2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
They went… and stay with him (Jn 1:35-42)
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What is the core of Christianity? I asked myself this question after being a Christian for almost forty years. Better late than never!
Is the core of Christianity, being good? My mother always told me to be good. “If you behave well, God will love you!” She said. This was a way my mother convinced me – I convinced myself – to follow Christian morality. Is Christian morality, enshrined in the Ten Commandments, the core of Christianity? At a particular stage in life I realized that Christianity is not merely a moral system. Morality is only one aspect of it. And, Christian morality is not based on just obeying rules, but on love. So, is love the core of Christianity? Today I know love is not the core but only the consequence. I cannot love truly if I have not experienced the core of Christianity. Trying otherwise would be putting the cart before the horse. What then is the core of Christianity? Is it faith? But even non-Christians believe. Moreover Christian faith is not meant to be abstract. Christian faith, on the other hand, is a tangible relationship with a personal God who took human form in a particular time in history.
Finally I arrived at a meaningful answer. The core of Christianity is Christ himself. Yes, it is God in the person of Jesus Christ! It follows then that the objective of Christianity is to experience God in the person of Jesus Christ. The movement towards this experience and living the fruit of that experience is a journey. I call this, ‘Christian life journey’. I see seven steps in this journey:
1. The awareness of an inner thirst
2. Pointers (signs)
3. Journey (search)
4. Invitation
5. The Encounter
6. Transformation
7. Proclamation and mission
In the gospel text of today, one of my favourite passages in the New Testament, I recognise these seven steps of the Christian life journey. I have written a whole book on this (Jesus Experience, Mumbai:St Paul’s), so this reflection is going to be pretty long. Let us see how these seven steps are discernible in the story of the encounter of the first disciples with Jesus as presented by John (1:35-42).
1. The Thirst: The two disciples, Andrew and his companion, were already disciples of John the Baptist (Jn 1:35). They somehow thought that there is more to life than just fishing in theSea of Galilee. They left behind a flourishing fishing industry inGalilee to follow something more profound. They were perhaps responding to their inner thirst.
The Samaritan woman came to the well (Jn 4), because she was thirsty. Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was (Lk 19). This desire is the thirst that I am talking about. It is not a mere curiosity. The Magi (Mt 2:1-11) came from the East, following a star, because there was a longing in them. There is an inner thirst in every one of us that makes us challenge ourselves to transcend the contingencies of daily life. Whether we are aware of it or not, we long for a relationship with the Greater Power beyond ourselves. The origin of this thirst, I believe, is the religious truth that human beings are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27). Being in the nature of God, we want to discover our true nature. We want to pour ourselves into the source of our own flow. This is the beginning of the Christian life journey. Psalmists express this sentiment of longing & thirsting repeatedly and very powerfully: “Oh God, my God, for you I long. For you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you” (Ps 63:1). “As a deer yearns for running streams, so I yearn for you, my God. 2 I thirst for God, the living God; when shall I go to see the face of God?” (PS 42:1-2). “It is your face, Oh Lord, that I seek. Hide not your face from me. (Ps 27:8). It is also expressed in the longing to be in Holy of Holies of the temple: “One day within your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere” (Ps 84: 10).
We can easily mistake this thirst – that emptiness within; that restlessness. We try to fill it with wealth, pleasure, fame, comfort… what is it that you are filling it with? But have you found the satisfaction. St Augustine of Hippo after having searched for satisfaction in the pleasures of the world, comes up with that deep awareness and acknowledge: “Our hearts are made for you Lord, and they are restless, until they rest in you”.
2. Pointer: Look! The same God who put the thirst within us also puts signposts on our way, as if to say, “Take this path and you will find fulfilment.” John the Baptist becomes the signpost for the two disciples, that shows where they can find the fulfilment of their thirst – “Look, there is the lamb of God” (Jn 1:36). There are also signposts on our way – events and people that indicate where perhaps we can find the solution. But it is so easy not to see these pointers. Some signposts may be faint, others may be misleading, and real ones may be less attractive and often looking just ordinary. We need faith to recognise the signs. We might also need enlightened guides and spiritual exercises to help us put ourselves on the path. In the first reading of today (1Sam 3:3-10), Eli becomes the pointer for the young Samuel that helps him recognise the voice of God. The Scriptures, the community of believers, our own personal histories, may act as effective pointers.
