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Sunday, January 17, 1999
Our text is from the fourth gospel of John, and at l:29 we pick up on John's version of the baptism and blessing of Jesus by the Spirit. If you were here last Sunday you'll recognize it differs from Matthew's version which we looked at then: Let's hear the opening of today's text: John 1:29-34:
"THE NEXT DAY HE SAW JESUS COMING TOWARD HIM AND DECLARED, "HERE IS THE LAMB OF GOD WHO TAKES AWAY THE SIN OF THE WORLD! THIS IS HE OF WHOM I SAID, 'AFTER ME COMES A MAN WHO RANKS AHEAD OF ME BECAUSE HE WAS BEFORE ME.' I MYSELF DID NOT KNOW HIM; BUT I CAME BAPTIZING WITH WATER FOR THIS REASON, THAT HE MIGHT BE REVEALED TO ISRAEL.' AND JOHN TESTIFIED, 'I SAW THE SPIRIT DESCENDING FROM HEAVEN LIKE A DOVE, AND IT REMAINED ON HIM. I MYSELF DID NOT KNOW HIM, BUT THE ONE WHO SENT ME TO BAPTIZE WITH WATER SAID TO ME, 'HE ON WHOM YOU SEE THE SPIRIT DESCEND AND REMAIN IS THE ONE WHO BAPTIZES WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT.' AND I MYSELF HAVE SEEN AND HAVE TESTIFIED THAT THIS IS THE SON OF GOD.'"
Often when reading the assigned text for each Sunday, a singular phrase from the text will jump out at us. That happened to me when I heard the next verses in this reading:
"THE NEXT DAY JOHN AGAIN WAS STANDING WITH TWO OF HIS DISCIPLES, AND AS HE WATCHED JESUS WALK BY, HE EXCLAIMED, 'LOOK, HERE IS THE LAMB OF GOD!' THE TWO DISCIPLES HEARD HIM SAY THIS, AND THEY FOLLOWED JESUS. 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?' HE SAID TO THEM, 'COME AND SEE' THEY CAME AND SAW WHERE HE WAS STAYING, AND THEY REMAINED WITH HIM THAT DAY. IT WAS ABOUT FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON. ONE OF THE TWO WHO HEARD JOHN SPEAK AND FOLLOWED HIM WAS ANDREW, SIMON PETER'S BROTHER. HE FIRST FOUND HIS BROTHER SIMON AND SAID TO HIM, 'WE HAVE FOUND THE MESSIAH' (WHICH IS TRANSLATED ANOINTED). HE BROUGHT SIMON TO JESUS, WHO LOOKED AT HIM AN SAID, 'YOU ARE SIMON SON OF JOHN. YOU ARE TO BE CALLED CEPHAS (which is translated Peter)."
WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? That's the verse that jumped out at me: WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? And Jesus' answer: COME AND SEE. And both are prefaced by the all important question: WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? That is a question exchanged among business travelers, backpackers, retirees on a journey, all classes of travelers every day. The dramatic story in Alex Garland's novel THE BEACH, now being filmed in Thailand with considerable public attention because Leonardo DiCaprio is the star and Phi Phi Marine Park is the site, begins when three backpackers in Bangkok casually inquire: WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? Their answer was THE BEACH. And their search for the perfect beach evolves the rather fantastic story of travel through the body and through the mind.
Casual though the question is, WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? a question readily put between strangers, it is often heavy with implication, usually in retrospect, as the characters in the story THE BEACH eventually learn as their lark of finding the perfect beach turns into unremitting horror.
On January 27, the Cathedral of St. John will be packed with people called to honor the late Hong Kong lawyer Peter Carey. The tragedy of that family began just about a month ago at the Colombo airport when they rented a vehicle with driver and the driver must have asked Peter: WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? At a rented house in Gall was the answer. The profound tragedy of the Carey family unfolded from that simple question and answer when the driver, unable to find the address of the house parked his vehicle to make inquiries.
The exchange between Andrew and his brother with Jesus became one of the most consequential in history: WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? And Jesus answer: COME AND SEE. From the exchange there followed the introduction of Simon Peter to Jesus and the incorporation of Simon, his brother Andrew, and others into the Jesus movement. Little could Andrew have known that the discipleship of his brother and his own commitment to Jesus, their eventual martyrdoms because of their loyalty to Jesus, and their enshrinement in the Church and in Heaven as Apostles and Saints of the faith would follow from their simple question: WHERE ARE YOU STAYING?
There are three significant themes that flow from today's question: WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? They are the themes of hospitality, partnership, and destiny.
