jesus’ death.

Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.

This coming by night must be significant, for John mentions this fact twice.

Many ideas have been bought forth as to why Nicodemus came to Jesus by night.
The first and most obvious one is that as he was a Pharisee,
Nicodemus did not want to be seen talking to this dangerous man.

But John uses ideas of dark and light throughout his Gospel.
Jesus will say in chapter 8:

‘I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’

Nicodemus come to Jesus in the night, the dark.
He is coming from the dark, to the light.
He is not in the light as he is not a follower of Jesus.

‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God;
for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ 

Nicodemus recognises Jesus works are from God.
But he doesn’t recognise him as the Son of God, but rather
a teacher who has come from God

Jesus answer is not a thankyou.
Nicodemus starts with pleasantries. Jesus replies with a challenge.

‘Very truly, I tell you,
no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ 

Poor Nicodemus.
He making his first tentative steps toward the light, and it seems he gets rebuffed.

Jesus’ first answer to Nicodemus is telling him he will remain in the dark unless he is born from above, or again.
This is the idea of regeneration.
Being born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus fumbles.
This is unlike anything he has ever heard. Jesus is speaking the impossible.

Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?
Nicodemus knows this cannot be what Jesus means.
Jesus does not really answer, yet goes even deeper.

no one can enter the kingdom of God
without being born of water and Spirit. 

Jesus first says
no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.

Now he says
no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

In John’s Gospel, seeing is equated with believing, remember ‘Come and see’.

Now Jesus has changed it to enter.

Nicodemus may now be able to see the Kingdom, indeed it is right in front of him. From the darkness, into the light.

But he can’t enter into this way of being because he is not born of water and spirit.

What is born of the flesh is flesh,
and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 

Flesh is the weakness and mortality of man.
Spirit is the principle of divine power and life operating among and within us.

This contrast between flesh and spirit is that of normal child, and a child of God. It is man as he is  and man as Jesus can make him by giving him the Spirit.

Natural life is because God gave his spirit to men.
Eternal life begins when God gives his Holy Spirit to men.

To God giving his Holy Spirit to us,
there must be an acceptance in faith and a new way of life on our behalf.
The gift of the Spirit is primary,
for it is the Spirit of truth that enables us to know and believe in Jesus revelation.

To enter the Kingdom of God, to have eternal life,
one must be born of the Holy Spirit.

Nicodemus said to him,
‘How can these things be?’

Nicodemus is a Pharisee, not only that, he is a leader.
He knows his Scriptures.
His whole life has been about learning the scriptures, the law, the prophets,
reading deeply, praying on their meaning.
He believes that they are the word of God.
He recognises that Jesus
a teacher who has come from God;
for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God

Yet, in all his knowledge and experience, he cannot work out what Jesus is saying. None of this makes any sense.
There is nothing in whole entire knowledge of the scriptures that this relates to.
There is nothing in his normal existence that this relates to.

From the darkness, he cannot see.
From the darkness, he cannot enter.

Jesus recognises Nicodemus’ struggle.

‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

He cannot understand these things because he has no reference at all for them to fit into.

He can’t understand because he remains in the darkness, not yet able to see that Jesus is the Son of God. He is unable to enter because he is not born of the Spirit.

A step from darkness to light is not an easy thing.
It requires a realisation that all that has come before doesn’t matter.
It requires all that we think we have been and done doesn’t matter.
Being born from above, or again

In Nicodemus’ case, all his learning and status count for nothing.
If anything, they hinder him in being able to see Jesus for who he is.

Again, it all comes down to identity.
If we hold onto old ideas of who we are, or who we were,
we are unable to see who Jesus really is,
and more importantly, what he requires of us.

All of us are here because we have been born from above.
We are here because we have been born of water and the Holy Spirit.
We are in the light.

