Seeing, Staying

Text: John 1:29-42

John’s is a strong-flavored Gospel.

And it is therefore not always to everyone’s liking. It mixes powerful themes that seem sometimes to oppose one another: theological sugar and salt—light and darkness, life and death, people who are favored and those who are cursed. It is not like Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which share with each other a common heritage and though very nourishing are perhaps less savory than John. And for some, easier to swallow.

Some people see the Gospel of John as a kind of religious and missional travelogue. In it, Jesus moves back and forth from place to place, talking with whomever he finds there. He visits exotic locales—like Samaria, not normally popular with the Judeans—and gathers new followers along the way. Some are content to listen to him, learning about a new way to live. And some end up pulling up roots and becoming disciples, living in that new way. We hear the beginning of all that in today’s reading.

In it, Andrew and another nameless follower of John the Baptist are immediately drawn to Jesus, and they abandon John on the spot. (This sort of thing seems to happen quite a lot with Jesus—even in our time). When Jesus notices them walking toward him, he speaks his first words in this Gospel: What are you looking for? What do you seek? The disciples oddly reply: Where are you staying? Come, Jesus says—is this an answer? it is hard to say—Jesus says: Come, you will see. Come and see.

Seeing and staying are two of those strong themes in John. The words for both of them appear more often in John’s writing than in any other book of the Bible. The fact that they are a part of Jesus’ first conversation—almost all of it, really—is not an accident.

The two ideas represent two flavors of discipleship, which in some eras (ours, for example) seem to be in conflict. It is a persistent dichotomy, two different answers to the same question: What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? How does one live a Christian life?

On the one hand (the “seeing” side) is a kind of observational life. Come and see. The word that John uses is sometimes translated as “knowing.” On this side are all the worshipful and prayerful disciplines that Christians rightly cultivate and value. This is a faith of the senses. Looking, watching, enjoying. Finding God in beauty, in relationships. In our own hearts, calm or excited. In listening to music, pondering and savoring poetry. Seeing God in our studies and research.

In this way of living, there is a sense of anticipation and expectation on our part. Waiting for something to happen. By seeing things we make discoveries that change our lives. In our religious life, we hope for such discoveries and changes. It is one of the many reasons we worship and study together, expecting the Spirit to reveal God and God’s will to us, and to guide us. It is an essential part of some religious orders and, in a less intensive way, of spiritual retreats.

On the other hand (the “staying” side) is a kind of participatory life. The word that John uses is also translated as remaining, living, dwelling, abiding. Where are you staying, the disciples ask. Where are you at? How do you stand? What is your position? On this side are all the Christian good works, things we do in the world because they represent obedience to the commands and teachings of Jesus. And conform to his example. Be compassionate first and foremost. Feed the hungry, visit the prisoners. Turn the other cheek. Do not judge others. Love your enemies.

This way of living is not necessarily a religious life as normally conceived. It is religious because it comes out of our promise to follow Jesus. And though we are not looking to find God in these works, we in fact usually do.

People help others directly—social services, as we might say—to relieve suffering. They work politically to change systems of violence and injustice and to prevent suffering. And they work at ordinary jobs always keeping in mind that they are first of all disciples of Jesus.

None are completely obedient to Jesus whom they follow. They try to live—ideally—as if they lived with Jesus. As a roommate, say, or a member of one’s family, or good friend. Could they go home at night and relate their day to Jesus with a good conscience and a straight face? How was your day? Not bad.

What do you seek? There is a longing in everybody, I think, to live a deeply spiritual life. And certainly so for people who gather into churches. We are called here by the same God who turned the disciples toward Jesus. There is something in us that wants, in some way that is hard to talk about, to be very close to God, to be intimately connected to God. And the other thing we really want to do is to change the world for the better.

As the disciples did, we see in Jesus a way to do that. Jesus is revealed to us—that is what Epiphany means. We follow Jesus because we think he is the best guide, and that he is a trustworthy one. And because we suspect through experience that we cannot make it on our own. When Jesus asks the disciples what they seek, that is what they answer. We want to know where you are staying, they say. We want to be there, too. We want to go where you are going and to live in a way that we can best learn by being with you, abiding with you, living in the same place as you.

In the course of their lives together, Jesus teaches them. He instructs them, for example, in the sermon on the mount, which is the focus of the Gospel readings for almost all of the rest of Epiphany and a kind of instruction manual. And he heals people and he feeds them, and he gets into trouble with the authorities, and he does miraculous deeds. He sees the world differently than we usually do.

When the disciples ask to stay with Jesus, he shows them how to see with the eyes of Jesus. Seeing and staying turn out not to be such different things. Jesus knows that he will not always be with his followers on this earth, but they can learn to see as he sees. That is why “Come and see” is a good answer to “Where are you staying?” It is not a tricky answer.

