Come and See

By Rev. Nancy Monteith

Prayer: Gracious God, you pour out your Spirit on us and invite us to “come and see” the miraculous gifts of the community you have gathered.  Receive our thanks for your bountiful grace, as shown to us in Jesus Christ.  Speak through these words God and may they be received as a gift which may transform those hearing them today.  Amen

How do we see?  You might automatically think well, with my eyes. Perhaps with our glasses.  Yet there are so many ways to see the world.  Maybe a better way to think about it is how do we experience the world? We were created with many senses that help us to do just that – sight, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting.  All of these help us to experience the world around us and help us to learn and to grow, maybe even to wonder.  

When Jesus invited the first disciples to come and see, he didn’t just want them to see where he was staying, he was inviting them to a new way of experiencing the world around them. With this single invitation to come and see, they may have felt a shift in their perspective.  They may have wondered if this person could be who John the Baptist had said.  Was this truly the “lamb of God?”  The one for whom they had been waiting?  God’s Messiah?  All they knew then is that something stirred deep inside their hearts in that moment and they left behind their former life and began to follow Jesus. 

John’s story of Jesus beginning his ministry doesn’t include fishing and the sea of Galilee or the words come follow me.  John wants us, his readers, to experience something more, something deeper. John connects Jesus to God the creator, to the beginning of creation.  He begins his story with the words “in the beginning” which echo the story of creation back in Genesis.  Jesus is tied to that story. John weaves the holy through it all and invites us to see or hear that story with a sense of wonder.  He came following a long line of prophets including Isaiah, whose words we heard this morning. In Jesus, God came into the world to change how we experience our world.

Those disciples who are invited to come and see have only just begun their journey.  As this tiny band grew and learned and experienced Jesus, the world slowly shifted on its axis. They learned slowly to see or understand with more than just their eyes and felt a flow of compassion and care and love begin to stir deep inside.   That tiny light that had grown so dim began to grow just a little bit brighter.

When they approached Jesus that day and he asked them what they were seeking, the first response might seem a bit odd.  But when you come face to face with someone, perhaps your favourite hockey or baseball player, an actor or an author you admire, your response may not be totally clear.  So, they say the first thing that pops into their heads “where are you staying?”  Jesus doesn’t blink an eye or consider this strange.  He simply offers an invitation for them to come and see.  They spend some time with Jesus and they in turn go to find others to share what had happened - who they had met and experienced that day.  And the world began to shift on its axis.

Jesus was about to change how they saw or experienced the world around them, in particular the people who shared that world.  Not through a view of the world through rose coloured glasses, but they began to see the light shining brighter in the world around them.  As Jesus talked and taught, touched and healed, spent time caring for those who others saw as the lowly and the untouchables, the women and the children, they began to see that everyone mattered to God and deserved our attention and care.   

When Jesus arrived, he came into a world in many ways just like ours today.  At that time, there was a lot of pain, suffering and struggle to survive. Roman rule was at its peak.  Kings were vying for power and the lives of the people in small communities such as Nazareth and Galilee meant very little those in power.  Sound a bit familiar?

Jesus was inviting those who were willing to see the world not from a power perspective but through the eyes of compassion and care.  Even through the eyes of wonder and love.  And the world shifted just a little on its axis.

It is Jesus who taught people to see the world through the eyes of a child.  When we are first born and the world is new, everything is full of excitement, even our own feet and hands are amazing things, sometimes we need to touch or taste the things around us. As we grow, our world broadens to include the faces of our family, then the world outside where the sun shines and the blue sky, even the night sky full of the stars and moon beckons’ us to see beyond ourselves.  The trees, the sounds of the birds, voices of others call to us and we learn to experience that world.  It is full of wow!

But as we grow older, we have experiences that colour how we experience that wow.  We might see clouds and hear thunder.  We discover that we can get hurt.  We fall down and skin our knees and elbows.  Others can hurt us and we can hurt them.  Our sense of wow and wonder can dim.  Our attitude can shift to one of protection – be safe – we might go as far as hiding from a world that can cause us so much pain.  It isn’t safe out there.  The world can be an overwhelming place.

