Jesus’ way, the way of Christ, is a way of life: choose it – even though it’s hard – and you will know God’s life abundant.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, year A
Texts: Matthew 5:21-37 (adding in 17-20 from last week’s Gospel); Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“Choose life,” Moses says.

Standing before the whole people of Israel, preparing to enter the land promised them by God, Moses tells them, “you’re going to have choices ahead.” Choices that lead to life, to blessing. Choices that lead to death, to curses. Following in God’s way is choosing life. Choose that, Moses says.

So does Jesus today. This section of teaching is one that many would rather not read or hear. It sounds harsh and daunting, it activates all sorts of guilt that people would rather not have to look at or hear about on Sunday morning. These teachings have the reputation of both being read legalistically or simply ignored when inconvenient.

But today’s Gospel is full of Good News. Jesus says again and again, “Choose life.”

Here is life, Jesus says:

Life is found when people appropriately deal with their anger, and don’t discard others by insults or hate. Life is found when people reconcile and don’t discard difficult relationships. Life is found when people of faith don’t take each other to court, discarding trying to personally solve the problem. Life is found when all people are valued for who they truly are, not objectified as something to be used, whether that’s sexual lust or other similar ways of discarding a person’s worth. Life is found when people remove the things in their life that hurt others and themselves. Life is found when men can’t discard their wives in divorce with a simple certificate and throw them out of the house, the specific injustice Jesus criticizes here. Life is found when people’s word matters, and they can simply say “yes” or “no” and be believed, they don’t have to swear on something to convince others they’re trustworthy.

Can you see the good news here? Jesus describes a community where every one is of value to every one, where no one is discarded like old trash. Each of his examples speaks of relationships that are broken when one person doesn’t see God’s face in the other, doesn’t honor the other.

Jesus says, can you see why God’s way is better life? Can you see the joy of a community that followed these words?

But we set up barriers that keep us from choosing Jesus’ life. Here’s one: we say, “Jesus teaches these things knowing that we can’t do them.”

The idea is that Jesus sets God’s standards so high here no one can attain them. People love to claim this. (Some go on to say Jesus does this so we know we need God’s forgiveness at the cross.)

This flimsy barrier collapses under the merest touch of logic. Half of Matthew’s Gospel is Jesus’ teachings, and all four Gospels claim Jesus spent the majority of his three years of ministry teaching his followers what it was to follow him.

What good teacher gives lessons that have no application in the students’ lives? Why would Jesus take such care to lay out in detail the life of God’s reign, the life of following Christ, thinking no one could actually do it? It’s nonsense. And Jesus never, ever, says, “I know you can’t do this, but I’m going to tell you to do it anyway. You’ll be glad of it when I die on the cross for you.”

Everything in this chapter is something you can do. Right now. (And if your particular besetting challenge isn’t anger or lust, then you can work on what is yours, whether it’s pride or greed or envy or fear or whatever – Jesus talks about them elsewhere.) You can choose life, and choose to act as Jesus says here. It’s well within your grasp.

So, having that wall knocked down so easily, we quickly throw up a second barrier: We can’t do this all the time.

We’re not perfect, we say. We’re never going to be 100% reconcilers, or peacemakers, or lovers of enemies. We’re going to try and we’re going to fail. This chapter can’t be done.

Again, just a little push blows this barrier over into the dust. Surely if you are kind half of the time it’s much better than never being kind. If you control your anger once, and refrain from hating once, that’s surely much better than never. If you were raising a child, you’d understand that child might sometimes struggle to be good, but you’d delight when you saw progress, wouldn’t you?

Well, as Jesus says, if you and I know that much, how much more will God? Of course God understands that if you choose this, if you follow Jesus’ path, you’re going to stumble sometimes. You’re going to fail. But the point is to choose this life, be a follower. Then even when you stumble, you’re still on the right path, the path to abundant life.

A little anxious now, we erect another barrier: but if I fail, God won’t be pleased.

God knows I might fail, but will God be happy if I forget these ways, if sometimes I don’t do them?

This barrier cost a lot more to knock down. Jesus gave his life to take this one away. The holy and Triune God faced death on a cross to prove once and for all that you and the whole creation are worthy of God’s love. Nothing can separate you from God’s love in Christ, that’s unchangeable truth. That’s what Jesus’ death and resurrection mean.