HOSPITALITY: The offer and practice of hospitality was a sacred duty in New Testament times. It's different today. Nancy and I have learned that four dear friends are descending upon us later this month; and another four family friends at Easter. It is somewhat a strain to fit one person into our new apartment, much less four. You can be sure our e-mail response to both quartets of visitors was not: WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? But WHAT HOTEL ARE YOU STAYING AT?
Not so in the first century and earlier. Ancient hospitality had a moral and even spiritual quality to it which largely escapes our modern approach to hospitality which is calculated on our personal convenience, which is easily rationalized as our guest's convenience - they really would be more comfortable at the Marriott - and our limited sense of obligatory hospitality: the boss and the mother-in-law must be received well as must the couple who loaned us their apartment in Paris two years ago!
The distinctive quality of New Testament hospitality is caught in that winsome phrase from the letter to the Hebrews: DO NOT NEGLECT TO SHOW HOSPITALLITY TO STRANGERS, FOR THEREBY SOME HAVE ENTERTAINED ANGELS UNAWARES. (13:2)
On first hearing their guru John describe the stranger as "the Lamb of God" the two men dash after Jesus, maybe to offer home hospitality to the stranger. But Jesus preempts the role of host: WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? They reply:. WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? And Jesus becomes host to them by responding: COME AND SEE.
Because Jesus was an itinerant rabbi, whose personal possessions were limited almost literally to the clothes and sandals he wore, we may tend to imagine that Jesus was, like some contemporary homeless person, constantly in doubt as to his abode for the night and his meals for the day. Jesus himself encouraged this image through one of his sayings: FOXES HAVE LAIRS AND BIRDS OF THE AIR HAVE TREES BUT THE SON OF MAN HAS NO PLACE TO LAY HIS HEAD. With phrases we grab onto from the bible, it's best to understand the context: This melancholy comment by Jesus is spoken at the end of a long and exhausting day in which the crowds had laid upon Jesus their unending demands for healings and miracles, teachings and more wisdom. I believe that Jesus had a place to sleep that night; it was just that the crowd would not let him get to it!
In truth, there is ample evidence that Jesus almost always had a place to pass the night. The network of friends and sponsors and thus hosts of Jesus was well developed especially as his public ministry went on. He also had a circle of women friends, some with means, who regularly traveled with him or ahead of him to arrange hospitality for him and his group. And there was the quite extensive family relationships of his followers which could be relied upon. Even when unknown in a new place, Jesus could generally count upon the sacred duty of hospitality, especially toward a spiritual personage like a rabbi, to open doors and tables to himself and even to his fellow travelers who at times must have been so numerous as to test, if not stretch, that sacred duty of hospitality to the strangers. And Jesus was quick and insightful in advising his followers not to waste their time with inhospitable, mean-spirited folks: IF ANY PLACE WILL NOT WELCOME YOU…SHAKE OFF THE DUST OF YOUR FEET AS A TESTIMONY AGAINST THEM. (Mark 6:ll)
PARTNERSHIP. The significance of this encounter in John l is that the partnership of Jesus with Peter and Andrew emerged directly from the encounter about hospitality expressed in concern about where a stranger was staying. Such partnership hinges, of course, on what we are looking for in the first place. The threesome in THE BEACH were seeking the archtypical secular vision of our times: the perfect beach to retreat from the world, to find inner peace and worthy fellowship freed from the guidance, restraints and hypocrisies of society.
When Moses fled Egypt to Midian he was looking for safety and a new life. He received hospitality there, even though he was a perfect stranger. He settled into a working partnership with Reuel, the priest of Midian, married his daughter, had two children by Zipporah, and remained many years.
When Paul sought communities for starting new fellowships in the name of Jesus he stayed where he was warmly and hospitably received and congregations thrived at Philippi, Thessalonike, and Corinth.
When I returned to Hong Kong just two years ago last Friday, I was seeking a small group of like-minded believers who wanted to try to create a mainstream Christian congregation which was appreciative of the 2,000 years of church history which had gone before, laying worthy foundation for our new venture, but which sought to be led by God to do something new in Hong Kong and to form a people of God who would be tuned to God's call in the next century for this great but troubled city. I needed to be well received and I was most hospitably received as we began our partnership in this Community Church.
Hospitality and the partnerships that evolve from hospitality are fundamental reasons for the Church of Jesus Christ to continue. Christians have never, never, been able to evade the direct command of their leader to show hospitality to the poor, the stranger, the abandoned, the sick, the imprisoned. But centuries before we modern people locked ourselves into overly tight daily agendas, Christians had figured out that individually and personally they could not do much to offer hospitality to the world of strangers. Quite early Christians figured out that effective hospitality depended upon partnership through the church.