It is to those who are in the dark that all our focus needs to be with.
It is to those who cannot see the Kingdom that we need to be like Christ.
It is to those who feel they cannot enter the Kingdom that we need to walk alongside.
They will need to believe our earthly things before they can believe our heavenly things.
If we get stuck on earthly things, we will have missed the point.

We will meet many Nicodemus, those who think they know everything, and that what we proclaim makes no sense at all.

They will say to us, ‘How can these things be?’

And like John tells us this morning, we can tell them:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent

If you are the Son of Man.

Lent is upon us.
Tradition has this reading as for the first Sunday of Lent.
It deals with temptation.
But on a more significant scale, it deals with identity and choice.
The two are intimately linked.

The event we hear about takes place directly after Jesus’ baptism, where

a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’

 Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.

What is the reasoning for this?

We can understand the idea of a need to go and pray, to spend some time in silence.
Moses too went into the wilderness for 40 days to pray and work out what he was going to do.
In Jesus’ case, God the Father has just told him now is the time.
All he needs now is to work out how to do it.

Enter the devil. Note how Matthew first calls him ‘the tempter.’
Listen to his words: “If you are the Son of Man.”

Jesus has had confirmation of who is he from God the Father.
He has now spent a long time in prayer and fasting.

“If”

The first thing the devil does is try to undermine Jesus’ identity.
He is trying to put the tiniest slither of doubt into his mind.
He is trying to make him feel a lack of something.
By doing so, he is trying to get Jesus to prove himself out of this feeling of doubt.

‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ 

 Now, Jesus has been on his own in the wilderness for quite some time.
He has had no food, so he is quite rightly famished.
What is wrong with wanting to feed himself?
We know he is capable of doing such a thing, think of the feeding of the 5000 for example.
But he answered,

‘It is written,
“One does not live by bread alone,
  but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” ’

Notice how Jesus doesn’t enter it to the conversation.
No argument, no quibbling, no explanation.
He quotes from scripture, from the book of Deuteronomy 8.

The passage Jesus is quoting deals with Israel’s wandering in the desert.
It explains that this was in order to humble them, to test them to know what was in their heart.
It explains that God let them hunger, feed them with manna:

in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (Deut 8:1-3) 

So Jesus’ reply is not some quick quip, it goes right into the heart of God’s dealings with his people, and God the Father’s dealing with him, the Son.

Jesus reply shows he gets his sense of being the Son from his obedience to the Father.
He will live by what the Father says, those words that were spoken at his baptism:

‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’

But, nothing exposes us to temptation more dangerously than a successful rebuff of temptation.
The devil seizes upon Jesus’ words.

He takes Jesus up to the pinnacle of the temple the centre of all religious life, the centre of the world for the Jewish people. It all happens there.

So, you say you will live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Well, listen to these words of God. As Jesus used scripture, so too does the devil.
He quotes from Psalm 91.

‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down;
for it is written,
“He will command his angels concerning you”,
   and “On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” ’

Jesus refuses. He answers with scripture, again from Deuteronomy.

‘Again it is written,
“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” ’

The passage Jesus quotes in full is

Do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.

The events at Massah to which this refers to are found in Exodus 17. This is where the people are arguing and in need of water. They question Moses’ decision to take them into the desert, Moses asks God, and God provides.

So Jesus answer speaks of a time when God was tested, and he did indeed answer.
But the commandment that came after is that no one is to do this again.
Jesus knows he would be fine if he did indeed throw himself from the temple, but again he is showing his obedience to the Father.

The last temptation is the most insidious, and reveals what the devil is really trying to do.

He takes Jesus up to a high mountain, and show him all the kingdoms of the world.
He has given up on scripture by this point.
Now he goes straight to the ego.

 ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ 

This reveals the reason for all the temptations.
They have all been about attempting Jesus to go off from the path he is on.
They are all about how he  might achieve his mission easier, by miracles, flashy events, and in this case changing allegiance.

Jesus said to him,

‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
“Worship the Lord your God,
   and serve only him.” ’ 

Jesus quotes again from Deuteronomy.

