Deacon Susan Erickson

Dear Friend,

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Andrew. The Eastern Orthodox church refers to Saint Andrew as “the first called.” In today’s Gospel reading Andrew, after John the Baptist points Jesus out to him, follows Jesus — literally — and then rushes back home to tell his brother Simon (who would become the apostle Peter) that he has found the Messiah. Based on John’s Gospel, we might say that Andrew was one of the very first Christian evangelists, bringing the Good News of Jesus to his family before proclaiming it to others.

I love this passage in John, particularly the moment when Jesus turns around to confront the two disciples trailing him (one of them is Andrew, but we don’t learn this until a few verses later). Jesus, as he often does, addresses them with a question: “‘What are you looking for?’” Not who are you looking for, but what. Perhaps the disciples are caught off guard a little by this question. They have been looking for someone, the Messiah. Maybe they’re even a bit embarrassed that Jesus has caught them shadowing him. So they have to improvise a plausible answer, which takes the form of another question: “‘Rabbi …where are you staying?’”

“‘Come and see,’” Jesus replies, and they do.

“What are you looking for?” That’s the $64,000 question. Is Andrew looking for freedom for Israel? For personal salvation? Or just a good fishing spot in the Sea of Galilee? Whatever the answer to Jesus’s question, he has figured out its predicate, namely, that Andrew and his companion are seeking something.

If I look back over my life, I realize that I have spent much of it seeking something, too. If I had figured out earlier the answer to the question--“What are you looking for?”--I might also have known where to look for it.

I think that Andrew and the other disciple, in the moment in which Jesus turned around, truly realized what it was they were looking for. They were looking for him, and they wanted to be wherever he was. So, Jesus invited them to “come and see” for themselves where he was staying.

I believe that Jesus is still inviting us to come and see for ourselves where he’s staying. That place, or those places (remember — Jesus moved around a lot!), may not be what we expect; they may lie in a different direction from the one we were headed. And it’s likely that where Jesus is staying isn’t always or only inside a church building. The important thing, though, is to acknowledge that Jesus is what we want, and to start following him. It’s then that, as in the experience of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, or in this passage from John, Jesus will come up beside us, or turn around to face us, or maybe even look at us face-to-face through the eyes of a stranger. He will be staying where we are.

And then, like Andrew, we need to run back home and tell everyone the Good News of what we’ve found.

Deacon Susan Erickson

Readings:
Psalm 34
Isaiah 49:1-6
John 1:35-42