So, when you stumble or fail as you choose life, the way of God, you are still loved, forgiven, blessed. You are God’s precious child. Nothing, nothing can take that from you. Jesus will go on in Matthew’s Gospel to say that it is the will of his Father in heaven that not a single one will be lost. Not one. That means you, too.

Choose life, Jesus says. Take this path. I’ll forgive you when you fail, and help you back up.

We’re running out of building materials, but we try another barrier: Jesus frightens us in these verses because he threatens us with hell.

How can we trust we’re forgiven, we say, if Jesus says those who don’t do these things are liable to the hell of fire?

Well, Jesus has already answered that on the cross, and by proclaiming God doesn’t intend to lose anyone. But Jesus in the Gospels also doesn’t seem to understand hell the way Milton and Dante shaped it, eternal damnation, and in this section he doesn’t even use the word hell. He speaks of the “Gehenna of fire,” a burning garbage dump outside Jerusalem where the poorest of the poor lived on the edges. Literally hell on earth. It may be Jesus is repeating Moses: if you don’t choose life, you choose death. A life where you rage and hate and insult is a hellish life to live. A life where you keep doing the things that harm you and others is a hellish life to live.

But even if Jesus means hell after death, according to Jesus – who is, remember, the Son of the eternal and Triune God, so he gets to make this decision – according to Jesus, God’s plan is that the population of hell will be exactly zero.

So, Jesus says, choose life. Follow this path without fear of punishment when you fail, without fear of falling out of God’s love. There is literally no way in hell that could happen.

Our last, desperate barrier is left for you to ponder.

Because the only thing that can keep you from choosing life, seeking to follow Jesus as he commands today, trusting that this will be a life abundant, a life of God’s grace, a life of reconciliation and peace between you and your family, and this community, and, if it spreads to the world, even between nations, the only barrier left is this: what if you just don’t want to do this?

What if you want your faith to just be trusting in God’s love, and knowing that you will live with God after you die? Both are truths to cherish.

But what if you don’t want God to change you, you don’t want to have to look hard at your life and make different decisions in following Jesus? What if the problem all along has partly been that you want to go on doing whatever it is you do?

Every single one of us likely has moments where we put up this barrier. I have. So just hear Moses again one more time, and then ponder what you’ll do. Moses says: you’ve got choices that lead to death and choices that lead to life. You are God’s beloved, nothing can change that. So, choose the path of life, so that you can live.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

You are salt. You are light. The world is diminished, tasteless, dark, if you do not live as you are, and when we all are salt and light together, astonishing grace from God shines and seasons the creation.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, year A
Text: Matthew 5:(1-12) 13-20

(Note: Because of the feast of the Presentation last Sunday, we missed hearing Matthew 5:1-12, the appointed Gospel for 4 Epiphany. We read those verses today, because they provide clarifying context for Jesus’ words on salt and light today. Additionally, vv. 17-20 are appointed for today, but provide a much more helpful context for next Sunday’s appointed Gospel reading which begins at verse 21, and will be read next week.)

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Here’s an important truth about salt and light.

You notice when they’re not present. The world is diminished, tasteless, dark, if salt and light are removed.

Ponder, then, why Christ wants you to imagine yourself as salt and light. Can you conceive that Jesus claims if you don’t live as who you are in the world, the world is less beautiful, is bland, stumbling in darkness?

Do you know how important you are to the quality of this world? Have you understood how central this is to what it is to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus?

I doubt “salt and light” would be the way most Christians, if asked, would summarize what it is to be Christian.

Many would speak of faith in Christ Jesus as the core of being Christian. They might say trusting Jesus as your Savior. They might speak of Baptism. They might speak of assurance that they will live in heaven after they die. They might even recite one of the great ecumenical creeds, the Apostles’, the Nicene, or even the Athanasian.

You know what isn’t in the Creeds? Salt and light. The list of the blessed ones Jesus enumerates at the start of Matthew 5. All of Jesus’ teaching, for that matter. You know what trusting in Jesus for life after death doesn’t say anything about? The life before death Jesus spent a great deal of time teaching about and inviting into.