For if we see things as Jesus sees, won’t we find ourselves called to abide with him? And if we stay with Jesus for very long, won't we inevitably see as he sees?

Being in Christ

Text: Ephesians 1:3-14

The consensus among scholars is that the letter to the Ephesians was not written by the apostle Paul, even though it claims to be. It was likely written by a disciple of Paul, or some of his entourage, and signed with his name, a common practice of the day. It does adopt the ideas of Paul, and you might think of the letter as something like “A Treasury of Pauline Themes.” Not quite a summary, and not quite Paul’s Greatest Hits, but a way to convey the core and flavor to others of Paul’s preaching.

It opens with an initial greeting followed by the passage we just heard. There is an urgency in this letter to get right to the essence of things. These twelve verses are, in the original greek, one long unbroken sentence. It is as if the writer wants to get all the ideas out in one big rush and is carried away on a wave of their importance.

And they are important, for the question they want to answer is: who is God; and what is Jesus? It seems to have something to do with being “in Christ,” whatever that means.

It is an easy and familiar phrase. “We are all one in Christ Jesus” as we proclaim every Sunday before we share the peace with one another. Being in Christ and Christ being in us is a central mystery of Christianity, especially for that part of Christianity that reached us through Paul. But this long sentence in Ephesians—which is composed of multiple descriptive phrases and conjunctions hanging off the subject, God the Father—this knot of words that floods us with concepts and images of Christ and his nature—seems to be necessary to the writer to get it right and richly so.

If we untangle it just a little, we see three clusters of ideas. In the first cluster, we see that we are blessed. Blessed be God who has blessed us with blessing is how it starts out. Good words—that is what the Greek word here for blessing comes from: good plus word. What God has done through Christ is good for us. It makes brings us favor. It reminds us that God is good. When we think about Jesus, we are grateful to God the Father.

We are grateful not only for this gift—this glorious grace, it says, bestowed on us in [Christ] the beloved. But also that we are enveloped into this little family, adopted as children of God, getting the same benefits (or inheritance) that God’s own are entitled to.

In the second cluster, we see that as a result of this free favor, we are forgiven our sins (trespasses it says in our translation). In spite of our tendency to mess up a lot—by omission or commission—God does not hold it against us. This is the kind of thing you see in your children—usually—or your best friends. You love them because you do, in spite of—and in some cases because of—their weird and difficult habits. They are endearing, you keep them close to you—embrace them—because they exist and because you, like God in this way, are gracious. You do this according, as it says in the letter, according to your good pleasure.

And finally, in the third cluster we discover that our lives have changed. We are somehow in Christ and therefore different. It is a result of being in Christ, it says, that we are redeemed (that is, set free from all the powers that bind us). In Christ we are of God’s family. And in Christ, God reveals God’s intent and plan.

Yet, how does this work? It is safe and revealing to add some modifiers, to probe into this big and sometimes opaque idea.

Perhaps we are in the mind of Christ, the heart of Christ. That being in Christ means that Christ is aware of us, thinks about us, watches over us, wonders about us.

Perhaps we are in the acts of Christ. In the theological sense. That God came here in the person of Jesus and lived, died, and rose again. Those acts accomplished something for us (among other things: set us free from worldly and satanic fears, goods, authorities, and structures). Being in Christ means that we are the beneficiaries of those acts.

Or perhaps we are in obedience to the commands of Christ. Jesus taught us how to live the good life, and commanded us to love one another, to forgive sins against us, to give freely, to consider that compassion trumps authority. Being in Christ means that we organize our lives to respond to Christ’s teachings and work for justice.

Or perhaps we are in the company of Christ. Especially at Christmas, we celebrate that God is with us—Immanuel—in our present anxieties and contentments. We take comfort and strength that we are not alone. Being in Christ means that we are aware—and grateful—that God is always nearby us. In crowds, in relationships, in loneliness.

Or, finally, perhaps we are in the body of Christ. As we share the meal in the Lord’s Supper, we ingest the being of Christ, who becomes part of us. At the same time, we share that being with all who eat this same food, given for us, and thus we become like them. We are joined not only in our longing to know God but in the atoms of our own bodies.

Being in Christ is like being in touch, being in love, being in conversation, even like being in a boat on a stormy sea. And especially like being in community with God and others. It is why this letter is in the plural.

There is no metaphor for our relationship with Christ that is both obvious and clear, and none that is comprehensive. With the saints in Ephesus and the rest of us, spiritual descendants of the first followers of Christ, we gather into churches, hoping to find comfort, identity, and understanding.

There, we are blessed. To ponder, and experience, and share all the ways of our being in Christ. Where we are blessed not only with discovering those things, but joining with others in seeking them.