Sunday, January 20, 2008
Epiphany 2A
John 1:29-42
COME AND SEE
Beloved people of God, grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.
AMEN.
In a charming scene in Fiddler on the Roof the word spreads quickly in the Russian village of Anatevka that Tevia’s oldest daughter and her husband, a poor tailor, have a new arrival. A new arrival in a traditional village such as Anatevka is a major event. The villagers are invited to “come and see” this new arrival for themselves.
In our family we have a tradition of watching Fiddler on the Roof once a year when everyone is home for the holidays. Thus, we know what the new arrival is. Watching the movie for the first time, one assumes that the new arrival is their first child. However, it turns out to be a sewing machine. The villagers have never seen such a contraption—they do not even know what to call it. They marvel as the poor tailor demonstrates how it works. Once they have seen it they cannot help but invite others to “come and see” the new arrival.
When I was a student at Pacific Lutheran University in the late 1970’s, a faculty member proposed reducing the religion and philosophy core requirements. Students majoring in religion and philosophy were up in arms over this proposal. We made an appointment with President Rieke and jammed his office to voice our complaints. He listened calmly to our concerns and then he told us: “The faculty will be meeting to consider this proposal. Why don’t you “come and see” for yourself how they conduct the debate? I think you will be pleasantly surprised.” When we showed up for the meeting, we were invited to sit right in the middle of the auditorium. We stayed for the entire debate. Faculty members on both sides spoke with great passion, eloquence, and civility. In the end they voted 60% to 40% to keep the requirements as they were. We were glad, of course, that the requirements were not reduced. But President Rieke, by inviting us to “come and see”, had also taught us a lesson in how to conduct oneself in debating a tough issue. We were eager to share with other students what we had experienced.
In our gospel reading—when two of John the Baptist’s followers, ask Jesus, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”—he invites them to “come and see.” In the gospel of John words tend to have both a literal meaning and a metaphorical meaning. When the two disciples ask “Where are you staying?”—their primary interest is not in Jesus’ lodging arrangements. They are especially eager to learn more about the identity and teachings of Jesus. Who is he? Where does he stand? What is he about? [1] Jesus the Rabbi (which translated means “teacher”) invites them to come and see for themselves, come and spend time with me, come and engage in conversation with me.
As William Barclay explains, Jewish Rabbis used the phrase “Come and see” in their teaching. They would say: “Do you want to know the answer to this question? Do you want to know the solution to this problem? Come and see, and we will think about it together.” Jesus was not simply inviting the two disciples to come and chat. When he says “come and see,” he invites them to come and learn things that only Jesus himself could teach. [2]
Notice that Jesus does not rush the learning process. The two disciples remain with Jesus through the day until four o’clock in the afternoon.
The Greek verb meno can be translated as “to remain,” “to stay,” “to dwell,” and “to abide.” In the Greek New Testament it occurs five times in our gospel reading. It occurs 35 times elsewhere in the Gospel of John. Obviously this is a key word in the 4th gospel. It is translated numerous times as “abide” in John 15, especially where Jesus compares the relationship of his followers to himself as that of branches to the vine: “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” This metaphor of the vine and the branches makes clear that an essential aspect of becoming a follower of Jesus is to abide with him. We need to remain with him, stay with him—that is, spend time learning from him.
Learning from Jesus is one thing, but sharing what we have learned can be another thing. The Lutheran Handbook, which we use in “The Lutheran Course” and in our “Affirmation” program, affirms that bearing witness to Jesus is a natural part of being a follower of Jesus. Jesus himself commanded his followers to go and make disciples of all peoples. Nonetheless, we Lutherans tend to be “shy evangelists”—hesitant to share our faith in Jesus. [3]
Andrew, one of the two disciples in our gospel reading, is a wonderful role model for shy evangelists. He spends a whole day with Jesus, abiding with him, learning from him. Convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, he simply goes and tells his brother Simon, “We have found the Messiah.” Then he invites him to “come and see” Jesus for himself. This is hardly high pressure evangelism. It is as natural as it was for the villagers of Anatevka to invite others to “come and see” the new arrival. I am not sure it was natural for President Rieke to invite students to a controversial faculty meeting, but he handled it so gracefully it seemed natural. He was confident enough in his faculty that he was not afraid to invite us to “come and see” them in action.
Now some may say that Andrew and the first disciples had the advantage of meeting Jesus in the flesh. If only we could stay with Jesus for the day we too could be confident evangelists. But they too could not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, apart from faith. It is not as if John the Baptist could simply look at Jesus and say, “Here is the Lamb of God!” It is not as if Andrew recognized Jesus as the Messiah simply by looking at him. In abiding with Jesus Andrew came to see him through the eyes of faith.
We did not become followers of Jesus by accident. Someone was excited enough about Jesus to invite us in one way or another to come and see Jesus for ourselves, to abide with him and learn from him.
How is it that we abide with Jesus and learn from him in our own time and place? By coming to church to hear the good news of Jesus proclaimed and to receive the body and blood of Jesus. By participating in Bible study and Christian education.
By devoting time to meditation and prayer. By engaging in mutual conversation with brothers and sisters in Christ. These basic Christian practices have been given to us by God so that we can abide with Jesus and recognized him as the Lamb of God, the Rabbi, the Son of God, the Messiah, our Lord and Savior. Once we have learned who Jesus is it is natural to invite others to come and see Jesus for themselves. Taking our cue from Andrew, a natural place to begin is with those who are close to us: family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and so on. We are not required to have all the answers before we invite them. In fact, following the example of the Rabbis, we can invite them to come and think about these things with us.
As you can tell, I have not laid out this morning a dynamic new evangelism program for St. Andrew. Our namesake Andrew models a simple invitational approach. The first step is to respond to Jesus’ invitation to come and see and learn who Jesus is and what he teaches. The second step is to invite others to do the same. That is an approach to evangelism that even shy Lutherans have a chance to get excited about.
In Jesus’ name, AMEN.