We’re walking with Matthew’s community in worship this year, hearing from that Gospel for most of our Sundays, except in Lent and Easter. Do you know how much of Matthew’s Gospel is devoted to telling you of Christ’s death and resurrection? 15%. That’s a large number. But do you know how much of Matthew is devoted to telling you about Jesus’ teaching, his call to be salt and light, his declaration of blessed ones, his parables? 49.7%. Nearly 50%! Half the Gospel.

Matthew’s community is deeply invested in learning about life here in God’s reign.

They trusted in Jesus’ death and resurrection, in the hope of life with God after death. That’s clear. But it’s also clear this community heard again and again how interested Jesus was in the life they were living right now.

How he invited them to repent – to change their minds, change their direction – and turn into God’s way. How he challenged them to re-envision even the Ten Commandments to be a deep shaper of a new life. How he taught them the ways of the reign of heaven that, as he taught them to pray, were lived on earth as well as in heaven.

Jesus taught them a life of love of enemies, of unlimited forgiveness in the community. A life of abiding trust in God’s providing for them, where they learned to release their anxiety about the world.

It was a visible, one others could see and notice. A life where they were salt. A life where they were light. Where they, by their simple existence as disciples of Christ, made a difference to the world.

So Matthew begins Jesus’ teachings in his Gospel with Jesus’ declaration of God’s radically different values for this life here.

The values of God are so different from the world’s values, their effect on the world is like salt on bland food, light in utter darkness. They completely transform what they touch.

The world says the blessed ones are the proud, confident ones. But Jesus says, actually in God’s reign the poor in spirit are the blessed ones. They know their weakness and fears, and learn to rely on God’s guidance and life: they’re the ones living in the reign of heaven.

The world says the blessed ones are the successful ones, the ones who know no failure. Weakness and struggle are signs that you’re a loser to the world. But Jesus says, actually in God’s reign those who mourn and grieve their loss and failure are the blessed ones. In their pain, God comes with comfort.

The world says the blessed ones are the ones who live in the “real world,” not in unrealistic hope. The world values cynicism and trusting only yourself to get ahead. But Jesus says, actually in God’s reign only those who are pure in heart – those who have simple love, simple hope, simple compassion – can see God. Their heart mirrors God’s, and they are the blessed ones.

The world says the blessed ones are the strong ones, who impose their will on their lives, and others. Who do what needs to be done, even if it requires violence, deceit. We’re living in that horrible reality right now. But Jesus says, actually in God’s reign the peacemakers are the blessed ones, they are God’s children. They embody God’s non-violent, peaceable, non-dominating way of love in their hearts and lives.

The values of God’s reign, so utterly at odds with the world’s, are salt and light, Jesus says.

When you understand Christian faith is living the Christ-life, Matthew’s community believes, you bring the seasoning of God’s radical value system to a world mired in its own self-adoration and love of power. And as salt transforms any dish it’s put into, so will your life transform the world you encounter. Bring delight and joy to what was jaded and tiresome, life to what was death.

When you live your faith, live as Christ, Matthew says, you are the light of God’s radical value system in a world lost in the dark. And just as a single candle can break through the darkness of the greatest dungeon, so will your life transform and enlighten the world you encounter. You will help people see, open new visions for those blinded by the world’s values.

That is, Jesus says, if you live as salt. If you live as light. But if you’re not salty – if you refuse to let your life be applied as seasoning in the world – nothing in the world changes. And if you’re not going to use salt, Jesus says, throw it out and trample it. And if you’re not light – if you hide yourself away inside your own house or life – nothing in the world changes. And if you’re going to cover up light, Jesus says, there’s no point in having it.

But did you hear exactly what Jesus said today? It’s really good news.

“You are the salt of the earth.” “You are the light of the world.”

You are. Already. It’s what you were made in baptism. Even if you forgot that Christian faith only makes sense if it’s lived, you are already what God needs to transform the world. Be salty as you are, and bring the seasoning of God’s unconditional love and grace to a world of hate and fear. Be light as you are, and shine the light of God’s desire for all God’s children to be blessed, comforted, filled, and to see God, shine that in a world that can see nothing right now.