3. Search: What do you seek? The two disciples heard what John said and followed Jesus. Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, ‘What do you want?’ (Jn 1:37-38) To me this is a very crucial question: “What do you seek?” – as the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible has it. Jesus said, “Seek and you will find” (Lk 11:9). The essential question is, what do I seek? Why do I wake up in the morning? What are my deepest desires? What can fully satisfy my inner thirst? I think, the inability to answer these questions adequately for oneself could be the source of spiritual dryness, burnout, stress and even mental illhealth.
The question of Jesus is also an invitation to self-discovery: who are you deep within? Self awareness is an important step in the journey towards the experience of God. Since I am created in the image of God, when I get in touch with my deepest self, I also get in touch with God. The disciples were aware that it was the Messiah who was the deepest desire of their heart. On a deeper level, it was God in Jesus who could satisfy their thirst. And so they answer the question of Jesus with another apt question: “Rabbi, where do you stay” (Jn1:39), as if to say, “It is you that we seek!”
4. The Invitation: Come and See! To seek God is the human response to fulfil the inner thirst. It is the choice of human free will. But what will follow is the Grace of God. Seeking is human; finding is divine. Our experience of God is just grace. However, I believe, that grace is constantly available to everyone. It is up to the human person to respond to grace.
To the question of the disciples, “Where do you stay?” the answer of Jesus is not a set of information: “I stay in a house around the corner, at the street near the synagogue inNazareth, not far from the baker’s house!” But his answer is an invitation. It is an invitation to experience him. In the book of Chronicles, David exhorts Solomon, “If you seek him, he will let you find him” (1Ch 28:9b).
My Christian faith from my childhood through my youth was largely based on knowing – intellectually – about my Christian faith. A lot of information! I was proud of it. But I was also mistaken. Perhaps it was needed then. However, it was also possible that I would have just got stuck there. Christian life is not about memorizing a certain set of information but it is about experience. This personal experience could often be mediated by a community!
5. The encounter: Christ Experience: They went, saw, and stayed. This is the climax of the Christian life journey – to stay with him (Jn 1:39). John points out a small detail about the time, that it was four in the evening. This means that they stayed with him through the night. The evangelist Mark summarizes the meaning of discipleship: “He appointed twelve; they were to be his companions and to be sent out to proclaim the message” (Mk 3:14). To be Jesus’ companions is discipleship. To-be-with-him is the core of being the disciples of Jesus.
There is not much description about what actually happened when the disciples stayed with Jesus. The experience of God in the person of Jesus is simply ineffable. It defies all human language. In the Gospel narratives often the actual encounter itself is not described in detail. There is only a before and after. And the fruits of the experience of God in Jesus are clearly seen.
6. Transformation: Most encounters with Jesus describe the conversion in terms of self-transformation and renunciation. A typical example is the conversion of Saul (Acts 9). After their encounter with Jesus, the magi opened up their treasures to him, and they “returned to their own country by a different way” (Mt 2:12). Peter’s reaction to his encounter with Jesus was a feeling of unworthiness. Jesus assured him that the journey had only begun, then “bringing their boats back to land they left everything and followed him” (Lk 5:4-11). Zacchaeus’ experience was expressed in his manifesto (Lk 19:8): I am ready to give half my property to the poor (charity), and if I have cheated anyone… (justice).
7. Mission and proclamation: Andrew brought Simon to Jesus. What follows the experience of Jesus is a conversion, and an expression of that conversion is sharing in the mission of Christ (Jn 1:41). “The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother and say to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ – which means the Christ – and he took Simon to Jesus” (Jn 1:41-42a). Thus the invitation of Jesus, “Come and see”, becomes a chorus.
The mission could be expressed in action (step 6) or in proclamation. Good news becomes positively contagious. Mary of Nazareth goes in a hurry to share the Good News with Elizabeth (Lk 1:41). The two disciples on the road to Emmaus who were running away from Jerusalem on the day of the resurrection recognized the Lord at the breaking of the bread. “They set out that instant and returned toJerusalem” and told the rest, “We have seen the Lord” (Lk 24:13-35). In the story of the Samaritan Woman at the well, her encounter with Jesus heals her of her wounds, her inner thirst is fulfilled and “the woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tell the people, ‘Come and see a man who has told me everything I have done; could this be the Christ?’ (Jn 4:28-29).
The encounter with Jesus is so overwhelming that human words are not adequate enough to explain the experience itself, yet the one who has experienced Jesus invites others to come to the source of that water that can quench all thirst. Analogically, evangelization is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread!
Where are you in your own Christian life journey? These stages are not necessarily linear steps of a development. There could be repetitions, we could get stuck in one stage. But the crucial question is, are you aware of the journey? Are you on the journey?