What Are You Looking For?
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
February 6, 2022
Good Morning and welcome to Light Reflections. Today’s scripture passage is from John 8:31-32 from the Message version.
Then Jesus turned to the Jews who had claimed to believe in him. “If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.”
As I spoke of this week in our weekly newsletter’s opening article, “As Way Opens,” each January I set aside some time for personal reflection. Part of that reflection as a Quaker is asking myself some basic queries.
In the “As Way Opens” article I spoke of the query “Who am I?” and how I must cultivate the discipline of listening to the sound of, what Howard Thurman called, “the genuine” inside myself so I could truly make a difference in the world.
Today, I want to move to another query I asked myself during this time and share some of the insights that were raised by several different teachers as I processed this query.
The query I would like for us to consider is “What are you looking for?”
Just sit with that one for a moment. “What are you looking for?”
This is not a new question – since the beginning of time people have been looking for something. The Bible also is clear that the Hebrew people were looking for something – they had been looking for what they called a messiah, one who would come and save them from the injustices perpetrated by their enemies or the suffering in the world.
I believe people are still seeking messiahs today – some person or divine being that will come and relieve them of their struggles and suffering. All we have todo is watch the news and we will find someone wanting to be saved from Covid, from injustice, even from the stupidity or insanity of our fellow neighbors or family members.
Many of the Hebrew people in Jesus’ day believed that they’d found the kind of savior that they were looking for in Jesus.
But in a weird twist of events, Jesus refused to be the kind of messiah that they were looking for. Jesus refused to lead them in an armed revolt against the Romans. Instead, Jesus called them to a new journey or what the Bible labels a new “way.”
Like I spoke of a few weeks ago, Jesus entered a world that was embracing Empire by bringing a message that renounced empire, violence, hatred, and greed; a path that demanded non-violent resistance, love of enemy, and care for the poor and marginalized among them.
Actually, Jesus’ way for many would not be an easy journey – even Jesus said one would have to count the cost of living this message in the world.
Thus, in the Gospel of John we see early followers of Jesus, retelling the story of Jesus in ways that recast him into the role of the Messiah that they preferred.
Isn’t this just what we do still today, we like to create God in our own image to make it easier to swallow the message. We twist stories, seek different angles, even conform to specific doctrines or creeds to make our neighbors fall into order with us – if everyone believes and acts the same way it must be easier, right?
Again, I ask, “What are you looking for?”
Rev. Dawn Hutchings, a progressive Christian pastor and writer says,
“Jesus refuses to be the kind of messiah that we want. Jesus calls us not to believe in him, but follow him, follow him to passionately non-violently resist injustice, follow him by loving our enemies, follow him to care for the poor and the marginalized among us…Jesus lived and taught a way of being human that spoke directly to our common humanity and called us to walk a path that would lead humanity to a new way of being in the world.
But what are we looking for? Are we looking for a different kind of Messiah than one who will not save us from our troubles?”
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to hear author, philosopher, and radical theologian, Peter Rollins tell a story which I believe illustrates this longing very nicely. Pete told of an
“Old Buddhist parable that tells the story of a young woman who gives birth to a beautiful baby girl. But after only a few weeks the child dies and the woman is distraught. She wraps the child’s body in linen and then she wraps the child’s body to her own, and she goes in search of someone, of anyone who could resuscitate her child. She goes to faith healers, and witch doctors. She talks to the tribal elders. But nobody can help.
Finally, one of the elders says, “You know it’s rumored that high up in the mountains, away from everyone, there’s a holy man who is so close to the DIVINE that he can even raise the dead.
Now perhaps this is a myth, or maybe he is long since dead, but there’s no one here who can help you. If you are that desperate, maybe you need to go in search of the holy man.
And so, she does. She packs a few provisions, and she goes up into the mountains to find the Holy Man. After a few days, she comes across a small hut in the middle of nowhere, beside a crystal-clear lake. She knocks on the door.
After a couple of minutes an old man comes to the door. She begins to weep. She says, “I don’t know if you’re the one they talk about and I don’t know if you can help, but my child is dead, and I must have her back.”
Well, the old man takes pity on her and he says, “I am the one you’re looking for and I can help. But I need to concoct a potion and the potion requires ingredients and one of those ingredients is a handful of mustard seeds taken from a home that has not been touched by the black sun of suffering that has scorched your life. Go down to the village, find me the mustard seeds, and then return.
And so, she does, she goes down to the village and she goes from house to house. But she cannot find one family that has not been touched by suffering, death, and loss. Yet, as she listens to the stories of other people’s suffering and as she’s able to speak of her own, she gradually comes to terms with the loss of her child and is able to bury her in the Earth.”
The Holy Man never offered the woman salvation from her troubles, but neither did he send her away without hope, instead the Holy One creates a space where the woman is able to engage other people’s stories and is able to speak her own until she is able to mourn and to let go and to heal.
We all want to escape our suffering and our difficulties; we all want to be saved from the ups and downs of life in this world. But if we want to find freedom, to find joy, to find love, to find life, we must engage our humanity.
Folks, I am going to be really honest, Jesus is not what we are looking for if we are looking to escape our humanity.
If anything, Jesus leads us into a DEEPER humanity.
When we reflect upon Pete Rollin’s story, we see ourselves carrying around our own treasured images of the DIVINE. We see ourselves holding on to the God of our own creation, hoping against hope for a Messiah who will breathe life into the lifeless image that the god of our childhood has become.
How many of us have spent years looking for the magic mustard seeds, so we don’t have to give up our illusions?
I ask us again, “What are we looking for?”
So many of us are just looking for “salvation” from life – what I like to call the Calgon Theology (it may date me a bit – but most will remember the commercial – “Calgon, take me away!”)
Jesus isn’t about escapism. Nothing he did was about escapism. Instead, Jesus is a savior who leads us into life with all its various twists and turns.
Instead of the magic that most religions today are trying to sell, Jesus is offering us life itself.
So again, what are you looking for?
Do you want to be saved from life in the world or do you want to live life?
I have come to realize that Jesus is the kind of savior who sends us out to look for mustard seeds in the midst of the living. We may not find what we are looking for. But what we do find empowers us to let go of our illusions and live fully, deeply, and completely.
Jesus’ way of being in the world was not an easy path to walk, there is no salvation from our troubles, only hope, hope that as we journey together, we might find LOVE.
The LOVE which nourishes, grounds and sustains us in this marvelous life that each of us has been given. And that is a message and life we can embrace!
Now, as we enter waiting worship, I want us to spend some time with the queries presented in this message. Ask yourself?
· What am I looking for?
· Am I looking for the “magic mustard seeds,” so I don’t have to give up my illusions?
· Do I just want to escape this world, or learn to really live in it?