Come
and See
Sermon preached by the Reverend Patricia Farris
January 16, 2005
Scripture:
Isaiah 49:1-7 and John 1:29-42
This
morning I want to address some of the theological issues you and so
many people around the world have raised following the devastation
of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. I want to lift up some of the hardest
questions raised in all of this about where is God. How can we have
faith in the light of something so horrible as this? What do we believe
in a post-tsunami world?
I
want to do that by first unpacking today’s Gospel passage because
it holds some of the keys to our understanding and to the renewal
of our faith at this critical moment. Scripture reminds us quite powerfully
that it’s not so important what we believe about all this as
who we are in the midst of it. Our humanity is at stake.
Today,
on the second Sunday after Epiphany, we hear John’s version
of the story of the call of the disciples. Next week, we’ll
hear the more familiar version Matthew wrote of the call of the fishermen,
but John tells it another way to help us see another meaning in it
all. It’s after Jesus has been baptized by John the Baptist
and he is standing with a couple of his own disciples. They see Jesus
pass by. John exclaims: “Here is the Lamb of God!” The
disciples hear John say this and leave to follow Jesus. Jesus sees
them and turns to ask: “What are you looking for?” And
they respond with another question. “Rabbi, teacher,”
they call him, “where are you staying?” Jesus says to
them: “Come and see.”
Even
for the Gospel of John, this is an odd conversation. There are two
questions. No real answers - just a longing and then an invitation.
Two would-be disciples, two seekers, two students wanting to learn
more, to know more, to go deeper. But Jesus asks them, “What
are you looking for? What are you after?” He seems to know intuitively
that their hearts were hungry, that they were wanting something more
for their lives and he pushes them to get clear. “What are you
after? What is it you want?”
These
guys had been disciples of John the Baptist. Now they’re changing
teams. They’re going to go with Jesus. But they’re pushing
to know who he really is. Before making up their minds, they’re
bold enough to ask. Who are you? Are you of God? Are you the teacher
we should trust? Where are you staying, meaning — Where is your
heart? What are you fundamentally about? Where are you staying?
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"Come and See" Sermon by Rev. Patricia
Farris, Jan. 16, 2005
Now
remember, this is all part of John’s theology, his understanding
of who Jesus is. At the very beginning of his Gospel, he wrote that
in Jesus, God comes to stay with us. The Word became flesh and lived
among us. That’s what incarnation is. That’s what we believe
about Jesus. The Word made flesh - God with us; God living with us;
God present with us here in this life; God abiding with us; and God
staying with us.
You
see, when these two ask Jesus, “Where are you staying?”
they are picking up this theme. They’re trying to understand it.
They’re trying to fathom this mind-boggling notion that God the
Almighty, the Ancient of Days, the Holy of Holies, is in Christ coming
to stay with us. “Where are you staying?” they ask him.
Instead of trying to tell them, rather than putting it into words, he
draws them in to the journey. “Come and see.” The Scripture
tells us that indeed, they came and saw where he was staying, and they
stayed with him that day. It’s all about staying, you see: God
staying with us in Christ, us staying with God through Christ, us staying
with God’s people in the name of Christ. The way we know that’s
what‘s happening is by what we see.
So,
in all the pictures and stories of the tsunami and its aftermath, what
do we see? Where is God in those pictures? Where is God staying?
When
the 9.0 earthquake hit on December 26, 2004, we know that it caused
the massive tsunami wave that took the lives of some 160,000 people.
It wiped out whole villages and towns, schools, marketplaces and hospitals.
It killed fishermen and mothers and children and doctors and teachers
and political leaders and tourists. It destroyed fishing fleets and
crops and poisoned farmland with salt. In some areas, a whole generation
has been lost. Disease, famine and economic ruin now loom large.
People
of faith ask, and rightly so: Where was God on December 26? Where was
God staying? Some say that God was in the destruction itself. This is
not what I believe. As a United Methodist Christian, I do not believe
that God was punishing the world for our sin. I do not believe that
God was using this event in any way to wake us up, either to our sin
or to the possibilities of our goodness. I do not believe that God was
settling the score, or responding to bad karma in past lives. I do not
believe that God spared some, while letting tens of thousands of others
die a horrible death. I do not believe that God wanted one single person
to die that day.
