What Are You Looking For? Sermon for 2nd Sunday after Epiphany

In 1987, the Irish rock band U2 released its iconic album “The Joshua Tree.” One of the greatest hits from that album was the song “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” This song came at a time when most rock fans were beginning to forget that three of U2’s members identified as Christian, and that their first hit on MTV was a song called Gloria, which was not about a girl but instead contained the words “Gloria in te Domine”—in English, “Glory to You, Lord.” I enjoyed watching my friends in college unknowingly singing praises to God as they sang along.

The lyrics to “I Still Haven’t Found What I am Looking For” describe the seeking and the searching that so many of us have felt, not just in young adulthood, but throughout our lives: 

I have climbed the highest mountains 
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you Only to be with you
I have run, I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for 

The song then describes the search for pleasure and connection. But it is in the last verse that the band makes explicit the spiritual nature of their searching: 

I believe in the Kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one 
But yes, I'm still running
You broke the bonds and you loosened chains 
Carried the cross of my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven't found 
What I'm looking for…(1)

The frank confessional tone of the last verses emphasize that this is a song about faith, about searching for transcendence in a world all too mired in immediate gratification. The song recounts a catalogue of experiences that should have thrilled and delighted, but instead have nonetheless been ephemeral, unsatisfying, leaving the seeker empty because they do not point to anything greater than the isolated response to a series of isolated experiences that only provide temporary distraction.

But isn’t this a plaintive cry that comes from the depths of so many people today, both from those who admit to some sort of engagement with faith, and those who lack a faith community of any kind? We are filled with an insatiable hunger for meaning, for connection, for purpose, for peace, for contentment in a world that keeps us constantly on the edge of dissatisfaction, where we are constantly told to want more even as our possessions often are tarnished in our appreciation before we’ve even thrown away the packaging?

The members of U2 were surprised when, shortly after the album’s release, a choir in New York reworked it into a gospel anthem. But to my mind that makes perfect sense: the greatest hymns have always dealt honestly with emotions. “It is Well With My Soul” was written by a man who lost his wife and daughters in a shipwreck. “Amazing Grace” was written by a man who had been involved in the transatlantic slave trade before becoming an Anglican clergyman. “How Great Thou Art,” was written after a powerful storm subsided to tranquility as the writer, Carl Boberg, pondered Psalm 8 while walking. 

Just being able to admit “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” is the first step to acknowledging the longing that lies within us.

It is that sense of longing that caused those two disciples of John to go trailing after Jesus on that dusty road—too unsure or overwhelmed to go up to Jesus directly, they simply lurk behind him, not even knowing what they were hoping to find. “What are you looking for?” I think Jesus’ question to those seekers trailing along behind him is one that we ourselves can ponder, and also ask others when it comes to matters of faith. What is it we are looking for? Jesus is reminding us that the path to enlightenment starts from the acknowledgement of longing, the acknowledgement that we are all seekers, trying to fill a hole within our hearts and souls with something.

We live in an age of substitution. We crave nourishment, but we fill ourselves to the brim with junk food, where even Bread Co. mostly serves up prepackaged foods and actually became the subject of a national petition when they removed their French Onion soup from the menu. We crave excitement, even as we numb ourselves with technology, and the top movie honored by Academy Award nominations is a psychological thriller about a comic book villain many of us wouldn’t want to spend five seconds with, much less two hours in the dark with strangers.

What is it we are actually looking for? The question resonates today as much as it did 2000 years ago. Jesus asks those two seekers that question out of love and compassion. Because just as much as those disciples think that here might be what they are looking for, Jesus has been searching for them, and for each one of us. And I am convinced that that’s another vitally important message to take from this gospel passage. Jesus’s interactions with his disciples constantly portrays him as seeking them out, engaging with people even when they disagree with him, not just sitting back and waiting for people to come to him, but going to where the people are, in their everyday lives.

Our gospel passage also assures us that Jesus welcomes us with our questions, our hesitations, our refusal to believe that something good might also be true. Look at how he responds to those two seekers in our story. They’re afraid to admit to their seeking—so they blurt out the first thing that pops into their heads. "What are you looking for?" Is NOT answered by "Where are you staying?"          

Yet Jesus understands. His response is “Come and see.” And he's not talking about his lodgings. Instead, Jesus invites them to come and see for themselves who he is. And by the end of the day, they themselves are convinced. 

“Come and see” could be seen as a kind of shorthand for the entire Epiphany season. It’s an invitation to move from bewailing that we haven’t found what we are looking for, to taking concrete action to find that meaning that has been missing in our lives. In this season of Epiphany, we hear story after story of how Jesus’s identity was revealed to successive people, Jew and Gentile alike, and in doing so, reveals who God is, helping to bridge the chasm that prevents ordinary humanity from beginning to perceive the essence of God’s nature.

