Seremon - February 5, 2012

5th Sunday after the Epiphany
Mark 1:29-39

Searching Is What We Do - (and we do it together0

In the morning, the morning after Jesus had healed Simon's mother-in-law, the morning after the whole town had brought to Jesus their sick, the morning after Jesus had forbidden the demons to speak; ON THAT MORNING, Jesus gets up early and slips out of town, to a deserted place.

Simon and his companions go looking for Jesus and when they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." But Jesus doesn't seem to listen to them; he doesn't hear their implied request to return to the village. Instead he says to them, "Let us go on to the neighbor¬ing towns." He departs from that village. He turns from those who were coming out to him. He leaves them, looking and search¬ing.

Does anyone else find this to be confusing behavior? Why would Jesus just up and leave them like that? He doesn't really do anything different in the towns he comes to next, so why is it so important that he continue to move along? Nevertheless, he does go. He departs, leaving these villagers behind to continue their search.

Confusing; but true to form.

I want to suggest to you that this short, little story is the perfect analogy for the way in which we all experience Jesus. Understanding that we experience him this way may then enable us to cease to be confused or frustrated, and maybe even eventually begin to allow us to draw comfort from the pattern.

It is a pattern. He does it time and time again; all the way to Jerusalem where once again he will depart, rather than remain. Why does he leave so soon? Why didn't he spend just a little more time? Why did he leave us here, to continue to search?

And search we do.

In my role as pastor, I am invited into the lives of so many persons. In every instance, I understand the honor associated with such an invitation. I realize that I am being entrusted with the fears and hopes of those who speak with me. I do not mean to over simplify or gloss over the harsh details of any individual conversation, but in the end I find it to be true that every pastoral conversation is an attempt to search or seek. Why did this happen? How am I to understand that? Where is God to be found?

Search¬ing is what we do. We are like those villagers who have had just enough of a glimpse of what it is like to have Jesus with us that we are now scurrying about, looking for the place where we might obtain more of him.

I spent the first half of this week listening to a sociologist professor share her research on religiosity among youth and young adults. “Forget how often they attend worship or youth group,” she said. “The critical issue is the depth of religious conviction.” She didn’t use the language of “searching,” but everything she said reinforced the image of persons seeking God and becoming frustrated when their search proves to be too much. It isn’t that youth and young adults reject the teachings of the Church, they just sort of drift away. Having grown weary of the search and frustrated with a lack of assistance along the way.

I wish I could tell you that there is an end to the search. I wish that I could speak of that ending, telling you what it is going to be like. But that is a mountain top which I have not seen, either. I cannot claim to have been to some promised land, now returned to tell you all about it. Like those villagers, like those who invite me into a pastoral conversation, I too continue to search. Jesus has brushed by; we have glimpsed his presence; and, now we spend our days searching.

Searching is what we to do. Searching is what we do together.

This is another subtle lesson found in today’s Gospel account. It serves us well to point it out, here. When Jesus leaves, he leaves the village with a new purpose. They become united - in their search. “Everyone is searching for you,” the disciples report. Jesus leaves them, but he leaves them in a state where they must learn to depend upon one another. It is very difficult to conduct a search all by yourself; you really do need a search party. Searching, you depend upon those who also search.

As the evidence grows cold, as the event becomes separated by time, it is important to return to those who were there, at the beginning, to hear again, what actually happened. A dependence develops upon those who experienced first hand what it was like to be touched by this healing presence. Stories begin to develop and are retold so as not to forget what it was like to have been there. Stories become essential as the means of telling others what had happened. The retelling becomes the guidance needed in the midst of a continued search.

Perhaps you came here this morning, hoping to find Jesus. You will find him – in the bread and wine. That is the promise of a sacramental theology. If you came, hoping to find him in a different way, you might find him that way, too. But what you have definitely found is a gathering of persons united in our search. We are a community of searchers, a community dependent upon one another. This place is a place where we look for God - but are always in the company of other searchers.

Maybe it is a result of my privilege status that I get to hear and to see the search going on the lives of so many. Perhaps only the pastor is daily reminded that church is not a gathering of devoted disci¬ples so much as it is an assembly of edger seekers. But that is what we are.

Some of us where there when something wonderful and marvel¬ous happened. Some of us have been the recipients of one of those touches in which we were healed or made whole. That is great. But it remains true that those who have had such an experience are the most intense of all seekers - for they know what it is like to encounter God. Those who have been overcome by God's presence and power are all the more likely to be relentless in their search. We are an assembly of seekers. Those who have had recent glimpses share what they have seen so that we might all be strengthened in the search.

In the morning, on that morning, Jesus rose early and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. He left the village behind, he left them to search. He left them in order to go on to neighboring towns, for that is what he came to do. He leaves them, in order to go and find others, so that he might set them forth on their search.

This is the final irony: While Jesus sets these villages off on their search, in the end he is the one who does the finding. The end of our search is the moment at which we are found by God. Our search is conducted in anticipation of the day on which we will be found.

Amen.