And imagine this: what if every child of God in Christ, baptized as salt and light, began to live that, together? If millions and millions were God’s seasoning of love, millions and millions God’s light of grace? What would happen to this world?

That’s Christ’s plan. There’s absolutely no reason for it not to happen. Because you already are what you are. Jesus said so.

Amen

God’s people are now God’s Temple: we, like Jesus, bear God’s light and love into the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The feast of the Presentation of Our Lord
Text: Luke 2:22-40

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

It was so vast, Isaiah could barely see anything else except some angels.

In Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, Isaiah had a staggering vision of God. The huge space was filled with just the hem of God’s robe. Isaiah fell down in terror, knowing he was unworthy.

Today we come again to the Temple of the God of Israel, but the second one, built after the return from exile. Once more a prophet sees God. Simeon replaces Isaiah. It’s nothing like before.

The Creator of all has again come to the Temple. But not in immensity, only a fraction filling the great worship space. Now the vision is a tiny little baby. Now the Triune God, first revealed to Israel, has come to God’s Temple as a child, God in human flesh.

And know this: because of this child, the dwelling-place of the one true God can no longer be adequately housed in a building. This baby reveals God is permanently changing residence.

Try to grasp the significance of this.

Temples in ancient times were the only sure sign a god was real. They were a place to worship that god, to control that god, a place where the religious elite were in charge, and they were the home of that god.

Ancient peoples believed that what happened to the temple happened to the temple’s god. If you desecrate your enemy’s temple, you humiliate your enemy’s god. If you destroy your enemy’s temple, you defeat your enemy’s god. In short, not much different from our view of church buildings and teachings and traditions today.

This second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed within decades of Jesus’ resurrection. Judaism was scattered throughout the world, and changed irrevocably. They had to change their ritual and refocus their faith practice with no Temple, no sacrifice, no religious elite, no God-home, at its center.

But years earlier this baby had already pointed to a world where all temples were left behind.

This is the beginning of the end of God belonging only to one people and one place.

This child has come, Simeon says, to be a light of revelation to the Gentiles, “to the nations,” that is, to non-Jews. And yet this child is also the glory of his own people, Israel. All God’s children are included in God’s light and glory, through this child.

This child comes into the Temple of one people and signals the end of all parochial gods who can be possessed and controlled, the end of religion which excludes others. Instead of every people having their own gods and their own temples, and hating and destroying each other, God comes in Christ for all. To cross all borders and walls. To embrace all of God’s beloved children.

Every time we see Jesus come to the Jewish Temple he shows this new reality, confronts the status quo.

Today in God’s Temple Jesus is recognized by Simeon as God’s Son, an astonishing realization. When we begin to recognize that God is in this small baby, we begin seeing that Jesus completely changes how we know and meet God.

The next time we see Jesus in the Temple, he’s 12 and arguing with the teachers there, asserting his authority over elders and scribes many times his age. As an adult he charges into the Temple and drives out the moneychangers, directly challenging the authority of the religious leaders. He refers to his own body as the Temple that will be destroyed, and that he will rebuild after three days, foreshadowing his death and resurrection. And stating directly that God’s home has permanently changed.

At Jesus’ death, the curtain to the Holy of Holies is torn in two. There is no more hidden divine place where only privileged people can go. The glory of God is no longer shut away from God’s people. God’s glory is out and about in the world. And in the resurrection, Christ is proclaimed God of all, the Light of all nations Simeon foretold that shines in all, for all.

And in the world today, everything changes with this.

If God’s House is no longer one particular place belonging to one particular people, where only those who worship or believe the same things are blessed and worthy of life, while all others are condemned, if that’s no longer true, then Simeon’s right: everything changed with this child. In a world where fear and hatred of those who are different is promoted and proclaimed, even by Christians, all of that now ends in this child.

In this baby the astonishing truth of God’s coming to us in the flesh begins to dawn in our hearts and minds: that is, God’s love surely includes all peoples. God is no longer owned by those who build the most impressive temples, the biggest walls, or the greatest armies.

God’s out in the world, in you, in me, in all God’s children, shining light and love on the whole creation.

