A Sermon Preached for the 2nd Sunday After the Epiphany and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday based on John 1:29-42

“What are you looking for?” Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel of John begins with a question—not an exorcism as in Mark, not a sermon as in Matthew, not in the Temple quoting Isaiah, as in Luke. Today we get a question that Jesus asks two of John’s disciples who have heard that Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. “What are you looking for? Perhaps John wants us to be clear about our deepest needs before we encounter the Jesus he proclaims. 

Our culture will try to tell us that we need more stuff, a bigger house, more status at work, certainly more likes on Facebook, and more separation from those who are different from us. But Jesus confronts us with the deeper questions that get us beyond the superficialities of a consumer culture and an image of God as a cosmic Santa Claus and asks us, “what motivates you—not on the surface, but deep down in the core of your being?” If Jesus sat down next to you and asked you, as his disciple, “What are you looking for? What do you need?” What would you say?

Perhaps for some of us, it’s a larger sense of meaning, a bigger purpose or a deeper sense of being loved. Perhaps for others, it is strength sufficient for a difficult situation, healing from pain, comfort in our grief, relief in our loneliness, or guidance in a decision.

The two disciples, however, answer Jesus’ question with another question! “Where are you staying?” It sounds like they’re asking for Jesus’ hotel, or guest house.

But for John, their question is not just about directions and lodging. The disciples are really asking, “Where are you abiding? Where will you remain, where will you endure, where will you continue to be?” The Greek word that can be translated all of these ways (meno), is used no less than 44 times in the Gospel in the John. It’s a central theme that John introduces right away. Where can we dwell with you? How can we be with you, to receive what you have to offer? Where can we abide in the very presence of God? To the question, “what are you looking for?” the disciples answer, “to dwell with God by abiding with you, Jesus.”

And isn’t that what we all want? To dwell in God, to live in God through Jesus’ presence, in every breath, in every cell of our body, in our words, in our action in our hopes and in our dreams? So Jesus said to them, “Come and See. Come and be with me. Come and abide with me.” For to abide with Jesus is to belong God. To abide with Jesus is to be saved. To abide with Jesus is to be forgiven by the Lamb of God. To abide with Jesus is to experience a real and committed relationship that lasts for eternity.

When we abide in Jesus, we receive the meaning and purpose we desire. We can hear the guidance we need, receive the strength we seek, the comfort that we crave, and the love that nourishes our soul. For Jesus abides with God and God abides with him. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth--to bring us into that same intimate relationship Jesus shares with God. For John, Jesus came to remove all barriers from us having a deep, abiding relationship with God.

And like any relationship the more time we spend in that relationship, the deeper it becomes, the more intimate the conversation, the more revealing the love, the deeper the bond. In my devotional reading this week, I read this passage:"When you go to your place of prayer, don’t try to think too much or manufacture feelings or sensations. Don’t worry about what words you should say or what posture you should take. It’s not about you or what you do. Simply allow Love to look at you—and trust what God sees! God just keeps looking at you and loving you center to center." This is what John calls abiding in Jesus.

But our faith and relationship with Jesus doesn’t end there, with our own personal relationship with God in Christ—it’s where it begins. Abiding with Jesus is a relationship that also gets lived out in the world. For to abide in Jesus is to abide with all beings that God has created. John’s Gospel begins with these words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”

That means everyone belongs, every person, every nation, every ethnic group. We all belong to God, even our enemies, which is why Jesus told us to love them. In First John, it says, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them… Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars.”

Tomorrow we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who spent his life and ministry holding us accountable to this truth, that everyone belongs. In a country founded on Christian principles, we have treated some of our citizens as if they don’t belong—as if they don’t belong to God and don’t belong to us, as fellow human beings, and sisters and brothers in Christ.

In his Letter from Birmingham Jail and The Struggle that Changed a Nation, King wrote: “In a real sense all life is inter-related. All [humanity is] caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...This is the inter-related structure of reality.” Or we could say this is the inter-related structure of being created by the same God, abiding in relationship with God through the same Jesus Christ.

