Sermon for the 18th of January - Second Sunday after Epipahny

Our Gospel reading this morning is saturated with the language of looking and seeing.

“I saw the Spirit,” John the Baptiser says, as the dove descends on the newly baptised Jesus.
“I myself have seen and testified.”
The next day he points and says, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”

Jesus, in turn, looks at John’s disciples. He sees them following. He asks them a question. And he invites them: “Come and see.”
Andrew later tells his brother Simon that he has found the Messiah. And the passage ends with Jesus looking at Simon — really looking — and giving him a new name.

Looking. Seeing. Finding.

These verbs are the heartbeat of today’s Gospel. John sees and bears witness, and then — crucially — lets go. He allows his disciples to follow Jesus instead of himself. Jesus invites them not into a set of answers, but into a way of life. And everything unfolds from there.

At the heart of this passage is a question Jesus asks those first disciples — and asks us still:

“What are you looking for?”

It’s a question for the ages.

In the quiet places of your heart — what are you looking for?
What hungers shape your faith, your doubts, your longing?
Why are you still here — in this church, in this tradition — at a time when many have walked away from institutional religion altogether?

At the beginning of another year, what are you hoping for in your spiritual life?

When we come to church, when we pray, when we open Scripture — what are we looking for?
Are we actively seeking, or are we simply going through the motions of a religious life we once chose, long ago?

And it’s a searching question for clergy, too. It’s easy to become professional — to lead services, preach sermons, say prayers — without pausing to ask ourselves honestly: What am I seeking now?

Are we looking for comfort?
Affirmation?
Belonging?
Meaning?

I love the way the disciples dodge Jesus’ question.  I can imagine them thinking, ‘Gosh, I don’t know. What does Jesus want us to say?’ What’s the correct answer!’

Instead, they deflect, asking, “Where are you staying?”.

Which I hear as another way of saying: Where are you going? What kind of life does this lead to? What will happen if we come with you?

Jesus doesn’t give them a neat explanation. He doesn’t offer a doctrinal summary or a Mission Action Plan.

He simply says, “Come and see.”

In other words: You won’t know unless you follow. You won’t understand this from a distance.

Jesus isn’t someone who can be pinned down. He doesn’t remain in stasis. He moves. And the path only becomes clear by walking it.

Which brings us back, again and again, to that foundational question:
What are we looking for?
Jesus — or something else?

Looking. Seeing. Finding.

This is not about arriving at a finished faith, neatly wrapped and complete. It’s about committing ourselves to a lifelong attentiveness — a willingness to keep looking, to see more deeply, to follow more honestly.

And that matters not only in our personal faith, but in how we see one another.

Today, as we begin the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we might ask: How do we look at other Christians?
It is easy to dismiss forms of worship that seem to us rather banal. Easy to criticise the theology or spirituality of traditions different from our own.

And yet, in recent decades, the global Church has learned — sometimes painfully — that our certainties about one another have often been limited, incomplete, or simply wrong.

Jesus’s invitation to “come and see” is an invitation to grace-filled curiosity.
It calls us to recognise that we are mysteries to one another — not problems to be solved, but gifts to be encountered.

To “come and see” is to risk being known.
It is to step into the joy — and vulnerability — of being deeply seen.
And it’s to allow what is best and truest within us to be called forth.

Because this Gospel is not only about our seeing. At its heart, it is about how Jesus sees.

Jesus looks at John’s disciples and sees their hunger and hope.
He looks at Simon and sees Peter — the Rock — long before Peter can live up to that name.
He looks at us and sees beyond the fumbling, the fear, the mixed motives, and the doubts.

Each of us, if we are honest, needs more than a first glance. We need second looks. And third. And fourth.

To offer that deeper, kinder seeing — that is grace.
It’s the gracious vision of Jesus.
And it is the vision we are called to practice in a world that so often judges at first sight and condemns without curiosity.

Is there anything lonelier than being dismissed too quickly?
And is there anything more life-giving than being truly seen — recognised beneath the fragile defences we raise out of fear?

Only when we have been seen in the healing, grace-filled way of Jesus do we begin to see others as beloved of God.
Only when we know ourselves loved to the core do we find the capacity to love others as Jesus loved — disciples and sinners, doubters and seekers alike.

Our invitation today is simple, and demanding:

To learn to look as Jesus looks.
To see with kindness.
To practice grace.

And to keep seeking the One who is always, already, seeking us.

Amen.