What Are You Looking For?
Second Sunday after the Epiphany
Isaiah 49:1-7 | Psalm 40:1-11 | Corinthians 1:1-9 | John 1:29-42
Art: "The First Vocation of the Apostles Andrew and Simon Peter" By Domenichino
Several years ago, at an EP summer Gathering, I heard Kyle Childress give a talk on “How to be patient during an emergency.” As a young minister, wrestling with the sort of anxieties and insecurities that so often accompany pastoral work, Kyle was speaking directly to me, convicting me by pointing me to that image of a non-anxious presence that I so highly valued in ministry as an ideal, but which I found so difficult to emulate and embody in my day to day work. I think about that talk a lot. I think about how it reminded me of some things that I desperately needed to be reminded of: that we are, indeed, living through an emergency. These are troubled times, evil times, one might even say. A commitment to faithfulness is urgently required. Second, no matter how committed we are, no matter how urgent or intense our focus might be, we are not, and never will ultimately be in control of our situation. Even as we work, we can only trust, and hope, and put our faith in a God who is in control, confident that the One who has called us is faithful to complete the good work that has begun in us and among us.
Jesus’ question to John’s two disciples is one that we so often find ourselves asking, but too rarely are we truly reflective, truly thoughtful, about what the answer might be: What are you looking for? There is no shortage of looking, searching, striving in our lives. We think that if we can just accomplish this goal we’ve set, we’ll finally be happy. If we can just obtain something we’ve long desired, we’ll finally be satisfied. But Jesus knows what the author of Ecclesiastes knows—so often our striving in this way is little more than vanity. So often, at the end of a day of hard work, not to mention mindless distraction, we say, with the speaker in Isaiah 49, “Surely I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength in nothing but vanity.” So often our tendency to always be searching for what’s next, to always be looking for bigger and better things, will cause us to stray from the places, and the people, and the purposes that would actually provide some measure of fulfillment. But in order to find that fulfillment, we have to learn to be patient, to wait, to dedicate ourselves not to spinning our wheels but to putting down roots where they might actually be stable.
The disciples’ answer to Jesus, likewise, is one that we would do well to pay attention to: “Rabbi, where are you staying?” When Jesus asks them what they want, what they’re looking for, they remark that they simply want to know where he is going to be. That’s a great start to learning to wait on the Lord. It’s also a reflection of the character of God as it is revealed to us. The fact that this passage comes near the end of John chapter 1 is all the more significant. In the opening verses of this chapter, John tells us that the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. In other words, God’s plan was to become one of us, so that He could be near us. When asked what His desire was, God’s son would simply say, “Where are you staying? I want to be there, too.” In this way, Jesus fulfills the promises made in Psalm 40, where the Psalmist says, “I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry.” God wants to incline to us. God wants to hear our cry. But God also wants us to stay still, to wait on him, so that we might receive his mercy when it comes our way.
When Jesus meets Simon, he makes it clear that, whether Simon knows it or not, Jesus has been waiting for him. Just as Isaiah reminds us that the Lord sometimes calls us before we were even born, and that God has a purpose and a plan for us even when we are in our mother’s womb, Jesus reveals that he already knows Simon by name. Not only that, but maybe more significantly, he knows Simon’s new name. You will be called Cephas, he says. Peter. The Rock. Perhaps, after a lifetime of searching and striving and anticipating, Jesus is now calling Simon to be a rock. To be still. To wait on God, so that he might receive what God has in store. It’s both a call to action and a call to patiently abide with the one we’ve been waiting for all along.