Come and See

You know, I don't know about you,
but usually when I think about the calling of the disciples,
I think about the scene by the See of Galilee,
with James, John, Simon Peter and Andrew all mending their nets after a hard days' fishing –
or, perhaps, them out in the lake still and Jesus pointing out to them a shoal of fish that he could see and they couldn't.
And Simon Peter falling on his knees before Jesus,
and Jesus telling them that if they followed him,
he would teach them to fish for people.
That's what I think of, anyway.

So this story in St John's gospel comes a little strange.
In this passage, Andrew is already one of John the Baptist's disciples, and, at John's suggestion, goes after Jesus,
and then comes and gets his brother, Simon Peter, and introduces him.
Not a fish or fish-net in sight!
You wonder, sometimes, when the stories were being collected,
who told what to whom,
and who was trying to make who look good!

Not that it matters, of course;
truth and historical accuracy weren't the same thing in Bible days,
and don't need to be today.
So for now we'll stick with John's story, since it was our reading for today.

And today's story introduces us to a very important person –
Andrew.
At least, Andrew is very important in John's gospel.
We don't often think of Andrew, do we?
He's Peter's younger brother,
but it's Peter, James and John who go with Jesus when he is transfigured;
it's Peter, James and John who accompany Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane.
Andrew gets left out.
Andrew stays back with the other disciples.

But here, according to John's version of events,
Andrew was with John the Baptist, and when they encountered Jesus,
he and his friend went off after him.
“What do you want?” asked Jesus.

“Where do you live?” asks Andrew, in return.
And Jesus says, “Come and see!”

We're all so used to the idea that “Foxes have dens and birds have their nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”
that it might strike us a bit odd –
but, of course, when Jesus hadn't yet started his ministry,
he was not yet itinerant,
and presumably still lived with his mother and brothers in Nazareth,
or perhaps at his lodgings in Capernaum.
Although, in fact, the story says that they were in Bethany,
on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptising,
and later on they leave to go home to Galilee,
so presumably he was staying with friends somewhere.
This wasn't the same Bethany where Martha, Mary and Lazarus lived, though, so he wouldn't have been staying with them.
This Bethany is sometimes called Betharaba, to distinguish it.

I did read that the questions have a deeper meaning –
I don't know enough Greek to be sure,
but apparently they can be interpreted as Jesus asking Andrew what he is really looking for,
Andrew asking Jesus who he is at the deepest level,
and Jesus inviting Andrew to come and find out.
But whatever happens, Andrew and his companion spend some time with Jesus, and the first thing that Andrew does afterwards is go and find his brother Simon Peter, and introduce him to Jesus.

Andrew does this a lot in John's Gospel.
He introduces people to Jesus.
First of all he introduces Simon Peter –
to become Peter, that great Rock on whom Jesus was to build his church.
And Simon Peter becomes one of Jesus' closest friends and supporters,
far closer than Andrew himself did.

Then a bit later on, Andrew introduces some Greek travellers to Jesus;
the travellers speak to Philip, and he goes to Andrew,
and then both of them take the travellers to see Jesus.
We aren't told what happened next;
John goes off into one of Jesus' discourses.
But it was Andrew who introduced them.

And in John's version of the story of the feeding of the Five Thousand,
it is Andrew who brings the boy to Jesus,
that nameless youth who had five barley loaves and two fishes, and who was prepared to share them with Jesus.
Andrew brought the boy to Jesus.

Yes, well.
I've heard, and I'm sure you have too, lots of sermons on St Andrew where they tell you that you ought to be like him and introduce people to Jesus.
Which is all very well, and all very true,
but it's not quite as simple as that, is it?

First off, when preachers say things like that, the congregation –
well, if I'm any representative of it –
go all hot and wriggly and feel they must be terrible Christians because it's so long since they last introduced anybody to Jesus.
And the ones who are apt to feel the hottest and wriggliest are those who really do more than anybody else to introduce people to Jesus.

