What Are You Looking For?

Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42

          Confession.  I find myself growing more pensive these days, aware that I’ve experienced my last Advent as a pastor and missed my last Lovefest, thanks to COVID.  My final Lent and Easter loom on the horizon.  I find myself pondering, “What do I still need to say?”

          You have given me freedom to speak honestly, even when what I’ve had to say was not traditional orthodoxy.  Thank you.  I will ever be grateful for a free pulpit.  Many clergy don’t have one.  I don’t claim to have always been right, but I was always honest with the truth as I understood it at the time.  You gave me freedom, and that matters a great deal to me.  Likewise, I have tried to grant you freedom.  Not only must the pulpit be free.  In a Baptist church, the pews must be free too.  That means respect for your individual priesthood, your right to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, even if your conclusions differ from mine.  Freedom of conscience must travel in both directions.

          What else do I need to say to this community I love deeply, where together we have wrestled with the meaning of life and faith for nearly a quarter of a century?  Perhaps it is captured in the question Jesus asks in our text from the Gospel of John: “What are you looking for?”  It is a large, multifaceted question.  What are you looking for in your faith?  What are you looking for in marriage?  What are you looking for in friendships?  In your children?  Your career?  What are you looking for in life?

          After nearly forty years of being a pastor, I’ve concluded that is the biggest question we all must answer in our lifetime.  What are we looking for?  What do we want to get and give during the years we have on this earth?  Failure to answer that question can leave us frustrated and empty.

          Jesus asked that question of the disciples of John the Baptist.  John had just declared of Jesus, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!”  The next day he said the same thing.  The second time two of John’s disciples heard John and approached Jesus.  Jesus turned and saw them following him, and he asked them that large, multifaceted question, “What are you looking for?”

          But notice they didn’t answer Jesus.  Instead, they avoided the question by asking Jesus an inconsequential question, “Where are you staying?” 

          Now, would you do that?  If I said to you, “What are you looking for?”, would you say, “Pastor, where are you staying?”  I don’t think so.  You might say, “Well, it’s none of your business what I’m looking for,” but I think you would answer the question in some way.

          But not these disciples of John.  Why?  Why didn’t they give Jesus a direct answer?  Here’s what I think: maybe this is the Gospel of John’s way of telling us this question is left open-ended.  It hangs in the air, unanswered, for every generation, every individual, to answer.  What are you looking for in your life?  What do you want out of life?  What really matters to you?  What do you hope to get and give in the years you have?  This morning, please allow me to offer a few observations about life based on my years as a pastor, walking with people during the best of times and the worst of times, wrestling with the meaning of faith and life.  These observations have formed the foundation of my own life.

          First, life is a gift.  I know that sounds obvious and simplistic but think of it on a deeper level.  We didn’t ask to be born.  The cosmic energies did not say to us, “Are you now ready to come into being?”  No, we were not consulted.  Rather, we exist as a gift from a Source beyond us.  You name that Source whatever is comfortable for you.  I name the Source God.  The years we have on this earth are a gift from God.

          So how do we respond to this gift?  First, we can be grateful.  Sometimes we all say, “I wish I had more ______________.”  You fill in the blank.  More money.  More talent.  Or, “I wish I was more _____________.”    Attractive.  Intelligent.  And if those things do not come to us, we may become angry or bitter.  That is when we must say to ourselves, “Life is a gift.”  I have loved and been loved, rather than not.  So, I can be grateful.  I have experienced beauty and wonder, rather than not.  I can be grateful.  I have known true friendship.  I have wrestled with great ideas.  I have done things that matter, rather than not.  Therefore, I can be grateful.  Life is a gift.

          Not only can we be grateful, but we can also pledge to use the gift well.  We can be good stewards of it. Let’s not squander it.  Let’s not fritter it away.  Instead, let us use this gift of life to do the things that matter most.  We can invest in others.  We can work for fairness for all.  We can show compassion.  A reporter observed a nun cleaning a gangrenous wound of a soldier.  It must have been a gruesome sight.  The reporter said, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.”  The nun replied, “I wouldn’t either.”  She understood that life is a gift, and we must use it well.

          Here’s another observation:  Life is good*.  I put an asterisk above the word good.  The reference to the asterisk says, “Much of the time.”  Life is good…much of the time.  I say that because we all know that life is not good all the time.  We have misfortunes, illnesses, accidents, and other negative circumstances that we have no control over.  I have a friend I grew up with.  He lives in Calhoun County, and he’s probably watching today.  He was in my wedding.  I officiated his wedding.  He retired a couple of years ago.  Right after his retirement, he was diagnosed with cancer.  His retirement years so far have been doctors’ appointments, hospitalizations, chemotherapy, and fatigue.  He has spent retirement so far battling cancer.  But I can report that he is now doing well.  I’m happy for you, Anthony.

          Here’s what we do have control over:  we can choose not to measure all of life by the negative circumstances.  Life is good…much of the time.  But not all of the time.  We can choose to measure life by the good rather than the negative.

          You remember the story of Anne Frank, the courageous young Jewish girl who hid with her family in an attic to escape the Nazis.  She was finally caught and sent to her death.  Her diary from those dark years of hiding was preserved, and the words from that diary still inspire: “In spite of everything,” she wrote, “life is good.”  She knew.  Life is good…much of the time.  She chose to measure life by the good rather than the negative.

          My final observation is this: life is an opportunity.  It is an opportunity to matter, to engage the great ideas, to discover truths and build our lives around those truths.  Tomorrow we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who saw life as an opportunity.  What a difference he made.

          Here’s another one.  Do any of you know the name Maximilian Kolbe?  This is a true story.  He was a Polish Franciscan priest during World War II.  He resisted Hitler and was sent to Auschwitz.  One day an inmate escaped.  The German commander ordered that ten prisoners die by starvation as reprisal.  One of the ten arbitrarily chosen was a Polish sergeant named Franciszek Gejowniczek.  He began to sob over and over, “My wife and children…my wife and children.”

          Father Kolbe pushed his way from the back to the front of the formation. He stood before the commander and looked him in the eye.

          “I wish to make a request, please,” he said in fluent German.

          The commander responded, “What does this Polish pig want?”

          “I am a Catholic priest from Poland,” he said. “I would like to take this man’s place because he has a wife and children.”

          The prisoners were stunned.  What’s going to happen?  After a moment the commander snapped, “Request granted.”

          Amazingly, Gejowniczek survived Auschwitz.  In 1971, he attended the canonization of Father Maximilian Kolbe, who saw life as an opportunity to matter.

          What are you looking for?  In your faith?  Your marriage?  What are you looking for in your life? That question was left unanswered…for us.  I lay it before you.  What do you want to get and give during the years you have on earth?

Closing Prayer

          We thank you for this gift, Lord.  Help us to use it well.  Amen.