Something Better

Sermon from January 16, 2011
(Epiphany 2 – Year A)
John 1: 29-41
St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Waco, Texas

What are you looking for?

In the Gospel of John, the first thing out of Jesus’ mouth, the very first words that are uttered by Jesus in this whole Gospel, is this question:
What are you looking for?

John the Baptist glances at Jesus walking by and John tells two of his own followers:
“Look! Here is the Lamb of God!”
And those disciples then follow Jesus.
To which Jesus turns around and asks:
“What are you looking for?”

The disciples of John the Baptist now seem ready to switch their allegiance to Jesus, and these new disciples ask Jesus an odd little question:
“Rabbi, Teacher, where are you staying?”
And then Jesus answers:
“Come and see.”

So the first two disciples do come and see what they have been looking for, something better than they could ever imagine.
The writer of the Gospel of John tells us a seemingly unimportant detail, a detail that it is four o’clock in the afternoon.
This means that it was far too late in the day to begin the journey on to the next town.
So Andrew and the other new disciple stay with Jesus through the night, sitting down to a long meal over a bottle of wine, telling jokes with Jesus late into the night and waking up to a leisurely breakfast of pancakes and warm maple syrup with the Lamb of God, the Messiah.

Jesus asks his first followers:
What are you looking for?
And after a day and a night with Jesus, they discover what they are looking for.
They discover something better.
They discover the Word of God made flesh.

So Andrew runs to tell his brother, Simon:
“We have found the Messiah.”
We have found something better.

What are you looking for?
I know that I am always looking for something better.

For starters, I am looking for better weather on Sunday mornings!

I also know that when I am at my house and lying on the couch watching TV in the den, Susan just hates it when I am in-charge of the remote control.
She and I will settle in to watch a good movie that we are both enjoying.
Then a commercial comes on the screen, and I immediately begin to flip through channels using the remote.
Susan chastises me for this behavior, yelling:
“What are you doing?
I thought you were liking that show!”
To which I respond:
“I’m liking the movie.
But I just thought I’d see if there was something better.”

What am I looking for?
I am looking for something better.

In 1863, in the depths of the American Civil War, the people of the United States were killing each other in the deadliest war ever fought on American soil.
People with black skin were held in slavery.
Years of sectarian thought and violence had ripped this country into shreds.
We were looking for something better.
So in the midst of dead bodies on the Pennsylvanian fields of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln rose up to give us a vision of something better.
Abraham Lincoln preached about a vision, a vision of a better people, a nation that “shall have a new birth of freedom,
[Where] government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

One hundred years later, in 1963, the people of the United States were still treated unequally, based upon the color of their skin.
Violent terrorism and fearful prejudice reared its ugly head.
We were looking for something better.
So on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr. rose up to give us a vision of something better, a vision of a better people, “a nation where [people] will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Last week, the city of Tucson, Arizona was devastated by the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and by the killing and wounding of 19 by-standers.
Partisan rhetoric quickly filled the airwaves.
We were looking for something better.
And in response, last Wednesday night, our current President Barack Obama rose up to give us a vision that we can be better, a challenge “to sharpen our instincts for empathy” and to not be driven by reactionary politics on both the extreme left and the extreme right, but to be a better people who are driven by kindness and love.

What are we looking for?
The people on the battlefield of Gettysburg were looking for something better, a better world where people are not divided into slave and free and Yankee and Confederate.
The people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial were looking for something better, a better world where people are not labeled as blacks and whites.
The people in Tucson and across this great land are looking for something better, a better and healthier world that is not molded by extremists or Rachel Maddow or Glenn Beck or the relentless news cycle.
And the people who followed John the Baptist’s message of repentance from sins were looking for something better,
A better world that is not centered on sin and the law, but is centered on love and forgiveness and grace.

Why are you here this morning?
What are you looking for?
You must be looking for something better - or else you wouldn’t be here today.

As for me, I here this morning because I am looking for something better.
I am here this morning because I am looking for an abundant life that is greater than my sins and shortcomings.
I am here this morning because I am looking for inspiration to sharpen my instincts for empathy and love toward others.
I am here this morning because I want to encounter this man named Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
I am here this morning to worship and pray and learn and stay and abide with Jesus, the Messiah, the loving Word made flesh.
I am here today because my family and my friends and you – all of you – have told me:
We have found the Messiah.
Come and see.

Yes, my friends, I am here this morning because I am looking for something better - and his name is Jesus.

And each and every day, we find and are found by him whose first question to us is this:
What are you looking for?
Each and every day, we find and are found by Jesus, who gives us life, an abundant life that is so much better than a life of violence and discrimination and political posturing and addiction and loneliness and materialism.
And each and every day Jesus invites us to stay with him, to abide with him, to sit up at night with him over a beverage and to receive a vision of something better, a vision of a better world filled with grace and truth and love.

What are you looking for?
We have found the Messiah, the loving Word made flesh.
So come and see
Something better.

AMEN.