But you see, Andrew only introduces people to Jesus when they want to be introduced.
Simon Peter, his brother, was probably already following John the Baptist, and was anxious to meet the Messiah.
He may, of course, have thought that the Messiah, the Anointed One, would rebel against the occupying power, an earthly leader,
but, of course, he soon learnt differently.
The Greeks in chapter 12 of John's Gospel had asked for an introduction.
The boy with five loaves and two fish was anxious to share his lunch with Jesus, but couldn't get past the security cordon of the disciples.

And when our friends want to be introduced to Jesus,
that's when we need to imitate Andrew.
If they don't want to know him yet, and we keep trying, we'll just end up being utterly boring and probably lose their friendship!
It's probably better to just pray for our friends, and hold them up to Jesus that way –
if and when they are ready for more, they will let you know.
There is, as the Preacher tells us, a time for everything!

Brixton Hill, as a church, does have activities which =make Jesus known in the community,
what with the various youth activities,
the Warm Space on a Thursday
and Pop-In.
We are giving people the opportunity –
they know what a church stands for, and if they don't, they can always ask.
We may never know how much we've done for people,
how much our example has led them to want to find Jesus for themselves,
to question the easy, unthinking atheism popularised by Richard Dawkins and his ilk.
That's as it should be –
our job is to be ourselves, to be Jesus' people, as we have committed ourselves to being.

So what sort of people are we going to be being?
I think Jesus gives a very good picture of what his people are like in that collection of his teachings we call the Sermon on the Mount:
poor in spirit –
not thinking more of themselves than they ought;
mourning, perhaps for the ungodly world in which we live;
meek, which means slow to anger and gentle with others;
hungry and thirsty for righteousness;
merciful;
pure in heart;
peacemakers and so on. 
They love everyone, even those who hate them;
they refrain from condemning anyone,
or even from being angry with them in a destructive way;
they don’t hold grudges or take revenge,
value or use people just for their bodies,
or end their marriages lightly.
Their very words are trustworthy.
In short, they treat everyone with the greatest respect
no matter what that person’s race, creed, sex or social class.
They also treat themselves with similar respect, looking after themselves properly and not abusing themselves any more than they abuse others.

We don't, of course, have to force ourselves to become like that in our own strength –
we'd make a pretty rotten job of it!
We do have to give God permission to change us, though,
to “let go and let God”.
We have to be willing to allow God to work in us,
gradually transforming us into the people we were created to be.
It isn’t easy –
I do so know!
But we do need to be willing,
or at the very least, willing to be made willing!

And as we do so, we will be able to have a response when our friends ask what Church is all about, or who Jesus is.

And people are asking, aren't they?
Like Andrew, they want to know where Jesus is.
Where is Jesus in this dreadful war in Ukraine?
Where is Jesus in the energy crisis, the rising cost of living?
Where is Jesus in the strikes that beset us?
Where is Jesus in Brazil, in the USA, in Iran?

Jesus answers us, as he answered Andrew:
“Come, and see”.
And the answer, of course, is that he is there in the middle of it all, as he always is.
“Behold the Lamb of God,” said John, “Who takes away the sins of the world.”

There are always dreadful things happening in our world.
There always have been –
even back in Jesus' day, you remember, the disciples asked what had gone wrong when a tower collapsed, killing rather a lot of people.
Look at the book of Job, or at some of the Psalms,
trying to come to terms with why bad things happen,
and so often to people who really didn't deserve it.
And there are no easy answers;
all we can do is to trust and to believe that God is there in the middle of it.
“Come and see,” said Jesus, and they went and saw.
And we are invited to stay with him exactly where he is:
in the middle of it all.
Amen.

The Baptism of Christ

My apologies for the coughing - it developed during the service!