Because each of you also are filled with the Spirit of God, and each of you are members of the Body of Christ, you are literally God’s temples. “Do you not know,” Paul said to the Corinthians, “that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” (1 Corinthians 6:19)

You are now God’s dwelling places. In you God lives and moves and has being. In you, God’s radical plan to bring all people together in Christ finds life.

When we wash John Larry with water today and pray God’s Spirit on him, we do what Simeon did. We say, “Now, in this child, we see God’s anointed one, God’s Christ sent into the world.” John joins all of you, all of us, in the mission we share to bear God’s light and love to all people.

And God lives in him. John becomes a temple of God, like you.

As God’s temples, moving in the world, you shine God’s light into the dark places.

You bear the grace and forgiveness you’ve received wherever you’ve been planted. Spirit-filled, you live as God’s presence in the world, bearing God into the darkness. And the light shines for all to see.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

Jesus calls you to fish for people, to be God’s love in the world, and gives you all you need – not for results, but because it’s what being faithful is.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday after Epiphany, year A
Texts: Matthew 4:12-23, with reference to John 21; Isaiah 9:1-4

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”

That’s today’s sequel. Last week Jesus said, “Come and see.” You were invited, with Andrew and the other disciple and Simon, to come and see what God is doing in Jesus. To see God’s Word in your midst.

But now that Word has come back with the next invitation: Follow me. Follow me and I will make you fish for people.

And that’s where we get stuck. Do you believe that following Jesus means that you, of all people, will fish for others? What does that even mean? Get new members for a congregation? Knock on doors asking if folks know Jesus? Lead an evangelism crusade? Does fishing for people mean doing all or some of that and counting up the numbers of people you’ve saved, like fish in a net?

If it does, we have a problem. Lutherans from the northern hemisphere tend to grow the church through birth rates, passing on the faith to the next generation, not through evangelism. But if following Jesus means fishing for people, and we just don’t do that, are we being faithful?

Actually, two ways of faithful “good-news telling,” evangelism, are in the Gospels.

In Matthew, Jesus starts his ministry calling Peter and the others to learn to fish for people, and he ends it at the Ascension by giving them a commission: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing, teaching them to obey me. For many Christian traditions, this is evangelism: find as many people as you can who don’t know Jesus and draw them in. Get more and more Christians in the world, spreading over the planet.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus doesn’t ask this. There Jesus speaks of loving as God loves. That’s the commandment, the commission. In John, after Easter, when Peter is challenged about his love of Christ, he has one job given him, three times: feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep.

So Matthew’s community remembered Jesus insisting on going out and getting people in. And John’s community remembered Jesus insisting on loving others with God’s sacrificial love, feeding God’s sheep, caring for God’s people. Both have rich history in Christian life. Both are so early in the tradition we have to assume Jesus taught both emphases. Perhaps Jesus thinks there’s more than one way to follow faithfully.

But do we believe fishing for people is doable in our multi-faith world?

A hundred years ago, we wouldn’t ask that. Most Christians assumed all people needed to be Christian, and were lost in darkness and risking eternal damnation if they weren’t.

But today we know God’s children express their faith in God in very different ways, but in ways that often have much in common. Christian and Buddhist and Jewish and Muslim mystics all understand each other’s way of sensing God’s divine presence in their lives. The major religious traditions of the world share a deeply similar ethic of love of neighbor. The three religions who trace back to Abraham even claim the same God.

We proclaim that this shared God is Triune, has come to us in Christ Jesus in the flesh, and intends to love the whole creation back into the life and love of God. But we’ve learned that because we believe all that to be true about God, we don’t need to condemn others who believe differently, and certainly don’t need to hate them. If God is who we Christians claim, God’s love for all overrides any judgment we’d make about what they believe.

And, we have Jewish and Muslim and Hindu neighbors. We live in a global community. We’ve learned the value of respecting others’ beliefs. The common tradition shared by all religions that speaks of universal human rights, of care of the creation, of food and shelter and education for all, is something we can build on together with people of other faiths, even if we disagree in our beliefs.

So, does Jesus’ call in John make more sense to us today? Love others. Feed God’s lambs. Care for God’s beloved ones, no matter who. It seems so. But maybe we don’t have to walk away from Jesus’ call in Matthew either.

