Summary: I am certain that everyone of you parents and even extended family members like me can remember waiting for that first spoken word to come from the lips of your child. I imagine that many of you can remember what it was. I remember clearly the excitement in my family when my neices spoke their first words and the thrill that came when they began to put those words together into sentences. Today the church is having that same experience. We have just spent three weeks celebrating the birth of Christ Jesus, and now in John’s Gospel we hear the very first words spoken by Jesus: “What are you looking for?” This is the central question in the Gospel of John, and in all the encounters Jesus has with a variety of people in this Gospel, the question of recognition is always there. It is there at a Wedding Feast in Cana, at a Well in Samaria, at a tomb in Jerico, at the Courtyard of the High Priest, before Pilate’s throne, on Calvary, and finally on the morning of the first day of the week --- in other words, at the beginning of the new beginning is the question, what you looking for? Why look in an empty tomb? I have found it very prayerful to look at this Gospel from two perspectives: one is from the perspective of the spoken words: “What are you looking for?” “Where do you live.” and “Come and see.” It seems to me that John captures the whole of the human existence in that brief conversation, and when we stop listening in a shallow way to this Gospel and dig deeply into it personally, the question is the ultimate question of our lives? What are we looking for? I wonder that sometimes when I stand here with you face to face. What are you looking for here? A good show? A good talk? Entertainment? It leaves me stunned sometimes to see people come and go, here one week and them missing for two. They must not be finding what they are looking for. Or perhaps they are here looking for something we simply don’t offer. Just a glance into the life of most of us might give some clues. One look at how most people around here spend there time gives some clues to what they are looking for, and everyone of us might think more seriously about that. It looks to me like most people are looking for a good time, entertainment, fun, pleasure, and some way to keep what they have and get more. This church is less than half full but that Stadium across town is never less than half full, nor does the Thunder play to half a house. There are some who will pay any price at all for concert tickets or season tickets to games and reluctantly offer loose change to God. At the same time there are those who seem to be looking for what money can buy, and so they work night and day while the loved in their lives are left looking for someone to love them. We struggle with every human gift we can gather to embrace and lead our young people into a life-style that is worthy of their calling, but baseball and soccer always come first before Mass or Class. Jesus asks: “What are you looking for?” They say to him, “Where do you live?” and he says “Come and see.” They are not asking for his address, and he never takes those who are interested to a house. They want to know where he dwells, where his roots are, where he gets or finds what he seem to have. He wants to lead anyone who is looking to his dwelling place; to the place where the indwelling of the Holy Spirit can be found. What the Gospel will eventually reveal is that this happens in an upper room where believers are found together waiting and watching in hope of Christ’s coming: and that’s where it happens. Nowhere else. Then think for a minute about the other perspective of this Gospel story, the unspoken part that happens more in action than in word. The three whose lives and whose actions speak to us are: John the Baptist, Andrew, and Peter. Andrew is the central figure. What does astounds me even now after years of hearing and studying this Gospel. He gives up John the Baptist and switches his loyalty to Jesus. What a gift Andrew has! He can see that his old way, his old relationship with John as a disciple is not taking him anywhere, and so he changes his loyalty and for that matter, he must have given up some of his relationships. John had a big following. He was known. He was popular. It was probably a very “in thing” to be his disciple. Andrew sees a better way, and he goes after Peter. Quitely and gracefully that other figure, John says to him in effect: “Go.” John gives up and gives way. His fame and his followers, his importance and his whole identity suddenly fade away so that Christ can become more and more. John knows who he is. John is intouch with his vocation and his identity. He knows that life is not all about him, and John knows where he is going probably because ne never forgot where he came from. It is a lesson for us that has no words in this Gospel, but when it is attached to the words that are spoken, there is no doubt and no escaping what is revealed. Deep in this Gospel which is not really about John, Andrew, and Peter: the “What” becomes a “Who” and then the “Who becomes a “Where.” What are you looking for becomes “Who are you looking for?” Then “Who are you looking for becomes “Where are you?” That is the heart of this Gospel today. My people, take that with you this week, and with an open heart, an open soul, an open mind, an open life. Examine everything you do, where you do it, and why. It is God who asks each of us every single day: “What are you looking for?” Pray this week for the wisdom and the courage of Andrew. Ask for the strength of conversion, the abililty to leave behind what is not worthy of us and what does not lead us to that place where the Spirit dwells. Live this week with the expectation, the joy, and the hope that having been purchased at great price, we may as Paul says “glorify God in our bodies.” And grow this week. Grow in the Lord as Samuel did not permitting any word of God’s be without effect in your lives.
