Come and See

A Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 15, 2023

Text: John 1:29-42

Now, O Lord, take my lips, and speak through them. Take our minds, and think through them. Take our hearts, and set them on fire. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In my sermon this morning, I have just three words that I’d like for us to focus on, and I hope you’ll remember these words and carry them with you as you go about your week.

Just three little words—the only words that Jesus speaks in our lesson today from John’s Gospel.

“Come and see.”

In our Gospel lesson this morning, John the Baptist is standing with two of his disciples—probably near the bank of the Jordan River. We know, based on our reading, that one of them is Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, and the other disciple is unnamed.

When John sees Jesus walk by, he says, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” Andrew and the other disciple hear what John says, and they immediately begin following Jesus.

When Jesus turns and sees them them following, he says to them, “What are you looking for?” They ask him, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” He says to them, “Come and see.”

It’s such a simple invitation, isn’t it?

Jesus offers no further instructions or explanations. All he says to the two disciples is, “Come and see.”

I think it’s his way of saying, “I could tell you, but it would be better if I showed you.”

If we skip ahead a little bit in the first chapter of John, we hear a story vey similar to the one we just heard. Philip finds Nathanael and offers him the same invitation that Jesus gives to the disciples in today’s Gospel lesson.

Philip tells Nathanael, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Doubtful about Philip’s claim, Nathanael asks him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

“Come and see,” Philip says.

As Episcopalians, we love this invitation, don’t we? It’s only three words long, which is perfect because anything longer than that might be asking just a little too much!

All joking aside, I think the real reason why we love this invitation so much is because it speaks to who we are as followers of Jesus.

When we invite others to experience the beauty of our tradition in the Episcopal Church, we could easily tell them about all the wonderful things we do as a community of faith and all the things we love most about being Episcopalian.

We could tell them about our love for the liturgy and the beautiful traditions that make our worship so meaningful.

We could tell them about our desire to be active in the community and present to the needs of others.

We could tell them about how much we love good food and fellowship and spending time with each other.

Or, we could show them all these things by inviting them to “come and see” what we’re up to in our little corner of God’s Kingdom here at St. Mary’s.

We could invite them to come and experience for themselves the joy and love and peace that we experience each week as we come together to praise and worship God and to recommit our lives to serving God and God’s people.

“Come and see” is our way of doing evangelism in the Episcopal Church. It’s our way of showing others who we are and inviting them to join with us in walking the way of love.

You would think that, with such a simple invitation, we’d be perfectly comfortable talking about evangelism, but for most of us, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, even mentioning the word “evangelism” causes many of us to respond in a negative way.

I think a lot of that has to do with past experiences we might’ve had in other places. Perhaps you had someone who was just a little too eager to get you to come to their church or convert you to their denomination.

Perhaps you had someone whose idea of evangelism involved shoving their beliefs down your throat or making you feel guilty about not going to church.

Maybe you’ve encountered a street corner preacher or two who told you that, if you don’t believe in God or if you don’t get your life straight with God, you’re going to end up burning in hell for all eternity.

Beloved, I can’t stress this enough. None of the examples that I just mentioned have anything to do with evangelism or inviting others to follow the way of Jesus. In fact, I’d say they’re really good examples of what not to do.

Jesus had no desire to force anyone or guilt anyone into believing a certain way. He came in order to teach us a new and better way to live with the hope that we would listen to what he had to say and follow his example.

Jesus had no desire to establish a new religion or to force religion on anyone. He came, not to abolish the old covenant, but to fulfill it, and he did this by teaching his followers the two greatest commandments of all—love God and love your neighbor. “On these two commandments,’ Jesus said, “hang all the law and the prophets.”

Jesus had no desire to condemn other people. He came, not to condemn the world, but to save it. His invitation to his first followers was, “Come and see.” 

Do you see where I’m going with all of this?

A lot of the preconceived ideas that we have about evangelism are wrong. In the truest sense of the word, evangelism is about spreading the Good News of God in Christ, and it really is good news. The word “evangelism” comes from the Greek word, euangelion, which literally mean “good news.”

Evangelism is about being witnesses to the transforming power of God’s love in our lives and inviting others to experience it as well so that all of us may go out and share that love with the world. One way we can do the work of evangelism here at St. Mary’s is by inviting others to “come and see” what God is up to, here and now, in our own lives and in the life of this community.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to go to a wonderful conference on evangelism sponsored by the Episcopal Church. On the first night of the conference, I had the privilege of hearing our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, preach a wonderful sermon. By the way, if you’ve never heard a sermon of his, I encourage you to go online and listen. You’ll be glad you did.

At one point in his sermon, he talked about the people in our lives who took the time to reach out to us and share with us stories about how God was at work in their lives, people who welcomed us into the Church and supported us in our journeys with Christ.  In his sermon that evening, Bishop Curry told us, “None of us would be here tonight if it weren’t for the evangelists in our lives.”

He was absolutely right.

Think about it for a moment.

For those of us who didn’t grow up in the church—myself included—where would we be if it weren’t for that person who invited us to attend a worship service or to help out with a ministry at church? Where would we be without that person who said to us, “Come and see”?

Even if you were born into the Christian faith and never left the Church, I’m sure there are still people who supported you along the way and served as examples of how to walk with Jesus.

This is why the ministry of evangelism is so important and why we don’t need to be afraid to talk about it. There are so many people beyond our walls who are hungry for good news and searching for a place where they can truly feel loved and accepted.

St. Mary’s can be that community. And, if we’re ready and willing to step out of our comfort zones and extend the invitation, we have the ability to help change lives.

Through our baptism in Christ, we’ve been anointed by the Holy Spirit to do this work. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, we’ve been anointed “to bring good news to the poor, “to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,” and “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

“Come and see,” Jesus says. This is the invitation Jesus has for each of us, but it’s also the invitation Jesus has for us to share with the world. Amen.