I
do believe that God created the natural world and set it in motion to
follow its own rhythms and laws. We who live in a land of earthquakes
and mudslides and drought and fires know that this planet earth is not
a solid ball moving through space. It is made up of water and earth
and molten lava. It is shaped by air and steam and wind and rain. The
earth is constantly being reconfigured by the movement of tides and
currents and the shifting of the
(continued...)
"Come
and See" Sermon by Rev. Patricia Farris, Jan. 16, 2005
tectonic
plates at its core. It is a live organic force, and though we like
to think of it as terra firma, we know, do we not, that it contains
energies that can erupt in awesome beauty but also in horrific devastation.
It can bring forth life, but it can also take life. Sometimes its
strength and fury exceeds anything we have ever seen or known.
So
where was God on December 26? Where was God that day and where is
God staying now? I believe that God was where God always is, Word
made flesh. I believe that God was in the mother preparing food for
her family, in the family vacationing on the beach. I believe that
God was in the fisherman preparing to go out to sea, in the doctor
on duty at the hospital. I believe that God was in each person, each
person who died and each person who lived. I believe that God was
in the father who lost his wife and three children. I believe God
was in the little baby swept from his mother’s arms and later
found alive.
Where
is God staying now? God is in the outpouring of love and generosity
coming from every corner of the globe, in the unprecedented solidarity
and concern of the whole human family. Come and see.
Come
and see where God has been in the response of our global Methodist
family alone. We have given to date over $2 million dollars through
UMCOR, to be distributed in a coordinated relief effort with our global
partners in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. We continue our support
of our missionaries in Indonesia, who urge a strong Christian witness
through the outpouring of aid to the region. In this country, one
church had a special benefit concert for relief aid. Another received
a special offering at communion. Another sent home envelopes to be
propped up in visible place so that members would be regularly reminded
to give generously beyond a one-time gift. In another, children gave
and created a construction paper chain in their Sunday school room
to visibly remind them of the ways their gifts connected them to their
brothers and sisters in Southeast Asia. A United Methodist chaplain
aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln pastors to the crews now distributing
aid and providing helicopter transport.
Come
and see. A Methodist congregation in the north of England has shipped
plastic crates called “aquaboxes” that contain water purification
and filtration equipment. Lithuanian, Slovakian and Czech Methodists
are taking special offerings through the month of January. The story
is similar from Methodists in France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland
and Wales, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Methodists in Ukraine,
still in the midst of their own political upheaval, and in Macedonia
where unemployment ranges from 40-80%, have all responded. Methodists
in Liberia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, one of the poorest countries
in the world, have also responded.
Come
and see. You may not have known of our Methodist brothers and sisters
in Sri Lanka, heirs of the European mission work of the last century.
Many were killed in the ravaged east
(continued...)
"Come
and See" Sermon by Rev. Patricia Farris, Jan. 16, 2005
coast
region where they lived. Some churches were leveled. But others
survived and are now hard at work in the relief effort. One Methodist
church is housing 1800 people who fled with nothing. By New Year’s
Eve Sri Lankan Methodists had already sent ten truckloads of essential
items for distribution to people irrespective of faith, race or
political affiliation. They have sent back reports of local acts
of courage and generosity, as Sinhalese and Tamil, Buddhist, Muslim,
Hindu and Christians come together in common need and support.
Where
is God staying? Come and see. One British Methodist pastor has described
the response the disaster as “evidence of the image of God
on humankind . . . this outpouring of love that we are witnessing
right round the world”, he said, “is a fundamental human
instinct that allows us to see, for a brief moment, just how we
have been created to be.”
It
is the hope of many across the world’s relief agencies, that
through this disaster, the eyes of the world will be opened to the
daily suffering caused by hunger, impure water, poverty and disease.
That through the lens of this tragedy, we will see that our humanity
is linked to all who suffer daily, and whose suffering could be
alleviated or eliminated by the same generosity we now see exhibited.
We will see that our generous giving must be, not situational, but
consistent and sustained. That we will see what we are truly capable
of when we see just how we have been created to be: compassionate,
aware, caring and radically generous.
Come
and see God in Christ, the Lamb of God, sharing the life and suffering
of the world. Come and see God in us, faithful and bold, seeking
to abide with Christ so that we might abide in the world has his
witnesses. For we have seen his glory, full and grace and truth,
and now we have caught a glimpse of our glory, generous and capable
of healing the world. Come and see where Christ is staying--in our
hearts, in the faithfulness of our lives and in the witness of our
actions.
Notes:
© Patricia Farris, 2005. Permission is given for brief quotation
with attribution. All other rights reserved.
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