What Do You Seek?

A Sermon by Rev. Mark R. Thomson

Harundale Presbyterian Church

January 19, 2003

2^nd Sunday after Epiphany

Scripture: John 1:35-42, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer.^{^[1]} Amen.

hat do you seek?

Why are you here, and not some place else?

Habit?

For some, certainly yes. A good habit no doubt....

better than smoking on the street corners

or playing Keno in the bar.

But even then, you started this habit because you came seeking something and perhaps you found something worth coming back to.

What do you seek?

A good sermon? Too early to tell at this point if you'll get that.

Good Music? I know I love the choir, and I try never to miss a Postlude.

Hymns you can sing? No guarantees.

Nice People? Usually, but hey, we are all sinners

But that's not seeking, that's shopping. There's a difference.

Seeking is that desperate need to find...

like a child separated from its mother,

running to and fro, nearly on the verge of screaming,

only to be comforted by her embrace.

Seeking is an emptiness that longs to be filled...

like a lonely man staring out the window at people passing by

hoping perhaps someone will notice him and wave.

To seek is to need to find because your very existence depends on finding.

There is a lot of seeking going on these days:

We have genuflected before the god of science

only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb,

producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate.

We have worshipped the god of pleasure

only to discover that thrills play out and sensations are short-lived.

We have bowed before the god of money

only to learn that there are such things as love and friendship

that money cannot buy ..., money is a rather uncertain deity.^{^[2]}

There are deep questions and doubts seeking a response:

How do I hold on when everything in me says: "Quit!"

"God is not real!"

"This is all a crock!"

Show me how to profess my faith

to a world that is lost and destroying itself.^{^[3]}

In preparing for this sermon, I realized that the first words out of Jesus' mouth in the Gospel of John is the question, "What do you seek?"

It is the question that asks us to truly define what we are missing and need to find. I certainly can't do that for you, but I can tell you what the writer of the Gospel of John thinks we need.

ohn gives us a clue as to what we can expect to find if we continue to read his Gospel. From the lips of those first two disciples, Jesus is referred to as Rabbi which means teacher, and the Messiah, which means Christ or Anointed One. John thinks we need a teacher and a Messiah.

The very early church was referred to as "The Way". Early critics of the church scoffed at Christian doctrine, but they couldn't deny that people who followed "the Way" lived virtuous and admirable lives.

I think there are a lot of people out there who are seeking how to live in these crazy and often confusing times. We need a teacher. Too often though, in our lazy and superficial culture, quick and easy answers are preferred over genuine answers that may take some time, sacrifice and discipline.

We are such an individualistic culture that we don't want to listen to anyone else's advice on how to live. "I'm free to do what I want" is our motto. Its not that different from the motto of some Christian's to whom Paul was writing. Sure you are free, says Paul, but not everything is for the best. Ah, there's the rub.

How many lives out there are wrecks at the cross-roads of life because stop signs were ignored!? Left to our own advice, seeking only our own selfish interests, people tend not to choose what is best. How many repeat the same cycle of mistakes over and over again.

Jesus says,

Take my yoke upon you,

and learn from me;

for I am gentle and lowly in heart,

and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy,

and my burden is light.^{^[4]}

Its really not that hard; Jesus' yoke is truly light compared to all the demands the world can lay upon us: 10 Commands that can be summed up in the simple phrase, "Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself."

Teaching can't all be done in one sermon. It takes time and patience. It means study. It means participating in Reverend Kirk's Lay Academy, or an adult Study, or one of Rev. Sheldon's classes, or one of the new small groups, and sharing your questions with others. It takes effort, which these days seems a dirty word.

But if you come seeking a teacher,

you are willing to be taught

and make the changes and sacrifices that Christ asks,

then you shall find.

The only reason you can do this at all is because Jesus is also the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One who is God with us.

e are not alone. Perhaps that is the simplest and deepest message of the Gospel. God is with us; "Lo I am with you, even unto the end of the age", says Jesus.^{^[5]}

The Messiah, the Christ, brings hope and the presence of God into a world full of despair and loneliness.

I admit that sometimes I feel like I am trapped in a rushing river headed for a waterfall. That sense that so many things around me are out of my control and I am being dragged against my will over the edge. War, greed, indifference, stress....its all overwhelming sometimes.

Swimming against the rushing current I find myself trying not to get pulled away from my family by long hours at work while the company seeks to squeeze every drop out of the workers.