Following isn’t an either/or proposition. And we’re already both fishing and loving.

Think of all that we do together as Lutherans in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We’re definitely loving, feeding God’s sheep. We give millions of dollars yearly, starting with your stewardship of money in this place, to end world hunger, to alleviate suffering in places struck by disaster. And we’re casting nets, too. Your stewardship supports mission start up congregations all over the Twin Cities, and the U.S. People who don’t know Jesus are being reached and drawn into life in Christ.

And we’re doing both together here at Mount Olive. From our Longer Table Loan program to Community Meals and daily ministry with our neighbors in need, we take “feed my sheep” very seriously. We’ve a task force working on how we might make a difference in the housing crisis amongst our neighbors. But the hospitality in this place also takes the Matthew path. People are invited to come and see here, to worship alongside this community, to meet Jesus in the flesh in us.

And individually, I see this all the time. You people witness to God’s reign coming near, Jesus’ message today, and to the light in the darkness, our word from Isaiah, with your lives, your love. Your grace in caring for others and inviting them here to find God’s grace.

Both of Jesus’ calls to follow are ones you know and do. Not always perfectly, and sometimes we hesitate in our following. But if you look, there’s evidence of such faithful following in a lot of places.

And good news: the message isn’t yours, it’s God’s. God’s doing it already.

God’s reign has come near, Jesus said. God’s reign. That’s the message you’re proclaiming with your life and your love – together as the ELCA, as Mount Olive, and individually. When you live that, you’re just living what God’s already doing, revealing God’s astonishing, transforming love. Is it increasing numbers of members here or elsewhere? Doesn’t matter. Jesus didn’t count, and many didn’t follow him. But God’s reign of love has come near, regardless.

And, light from God is shining in the darkness of this world. God’s light. That’s the message you’re proclaiming with your life and your love, together and individually. You’re just living what God is already doing. Shining God’s light of love for others to see hope, that’s all. Are you always effective? Who knows? But God’s light is shining in the world, regardless.

Fishing or loving, both are promises from God to you and the world.

I will make you fish for people, Jesus says. I’ll make it happen. You are God’s love for the world, Jesus says. You already are. So – feed God’s lambs. Cast the nets. Work with others, and do your thing, too. Be the Christ you are. God will handle the rest.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

When we “come and see” what Jesus is about, we are drawn into the transformative fellowship of being the Body of Christ and we are called to shine the light of God’s reconciling love throughout the earth.

Vicar Bristol Reading
Second Sunday after Epiphany, year A
Texts: Isaiah 49:1-7, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42

In the Gospel of John, the first words we hear from Jesus are a question: “What are you looking for?”

Jesus asks this of some curious onlookers who have been following him. They’re disciples of John the Baptist. While John seems completely confident that Jesus is the Messiah, the two disciples aren’t sure yet. That’s why they’re looking. They’re watching Jesus to see what all the fuss is about. John has said that Jesus is Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that Jesus can baptize with not just water but with the very spirit of God. Understandably, that’s something that these followers want to see! So, they trail behind Jesus, and they watch. And Jesus turns and confronts them with this question: “What are you looking for?”

It seems a little obvious, doesn’t it? They’re looking for… him. They’re looking for some kind of evidence that he’s the Messiah John claims he is. But the question “what are you looking for” goes beyond sight: it is a question about seeking. It is about what is perceived with the heart, not the eyes. Jesus is asking, “What are you hoping to find? What is your soul longing for?”

The disciples answer Jesus with a question of their own, “Where are you staying?” and he says simply, “Come and see.” Instead of dismissing them or scolding them, Jesus welcomes and invites them. “You’re looking for me? Well, come and see. Come and stay a while.” So they do. The text says the two “remain” with Jesus for a time.

And whatever they saw while they were with him, whatever they heard, whatever they felt… was transformative. When they first met Jesus, the two respectfully called him “Rabbi,” teacher. But after spending time in Jesus’ presence, they call him “Christ,” Messiah. Coming into relationship with the Jesus changes them. Not because they find facts or gather proof, but because they personally experience relationship with the incarnate God.