But into that fear and worry, we can take a moment of silence so the words of Jesus can gently whisper in our ears – come and see. Like those disciples we can allow those words to penetrate the fear, and to gently lead us back to the wow. After the disciples had spent some time with Jesus, they felt something stir inside their hearts.  Their attitude of fear and worry had narrowed their view and dimmed that light, yet it hadn’t gone out.  The arrival of Jesus sparked that flame, stirred the embers and helped that light to start to shine brightly once again.

And today, yes it still shines. It is in you and in others that have opened their hearts to see the world in another way.  There are others out there who are trying hard to dim that light, to possibly extinguish it altogether.  The hurtful voices of the powerful are loud.  Maybe even louder than in Jesus’ day. 

Thanks to our many ways of communicating today, those voices come through our televisions, our computers, our radios, any media we allow to speak out.  But you know what?  There is an off switch on all of those devices.  There is a way to turn them off and shut them down.  We can make the choice to not listen to those voices and choose to experience the world through the eyes and ears of love and compassion.  To see others not as strangers but as friends we haven’t yet taken some time to get to know.

As we begin our day, we can turn on everything and let those voices loudly proclaim all the pain of the world or we can take a moment to look out the window.  We can see through the clouds on the horizon and realize that behind those clouds or fog, there is a sun still shining.  Go up the mountain and you may discover that the sun is shining up there. 

We need to be willing to experience the beauty of all that surrounds us.  To see the birds or hear their call. To see that small dusting of snow on the mountains and recognize the hand of a loving creator who offers us these gifts each and every day.  Having a positive attitude helps.  Do we see the deer that wander around our neighbourhood as gifts of creation or marauders who nibble on our shrubs and see our gardens as their own private smorgasborgs?  Nature lived here long before us.  We can take a moment to admire the gifts of all creation that surrounds us.  To see that we are all part of a larger circle of life. Then to take a moment to see the light that still shines inside of us and in everything around us.  We can choose to hide ourselves away, tell ourselves that it isn’t safe out there.  If we choose to, we can allow ourselves to hear those words of Jesus, that gentle invitation to come and see. To learn to see with more than just our eyes.   

There is good news out there and it is that the light still shines. It shines in you and in me and in everyone and everything on earth. We can limit ourselves if we only choose to see with our physical senses.  We can open ourselves to experience the world through the breath we feel filling our lungs and be grateful for the beauty and the people that surround us.  Can we truly take a moment just to be, to feel that same sense of wow that we felt as a child?

There is a Taoist story called “Do nothing or the blessings of imperfection” A carpenter and his apprentice were walking together through a large forest.  And when they came across a tall, huge, gnarled, old, beautiful oak tree, the carpenter asked his apprentice: “Do you know why this tree is so tall, so huge, so gnarled, so old and beautiful?”  The apprentice looked at his master and said: “No……why?” “Well,” the carpenter said, “because it is useless.  If it had been useful it would have been cut long ago and made into tables and chairs, but because it is useless it could grow so tall and so beautiful that you can sit in its shade and relax.”  The invitation from this story may be to try being for an hour.  Don’t worry about whether you are productive or effective.  Just be.  And listen.  Find the light and the Wow!

We have tried to make this world perfect or at least into our idea of perfect and in many ways, it is very good, in spite of what those who think we have a lack of everything. There is an abundance in our world. And we can help that abundance to be shared to all.  We can help another’s light to shine more brightly in the world. Try to see each other the way the moon sees the sun – vastly different and equally important says an indigenous site called Pass the Feather.

God created each of us to be who we are and calls us to be in this moment, to remind us that no matter who we are or what the world thinks we should be, we are children of God and loved beyond measure.  Even if we are old and gnarled or just beginning our journey in life.  We all have a light burning brightly inside.  Check the brightness of that light inside of your heart.  It is like the check engine light in our cars.  We pay attention to that.  Is our light burning brightly.  What do you need today to help brighten it up. 

Turn off the media voices, take a moment to sit in silence. Perhaps take a look outside, take a deep breath?  Listen for what God is saying to you today?  Invite a friend for coffee or a walk in the woods.  Each of us needs to find our way to shine our light in this world. See or experience the world through the eyes of love.  We have a choice to open our hearts for God calling us each and every day, can you feel it? Listen carefully, there is voice calling us to come and see.  Take a deep breath and say WOW! Thanks be to God! Blessings and Amen