Today, Jesus also asks those who are oppressed, or disenfranchised the same question he asks us, “What are you looking for?” We could ask refugees and immigrants, people in the Black Lives Matter movement, poor rural whites and everyone who feels they don’t belong, “what are you seeking?” Like us, they are seeking meaning and purpose, love and comfort, strength and guidance; and they hope for what we assume: to be treated with justice and fairness by our institutions, to have equal opportunity, to belong as a full citizen. In an environment where divisions between us are exploited and used as the basis for hateful rhetoric and actions, how much more are we called by God to embody in our daily life, the unity we share with all people who have been created by the Word in the beginning, and are one with us abiding in Christ.

When we ground our identity, our well-being, our very life, in abiding with God in Christ Jesus, we do not need to over-identify with our own cultural group or class to feel safe and valued. On the contrary, we live from the security of our relationship with God and follow Jesus in embracing all people, and in advocating for policies that bring freedom and inclusion for all of God’s children.

As ones who abide with Christ, we attend to our individual relationship with God (the visual with this is that my right arm points straight up) and we live out this unity in just, open and equal relationships with all people whom God created (and my left arm moves horizontally across my right arm to form a cross). + This is the life Christ is looking for in us.

Reflection Series on a semi-continuous reading of Hebrew Scriptures: Deuteronomy 34:1-12 on October 25, 2020 for Reformation and Confirmation Sunday at St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Richardson, Texas

It is all so disappointing. Moses standing there looking over at the Promised Land, but not being able to enter it. He had done so much to bring the people of Israel there—challenging Pharaoh, calling down the plagues, fleeing Egypt on the night of the Passover, crossing the Red Sea, and then 40 years in the wilderness, no less—and all the while the Israelites whining and complaining!

He received the Ten Commandments, guided the people, helped repair their relationship with God when they strayed – Moses did it all. Certainly, he made his mistakes, but he proved faithful to God and to Israel when it mattered most. Now here he is, ready to cross the finish the line—and God says, “you’re going to sit this one out, you can look, but you can’t touch.” Such a disappointing ending for Moses, whose grave no one can even find.

We are living through our own time of disappointment during this global pandemic, when memorial services are put off or done outside. When familiar worship and family gatherings cannot be experienced, and we are bereft and disappointed. We have to re-imagine how to plan Thanksgiving and Christmas. Who can gather together, should we try to eat outside? Do we quarantine the college kid for two weeks so grandpa can come to dinner? Do we put the computer at the head of table so we can eat with family on Zoom?

When Natalie and Sam Sherrod started Confirmation two years ago, we never imagined their Confirmation service would be anywhere but, in the Sanctuary, kneeling at the Communion railing with a full church celebrating their Affirmation of Baptism as adult members of this congregation. Instead, they will be kneeling on pillows on the curb. Natalie and Sam and all of us join Moses looking out at a Promised land, imagining how things could have been and should have been.

Was Moses himself disappointed as he stood on the brow of Mt. Pisgah and beheld a future that was not open to him? Our story does not tell us, but rather, it focuses on the work that Moses had done, rather than the reward we feel he should have received. Our passage highlights Moses’ role in God’s larger story of salvation. There are four patterns of Moses’ life and ministry that are instructive for us today as we celebrate the Reformation and Confirmation for Sam and Natalie.

First, Moses did his job. God had a specific role for Moses, and he fulfilled his calling in a way that only he could do. Moses argued, challenged and negotiated with God along the way, he made mistakes, and he bore the brunt of Israel’s sin—but he remained faithful to God and stayed in relationship with God, doing all that God asked of him as best he could. All of us have a unique way to serve God whether in or out of pandemic. How we serve may have changed, but that we are called to love and serve our neighbor as ourselves has not. Some do it through prayer, through card ministry, through phone calls, through giving, through caring for neighbors. Some serve on ministry teams or in leadership roles, others through the care they offer at work. Martin Luther taught in the Reformation that we are the priesthood of all believers and each one of us is called to serve Christ where we are with the what we have; and St. Luke’s, we are a church that models this for our new confirmands, Sam and Natalie.

