Beginning Again with Jesus

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark on the Second Sunday After Epiphany, January 15, 2023 by the Very Rev. Tyler Doherty, Dean and Rector.

 How interesting, that after all the watching and waiting of Advent, after the joy and celebration of Christmas–of Emmanuel, God with us–and the wonder of Epiphany, the Church takes us back to the beginning: John the Forerunner, Jesus walking by, and two of John’s disciples deciding to follow Jesus. It’s as if Christmas and Epiphany have shown us the reality of God with us, of God’s deepest desire to be born in each of us (quick now, here, now, always) and the challenge, the call, the invitation of this season is now to manifest this reality in the midst this ordinary sacred muddle, in the midst of our daily lives.

This story, this transformative relational encounter between longing, yearning human beings, and Jesus–God with us–is the food upon which the Church has appointed us to feast as we begin again. It is literal bread in the wilderness–food, sustenance, nourishment, and provision–as we set out on our journey into who we are created to be: people who know themselves to be beloved of God, precious in God’s sight, and are by the healing power of this love loved into loving others. At the start of  each year, certainly. But each day, as well. And if we really hear this Gospel, we recognize that the invitation is to be open to, to hear, to sing and be sung by Psalm 40’s “new song” of “trust in the Lord” in each and every moment. When we hear those words of Psalm 40, “Behold, I come,” it is not just a one time affair! God is always “walking by” and coming to us and the watchfulness and willingness we cultivate on the path of discipleship is meant to train us to be attentive and responsive enough to follow. God comes to us so that we might come to God and see and be changed, transformed, transfigured and sent out as that very love.

I think we under-estimate how miraculous it is that John could even point to Jesus in the first place. That’s not how most religious folks operate. They usually point to themselves. Their way. Their privileged access. Do it like this and you’ll be saved. But John is the one who points always away from himself to Jesus. The classic icon of John the Baptist, written by Andrei Rublev, shows a wild-haired, thread-bare, and gaunt Forerunner gesturing with both hands to Jesus. John the Baptist’s icon is a kind of anti-selfie. His very life is iconic in that he is a place of passing through to true encounter with Jesus, the Christ, the ground of all being through whom all things came to be and without whom not one thing exists.

No less miraculous is how the two disciples with John the Baptist  drop everything and follow the one to whom he points. I don’t know about you, but I’d be tempted, having been baptized by John the Baptist, to settle down. After all, they’ve come a long way and journeyed out to the wilderness to meet the wild man who dines on locusts and honey. Isn’t that enough? But being a disciple of John the Baptist means you follow the one he follows. The Walking-by-One. There is no settledness except with the one to whom John the Baptist points: Jesus is our rest, our fulfillment, our peace, our joy. In Jesus, who I am comes to be revealed (1 John).

So two miraculous things before we’ve even begun–that someone (John) could point to someone else (Jesus), and that the two disciples could have–the freedom? courage? connection to their longing and hunger for truth?--to go where this ragamuffin points. And now we get to the good bit. Jesus is walking by (Jesus is always walking by in each and every moment) and looks back over his shoulder at the two fellows whose longing for truth has been ignited. And because he’s Jesus, he asks a Jesus-question, “What are you looking for?” Indeed. What are we looking for? How would you articulate your deepest longing, your deepest question? For some it might be, “Who am I?” For others it might be, “Who is God? Where is God?” For still others it might be, “What is the purpose of this thing we call human life?” or “What does it mean to be a herald of the Gospel when I’m old and tired?” Important, as we begin again to raise this question, to live it, to let the question question us and call us into question. It takes different shapes in different seasons of our life with Christ, so pause and see what it is–here, now, in this place at this time–you are looking for. Give it shape and voice.

Asking questions like this is often unsettling. We don’t much like dwelling in questions. We like answers. The dopamine hit of certainty that comes when the question is resolved. But remember, Jesus is probably more like a question than an answer. Jesus is the parable of God we interpret with our daily lives in relationship with him. Like us, the two disciples don’t much like this in-betweenness, and try to dispel the thrown-back-on-themselves nature of Jesus’ question, by trying to pin him down: “Where are you staying?” Give me your business card. Let me think about this for a while. If I have time, and I clear my schedule, I’ll see if I can drop by for an introductory lecture and a powerpoint presentation. 