So what is the devil really up to? What is the point for Jesus to go through these?

He presents Jesus with a series of options, all of which are reasonable, or would help Jesus on his mission.
But all of them are not right.
All of them seek to take Jesus away from purity in obedience to his Father,
to a mixed mess of alliegences.

We can think that when Jesus went into the desert, he knew what his mission would be, but probably did not know how he would achieve it.
By the temptations, Jesus now knows how he will not achieve it.

This seems to be the role of the devil. Choices.

He present us with options, usually none that bad. They are normally just lesser.
They are ones that take us off our path. Most significantly though, they are ones which ask us to be less than ourselves. They ask us to be someone we are not. A lesser version of ourselves.

This is how temptation works.
We are tempted to become lesser versions of ourselves.
We are tempted into not being our true selves.

And this is where the devil is at his finest. He doesn’t need to do that much, he just needs to let us think that our true self is not what we are, or our true self is not what God really wants of us.

In Jesus’ case, the devil offers things that would stop Jesus from being who he really needed to be, and yet these same options provide Jesus with what he will be, without succumbing to them the way the devil suggests.

Instead of changing stones into bread, Jesus becomes the bread by which men can live, because it is the same as the word which comes out of God’s mouth.

Instead of throwing himself off the temple, he becomes the temple, a temple which refuses to be cast down in the resurrection.

And in his death on the cross, he becomes the king of all the kingdoms of the world.

In these events, Jesus showed himself to be the Son of God, in humility and exaltation.
He will achieve his mission through his obedience to God’s will.
That is his true self.

Sermon for The Transfiguration

Transfiguration
Cornelius Monsma

he was transfigured before them, 

and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 

It is rather difficult to know where to begin with the Transfiguration of Jesus.
It is such an odd event.
It doesn’t seem to have any reason or meaning.

And unlike the past few weeks where we have heard Jesus’ reinterpretation of the Mosaic Law, the Transfiguration doesn’t really give us any advice on how we are to be.

It is with other incidences in the Old and New Testament that we can understand why the Transfiguration is an important event in the life of Jesus, and ours as his followers.

The first connection is with Moses at Mt Sinai.

The six days reference also connects the Transfiguration with Moses at Mt Sinai:

The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud

On the seventh day Jesus, like Moses, ascends the mountain and enters the awesome presence of God.

In this way, the Transfiguration can be seen as a parallel to that of Moses on Mt Sinai and the giving of the Law.

Matthew states that Jesus’ clothes became “white as light”.

Matthew understands light as a symbol of God’s presence,
He describes the cloud that will descend soon after as “bright.”
He is making clear the connection between the radiance of Jesus and the divine.
The luminosity of Jesus and the cloud both come from the same divine sphere.

Matthew states that  Jesus’ face “shone like the sun.”
It is also a reference to Moses at Mt Sinai:

Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him.  

In many ways, this can be seen as an archetype of the Transfiguration.

There are however, significant differences.

In the Transfiguration, Jesus is momentarily revealed with more than an earthly brightness.
It is He that shines, the dazzling light emanates from Him.

The shining of Moses’ face is a “borrowed glory.”
His face shines because he has been talking with God, it is reflected on to him.

The light that was reflected on to Moses,
is the same light that emanates from Jesus, the Son of God.

By emphasising that the light was emanating from Jesus, and comparing  Moses’ shine being caused by a reflection from God shows that Jesus is not just “one of the prophets” but is more.


Another place of comparison is with Jesus’ baptism.

‘This is my Son, the Beloved;
with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ 

This is the same voice as at Jesus Baptism. It is the voice of God the Father. But there is a difference. ‘Listen to him.’

At His Baptism, Jesus accepted the Father’s commission to be the Messiah, and the voice there had come to Him to confirm the course he had chosen.

The voice at the Transfiguration is speaking to the disciples to confirm what Jesus has said.