Should we come across a quite sick person, we no longer take them into our own homes; we take them to a hospital and all hospitals began under Christian collective sponsorship. Rarely, a Christian might take a homeless or hungry person into their homes; usually they refer them to a Christian agency or ask the pastor if he can advise about one. We are partners through building our church to undertake forms of caring and outreach which individually we are not capable to accomplish.
Worship time is the one wonderful opportunity for every Christian to practice New Testament hospitality. We say it at the beginning of our bulletin that the visitor is welcomed. That is only words. Do you say it in personal ways? As you ascend in the elevator do you pretend you're making an impersonal journey together to separate addresses, or do you introduce yourself and welcome the stranger. It's a way of commencing that crucial dialogue: WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? COME AND SEE!
The ushers are our first line of official welcome but anyone in the congregation can welcome the stranger by pointing out where we are in the bulletin or handing the songbook turned to the song being sung.
We offer hospitality when we greet someone after worship and invite them to accompany us to fellowship time downstairs. Most of all we say YOU ARE WELCOMED and COME AND SEE when WE offer the Good News and attend to the Holy Spirit through our worship of preaching, singing and praying. A scriptural and Spirit-filled congregation will palpably convey to visitors: YOU ARE WELCOMED…YOU ARE OKAY WITH US….WE'D LIKE TO GET ACQUAINTED WITH YOU…YOU CAN RELAX AND TAKE OFF YOUR PRETENCES BECAUSE YOU'RE AMONG FRIENDS WHO ALSO KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE SEARCHING.
At many points Christian hospitality and Christian evangelism merge but there can never be authentic evangelism without genuine hospitality.
DESTINY. Meeting under the umbrella of Christian hospitality can never be only chance and circumstantial encounter. Meetings under the umbrella of Christian hospitality are profoundly rich in the implications of Jesus' invitation to all of us: COME AND SEE. Even the most casual visitor, whom you may never see again, can be touched, sometimes profoundly.
A visitor told me at lunch last week that he had met me five years ago at a wedding reception where I gave a little talk for the couple whom I had just married. He said my homily cut him to the heart because of where he was in his marriage at the time. He then unfolded a series of episodes, some of them seemingly miraculous, which altered his life and brought him five years later to our worship last Sunday. Christian encounter is rich in divine destiny.
To be certain, our congregation does not principally exist to challenge the lives of one time visitors. We exist to influence, and we do so profoundly, our mutual lives, we who make up the regular, recurring congregation. Some of you may not know that I spent 24 years of my life as an American diplomat. My wife and I attended hundreds of obligatory hospitality occasions and we hosted quite a few ourselves. We made hundreds of contacts over those years, some of them fairly intimate and genuine at the time. But it has all passed into memory. There was no genuine destiny in working for the US State Department. And how disappointed must be, or so I imagine, persons whose entire life destiny is defined by working for one bureaucracy or another, be it a superduper government agency or the gas company.
William H. Whyte died at 8l this past week. Whyte, a social critic, was most famous for his best selling THE ORGANIZTION MAN in l956. He warned that the corporate culture, just then taking off to its' present global dominance, was strongly oriented toward conformity and the pursuit or security and safety. My experience is that neither great vitality in our lives nor salvation can be derived from making the company, the corps, the government, the system are place of life influences
Destiny, by which I mean profoundly life changing insights, relationships and commitments for me and Nancy, has always happened only in our church life. The friends we retain from our years in Pakistan and Nigeria and Greece are not the folks we met at cocktail parties and in the foreign ministries. They are the people we got to know in the churches of those foreign places. It is my experience that only in the Christian congregation are those existential questions encountered and answered: WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? COME AND SEE!
. Our favourite story teller, Nury Vittachi, included a personal maxim in his article about childish wisdom last Sunday: He said he had told his own kids: "Make a new friend every day and you'll never have to pay big hotel bills." I would change Nury's guidance: MAKE A REAL FRIEND AT CHURCH AND YOU'LL NEVER BE ALONE, NOR WITHOUT A GENUINE WELCOME, AGAIN IN LIFE.
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? WHERE ARE YOU STAYING? These are questions of life. These are questions for which Community Church was begun and exists now.
Isn't that reason for supporting the stewardship appeal of our church so that in the year ahead we can continue as a Christian congregation to say to others: COME AND SEE.
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The Rev. Gene R.Preston14th Floor, Blk 36, Lower Baguio Villa Tel : 25516161 Fax: 25512114E-mail : gpreston@netvigator.com |
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