Roger Lynn
June 18, 2017
(click here for the audio for this sermon)
I believe there is a deep longing woven into the very fabric of our being – a desire to be in connection with the eternal sacred reality which we sometimes call God. To paraphrase an ancient prayer attributed to Augustine of Hippo, “God made us for God’s self, and our hearts are restless until they rest in God.” Some people are very aware of this longing and spend their lives consciously and intentionally seeking ways to establish and nurture such a connection. Others are largely unaware of the longing, and so spend their lives trying to fill a hole they don’t really understand or even recognize. But I believe that we are most fully and completely and richly ourselves when we live in deep, intimate, ongoing relationship with the Sacred Source of Life.
The writer of the Gospel of John understands this. The story of John the Baptist’s disciples following Jesus is a story about searching for God. They recognize something in Jesus which gives them hope that perhaps he will have answers for their questions. “Where are you staying? Where can we find God in our lives and in our world? We don’t even know where to look. Please tell us if you can.” We understand such questions. At one time or other in our lives I suspect they have been our questions as well. Where do we look to find God? We just want someone to tell us where to look, how to believe, what to do so that God will be real for us and we can be certain of a connection. But, as John’s disciples discovered, it doesn’t work that way. No one can give us those answers – not even Jesus – not even God. This is because they are not answers which can be told – they can only be experienced. When Andrew and his companion ask Jesus where he is staying, Jesus doesn’t say, “Just around the corner.” He says, “Come and see!” His answer is an invitation to experience for themselves what they are seeking. He will help. He will point the way. He will walk with them. Indeed, in the end he will offer everything he has to help them discover what they are seeking. But he cannot do it for them. And so it is with us. Our quest for connection with God must finally include direct personal involvement. We cannot simply listen to someone else’s experience. We cannot just think about it. Ultimately we must respond to God’s invitation to “come and see!”
And what we discover, whenever we respond to this most intimate of invitations, is that our experience will be unique, because each of us is unique. I will discover connection with God in ways which are different than the ways you will discover connection, because our lives are different. And at the same time, what we also discover is that underneath the uniqueness of our experiences is a great deal of common ground. This is true because we are all human, seeking to connect with the one God, by whatever name we call that Sacred Reality. Thus it is that the deeper we venture in our explorations, the more common ground we discover. I have heard it said that the great mystics find they have much in common with other mystics, regardless of the particular faith tradition in which they practice. The invitation to “come and see” opens up for us a vast, expansive territory which is at once both deeply personal and powerfully uniting.
To come and see is not, however, the end of the journey. There is more to the story. Whenever we truly discover God in our lives it always leads us back out into the world to share what we have found. If there is a deep longing within us to be in relationship with God, there is a similar deep longing to be in community with others. We are communal people with a desire to share the richness of our experience with those around us. In the story in John’s Gospel, the first thing Andrew does after responding to Jesus’ invitation to “come and see” is to “go and share.” He can’t wait to tell his brother Peter what he found. He doesn’t need to convince Peter of anything. That’s not his job. Peter will need to “come and see” for himself. All Andrew needs to do is share the excitement of his own experience. The rest takes care of itself.
Isaiah speaks of God’s intention for the Servant. “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6) It is not enough to simply have an experience of God and then keep it to ourselves. It is not enough to have God’s Light shining in our lives. We are also called to allow that Light to shine through our lives and into the world. Then the experience is complete. We don’t need to worry about how the Light will be received when we share it, or even if it will be received at all. We don’t need to worry about whether or not the Light will look the same in the other person’s life as it does in our own. Our only job is to continue exploring the ways in which God’s Light illuminates our own lives, and then share the excitement of that discovery.
We have an extraordinary opportunity. Right here, right now, in this moment, and in every moment, God is inviting us to “come and see” where God can be found in our world and in our lives. You can choose to pay attention to what is really alive in you. You can choose to really get in touch with what is going on in this congregation that keeps you coming back. You can choose to pay attention to that which wells up inside you to the point that you find yourself wanting to invite someone else to “come and see.” What is God doing in your life right now that gives you so much excitement you can’t keep it to yourself? May we pay attention to that excitement, and learn to share it! May it be so for us.
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