The sermon preached by Fr. Ernie on Sunday, January 15, 2023.

What Are You Looking For?

by Ernest Boyer

Do you remember the first words you said to your husband …or wife… or lifelong friend? Perhaps you do.… But likely you don’t. Most often they were something very ordinary like, “Hi, what’s your name,” — something completely obvious and not at all memorable. I can’t recall my first words to my wife Sondra, for example, but I can guess.

 The first time I saw Sondra, it was across a crowded dance floor on the first day of a dance class. She was standing with another, much younger woman. I assumed at first that this other woman was her daughter, but as I watched them, I was no longer sure. The two of them were leaning on each other’s arms, their heads together, chatting and giggling. They looked intimate and confiding, more like girlfriends than mother and daughter. Could it be that they were siblings, a more mature woman out with her kid sister? I just wasn’t sure. 

At that moment the teacher announced that it was time to choose a partner, so I walked over to the two women. Both women stopped talking to watch me approach. I stopped and looked back and forth from woman to woman, but I already had no doubt who I was going to choose. “Would you like to dance?” I said, turning to … the younger woman.

Boy, have I paid for that over the years. The other woman was Sondra, of course, and she has never let me forget that, given a choice, I chose her daughter (for that is, in fact, what she was) over her.

Christine — that’s her daughter’s name — glanced at her mother, then turned back to me and smiled broadly. I thought for a moment that she was about to burst into laughter. “Sure,” she said at last.

Let me just explain to you, as I have countless times to Sondra, that I had a good reason for selecting Christine and it isn’t what you might think. The true reason is that I couldn’t help but notice that Christine was wearing a sweatshirt from Earlham Collage. Earlham is a small Quaker school in Indiana. It also just happens to be the college that I myself had attended some 25 years earlier, and I had asked this young woman to dance because I badly wanted to know if she was really a student there too.

“No,” she said when I asked her as we danced, “I’m not going there, but I did Earlham, and they gave me this sweatshirt. My aunt went there so mother …” Here she paused to glance over at Sondra who was dancing with someone else, then gave me a significant look. “… my mother thought I might like it.”

“But you didn’t like it?” I asked, ignoring the look.

 “Oh, I did,” she said. “I liked it very much, but the finances didn’t work out. So my mother,” she went on, again giving the word ‘mother’ an extra emphasis, “was right.  It was my mother who suggested I apply.”

By then the dance was over so I walked with her back to the woman who I now knew beyond a shadow of a doubt to be her mother and asked her for the next dance. So those had to have been my first words to my future wife, “Do you want to dance?” They’re simple enough words and quite ordinary — obvious words under the circumstances — and yet in retrospect they seem pretty significant, since at its best, marriage really is a dance — a long, intimate, and very beautiful life-long dance. First words are often like that — simple and ordinary, but rich with meaning when you look back on them.

Take today’s gospel, for example. It too tells of a first meeting. It relates the story of Jesus’ encounter with the first two of his disciples, Andrew and a second man who goes unnamed. Both men had previously been followers of John the Baptist, but when Jesus walks by them one day, John points him out and says, “Look, there is the Lamb of God.” Hearing this, they both leave John and set off after Jesus, keeping their distance behind him. Jesus continues for a while, but then he stops. Andrew and his friend stop too. Slowly Jesus turns and takes them both in. At last he speaks. “What are you looking for?” he asks.   

That’s it. Those are Jesus’ first words to his followers: “What are you looking for?” He directs these words initially to Andrew and his companion, but really they’re meant for all who follow him, us included: “What are you looking for?”

And how does Andrew answer him? It’s with another question. “Teacher,” he says, “where are you staying?”

Really, Andrew?…Really? …  Jesus asks you what you’re looking for and you just want to know his … address? That’s what you’re looking for? Not hope? Not some direction to your life? You’re not looking for the messiah? You’re not looking for someone to tell you what life is all about? Someone to explain why we are here and what we are to do with our lives? Someone to give your life some worth? That’s NOT what you’re looking for? All you want is … to learn where he lives? … Somehow, I don’t think so.

How about the rest of you… if you had been Andrew, how would you respond? If you suddenly found yourself face to face with Jesus and he asked you “What are you looking for?” what would you say? What are you looking for? … …I’d love to know how each of you would respond. Don’t be surprised if I ask you the next time I see you.

I mean, really, what are we looking for? If you think about it, we’re all looking for many things. There are our basic needs, of course, our biological needs. We’re looking for them to be met — our need for food and water; our need for safety and housing; our need for health, our need to be pain free. There are so many of these needs and they are very, very important. They’re the needs we share with all living things. And yet we have many other needs too, and they are equally essential.            

First and foremost among these other needs is love. We’re all looking for love. That’s true right from our very first breath. The first thing we do when we’re separated from our mother at birth is to inhale deeply then cry out in sadness. We wail in grief at our sudden isolation, weeping piteously until we are held once more and feel ourselves wrapped within loving arms. We crave this love. We crave it almost as disparately as we crave air. We need to be loved, first of all, to feel that we loved, but we also need to be able to give love to others. Love is vital. Is that what you are looking for?

There are other things too. We also look for hope. We look for purpose. We look for meaning. We need to feel that our life has worth… that we have worth. We also need to feel that we are part of a greater truth. Are you looking for that?

I believe you are, because we all are. I believe that each one of us is looking or all of the things I named and much more too, but not all at the same time. Love we need always, but as for all the rest, sometimes we need one thing far more than the others. The thing is, whatever we need, it’s to Jesus that we need to turn. That’s what he is telling us with these, his very first words to us. God in Jesus Christ is the foundation of who we are. He is the source of our hope. He’s the center of our meaning, the basis of our purpose, the origin our very capacity for love — the font of our ability both to receive love and to give love, which is the reason we are here on earth. Everything we have, everything we are comes from him. So, in times of need where else would we turn? So, again I ask you, what are you looking for? Right now?  What are you looking for?

These first word of Jesus to his disciples are like so many first words. They seem simple, ordinary, but in retrospect we can see that they are not. They point to all that Jesus is and can be for us. They ask us to reach into ourselves to learn what we are searching for in order to discover what we can become. We will never know what we can be until we are able to identify what we are lacking. So, what are you looking for? It is Jesus who is asking. …What are you looking for? AMEN.

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