But what are they to listen to?

We need to go back, 6 days before.

Jesus has asked the disciples who the people in general say that he is.
Apparently the people think he is John the Baptist, Elijah or Jeremiah.

Jesus then puts the question directly to the disciples,
to which Peter answers

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”. 

Jesus goes on to tell the disciples, for the first time, what the he must endure:

“great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” 

The voice of God the Father at the Transfiguration says: they are to hear this and understand that this is the will of God the Father.

They are also to listen to what Jesus says about being one of His followers:

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 

If the Baptism was where Jesus was confirmed in the course he had taken,
the Transfiguration functions in a similar way for the disciples.

Jesus is confirmed to them as the Messiah, the Son of God,
and as Jesus was to listen to the Father, they are to listen to Jesus.

Because if we look where the Transfiguration occurs within gospels, it acts as a centre piece.
From this point onwards, Jesus face is fixed toward Jerusalem.
It all leads to the cross now.

This is a last moment of glory before the events of what we call Holy Week, and it has a special resonance with one event in particular, the Agony at Gethsemane.

In both events, we hear that Jesus took three of his disciples, his inner circle, Peter, James and John.

The Transfiguration is the mirror opposite to the agony in Gethsemane.
One is a place of suffering and struggle, the other glory and light.
One is characterised by darkness and violence, the other full radiance and calm.
One is the lowest point of the Gospel narratives, the other, the highest.

In the Transfiguration, Jesus will be revealed to be fully divine;
in Gethsemane, He reveals his full humanity.

Both show Jesus’ identity as the Son of God
“in his radiance and obedience, his exaltation and humiliation, his glory and suffering.”

So, as we head into Lent, as we begin our journey to Holy Week, let us bask in the uncreated light of the transfigured Jesus. Let us heed the call of God the Father: Listen to him.

May we deny ourselves and take up our own crosses and follow him.

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany

 Last week we discussed anger.

We heard how Jesus reinterpreted the Mosaic Law, saying :

‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times,
“You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.”
But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister,
you will be liable to judgement;

We discussed how anger does not exist on its own.

The Letter of James speaks of anger:

let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger;
for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. T
herefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness,
and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.

Anger is a feeling, a reaction.
The feeling grows and we put images, ideas, and words to it.
Before we know it, we have created a whole set of narratives and commentary on that feeling.
One of those narratives is bound to be that of retaliation.
One of those narratives is bound to be revenge.

‘You have heard that it was said,
“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. 

So there goes the idea of revenge, retaliation, or what we may even think of as justice.

The full text that Jesus is quoted is from Exodus, chapter 21.

life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

This was introduced to stop violence escalating.
It was introduced to keep things even.
It was to stop the endless spiral of violence.

So, initially this was a good law.

But Jesus is saying it is now time to go further. It is time to go deeper.

Do not resist an evildoer. 

Jesus is taking the idea of retaliation and revenge out of the picture.

Think back to those feelings that surround our anger.
Remember the thoughts of revenge.

What do they do to you?
Where does your heart go when you think them?
No good can ever come from there.

Those thoughts allow us to be holier than thou, self righteous, and selfish.
The opposite of what we are to be.

So, if we have those feelings, how are we to rid ourselves of them?
Jesus is recommending a readiness to disarm violence by being prepared to accept double what the perpetrator requires.

But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;
and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well;
and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 

The examples all say to go further than what is expected.
We are to go above and beyond.

How?

How on earth are we to do this in reality?
It all seems so difficult, idealistic and unrealistic.

The only way we can do this is on the basis of knowing ourselves to be so enriched by God’s generosity towards us that acting in such a generous way is not impossible.

Jesus goes on:

‘You have heard that it was said,
“You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.”
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 

By loving our enemies, we change who they are to us from enemy to neighbour.
Love your neighbour as yourself.

Of course, easier said than done.