This Sunday, the Church celebrates the baptism of Christ.
St Matthew tells us how Jesus came to John to ask for baptism.
John, we are told, demurs, saying that it is Jesus who should be baptizing him, but Jesus says he wants everything done properly in good order. And then the voice comes from heaven, saying “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”

For Jews, baptism was really a matter of washing.
They had –
and still, as far as I know, have –
a way of washing in their ritual baths,
which made them no longer unclean.
But it was not, I believe, until the time of John the Baptist
that baptism was linked with repentance.
John had one or two things to say to people who wanted baptism without repenting,
baptism without tears, if you like,
calling them “a brood of vipers”,
and reminding them that just because they were children of Abraham didn’t mean they were excused from bearing “fruits worthy of repentance.”
In other words, they had to show their repentance by the change in their lives, and their baptism was to mark this fresh start.

Now for me, at least, this raises at least two questions.
Why, then, was it necessary for Jesus to be baptised, and, secondly, what about our own baptism?

Why did Jesus have to be baptised?
He, after all, was without sin, or so we are told,
so he, alone of all humanity, did not need,
and never has needed, to repent.
But when John queried him
he said “Let it be so now;
for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.”
In other words, let’s observe all the formalities,
don’t let anybody be able to say I wasn’t part of the religious establishment of the day.

And, of course, one other very good reason is that it was an opportunity for the Father to proclaim Jesus to the crowds thronging the Jordan.
John probably baptised hundreds of others that day, I shouldn’t wonder, with Jesus waiting his turn very patiently.
But it was only when Jesus rose up from the waters of baptism
that God sent the Holy Spirit upon him in the form of a dove, and said, out loud,
“You are my Son, whom I love;
with you I am well pleased.”

God proclaimed Jesus as his beloved Son.

And then what?
There was no triumphant upsurging against the occupying power,
no human rebellion.
Not even a triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
No, what awaited Jesus after his baptism was forty days in the desert,
and an almost unbearable temptation to discover the depths of his powers as God’s Son, whom God loves,
and to misuse them.
And it was only then, after Jesus had wrestled with, and conquered, the temptation to misuse his divine power,
that he could come back and begin to heal the sick,
raise the dead,
restore sight to the blind
and preach good news to the poor.
And gather round him a band of devoted followers, of course, and eventually, the Cross and the triumphant resurrection from death.

Well, so much for Jesus’ baptism;
what about ours?

For many Christians, baptism does seem to be very similar to John’s baptism, a baptism of repentance, of changed lives,
a signal to the world that now you are a Christian, and plan to live that way.
But for a great many more Christians, baptism is something that happens when you are a tiny baby, too small to remember it.
That’s usually the case for Methodists and Anglicans, so it applies to us.
I was baptised as a baby and so, very probably, were you.

Now, some folk say that being baptised as a baby is a nonsense,
how can you possibly repent when you are an infant in arms,
and how can other people make those promises for you?
I think it depends very much on whether you see baptism as primarily something you do, or primarily something God does.
The Anglican and Methodist churches call baptism a Sacrament,
and you may remember the definition of a Sacrament which is
that a Sacrament is the outward and visible sign
of an inward and spiritual grace.

The other Sacrament that Methodist churches recognise is, of course, Holy Communion.
The Catholic church recognises at least five more,
but as I can never remember all of them off-hand, I won’t start listing them now!
The point is, that a Sacrament is a place where we humans do something and trust that God also does something.
When we make our Communion, we believe that we are meeting with Jesus,
communicating, if you like, in a very special way
during the taking, breaking, blessing and sharing of the bread and wine.
And in baptism, we believe that God comes and meets with us in a very special way, filling us with the Holy Spirit.
Yes, even babies –
do you really have to be old enough to be aware that you are doing so in order to love God?
I don’t think so!
You certainly don’t have to be aware to be loved by God,
and that’s really what it’s all about.

You see, baptism, like Communion, is one of those Christian mysteries, where the more deeply you penetrate into what it means,
the more you become aware that there’s more to know.
You never really get to the bottom of it.
St Paul goes off in one direction, talking about baptism being identifying with Christ in his death.
I’m never quite sure what he is getting at, when he says in the letter to the Romans,
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?
Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

I may not have totally understood Paul there –
who does? –
but it’s nevertheless part of what baptism is all about.

