Epiphany 2 A
John 1:29-42
This morning I invite us to think about the best teachers we’ve ever had.
What were they like? I’m remembering especially my Clinical Pastoral Education supervisor, Ed.
Now Ed had a PhD in psychology, and he was theologically well-trained at Duke Divinity School. He was brilliant! He could have taught didactically all day long, with learned lectures and charts and graphs and immense knowledge. But he didn’t. He told stories. ‘Used metaphors. ‘Asked us to reflect on our experience. And he listened. And he asked us (the students in my CPE group) to tell stories...
The stories of our experiences as hospital chaplains with our patients, and the stories of what was going on in our lives and spirits as we did this work. Then he’d ask us to think of a Bible story that might have the same dynamics as we were experiencing in our lives and ministries. It was a real challenge and discipline to learn to think theologically like that about our lives and work and how they might be related to the Bible narrative.
Now if we students asked Ed a question he usually asked us one back…Along the lines of, “What do YOU think about it?” Or instead of giving us a direct answer, he’d tell us a story. (Kind of like how Jesus told parables to answer questions.) Somehow in his stories and open-ended questions there was always room for our own thoughts and associations to move around freely. He wasn’t too interested in our just learning facts and therapeutic techniques (although those were important).What he really wanted was for us to become very honest about and observant of human nature. He wanted us to “listen” to the human stories and to Holy Scripture and to appropriate the deep truths of the Gospel into our very beings. This takes time…a lifetime, to be exact! And it took learning to trust the people in our CPE Group enough to share the stories that really mattered. It took a lot of story-telling and listening before we really came to know ourselves and each other. So, if anyone ever asked me about my CPE supervisor, I would say FIRST and foremost he was a gifted teacher (”rabbi”).
Now remember in today’s Gospel when Jesus asked Andrew and the other what they were looking for (What was their heart’s desire) they didn’t answer the question directly. I wonder if perhaps, like John the Baptizer before them, they did recognize in Jesus exactly what they were looking for, and so named it by calling Jesus, “Rabbi” (Teacher). And then to advance their cause of learning as much as they could from this rabbi, they asked him, “Where are you staying?”. They must have known they were not going to learn all they wanted from this man in one easy lesson. They needed to get to know him. And Jesus wisely knew they were not going to learn all they wanted from him with a few simple answers. So he responds to them with this great invitation, “Come and see”. My guess is
Jesus wanted to get to know them too.
In the Bible study class Tuesday, Susan Frantz observed about this story that Jesus had used a “wise-teacher technique”. Instead of giving a closed answer that shut them down, he opened the door even wider for their deeper questions when he said, “Come and see.” So they went to where Jesus was staying and no doubt talked. And listened. And told stories. They got to know each other better. Unlike John the Baptizer, who called Jesus “the Lamb of God”, Andrew calls him “Messiah”. After first recognizing Jesus as a great Rabbi, then being with him and knowing him better, Andrew’s first response is he wants to share this great joy with his brother Simon. After all, he’s found the “Messiah”! Of course he wants to tell his brother, and he wants to introduce Simon to Jesus in person. He wants to share his joy!
So the dynamics in this Gospel are about recognizing Jesus, then coming to know him better, and then bringing others to know him. In a sense, this is a pretty good description of the work of the Church! Certainly this recognizing, inviting and welcoming, and spending time with Jesus, is essential to us as individual Christians and as a parish community. And this can happen in many ways. Hopefully it happens in our worship, both corporate and individual. But it also happens by our helping to name where we see God in our lives and in the lives of others. If we start watching for God to show up in our lives, I think we will not be disappointed. And when we recognize God in our lives, it’s good just to spend time there…Enjoying God’s presence and savoring the story of how it all happened.
And then enthused by our experience, we ourselves, like Andrew, have the opportunity to become the teachers and the ones who invite others. By sharing our stories in ways that leave the other lots of space for their own thoughts and experiences, we become the wise teachers, who, like Jesus, know it’s not so much about the “correct answer”, “right plan” or the “quick fix” as the process of the relationship. This is the process of recognizing and coming to know each other by telling our stories and listening to each other.
We become teachers who “Know how to open the doors even wider so that the deeper questions can be asked.”
This is what today’s Gospel offers us… “Come and see”. Amen
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