There are always going to be people who we don’t get on with.
There are people who we just don’t click with.
We can normally accept that.
But when someone seems bent on making our life difficult, doing things to harm us, damage our reputation, causing others to think ill of us, we want to correct that. We want that behaviour to stop.

We have to look inwards at ourselves.
We have to look into the face of another human being and have compassion.
We need to be able to see through all the twisted nonsense.
We need to recognise that this person who is causing us pain is as much made in God’s image as we are.

for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

I’m not suggesting this is easy, but it is the call we have.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

In these two interpretations of the Mosaic Law, Jesus tells us of our responsibilities: to others and ourselves.
We are to keep all our thoughts that are of ill feeling toward another under control. We are to be in such a way where we no longer have them, always reaching for the perfection of God.

We are to see others not as enemies, but as neighbours.
We are to look beyond incidences, the past, behaviours, words, and see a person who is struggling with being as much as we are.
We are to look at all people the same way God looks at all of us: with love, mercy, and compassion.

Sermon for Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

‘You are the salt of the earth; 

but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? 

It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

Salt of the earth is so well known that this saying has passed into common language.
How many times have you heard someone being referred to as ‘salt of the earth.’
We instinctively know it to mean a good person.
It has a rustic character to it.
There is no nonsense in this person.
I wonder if it has not been confused with ‘down to earth’ in many cases.

My Grandmother who I spoke of a few weeks back was a heavy smoker.
She smoked all her life.
By the time she got very ill, her doctor told her not to give up as that would cause more trouble for her than if she kept smoking.

But like any smoker, her tastebuds suffered.
The older she got, the more her food became richer, most particularly, salty.
The amount of salt she would put into or onto anything was alarming.
A stew would be nearly inedible, it was that salty.
We wondered what we could do.
There was no point telling her.
She cooked by taste. It was fine for her.
I wondered whether we could get weaker salt.
It seems you can’t.

Salt is salt.
There is no strong salt or weak salt. It is what it is.
Sure, some salt is better than others,
but in the realms of saltiness, there isn’t much difference.
Salt is salt. It is salty.

So when Jesus speaks of salt losing it’s saltiness, he means something else.
We know he is speaking a metaphor.

if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?

It can’t. Salt cannot become less salty.
It can only be mixed with something else to become diluted.
This would have been a common practice in Jesus’ time.
Salt was expensive and taxed highly.
To make more profit, sellers would have mixed salt with other cheaper compounds.

Salt was mainly used for the preservation of food.
I am sure many of you can remember a time before refrigeration where the meat you bought was preserved in salt.
Imagine in Jesus time how important salt would have been.
Imagine how useless and annoying diluted salt would have been.
It would not have done its job.
It would have made meat rot quickly.
It would lead to waste and hunger.

So if we are to be salt of the earth, we are not be diluted.

This kind of talk always worries me.
We have all heard about the dangers of worldliness,
being in the world and not of the world,
and they are quite right.

But there is a tendency to want to separate the church from the world.
This leads to cult like behaviour and self righteous holier than thou behaviour.

Jesus means we are not to let the worlds, or the power’s influence change what it is to be one of his followers.

Remembers salt’s use as a preserver.

If it loses this ability,

It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot

Followers of Jesus are to the element in the world that keeps it wholesome and stop it from decaying.

If a follower of Jesus fails to represent the character and spirit of Christ in the world, they are useless.

So we ask ourselves what is Christlike behaviour and action,
and what is going to water those down?

In our time and place,
I see two major elements that can cause our saltiness to be diluted.
A lack of love for our neighbour, and a lack of peace in our lives.

If we cease to love our neighbour, we cease to be the body of Christ in our world.
Nothing can dilute our Christian behaviour more than a lack of love for those who are suffering.
We don’t need to define who is our neighbour and who isn’t: all are.
An act of selflessness and compassion toward someone we do not know is an act of Christlike behaviour.
What will dilute that is seeing someone as not our neighbour,
as someone we need not care for.

