What are you looking for?

          One of the great mysteries about God, and indeed one of the great laments is the quietness of our God.  Over and over again we listen for and cry out to God, and then we wonder and moan at the silence. 

          Our perception that God is quiet begs this question – Is God in fact quiet, silent even, or are we hard of hearing?  I don’t know a definitive answer to that ancient question, but I suspect that the answer is yes on both counts.  That is, yes, it seems that our God is relatively quiet, and yes, our hearing is impaired.

          For instance, I did not hear God come crashing and banging into our world when Hurricane Katrina ravaged and brutalized our Gulf Coast.

          I did not hear God come as rescuer or miracle worker when a tsunami ripped through Thailand a few years ago.

          I have not heard God respond in approval, disapproval, judgment or sorrow to the destructive violence that seems ever present in the Middle East.

          Time and time again death comes on families, and it is difficult to discern the voice of God above the din of grief and depression. 

          And yet we are faithful people.  We can’t help but be faithful (almost as if something is wrong with us!)– even when the evidence stacks up in a tower of proof against our faithfulness.  We believe.  We believe that our God has a voice.  So, yes, maybe He is quiet, but maybe there is something wrong with our hearing too.

          The deeper I journey into the Christian faith adventure, I am more and more convinced that the surest place to hear the voice of God is in the Bible.  And I don’t mean that if we want to hear God’s take on this, that, or the other issue, then we can find it in the Bible.     What I mean to say is – I am pretty sure that the Bible is alive and speaking.  I think it’s a living organism.  Moving, breathing, bleeding, beating, and shouting just like living things do.

          That is, the Bible is the living word of God and not just the historical record of what God used to say, when God used to speak before he grew so seemingly shy and quiet.

          Where am I going with all of this?  I am tracking down this path this morning because I think we hear the voice of God, really I do, calling out of the silence in today’s gospel reading from John.

          We are in the first chapter of John’s version of the gospel story.  John has been talking too much.  You know his bit – it is at once wonderfully poetic, and noisy and confusing.

          “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

          Hard to hear the voice of God above the noise maybe? (I am, of course, being silly to make my point!) John carries on talking like this for thirty-eight verses, and then Jesus walks through the scene.  Really, that’s the way we meet Jesus in John’s gospel.  Three men were standing around, and Jesus walked by.  Two of the men followed him.  (Note here that any one of us could be, in fact is, one of those two.)  When Jesus realizes he is being followed he turns on the two and he asks them a question, “What are you looking for?”

          Those are the first words of Jesus in John’s gospel, and I submit to you that those words are as alive and relevant today, right here right now!, as they were when Jesus spoke them out loud two thousand years ago.

          “What are you looking for?”  That is the voice of God.

          Now, at the outset that may not be all that helpful. My reaction, for instance, when I hear the question from Jesus, is first to be stunned that God is talking to me! - so my mouth drops open and hangs towards the floor.  My eyes get wide like dinner plates, and I stammer and stutter saying: “I don’t know!”

          So, the result is that upon hearing what I believe to be the voice of God, I am simply led into more amazed uncertainty.

          The two who followed Jesus are not much better off than me.  They are also surprised by the notice and the voice.  They manage to get out, “Where are you staying!”

          Now to be reasonable, I think we can translate that sentence to mean something like,

“Where are you?”  And figuratively speaking, at least, we might understand that they wanted to know how to come into his presence.

          So…the exchange which seems awkward and stilted, even silly at first, becomes the conversation that God and man have over and over again for centuries.

          God says, “What are you looking for?”

          And we say, “Where are you God?”

          We don’t hear a response, and the conversation is an instant stalemate and over as quickly and surprisingly as it started.

          Two things strike me today.  One, can we hear the question?  And two, can we change our response?

          Do we know that those first gospel words of Jesus are for us?  That they are God’s words, God’s voice, in our ears.  “What are you looking for?”  And instead of blurting out our answer, “Where are you staying?!” or “Where are you?!” or, “I don’t know!”  Can we join God in His mysterious, quiet, and form another answer?  “What are we looking for?”

          I think the question has the potential to lead us away from God, and I think it has the potential to lead us straight to God. 

          If we’re looking for prosperity and worldly success, then I think the question leads us away from God.  If we’re looking for more money, more security, new shoes, a new roof on the house, feel good stories, and a miracle undoing of life’s storms and tragedies – then I think the question, “What are you looking for?” leads us away from God.

          Those things, excepting the last, may be found, but not from our creator God.  Our God seems at least, to be mostly quiet on those fronts. 

          But if we begin to answer the question, “what are you looking for?”  With words like – grace, truth, comfort, peace, love, mercy, maybe even - quiet, then I wonder if the voice of God doesn’t start to make it through the din of worldly noise into our ears and hearts.

          There are no clear answers in the gospel today.  Or at least there are no clear answers from the pulpit today.  But I think we have an invitation this morning to come into the presence of the voice of God.  View it, if you like, as an invitation or a special pass to come into a new room in our faith lives. 

It’s a quiet room and the lights are comfortably dimmed.

There is a single voice, and it is warm and resonant.  It is God speaking from out of the quiet.

          “What are you looking for?”

          Now, don’t answer just yet….

Rest in the silence and pray for words to form in our hearts –

“I don’t know God.  You tell me.”

          Now listen. 

Amen.