This moment doesn’t just change them, it convicts and motivates them. They leave from this time with Jesus eager to share what they’ve experienced and invite others to do the same: “We’ve found the Messiah – come and see!” They tell friends, they tell family: “Come and see for yourself. Come and experience personal connection with this savior.” So the relationship that is at the heart of this story isn’t only about the relationship between these two potential disciples and Jesus;  it’s also about relationship within community.

These two people are only here getting to know Jesus in the first place because they trusted their leader, John the Baptist. John had a relationship with them, and his testimony convinced them to come and see Jesus for themselves. And then their testimony convinces others. Like a ripple effect, the circle grows wider and wider.

This has always been an important part of the church’s story: sharing how your relationship with Christ has changed you welcomes others into relationship with Christ themselves. And staying in that relationship with one other continues to change you, and draw you even closer to God.

This is why Paul talks about the community of Christ followers as a body, interdependent and interconnected, a body that lives and breathes and moves as a collection of all its parts. God has called you into fellowship, Paul writes to the Corinthians. In other words, God has called you into relationship.

But God’s vision isn’t just for a community of people that are alike, like a sort of club. The circles of those ripples grow and grow. The welcome of God isn’t just about one group of people in one place. Paul writes that there are saints in every place who call on the name of Christ, and they all belong to the same God, like siblings in the same family. In every place”! Just think about that for a moment: The body of Christ is as wide as the whole world! That’s the kind of fellowship you’re called into as a follower of Christ.

If the two disciples in the Gospel story had been listening to John the Baptist, they might have had a glimpse that this is what they were getting themselves into. John said, “This is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The world. Not the sin of one person, not the sin of one nation, but the sin of the whole world. This Messiah who has come to dwell among us is serious about reconciling all of creation to God.

Anyone who wants to come and see what Jesus is about is going to be called into that same work of expansive reconciliation. Those who would be servants of God are called to be a light to the nations, as Isaiah says, in order that God’s saving love might shine to the very ends of the earth. This doesn’t mean being a coercive or oppressive presence in the world. Scripture says this light is given to the world by God. It is meant to be a gift, not a harm.

Those who would be servants of God are called into fellowship, into intentional community amidst diversity. That means doing the hard work of staying in relationship, which requires practicing forgiveness and reconciliation. It means healing and serving; it means breaking down barriers and building up community.

When you come into relationship with Christ, you can’t stay the same; you can’t only live for yourself, because you’re transformed, and you become part of the body. Other parts of the body depend on you, and you depend on them. Things will get difficult and there will be conflict, but you are also given this promise: God doesn’t leave you alone in this task.

Listen to what Paul says happens to those who come into the body: “In every way you have been enriched in Christ. You are not lacking in any spiritual gift.” Let these words be a reminder that you have been equipped and strengthened to be the community of Christ, to grow in fellowship. You have been equipped and strengthened to be a beacon of God’s love in the world. You have everything you need because God has given it to you, so you can be a gift to others.

And God knows something about being in relationship because God is relationship. God is Trinity, three-in-one.

If we take the incarnation seriously, then we know that this Gospel story about Jesus’ invitation to “come and see” shows us something of the face of God. It shows us a God who asks and welcomes questions, a God who celebrates the curious and the seeking, a God who draws all of creation into intimate relationship, a God whose forgiveness knows no boundaries.

But this story also shows us the power of God’s mysterious Spirit. It’s the Spirit’s presence that has John even recognize Jesus as the Messiah to begin with: “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven,” John declares, “and it remained on him.” But Jesus doesn’t keep the life force of Spirit to himself: he gives it away. He baptizes others with its power, and he teachers over and over that God’s Spirit will never leave his followers, even when the physical person of Jesus is no longer with them. The Spirit will live in Christ followers forever: advocating, empowering, comforting, teaching, transforming.

That Spirit is, right now, living in you, as it is in all those diverse members of the beloved Body of Christ, throughout the world, in every place. That Spirit is, right now, equipping and strengthening you to live out God’s mission of radical love and reconciliation. Can you see it in one another? It is like a light in the darkness. Go out and shine that divine light to the ends of the earth.

Amen.