Secondly, our need to be busy and be caught up in the rhythm of the world.
When our minds are filled with ‘to do lists’ so there is no time for peace, we lose our saltiness.
Time spent in stillness and silence, praying, contemplating, meditating help us to keep our saltiness.
Quiet allows us to focus on what God wants of us, not the world.

St Paul tells us:

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.

It is that spirit that makes us the salt of the world. It is that spirit that makes us understand what the salt is and how we are to keep it from dilution.

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany

‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’

One of our many activities on our holiday was fishing.
We found a great spot outside of Tuncurry where there was a little jetty on to the river.
There was a little park with sheltered seating and tables.

It was Ivy who was fishing, not me.
It is not something I have ever really enjoyed, or done that much.

My grandparents were very keen flyfishers.
There house was filled with books and pictures of fish.
They had many rods, and boxes of fly tying equipment.
It was something they did as a family often.
This was part of my childhood, going to rivers and watching my grandparents, uncles, brother standing in the middle of a river, wearing waders, fishing.

Flyfishing was my grandparents great love.
To them it was the best escape from work and domestic life.
It was more than a hobby, it was passion.

For Simon and Andrew, and James and John, it was more than a passion.
It was their life.
This was what they did.
This is how they fed themselves and their families.
This is how they earned their living.

It would have been a 6 day a week job, early rising, late finishing.
The sea would be something they feared and respected.
The sea was their environment.
Their understanding of the world, the place in it, and their understanding of God would all be interpreted in terms of the sea.
The sea would dominate their being.


When Jesus shows up at the shore,
he understands how their environment and work dominates their being.

He uses their world to ask them for their lives.

‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’

By asking them to follow him,
Jesus is asking them to give everything they know away.

He asking them to leave the environment that has made them who they are.
He is asking them to give up their livelihoods.
He is asking them to leave who they are.

Yet this is not all about abrupt change and disconnection.

He tells them they are to keep using their skills, but in a new way.

‘and I will make you fish for people.’ 

This simple sentence shows how Jesus understood humanity, the world, and how we are.

Jesus saw the men and knew them.
He understood their lives and their way of being.
He knew how to speak with them and knew what kind of language and images to use.

So while “I will make you fish for people” may seem quite a basic statement,
if not a bizarre image, in a few small words,
Jesus is able to speak directly to these men’s entire life and experience.

Now, with my lack of interest in fishing, this call would not work for me.
Jesus would have to come up with something different.
It is not an invitation I would be that keen on following up.

I dare say it would be the same for many of us.

This all tells us the importance of context,
environment and circumstance when we speak with others about Jesus.

We all change the way we speak, the words we use, the tone, pitch, pace, all those things when we speak with different types of people
.
Think for example the way you speak to a little baby.
This is different to how you speak to the woman at the checkout at the IGA.
You may be saying exactly the same thing, expressing the same ideas and concepts, for example “Hello, how is your day,” but they will be different.

It gets even more subtle.

The way we speak to people in church will be different to how we speak to people outside of church.
The way we speak to Christians will be different to how we speak to people of different or no faiths.

And so it is when we speak of the Gospel to people.

Jesus spoke into these men's lives,
he spoke of their experience and used that to invite them on a wonderful journey,
one that would change their lives,
and would change the world.

When we speak to people and invite them on a journey that will change their lives,
and the lives of those around them,
when we invite people to church,
to meet Christ in the word and sacrament,
we need to speak into their lives and experience.

That will look and sound different each and every time.
The message doesn't change, it is eternal, but the way we speak and be it will.

So for each encounter we have, the way we speak of God will be different each time.
God doesn’t become different,
we don’t become different,
 but our way of expressing God’s love for us, and for those we are talking to is nuanced.

As Jesus spoke about fishing to fishermen,
we too are to speak about what we observe and understand in our environments when we speak about God.

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

‘What are you looking for?’ 