It’s too easy to get caught up in cynicism, across the years and centuries especially. And that’s why we can look at our gospel not just as a story about then, but about NOW.

Too many people are only comfortable with reducing Jesus to merely a historical figure, an ancient wisdom teacher who taught an ethical system based on the golden rule. I suppose that’s better than those who imagine that Jesus is a vengeful referee who hates all the same people we do and can’t wait to chuck them into a hell of unquenchable fire. But not much better. Too many people, self-avowed Christians included, fail to see Jesus anywhere today. But we proclaim Jesus, risen and living in the world today, still guiding us in the way of God, and bridging the divide between humanity and divinity.

What if we took seriously the idea of the ongoing incarnation of God in human vesture that we sing about in our hymns? Because the Church is called to be the embodiment of that same precious body, that same Anointed One, that the disciples encountered. Likewise, the Church is called to equip each and every one of its members to not just embody the healing, reconciling love and wisdom of Jesus, but to see that divine spark in everyone, friend or stranger alike.

As we heard the story of Jesus’s baptism last Sunday, many of us probably reflected upon our own anointing by water and the Spirit in the sacrament of baptism. With that in mind, the call today to “Come and see” to those who do not know God becomes a charge upon faithful people everywhere through the power their baptism to be the living embodiment of Jesus in the world today.

In the early Church, “come and see” was a scandal in the milieu of mystery cults that promised the attainment of secret knowledge to the detriment of those around them. The scandal of the gospel was its universalism two millennia ago—and that same universalism remains a scandal today to those who want to erect walls and stiles and barricades between the seeking and the Savior. Embracing that universal call to “come and see” is the essence of Christian life and discipleship, even if we are faltering and imperfect in our attempt. 

“Come and see” is not a command for the world to come to us—and that’s not how our peripatetic teacher and Savior, Jesus from no-account Nazareth, operated, either. “Come and see” calls us ourselves to be swept up in the unbounded vista of God’s saving love, for only in embracing the mystery of God’s love can we truly dare to share with others the wonders of grace and truth.

“Come and see” is a charge upon us to go meet people where they are-- the poor, the suffering, the overlooked, the downcast, the oppressed, the scorned, the broken and broken-hearted— to love them for who they are whether the calculus of the world judges them worthy or not, and be the healing we long to see in the world. It is standing alongside the despised and the fallen and nonetheless seeing the spark of God’s love in the other as much as we long to believe it resides within us, knowing full well our own failures. It is a call for us to embody the reconciliation, grace, and mercy that Jesus himself embodied—and in embodying those spiritual gifts, Jesus proves that it is possible for us to embody them as well.

Look around you: the world is our mission field. So many people still haven’t found what they are looking for. What if each and every one of us was willing to respond as Jesus did—with love, love in action where there is isolation? With healing and reconciliation, where there has been pain and anger? With invitation and drawing the circle ever wider, where there has only been rejection and heartache? With a personal, heartfelt invitation to “come and see?”

“Come and see” is a call that will only resonate when it springs from the joy abundant we feel at knowing we are Beloved of God, and rather than try to hoard that knowledge to ourselves, to share it with those the world despises so that they too, can join us in rejoicing and renewal. It is a call to a path that never claims that the ends justify the means, but holds that the path itself is holy—and calls us from being mere fans to being actual disciples.

When we live into the relationships that Jesus calls us to embrace with both God and with all creation, we are transformed. We make room within our hearts for the inner light and wisdom of the folly of the gospel of Jesus, one that denies that there must be winners and losers as much of the world’s systems demand. It is embracing the paradox and the gift of God coming into time as a helpless infant, and of the greatest becoming the least, all for love beyond all of our own fearful limitations. It is that embodiment to which the incarnation calls us today. “Come and see” reminds us that the only way love grows is by sharing it with other by not seeking to exclude those different from us but by drawing the circle ever wider until all are drawn within the enclosure of God’s mercy. It is a reminder that God’s love is not a transaction, but a gift and a grace beyond our ken. 

What are you looking for? Let us each be the way for the world to come and see.

Amen.

Readings:
Isaiah 49:1-7
Psalm 40:1-12
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42


Citations:
(1) "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," by Adam Clayton, Dave Evans, Larry Mullen, Paul David Hewson, and Victor Reina, from 1987's album The Joshua Tree.

Preached at the 505 on January 18 and at 8:00 and 10:30 am on January 19, 2020 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.