Scripture: John 1:35–51
We welcome the Rev. Dr. Nathan Huguley as our guest preacher this morning.
Think about this for a minute: when was the last time that someone argued you into believing something? For that matter, when was the last time someone argued you into thinking something? I consider myself a fairly open-minded guy. I like to look at all the facts, mull them over a bit, and then come to logical conclusions. So, I’d like to think that I’m open to being debated into changing my position. But I’ve been racking my brain for an issue of importance that I’ve debated someone about recently and adopted their position on it. I can’t think of an example. That’s not to say I haven’t engaged in debate. I don’t participate in social media, so I don’t get to do the mudslinging that I hear so much about. But I have friends who have very different opinions from mine. I’ve engaged them directly a lot over the past few years trying to understand their beliefs and convictions and sometimes trying toconvince them of the veracity of my own. And you know where it’s gotten us? Nowhere new. For the most part, my mind has not changed and neither has theirs—at least not because of any well-formed arguments or rhetoric from me.
You know what has changed my mind, though? Seeing for myself. When I put myself into uncomfortable or unfamiliar situations where my beliefs or my value system or my intellectual convictions don’t help me make any sense of the reality in front of my eyes, that’s when I’m more likely to change my mind. That’s when I can see that I haven’t been seeing the full picture or that I don’t have all the answers. That’s where I’m pushed to learn and grow and change.
Today’s gospel passage has a lot of mind-changing in it. The scene opens with John the Baptist standing with two of his disciples. Now, John the Baptist in this gospel is a character that points to the Messiah. Matt talked about that last week. Remember the painting of John the Baptist pointing to a crucified Christ? This week, we see John hanging out with his disciples when Jesus walks by again as he had apparently done the day before, John the Baptist says of Jesus, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” And his disciples have the right response: they didn’t sit there and say, “Yep! There he goes!” No, they got up and followed Jesus. When Jesus sees that he was being followed, he turned around to talk to them. “What are you looking for?” Jesus asked? They answered his question with a question: “Rabbi, where are you staying?” Jesus said, “Come and see.”
Let’s dwell on Jesus’s question for a moment before we move on in the story. “What are you looking for?” is a phenomenal question for spiritual direction. Andrew and the other student’s answer has struck me as weird in the past. They ask Jesus where he’s staying. Now, “staying” and “abiding” are important words and concepts in the writings of John, so there’s more to their question than just asking Jesus, “Hey, where are you planning to spend the night?” It didn’t occur to me until yesterday, though, that they couldn’t really give the answer that I first thought they should. I thought they should say something like “the Messiah” or “the King of the Jews” or something political or theological like that. But that’s not what they were looking for anymore. They had already found that, right? John the Baptist had just identified Jesus as the Lamb of God, a concept he’d probably been preaching about for a while. So, his disciples Andrew and the unnamed other guy had just found what they were looking for in Jesus as the Lamb of God. So, what’s next? What are they looking for now? What do you do in the spiritual walk when you find what you’ve been looking for? You dig deeper. Their question about where Jesus was staying wasn’t so much about where he was sleeping that night. They answered Jesus with: “Where do you abide?” or in other words, “We’re looking for what you’re all about.” “Come and see,” Jesus says.
So it isn’t presented as a situation where Jesus, John the Baptist, Andrew, and the other student sit down and take turns debating prophesy and theology to determine what exactly Jesus should be called or what course his ministry should take. It’s Jesus being Jesus, other people witnessing that, and changing because of what they’ve seen. And this gets at one of my hobby horse points about Jesus: Jesus in the gospels meets people right where they are, without pretense or prejudice, he looks through their masks, he sees who they really are in that moment, and he invites them to take the next right step. For some, it’s a big ask: go sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and come follow me. For others, it’s a tall order: go, and sin no more. For Andrew and the other student here in this passage, it’s an invitation to a journey: “Come and see.” Apparently, it didn’t take them long to see something compelling, because immediately Andrew goes to get his brother Simon Peter and invite him along for the ride.
The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. Jesus found yet another seeker and told him, “Follow me.” That guy, Philip, came along and saw for himself too. Just like Andrew, Philip seems to like what he sees, so he goes to Nathanael and tells him that they’d found what they were looking for in Jesus of Nazareth. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael asked. “Come and See.” Nathanael did, and he caught whatever it was too, proclaiming then with the rest of the group that Jesus
is the “Son of God.”
Did you see anywhere in there anything about a great debate that resulted in any of these first disciples coming to agree with the truth claims on one side? Did you read the well-crafted apologetic argument whose logic was unassailable? Did you hear the persuasive sermon that convinced everyone to run down to the altar during the seventh repeat of the last verse of “Just As I Am?” No! These guys came, they saw, and they kept following Jesus because of what they saw. The spiritual journey is experiential, not intellectual. It’s not anti-intellectual, but the mind can only take us so far on a journey intended for the spirit.
They also found what they saw so compelling that they had to tell others about it. John the Baptist bore witness of Jesus to his students: “Look, here is the Lamb of God.” Andrew bore witness of Jesus to his brother Simon Peter: “We have found the Messiah.” Philip bore witness of Jesus to Nathanael: “We have found him about whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote.” They were each telling people what they themselves had seen, and they were each inviting someone else to come and see for themselves. Hearing the invitation was good, but it was seeing firsthand that apparently did it for everyone.
