Sermon Title: "Where Are You Staying?"
Date: January 16, 2011
Minister:  The Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  John 1:29-42

“What are you looking for?”  This is the question Jesus asks of the two men who started to follow him.  To his query, these disciples of John the Baptist could think of nothing more to say than, “Uhh…where are you staying?”

Typical.  Jesus—Savior of the world—asks us a question that cuts to the core of why we’re here on this earth, what it’s all about and what we’re doing to make a difference, and all these guys can think to ask is about his accommodations, as if that had anything to do with anything.

The truth is, it’s quite possible they—like many of us—didn’t know what they wanted or what they were looking for.  Perhaps they, back in the first century, had a vague sense that they wanted what we in the 21st century want as well:  a satisfying way of making a living, good health, children who grow up to be successful, some security for our golden years, to help someone besides ourselves, and to have some fun along the way.

Maybe they want nothing at all.  Andrew and his friend had been following John.  Who was this Jesus who had come out of the wilderness to be baptized?  Twice John declares, “I myself did not know him.”  (1:31, 33)  What was John’s talk about a Lamb of God, a Son of God?  Who was this anyway?

Perhaps these disciples, considering a commitment to Jesus, were wise to be cautious.  So they deflect Jesus’ question that might probe to the very core of the meaning of their life and ask a question of their own.  “Rabbi…where are you staying?”  Jesus said to them, as he says to us, “Come and see,” and he took them to where he was staying, this man who is never reported to have a home of his own.  They stayed with him for a whole day, and, as it turned out, stayed with him for the rest of their lives.  One was Andrew, who summoned his brother, Simon Peter, whom Jesus called Cephas, or the rock upon which he would build his church.  Last Sunday’s lesson from Acts was a stirring sermon from Peter, believed to be one of his earliest speeches still in existence.

The point is this:  Disciples are those who want to stay with Jesus, wherever that stay may be and wherever it may take them.  You hit the road with Jesus and there are not likely to be any cushy accommodations.  You may be sleeping under a tree, picking pebbles out of your sandals on the road from Nazareth of Galilee to Jerusalem of Judea.  You might even see the shadow of a cross on a hill called Calvary as you trudge your dusty way into town.  In fact, Jesus will remind you to take up a cross and follow him, and remind you that unless you do, you can’t be a true disciple of his.

Ironically, Jesus calls this cross-bearing life the “abundant life.”  (John 10:10)  We may be looking for a comfortable life; Jesus calls it the “abundant life.”  So when Jesus responds to the inquiry about where he is staying, and calls us to “come and see,” this is what he is talking about.  Come what see what abundant life is all about.  Come and see what a life of meaning and purpose and service in the name of God looks like.

When Jesus asked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to “come and see,” King had no idea that the place Jesus wanted him to see was the inside of a Birmingham jail.  The jail was not a particularly charming or comfortable place to lodge when he checked in during April of 1963.  King was part of the civil rights protests being staged in that city, and was inciting the wrath of police commissioner “Bull” Connor, who pledged to incarcerate every African American who challenged segregation.  On Good Friday afternoon, King was among 54 marchers who were arrested and thrown in jail for violating an injunction against “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing.”  They were forbidden even to engage in “conduct customarily known as ‘kneel-ins’ in churches.”

While tomorrow is a federal holiday in honor and memory of his legacy, Martin Luther King, Jr. received no preferential treatment in jail back in 1963.  In fact, he was singled out for isolation and denied the chance to make phone calls or talk to his lawyers.  He had no mattress or linen, and was sleeping on metal slats.  And yet, over that Easter weekend, deep in solitary confinement, down in what was called “the hole,” sealed off from his fellow prisoners and the outside world, Martin Luther King was staying with Jesus.

It was while he was locked up that King wrote one of the most significant Christian documents of the civil rights movement:  his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”  Surprisingly, this letter was addressed not to abusive police officers or racist politicians, but to a group of liberal, white clergymen who were urging people to withdraw from the demonstrations, which they called “unwise and untimely.”

King responded strongly to their criticism that his marches were “untimely.”  He told the white clergymen that “we must use time creatively and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”  He pointed out that “it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’”  His letter became nothing less than a reincarnation of the message of the early church, with King rebuking the empire for its hatred and for its fearful defense of worldly attachments.  King rebuked his colleagues with these words:

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers.  First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate.  I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice, who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice, who constantly says ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action,’ who paternalistically believes that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.”

Back in 1963, who was really staying with Jesus?  The white moderate who was devoted to order, or the black radical who was pushing for justice?  Was it the majority who preferred a negative peace, one marked by the absence of tension?  Or was it the minority who worked for a positive peace, one known by the presence of justice?

And how about today, some 48 years later?  Are we staying with Jesus, or staying with the status quo?  Jesus invites us to “come and see” what he is up to, and he promises that if we stay with him, we will have an even more awesome and life-changing experience.

Today’s lesson focuses on two interrelated themes:  the identity of Jesus and the meaning of discipleship.  The first chapter of John begins with a powerful prologue identifying Jesus as “the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (1:1)  Later in the same chapter, in today’s text we hear Jesus identified as “the Lamb of God…the Son of God…Rabbi (which translated means Teacher)…Messiah (which is translated Anointed).”  Each disciple sees something different in Jesus and bears witness in his own way.

The dialogue between the participants in today’s passage reminds us in the church that discipleship is an active engagement with Jesus.  Today’s passage consists almost entirely of dialogue, so that we ourselves—the reader, the listener—become participants in the drama of discipleship.  Just as Jesus is recognized by different names by the different participants, so too will the response to Jesus’ call to “come and see” differ according to the abilities of each.

Jesus may take us to the Birmingham jail.  Or into a natural disaster.  Or to a homeless shelter to feed the hungry.  Or into a demonstration protesting some great injustice.  Or onto a mission trip to earthquake-stricken Haiti a year later, or to build Habitat for Humanity houses in Long Beach or New Orleans.  Or, to a classroom, a community, a neighbor’s house, a hospital.  Whatever, wherever.  But Jesus will take us somewhere, and if we aren’t going anywhere, we may be with somebody, but we’re not with Jesus, because Jesus is a traveling man.

So, will you respond to Jesus’ invitation to “come and see”?  And where will you be staying tonight?