Jesus’ reply? “Come and see.” Everything we need to “know” about Jesus comes about through relationship with Jesus. It’s so tempting to accumulate knowledge about God rather than cultivate relationship with the Living God in Godself, isn’t it? It’s so easy to mistake information about God, about the liturgy, about how to pray, about Church history, for actual transformative encounter, relational exhange with the source of all beauty, truth and goodness, with whom we are created for union and communion. It’s so easy to read the menu and not eat the meal. So easy to mistake the finger pointing to the moon for the moon itself. So easy to become a collector of butterflies–classified, choloroformed and pinned to satin-backed trays under glass–and miss the most precious fact of all: that we are meant to be beautiful butterflies too! That we are meant to be made beautiful by the Beautiful One whose beauty as Dostoyevsky says, “will save the world.”

Come and see means not to content yourself with half a loaf. Come and see is the reminder that we are called to have life and have it abundantly. Come and see means spending time in Jesus’ presence that we might come to look and act and see and be like what love looks like when it tabernacles in this unrepeatable tent of flesh. What happens when love touches a grumpy, hand-on-hip, pointy-nosed, Canadian contrarian? What falls away? What gets used for the building up of the one body that God’s Kingdom might come? This, siblings in Christ, is why discipleship is the  great adventure in life. We receive the gift of participating in God’s work for others in this broken and hurting world. Make us intruments of your peace. Not my will, but thy will be done. We get to discover not who our parents, teachers, or nation, told us we are, but who God made us to be. Get to discover, in relationship with God, who we really are, our part in the new song God is singing in Christ. No wonder Simon son of John gets a new name! “You are to be called Cephas.” Who we are–welcomed, held, touched, loved, and transfigured by God–is yet to be revealed. Don’t you want to find out?

John says, “They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day.” They heeded the invitation. They came. They saw where Jesus was staying, and they remained there long enough for the truth of their belovedness in God to break through. There are lots and lots of ways to come and see and stay and remain in Jesus’ presence. Through daily prayer, through encountering the person of Jesus as revealed to us in the words of Holy Scripture (particularly the gospels), through weekly communal worship in the liturgy, through serving others, through witnessing to justice and peace. Christ is knocking at the door of heart in each and every circumstance, yearning to be recognized and opened to so that he might come in, sit down, and eat with us.

The other day I was at the doctor, and things were taking longer than expected. I found myself sitting in the car in the parking lot with an hour or so on my hands. I doom-scrolled through the news, and flipped distractedly through the book I’m reading. I people-watched. Finally, when I’d exhausted all my usual ways of escape, I thought, “Well, no reason why I can’t pray, I suppose!” I got my prayer-rope out of my pocket and slowly began to pray the Jesus Prayer–breathing in “Jesus” and breathing out “Mercy.” Of course, all the things I had to do the next day crowded my mind. “Jesus, mercy.” Stay. Remain. Plans… “Jesus, mercy.” Stay. Remain. A replay of a conversation…“Jesus, mercy.” Stay. Remain. Slowly, I caught up with myself. Slowly, I caught up with the stream of mercy that wells up at the center of my being and your being. Breathing Jesus’ name. Breathing his peace. Staying. Remaining.

With each in and out breath, the basic non-negotiable belovedness that is our true situation before God coming more and more to the foreground. Leaving behind the stories of not enough. Of what I didn’t want or like. Letting it all be held in the wideness of Jesus’ warm embrace. I stayed. I remained in him and with him. Nowhere to go and nothing to do–just leaning on the everlasting arms, leaning on old easy-yoke’s warm shoulder. Making just enough space in the interior monologue for his silent love to penetrate, saturate. And right there, in a messy car, with dusty sparrows sipping from slushy potholes, staccato car horns, snow on and off and on again, I spent time with Jesus. Something so simple, a child could do it. And they do! Where are you staying, Rabbi? Come and see. Come and see and encounter me closer to you than you are to yourself. Come and encounter me in the closet of the heart. Just a breath away. Stay the whole day if you like! Mi casa, su casa!

“Serapion the Sindonite traveled once on a pilgrimage to Rome. Here he was told of a celebrated recluse, a woman who lived always in one small room, never going out. Skeptical about her way of life — for he himself was a great wanderer — Serapion called on her and asked, ‘Why are you sitting here?’ To which she replied, ‘I am not sitting; I am on a journey.'” Come and see. Stay and remain. Be touched, healed, transformed so you can be Jesus’ peace, Jesus’ healing hands, Jesus’ listening ear, his prophetic voice for others. Today, friends, we begin again.