Second Sunday of Epiphany 2020

Gospel reading: John 1:29-42

For the churches of Durham Diocese, 2020 will be a Year of Pilgrimage. A year to walk together, with God, with purpose and without hurry, and to discover what that experience might bring about in and through us.

At the diocesan Waymark conference back in October, our keynote guest speaker bishop Emma Ineson spoke about ambition and success. The Latin root of the word ‘ambition’ is ambulare, ‘to walk,’ from the Roman practice of canvassing for votes. The Latin root of the word ‘success’ is successus, meaning both ‘approach’ and ‘outcome,’ from which we also get ‘successors,’ or those who follow after. Ambition and success, then, are concerned with where and how we walk, and who and what follows.

Bishop Emma also noted the difference between counting and measuring. Counting is concerned with amount; measuring with change. Numbers matter, because people matter. We should count the number of people we have fed, body and soul, through the Care & Share lunches. We should measure the increases and decreases, attending to trends and patterns, to understand whether there is still a need, or when it is time to redirect our focus. Counting helps us give thanks for what God has done in us and through us. But we are called to be ambitious to proclaim the good news (Romans 15:20), to please God (2 Corinthians 5:9), and to live an unhurried non-anxious life (1 Thessalonians 4:11), and not to be anxious about numbers or timescales.

Our Gospel today is concerned with counting and measuring.

It is concerned with counting amounts:

John’s disciples decrease by two, or possibly three; while,

Jesus’ potential disciples increase by (the same) two or three.

And it is concerned with measuring change, or, recording outcomes:

John says that he did not know who he was looking for, until the Holy Spirit revealed it to him; and from then, he could say, I myself have seen;

the disciples go from following Jesus at a distance, to accompanying him and passing time with him;

Jesus sees something in Simon that is waiting to be affirmed and called out of him. ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter). You are Listen! Well, pay attention! You are to be called Rock.

Our Gospel today is also concerned with ambition and success.

For John the Baptist, his ambition is that somehow, through his activity, Jesus might be revealed to the people. Success looks like stepping back as Jesus steps forward; looks like giving away two of his disciples to become disciples of Jesus. For John, ambition takes him to the edge, to the people on the margins, to be misunderstood by the respectable professionals and powerholders. Success is turned on its head, as he recognises that the one who follows him was before him.

The disciples are also ambitious. They have literally gone on a purposeful walkabout, down the river, to canvas opinion on what it is that God is up to. That has successfully resulted in them having become disciples of John. They are ambitious to find the Messiah; and successful in starting to follow Jesus.

For Jesus, his ambition to please God has brought him to the moment where he has been proclaimed the Anointed one, in a muddy river on the edge of the lonely places. Success will look like taking upon himself the sin of the world and carrying it away. Being the scapegoat. Jesus is walking along, secure in his identity as the Son of God, the anointed king, not in fact needing to draw any attention to himself at all. And he turns and sees that there are two people following him; and he asks, ‘What are you looking for?’ And success, that day, looks like just spending time together. And as a result of the invitation to ‘Come and see’ one of them, Andrew, brings along his brother.

Note that the counting and the measuring relate to the ambition and the success.

Jesus asks, what are you looking for? We might be looking for an increase in the number of people who worship here on a Sunday morning. Certainly, that is easy to count, week by week, and easy to measure change. But our ambition could be godly or selfish: wanting more people to meet Jesus, or wanting to feel better about ourselves. And if our ambition is to see more people meet Jesus, success might not be measured in terms of more people here on Sunday morning. It could be measured by more of the people who are here on Sunday mornings being involved in Care & Share, or Messy Church; or in those who are already involved taking a next step and having conversations with the people who come.

In John’s case, the answer to the question, what are you looking for? would appear to be, I am looking for the beginning of the end of my role here. Perhaps your ambition should be to discern who to hand the baton on to; with success being the laying down of a faithful ministry and affirming the one who takes it up after you?

What about the disciples? The thing that intrigues them about Jesus, that scratches where they itch, is that John has described him as taking away the failure of the world to hit the mark. Dealing with the shortfall between ambition and success. But when Jesus asks them, what are you looking for? they express their answer in terms of a longing for companionship. Isolation is literally a killer for young, active men, in work, looking for direction in the challenges of life. Perhaps our ambition might be to engage with that; with success being measured by people seeing us as faithful friends, who don’t offer glib answers to life’s questions but draw on ancient wisdom to venture deeper into mystery and away from despair?

I don’t want us to rush to answers. This is a long walk, not a parkrun. But we will already have ambitions for the future of St Nicholas’ church, and they will spring from both godly and selfish motives. A mixed bag, or backpack, we would do well to unpack, examine, and repack carefully before we go too far.

As we set out on the diocesan Year of Pilgrimage, walking and following, let’s engage in honest, hopeful, meaningful conversation about our ambitions, and see what flows from that.