Another part of it is, indeed, about repentance and turning to Christ.
For those of us who were baptised as infants,
someone else made promises on our behalf about being Jesus’ person, and we didn’t take responsibility for them until we were old enough to know what we were doing,
when we were, I hope, confirmed.
We confirmed that we were taking responsibility for those promises for ourselves,
we became full members of the Church and, above all,
we received, once again, the Holy Spirit through the laying-on of hands.

And so it goes on.
But it’s all very well me droning on about baptism and what it really means, but what is it saying to us this morning?
For some of us, our baptism was more than six decades ago, after all!
For some of us, it may have been a lot more recent, but you may well not remember it, even so!

Well, first and most importantly is that baptism is important for Christians,
as important as the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
So if for any reason you never have been baptised,
and you know that you want to be Jesus’ person,
do go and talk to Lena or someone.
The same applies if you haven't yet been confirmed, but feel you are ready to become a full member of the Church and ready to take responsibility for those promises they made on your behalf.

But for the rest of us, for whom our confirmation is nothing more than a memory, and baptism not even that, so what?
What does it mean for us today?

I think that, like so much that is to do with God,
baptism is an ongoing thing, not just a once-for-all thing.
Yes, we are baptised once;
St Paul reminds us that there is one baptism,
just as there is one faith, and one Lord.
But when Martin Luther was quite an old man,
and the devil started whispering in his ear that he was a rotten human being and God would cast him out, et cetera, et cetera, you know how he does,
Luther threw his inkpot at the spot where he felt the voice was coming from, and said: “Nonsense!
I have been baptised, and I stand on that baptism!”
Even though that baptism had been when Luther was a newborn baby,
he still knew that its effects would protect him from the assaults of the evil one.
As, indeed, it does for us.
There are times when life seems to go very pear-shaped, aren’t there?
The 2020s, so far, haven’t exactly been a wonderful decade.
It sometimes feels that God has forgotten us, that we are stumbling on alone, in the dark,
totally unable to see where we are going.
Whether that is true for us as individuals, or as a church, or even as a nation,
these times are very hard to deal with and to understand.
All we know is, they happen to all of us from time to time, and we simply can’t see the reason from this end.

Of course, we know intellectually
that God hasn’t in the least bit forgotten us.
Some folk say these times of darkness are when God is testing us,
but I’m not sure it’s even that.
It’s some part of the pattern that we don’t understand,
can’t see what is happening,
and tend to try to rationalise.
I do believe that one day we’ll know what it was all about,
and see how it fitted in.

But our first reading reminds us, when we are going through these dark patches, that the “Servant”, who we identify with Jesus these days, even if there was a local application back at the time when Isaiah was writing, is gentl and loving: “a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;” In other words, it doesn’t matter how weak and feeble your faith – our faith – may be; God will not snuff it out, but instead encourage it, help it to grow. And help justice be established in our world once again.

In some way we know that our baptism is part of that.
As I said earlier, it’s what they call a mystery;
we’ll never know the whole truth of how it works, only that it does!
Jesus came for baptism to John, and from his baptism he was sent into the wilderness to wrestle with one of his bad times –
another, as we know, was in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified.
And if Jesus can have bad times, then it’s all right for us to, I reckon!
The bad times will happen, they happen to everybody.
But we will not be broken or extinguished; God will be with us.
Life doesn’t have to be perfect, and nor do we, before we can remind ourselves that God loves us.

Of course, that love isn’t just warm fuzzies;
it’s about going out there and doing something.
Christian love is something you do,
not something you feel.
But in the dark watches of the night, we need our warm fuzzies.
And I think God knows that,
which is why there are those lovely passages in Scripture about how much he loves us, about how he protects us and cares for us.