But the Christ gives me hope.

I am not left alone in the rushing waters.

God loves me.

I don't have to prove anything to anyone.

Just do my best and know that I am forgiven.

This way of life,

this system that we humans have created, as good as it is at times,

yet still a benefit to some and not to others,

is not the ultimate

is not the Kingdom of God.

The Messiah saves me from the waterfall and lifts me up into a different reality,

one where we aren't judged by how much we make or what car we drive,

one where we aren't judged by how good looking or thin we are,

or what color we are...

People who are seeking this experience of God are going to ask, "How can I get some of that!"

I can tell you that right now you are all looking in the wrong place to find it because you're either looking at me, or the back of your eyelids.

You won't fully experience God's loving care from a sermon.

You may have a few "Aha!" moments.

You may feel the Spirit prodding you to make a change.

You may learn something.

[Although, I do remember a woman telling me one time how she experienced God in the sermons her pastor did because her pastor would leap from pew to pew. I could certainly do that, but the nurses and doctors of the congregation had better get ready because more likely I will get the experience of God and not you.]

You won't fully experience God's presence listening to a sermon.

As divinely inspired as our choir music is, you won't fully experience the presence, love, and care of God listening to them either. Certainly you can be deeply moved as the spirit moves through the music. Certainly it can lift you up into the heavenly choirs of angels. But you won't fully experience God listening to the choir.

I hear people complain that they come to church, sit dutifully through the sermon, sing the hymns, listen to the anthems and then complain they didn't feel God's presence. That's shopping. There's a difference.

The Church is more than a service provider. The Church is more than a place to be entertained on Sunday. The Church is not a grocery store where the individual comes, gets a palatable sermon, some nice hymns, drops a few pennies in the plate to feel like they've done something, and then goes home wondering why they don't feel God's presence.

The Church is the body of Christ,

and for the person seeking to feel the presence of God,

the care of God,

the love of God,

they will feel it in the love they experience from the people here.

For the person seeking to find a place where the messed up values of the world don't determine whose in and whose out, they will find it in the acceptance and love they experience from the people here.

There are people in this congregation with whom I share my struggles. If you want people to stand with you, you need to open yourself up and let them in. I ask these people to pray for me when I am in need. Its not a large group, that's not my personality.

But these people are Christ to me.

They love me without judgment, and I love them.

They care about what's going on in my life, and I care about them.

They pray for me, and I pray for them.

They hug me and I hug them.

They share the same values and together we struggle against a world gone mad.

I know I am not alone.

I know no matter what, they are there.

You don't get that simply by hearing sermons.

A man who had been faithfully in his place in his church every Sunday for many years was observed by the pastor to have missed several Sundays in a row. So one cold winter evening the pastor knocked at his door. The two men were actually good friends, having known and mutually respected each other for several years.

As they sat before the wood-burning fireplace and talked, the minister mentioned his friend's absence from the worship service. The man quite candidly confessed that he had decided he was just as well off without the church as with it. To this the minister made no vocal reply, but took the tongs from their rack, reached into the fire, pulled out a flaming ember, and laid it down in a place by itself on the hearth. He said nothing. Both men sat in silence and watched the glowing ember lose its glow and turn slowly into a crusty, black lump. After some moments of thoughtful silence, the man turned to his pastor and said, "I get the message, my friend, I see what you mean; I'll be back next Sunday." And he was.

Do you realize as you sit there, there may be someone in this congregation for whom you could be the love of Christ. It's an awesome thought. A simple hello, an introduction could be the first step in saving a person from despair. We are the body of Christ and through us, God's love enters the world.

Together we burn brighter than we ever could alone. It is together that we become the body of Christ, the Messiah.

The Messiah, the Christ, is here to be found for those who are seeking.

hat are you seeking?

Why are you here and not some place else?

Jesus, the Teacher and Messiah says in another place, "Seek and ye shall find."

To him who loves us

and has freed us from our sins by his blood

and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father,

to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.

Amen.^{^[6]}

^{^[2]} Martin Luther King, The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. Coretta Scott King. New York: Newmarket Press, 1958). p. 63.

^{^[3]} Washinton Post. January 5, 2003. Section C11 "On Faith" Article: Your Voices: What Do You Like or Dislike in a Sermon? Response written by Cheryl M. Wallace, Fairfax.