So, I’m left with the question after all this: what on earth did they see? What was so compelling about Jesus that they were so quickly convinced that this was the guy they had been waiting for? The text suggests that it was different for each of them. Andrew was convinced by whatever it was that he saw when he followed Jesus to where he was staying. Philip was convinced by Jesus telling him, “Follow me.” Nathanael was convinced because Jesus had seen him for who he really was while he was “under the fig tree.” For me it was seeing what the love of God could do in people—feel free to ask me about it sometime.
What was it for you? Here you are either sitting in a church on a Sunday morning or watching a video feed of a church service. Something must have motivated you to come and see today. Whether you call yourself a Christian, a Baptist, a believer, a doubter, a follower, an “I don’t know”-er, you are here because you’ve come to see something. What did you come to see? To use Jesus’ question in verse 38, what are you looking for?
At the moment, of course, I mean that as a rhetorical question, but I really am curious about why people come to church these days. There are so many other places that people can find community that fit their exact interests. There are more convenient places to study scripture. You don’t have to come to church to sing with people, to laugh with people, to cry with people. Don’t tell Pastor Matt or Pastor Cristina, but you don’t even have to come to church to worship God, follow Jesus, or have a robust spiritual life. So what brings you here? And even if you do want to worship God, follow Jesus, and pursue spirituality with a church community, you certainly have a lot of options in addition to First Baptist. So why this church?
Whatever your reason is today, I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you came to see. I hope you find some of whatever you’re looking for. I have. Eight years ago, I found a church that gave my wife and I enough diapers to keep Benny’s back side covered for almost 2 years before we had to buy a pack ourselves. I found a church that cares for the real nitty gritty physical needs of the people in its city. I found a church that cares for God’s creation. I found a church who jumped at the opportunity to help a stranger from Myanmar who needed a place to stay when she came to seminary. I found a church that holds its grief together as a community.
I heard somewhere that St. Francis said, “Preach the Gospel always. Use words if you have to.” I’ve tried to take that to heart… even though I know it might not look that way in this moment as I stand up here and preach with words. I tend to not find words very compelling. I’ve heard good preaching. I’ve read good theology. I’ve sung great hymns. I’ve witnessed beautiful liturgy. It’s all well and good, but it’s not what keeps me coming back. What brings me back to the journey of faith is seeing the love of God lived out in everyday actions. In a world where artificial intelligence is starting to make me question what is real and what has substance, it’s the lived faith of the human beings around me that grounds me and shows me glimpses of God’s love breaking into our world like rays of sunshine peeking through on a cloudy day. It’s the way we show up for one another when the going gets tough. It’s the way we celebrate together when there’s good news to share.
I wonder if the first few disciples in today’s gospel passage saw any of that when they decided to follow Jesus. Whatever it was they saw or heard from Jesus that convinced them to follow him, I’m glad they said “yes” to the invitation. It sparked something that is still doing some good in the world today. It was the beginning of a movement of people who wanted to “come and see.” So, my challenge to you today is to preach the gospel with your lives. Love well. Don’t just love the stranger you only have to interact with once. Love your spouse when they annoy you. Love your co-workers when they can’t do their job right. Love your crazy uncle when he offends you. And don’t just love the people you know well. Love the stranger in line behind you at the grocery store. Love the driver who cut you off in traffic. Love the immigrant who doesn’t speak a word of English. Love the ICE agent who does violence to the vulnerable. Because, you see, Jesus’ invitation to “come and see” isn’t about warm fuzzy fun love. In Luke, Jesus says “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” (Luke 6:32)
So, the challenge here really is challenging. Preaching the gospel with words is pretty easy. Most of us grew up hearing about how to evangelize people. Who among us has heard of the Romans Road to Salvation or memorized the Sinner’s Prayer so that we could lead someone to Christ? Not to denigrate that kind of evangelism, but I don’t think people today find it as compelling as they do seeing the radical love of Jesus lived out in everyday lives. And besides, gospel passages like the one we read today show us that it wasn’t logic or scientific evidence that convinced the earliest disciples to follow Jesus. It was whatever they saw when they decided to take that first step in faith. It is what they saw in how Jesus was living and in whom Jesus was abiding.
So when you walk through those doors in a few minutes, I invite you to think of it as an opportunity go out preaching to the world. You don’t need a seminary degree, a robe, a stole, a sandwich board, a soapbox, or even a Bible in your hand to do it. You have everything you need in the choices you make each and every moment to align yourself with the kind of love that Jesus shows us. Every one of us who is in any way a part of this Jesus movement is called to preach. Each of us can point to Jesus and say “there’s something about that guy.” Each of us can bear some kind of witness by saying, “I have found something that I was looking for.” But we don’t always have to run around saying those words to everyone we meet. In a way I think it’s more challenging and more real to say those things without ever saying them. I’m betting the most compelling way that we can do that is to do the hard work on ourselves so that we can learn to love better, so that we can learn to love the way that God loves. If we have something in us and in our church community that is worth people’s time to come and see—and I think we do—then let’s preach the gospel with our lives and use words when we have to. We’re not going to argue anyone into heaven or into this church. But we can see Jesus in the faces of our dearest loved ones and in the face of a total stranger alike. We can love them like we’re loving Jesus himself and like Jesus has loved us. That’ll preach. And it’ll preach louder than any collection of words could ever preach. And maybe—just maybe—people will see the Jesus that lives in our hearts and decide to come and see what that’s all about.
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