Second, Moses trusted God’s promises and spent time with God regularly. Moses modeled spiritual practices for us, spending time apart with God alone, and engaging in conversation with God. As God shows Moses the promised land, God says, "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, "I will give it to your descendants.’ Because Moses spent so much time with God—the only one who saw God face to face, or in the burning bush, he never doubted God would keep this promise, so Moses could die in peace. We too, can trust God to fulfill God’s promises.

Martin Luther taught that prayer was crucial to human life and that we respond to God by praying regularly, forthrightly, honestly, and frequently. We can engage in our deepening relationship with God, spending time apart, and with Sam and Natalie today, re-affirming our commitment to engaging in this relationship with God, so that no matter what goes on around us, our faith remains a stable source of peace.

Third, Moses empowered the next generation of leaders in Joshua and Caleb. Moses anointed them with the spirit and power to become the new leaders of Israel, taking over for him as they enter the Promised Land. Sometimes we forget that everything is not up to us. God always calls us to be raising up the next generation of leaders with new skills, new faith, new perspectives, and new energy to lead the upcoming step into the future. The folks who started this congregation in 1957 did not know who would serve on Council in 2020, but they trusted every generation of leaders to raise up the next generation. That is what Confirmation is today—raising the next generation in the faith, learning from them, listening to them, allowing our ministry to be shaped by them so we can grow into the future. Do you remember eight months ago none of us considered worshiping with screens, and now we cannot imagine being without them? How will Sam and Natalie’s generation help us expand sharing the Gospel with digital ministry?

Martin Luther wrote the Catechism to equip every household to teach the basics of the faith to the next generation. Natalie and Sam are our Joshua and Caleb today, helping lead us and see our way into a new future.

Finally, Moses held onto a vision of the future. As he stood on the mountaintop, Moses could see that future stretched out before him. To be sure, Christians need to be informed and know what is going on in the world. But there comes a time when we turn off the news and social media and instead, envision what God’s kingdom of love and justice really looks like, so we always have a clear picture of what we move toward. In our worship, at the Lord’s Table, through our study of scripture, God endows us with a divine imagination that empowers us to glimpse God’s future for us and the world– a future that is more peaceful, more just, more connected, more hopeful for more people.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (who was named for our reformer, Martin Luther) had a gift for turning present day conflicts into a clear vision for the future. The night before he was assassinated, he spoke on this very Bible passage with these words:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people will get to the promised land.¹

We trust this vision, we hope for this vision, we work for this vision, and we confirm Sam and Natalie into this vision today. And so with Moses, we do the kingdom work that God calls us to do. We train and raise up a new generation of leaders. We commit ourselves body and soul to God, praying regularly, forthrightly, honestly, and frequently. And We hold onto God’s vision that we as a people will get to the promised land. 

¹A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. Ed. James M. Washington (New York: HarperCollins, 1986), 286.
Reflection Questions:

• Have there been times when you have done the right thing, what God desires, but no reward is forthcoming? As you look back on those situations, can you see yourself in God’s larger purpose and story of salvation?
• How does God call you to love and serve others today, right now? Has this changed given our pandemic circumstances? Are there new ways God has called you to serve?
• Have you thought of yourself as “priest” by nature of your Baptism, as part of the “priesthood of all believers” as Luther taught? Does thinking this way increase the urgency of your service and gifts offered in the world?
• How is your prayer life? Does having more time at home give you an opportunity to pray “regularly, forthrightly, honestly, and frequently?”
• What do you think St. Luke’s can do to connect more with teens, and with Millennials in their 20’s and 30’s? What relationships do you have with people in these age groups?
• What is your vision of the promised land and the kingdom of God here on earth?