These are the first words Jesus speaks in John’s Gospel.

John’s Gospel is ordered, filled with symbolism,
notes about what time or day things occur,
that when we read it, we are taken into a different realm:
it is a combination of earthiness and reality and spiritual depth.

The two combine into a space that is unique in all literature.

John would have thought and prayed very carefully about what Jesus’ first words were to be in this Gospel.
Jesus must have spoken before this,
so we need not be concerned about history here,
we aren’t interested in his first words.
We are interested in what John is telling us about Jesus.

Two of John the Baptist’s disciples have heard the Baptist say
‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’
They follow Jesus as he walks past them.

Jesus must have heard them walking behind him.
He turns and asks them a question:

It is Jesus who starts things off.
They may have been in awe, or too shy.
It is Jesus who takes the first step.
Jesus will allude to this later within John’s Gospel, when he says to the disciples:

You did not choose me but I chose you. 

Gods love for us preceeds the movement of our souls toward him.

He asks them:

‘What are you looking for?’ 

This is not some meaningless small talk.
Jesus is not asking them if they are lost, or if they need direction.
Well, actually, he is, but not in a physical or ordinary sense.


Jesus looks at the men and knows why they are there.
He wants to know if they know why they are there.

‘What are you looking for?’ 

But this question goes beyond those two men.
It reaches through time and space and we are asked the same thing.
This is a question Jesus asks all who follow him.
This question touches on the most basic need of our human nature.
This question goes straight to the cause of why we turn to God.

‘What are you looking for?’ 

It goes beyond our logic,
it goes beyond our primal nature and speaks directly to the yearning in our soul.

What are we looking for?
What is that makes us come here?
What is it that makes us follow Jesus, why do we do this?

These are serious questions.

All of us will have different answers.
It may be comfort, it may be the sense of community.
It may be the hymns, the worship, the building.
It may be a sense of peace.

Ultimately, all answers will lead to one thing: God.

However we understand our relationship with God,
or however it works within us,
that is what we are looking for.
I believe everyone is looking for God.
They may not use those words, they may not even think they are looking,
but inside every human there is a longing for union with the divine.
It is in our very DNA, it is part of what makes us human.

That is what the two men who were following Jesus were looking for.

Their reply

‘where are you staying?’  

shows where they were up to on their journey toward God.
They weren’t yet disciples.
They knew that Jesus was something special,
the Baptist had referred to him as the Lamb of God.

Where are you staying, or where are you abiding
shows they wanted to speak with Jesus.
They wanted to know more.
They wanted to spend time with him.
They wanted to be with him.

As what we are looking for is God, so too do we yearn to stay with God.
We long to abide with God.
We long to abide in God.

Again, this is part of what makes us human.
Not only do all people looking for God, they also yearn to stay with him.
It is human to seek escape from temporality, change, death.
It is human to desire something that is lasting,
something that is eternal,
something that goes beyond time and space.

So while this brief question and answer between Jesus and the two followers
seems quite straightforward, it is in fact very deep.

The desires of God toward humanity
and humanity’s desires toward God are laid plain in this interaction.

Jesus’ answer is brief

Come and see.

He doesn’t explain, he doesn’t offer anything, he doesn’t offer an alternative.
He doesn’t say where he is dwelling, just ‘come and see’.

This is still the truth.
In John’s Gospel the idea of seeing is a sign of belief.
Belief or seeing won’t come by concise argument or piles of evidence.

It is only by following Jesus and by abiding in his presence that we can see him.

This is how it still works.

We do this today in the Eucharist.

In the Eucharist we experience the real presence of Christ.

Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus will speak of himself as the Bread of Life.
He will say:

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.

Jesus asked the first followers what they looking for.
They asked where he was staying, where he was abiding.
He only answered, Come and see.

We follow in their footsteps.
Jesus asks us what are we looking for?
We ask where we can find find him so we can be with him.
He says come and see.