Most of us know the expression, “lost in translation.”
The point is that sometimes crucial information can get left out
in the course of translating from language to another,
from one culture to a different culture.
And the results can be very funny
or puzzling and confusing
or sadly tragic.
I think of a colleague of mine in Minnesota
working among the Ojibwe People, the Annishinabe.
He was working at learning their language,
and on one occasion when he was to preach
he wanted to use Ojibwe words to describe
the Holy Spirit like a mighty wind, as on the Day of Pentecost.
Only not being entirely familiar with the vocabulary
the word he chose for wind actually was a reference to flatulence.
He never lived that down.
Now admittedly translations are difficult to make.
In every language the meaning of a single word
may include several quite distinct, though related meanings.
There are nuances of meaning for a specific word
depending on the context within which the word is used,
and often times more than one meaning will fit and is actually intended.
Translators do their best when they choose which word to use in translation,
but that choice most often reflects the perspective or the point of view, as well as the understanding of the translator.
So in the Gospel for today two disciples of John the Baptist
take his words seriously,
that this Lamb of God is greater than and precedes their own teacher.
So they follow him, and Jesus turns and says to them,
“What are you seeking?”
and they ask him, "Where are you staying?"
He said to them, "Come and see."
They came and saw where he was staying,
and they remained with him that day.
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon.
Yeah?
Well, this is not just an innocuous detail inconsequential amid the rest
of what is recorded in the first chapter of the John’s Gospel.
"Where are you staying?"
The original Greek can also be translated like this:
Where do you live? Where are you at?
- and with the connotation - Where are you coming from?
Meaning what is the source of your authority for ministry,
what is your spiritual source for being a rabbi?
What rabbinical school did you attend?
What is the basis for a claim for authenticity about what you are doing?
This goes along with everything else in this first chapter of John:
who is Jesus?
Everybody is trying to put a label on Jesus, to pin down his identity.
The priests and Levites and the Pharisees were asking John the Baptist;
John called him the sacrificial Lamb of God.
His two disciples who went after Jesus, one of whom, Andrew,
describes Jesus to his brother Simon as the Messiah.
And Jesus refers to himself as simply Son of Man, son of humanity,
a servant to all human beings.
They [the two disciples of John the Baptist] said to him,
“Where do you live? Where are you coming from?”
And Jesus said to them,
“Come and you will see.”
This invitation in the first chapter of John’s gospel
is a key invitation, an entry point into the entire gospel,
an invitation into discovery of who Jesus is,
which is subsequently an invitation into relationship with him
and an invitation into seeing and knowing in a whole new way.
We are invited into a way of seeing
that becomes a shift in perspective
which will lead to some major changes
in how we then perceive ourselves,
and subsequently how we live our lives.
It is an invitation into a life-long spiritual adventure of great consequence.
It is an invitation of love, flowing out of the love of God
expressed through Jesus,
an invitation that was so intriguing and often confounding,
that it left people astonished, as the gospel passages so often record,
an invitation that couldn’t help but create a response
of one kind or another from all who encountered this person, Jesus.
For some it was a reactivity of resistance,
as though this invitation of great love were a threat.
Well, great love can be a threat,
where the intimacy, the intimate knowing that comes with love,
reaches into the dark recesses of the heart,
where that love begins to swallow up, eclipse both lover and beloved
and one’s separate self is seen to disappear into
the huge presence of this love.
To encounter God and God’s love is like meeting God face to face,
and, as they say, no one can meet God face to face, and survive.
I can give you an example of this from meditation practice.
I have seen this happen with many people
and I myself have experienced this.
In meditation there can be an expansion of awareness
that becomes vast beyond comprehension,
and in that vastness one loses a sense of being a distinct self,
and as loving as that hugeness may be,
the fear of the loss of the self that I identify with
causes a sudden contraction, a pulling away,
in a frantic effort to reconsolidate the old familiar known self.
So in meditation we sit and sit until love overcomes fear.
The invitation given in the Gospel reading
is to come and remain, abide, stay with Jesus.
The two disciples went with him, and they saw and they stayed with him,
and the word in Greek for seeing in this text
is not just the word used for normal sight,
but the word that means to see with deep understanding,
to get it! to have the light bulb come on.
to have a breakthrough in realization – to have an Epiphany!
So we have a picture from the Gospel reading
of a spiritual process of invitation and discovery
of finding God and finding ourselves in Jesus.
That process requires of us for our part
responding to the invitation,
moving from where we are now to a new spot
where we can then see in perhaps a way we have never seen before.
And when that happens, then things change in our lives,
there is healing, or there is reconciliation,
there may be an experience of liberation, new freedom,
and transformation that we know is a gift given us.
This is a way to describe the process of faith at work within us.
Now, besides the obvious implications of this Gospel for us personally today,
how does this passage speak to us at Nativity today?
Well, some of us have been engaged in small groups
reading Rowan Williams’ book, Being Christian.
This is one way to come and see where Jesus is staying, what he’s up to.
We have this team of people, the Baptized for Life team, here in the congregation
who are ministering to us
by taking leadership in providing opportunities
to do what this congregation has said you would like to have –
small groups where you can share with each other
personally and safely
as you figure out together how to follow Jesus more faithfully,
how to come into deeper relationship with Jesus
and into deeper relationship with each other,
because you KNOW that this is a way of loving God and loving neighbor
and, indeed, being able to love yourself as God loves you.
I will let them say more about all this to you at the announcement time
about what we have in the works for this year,
starting with Lent.
So what I am saying here today, folks, that I would like you to take home with you,
is to come and see where Jesus is staying and what he is up to
right where you live here and now.
And the two disciples “came and saw where he was at,”
it was revealed to them, they saw, they perceived it, they got it,
and they remained with him…
[because] it was 4:00 in the afternoon,
it was the 10th hour, the hour of prayer,
the time for the deep intimate communion
of being mindfully in the Presence of God.
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