"What Are You Looking For?"
A Sermon Preached by The
Rev. Thomas C. Leinbach
January 20, 2008 - Harwich, Massachusetts

Preaching Text: "When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, 'What are you looking for?' They said to him, 'Rabbi' (which translated means Teacher), 'where are you staying?'" (John 1:38)

"What are you looking for?" It's this simple question Jesus asks of those who would follow him.

So how would you answer that question? Of all the many and varied ways one might respond, what would you say?

The answer the two would-be disciples in today's gospel give seems a bit odd. "Rabbi, where are you staying?" they blurt out, not exactly the most brilliant of replies. They seem thrown by the question, unsure of how to respond.

Yet maybe, indirectly, even unconsciously, they have answered the question after all. For by asking Jesus where he is staying they reveal their hearts greatest desire: to be where he is.

As do we, if truth be told. What all of us want, deep down, is oneness with God our Maker, precisely why Jesus came to earth. Oh, we may dress things up a bit, naming a lot of other things. But when all is said and done, what all human beings most long for is rest for the heart, a home for the spirit and perfect truth.

And nowhere else can this be found than in abiding with God our Creator. So the would-be disciples clumsily ask, "Where are you staying," and end up, as John's gospel tells it, "remaining" with him, "abiding" with him, if you will - which is what they really wanted all along - as do we.

Each of us, you see, was created with a powerful need above all other needs: to know and be with God. This is, in fact, the very purpose of life, that our hearts might find rest, that our spirits might find a home and that our minds might know truth - God's truth - that is why we're here.

Only in close communion with God can we find genuine and lasting joy. Only by remaining in close proximity to God can we know true simplicity, ease of heart, clarity of mind, strength and conviction. Only in intimate relationship with the One who made us do we experience the gentle love and intimacy each of us craves. Only in finding God does life make any sense at all. For in Jesus Christ is abundance, peace, joy, grace and love.

And who doesn't want that?

The subtext, however, of this morning's story is that something seems to be missing in the lives of the two disciples who search Jesus out. Each of us, too, knows that gnawing, hollow feeling that betrays the often unconscious awareness that there is more to this life somehow. To be sure, we don't always acknowledge it or admit it - to others or ourselves - but it is definitely there.

Trust me.

In this regard, John the Baptist proclaims boldly this unvarnished truth. As Jesus approaches him to be baptized, he says: "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!"

Jesus, according to the Baptist, is sent primarily to take away the sins of the world. And in this he offers a clue as to how we might fully experience the God for whom our hearts palpably yearn.

Years ago, during my college years, fulfilling the proverbial edict "Go west, young man," I found myself traveling along Interstate 40, the western half of which traces the contours of the old and legendary Route 66, which used to take motorists from Chicago directly to the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles. As a native New Englander, I remember marveling at, among other things, the high desert with its curious and colorful rock formations and vast open spaces.

At one point, in Arizona, I saw this huge imposing mound out in the distance, standing in the middle of nowhere. And all around it, in every direction, was the great, flat expanse of the Colorado Plateau.

One easily could have imagined that the road would go around it, either to the left or to the right. But instead, it went right up to its base and then up, to a height of 7,000 feet, leaving the desert floor behind and giving way to dense ponderosa pine forests and mountainous terrain. After reaching the summit, the road descended down the other side of the mound and back onto the desert floor on its way west toward the Pacific Ocean.

For you see, the road to oneness with Christ passes through repentance, not around it. If Jesus' main task is to take away the sins of the world, as the Baptist alleges, then repentance and forgiveness are a must.

Most of us, I suspect, would rather spare ourselves such a mountainous climb, preferring the more round-about, less strenuous route along the flatlands. But the upward path to God necessarily requires that journey, with its surprising heights and glorious vistas.

Our biblical faith, in a sense, boils down to this one simple fact: we human beings have relationship problems, problems loving as we ought.

When once asked by a legal scholar what the greatest commandment in Jewish Law was, Jesus said: "To love the Lord with all your heart and soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."

Considered another way, Jesus, really, is saying that the main purpose of life is to love…perfectly; that is, with all our heart and soul, mind and strength. And we are to do so not just in our relationship with God but with every other living human being on earth!

Simple logic suggests that because none of us rightly can claim such perfect love for God or neighbor, every one of us must have relationship problems!

Biblical faith, therefore, at its core, centers on how God seeks to heal and restore that which is most basic to human existence: relationships. Because our relationships know brokenness, and the gnawing, hollow feeling such brokenness creates, God sends a Messiah to teach us how to love.

The two would-be disciples, in their answer to Jesus' question, reveal something basic to human nature: our primal need to abide with God, as well as those God has given us. As inarticulate as they may have been, the disciples knew deep down that something was missing in their lives, and that somehow, some way, being with Jesus was the answer.

For in Jesus all barriers to God and humanity are overcome, barriers that would leave our hearts otherwise dissatisfied, anxious and afraid.

In the famous 1960's film, Love Story, one of the title characters, at a moment of great import, tells her husband, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." In an updated version of this saying, one reflecting biblical understandings, Martin Copenhaver writes, "Love means having to say you're sorry…a lot!"

And if that's true in human relationships, why would it not be so with God?

The importance of saying you're sorry, of course, is that it helps restore broken relationships. Which is precisely why we do it. It is not done just for the sake of it, but so that we might experience reconciliation, which is one of life greatest joys - because it grants us that which we desire most, restored and renewed relationships.

In the epistle of 1st John, the same author of today's gospel writes, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." Where there is division, where there are barriers between ourselves and others, life takes on a fearful, restless, anxious quality.

But perfect love assumes communion and oneness, which eliminates all fears and anxieties. Only in reconciliation do we experience genuine peace, love and understanding.

Years ago, Martin Luther King and others challenged our nation to make good on its basic premise: that all men (and women) are created equal.

As a Christian, he also charged all Christians to make good on an even more basic truth, that in Christ we are reconciled one to another, that in Christ there is no male or female, Jew or Greek, that we all are one people united, in communion with Christ and one another.

Behind all human confusion, hatred and fear, lies a deep, primal longing for reconciliation and oneness.

The would-be disciples in John's gospel, fraught with the same fears and problems we know all too well, are asked, "What are you looking for?"

Perhaps their awkward, halting response speaks for all of us. "Where are you staying?" they ask, revealing unawares the human soul's deepest hunger: to abide with God forever and always.

Amen.