Covenant In Action
Psalm 40: 1-11  John 1: 32-42
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

John baptized Jesus. Then John testified to what he saw, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him...The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he shouted, “Look! Here is the Lamb of God!”

John’s disciples heard John ... and they followed Jesus.  Our text continues,
“When Jesus turned, and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’”

I love that the first words that Jesus utters in John’s Gospel pose a question, and the question is this:  “What are you looking for?”

Not “What are you looking for in a church home?” or “What are you looking for in a job, in a school, in a presidential candidate?”  But, --
What are you looking for?

The beginning of faith is in the humility of searching ... and seeking.   It is not having the answers, or trying to look like we think holiness ought to look.  Discipleship, following Jesus, is just that-- ... honestly following Jesus. Even John didn’t begin with certainty.  When Jesus came to him to be baptized, John said, “I myself did not know him ... “ but then John testified to what he saw,... that Jesus was the Christ, the anointed one.

Author Beth Lisick, the George Plimpton of a new generation, has just published a new book titled, Helping Me Help Myself.  The subtitle is wonderful: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone.  You see, Lisick immersed herself in 10 of the most popular “self-help” systems -- one each month for a year.  She tried to fully immerse herself in Deepak Chopra, then Suze Orman, then....  She was surprised by how many of these teachers assumed what she was looking for.  They assumed, even the most “spiritual” ones – that what she was looking for in life was success, material wealth, or in her words, a red convertible.  

A San Francisco Chronicle reporter asked Lisick what life strategies, if any, actually stayed with her after her year of exploration.  She said, “The biggest one is the idea in (Stephen Covey’s) The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People of finding your personal mission statement or your life’s purpose.  I couldn’t even say those words before.  It sounds so incredibly cheesy.  But, being kind of a go-with-the-flow person, it did make me start pondering ... why do I do the things that I do... “  

Jesus asked, “What are you looking for?” ...

Here we ask that question together.  Covenant in action ... following Jesus... means discovery in dialogue, in relationship.  We gather to worship, to nurture and to send one another out into the world to seek, struggle, explore and act.  The covenant of faith is a living covenant.

Psalm 40 begins with a cry ... and ends with testimony.  It begins with cries from a desolate pit and moves to feet set upon solid rock.
“I waited for the Lord (who) inclined to me and heard my cry ... who drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock.” ... We are created, redeemed, and sustained by God in community.

A Jungian teacher recently described the two purposes of Religion as absolution and dependency.  At first I assumed this statement was meant as a critique.  But it was not.   Indeed, it was an acknowledgment that the great gifts of faith are Absolution/Forgiveness ... the assurance and reassurance of the unfailing, inexhaustible love of God ...  and dependency/interdependence/relationship ... the assurance that we are not alone.

When Jesus asked his followers, “What are you looking for?”  They asked him, “Rabbi, Teacher, where are you staying?”  And he said, “Come and See!”  They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day.  Our faith is formed in questions, a dialogical dynamic that invites us to risk asking where we find Christ, that invites us to risk moving out of our comfort zones to be found, to follow, to testify, to participate in God’s vision of the world – day by day.

This week we celebrate the 79th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. As we gathered for worship we saw documentary footage of over 200,00 people gathering for the 1963 March on Washington in which Dr. King delivered what we known as his “I Have a Dream” speech. We celebrate Martin Luther King Holiday by taking a day off.  What do we remember?  What are we taking on?

We remember marches, and speeches, and movement.  We don’t hear as much about Martin Luther King’s home church, or his faith, or his study of the Bible, or his prayers written in jail, or his sermon after the church was bombed on a Sunday morning, killing four little girls as they practiced their Sunday School lesson.  But he didn’t set out to be a “Civil Rights Leader,” he set out to follow Jesus!

Before the March on Washington, Dr. King wrote less well known but important words, (Settle in....I want you to hear these words at some length.  They deserve a hearing this morning).  Martin Luther King, Jr. testified:  “... a great faith is not a bargaining faith. It doesn’t say, if you do this for me, God, if you do this on that point and that on the other point, then I will serve you; but it ... says, ’though he slay me, yet I will trust him.” ... on this question of non-violence, I’m going to stand by it.  I’m going to love because it’s just lovely to love.  I’m going to be non-violent because I believe it is the answer to (hu)mankind’s problems.  I’m not going to bargain with reality, but I’m going to stand by nonviolence in spite of.  And I say to you that I’ve taken a vow – I, Martin Luther King, take thee, Non-violence, to be my wedded wife, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer – this isn’t a bargaining experience – for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.  I’m going on in the faith and ... I believe if we maintain faith and then escalate our actions we will be able to go to Washington and we will be able to create vibrant movement throughout the cities of our country.  And by the thousands we will move, and many will wonder where we are coming from, and our only answer will be that we are coming up out of great trials and tribulations...  We will be seeking a city whose builder and maker is God.  And if we will do this, we will be able to turn this nation upside down and right side up, and we may just be able to speed up the day when (all people) everywhere will be able to cry out that we are children of God, made in (God’s) image.  This will be a glorious day; at that moment the morning stars will sing together, and (children) of God will shout for joy. (The Healing Fountain, page 162, Betty Thompson, ed)

World changing witness began with clarity about what they were looking for ... honesty about where they were coming from ... and the powerful vulnerability and mountaintop vision that is possible when we trust in the loving power of God.  Whatever we have to bear, let us bear witness.

What can we do with great challenges of our lives ... what can we do with when we risk a different perspective ... what can we accomplish with a clarity of purpose ... if we take seriously these two elemental questions, “What are you looking for?”  “Where is Christ?”

“Come and See!”