Epiphany Lectionary 2; January 20, 2008; Bethel Lutheran Church, Rochester.
John 1:29-42.

Dear Friends in Christ, Grace to you and Peace, from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. AMEN.


Writer Robert Fulghum in his humorous book, Uh-Oh, tells about a neighbor of his who drives a brand-new Range Rover, a vehicle that Fulghum says “can outrun a lion and take a rhino charge head-on.”
One Tuesday morning Fulghum leaves his house about the same time as his neighbor. The neighbor is carrying a golf bag, a gym bag, a raincoat, an umbrella, a coffee cup, a sack of garbage for the dumpster, and his briefcase. He is in a hurry. Two little pieces of toilet paper stick to his chin from a hasty encounter with his razor and a knitted brow testify to a hasty encounter with his wife. But he is carrying that symbol of his success, his briefcase--solid-brass hardware, combination lock, lined with watered silk and his name embossed in gold. The prestigious bag probably weighs ten pounds.
A neighbor lady two doors down, a social worker for the Episcopal church, pulls out of her driveway about the same time as this businessman and Fulghum. The businessman cranks the engine of his Range Rover like he has the pole position at the Indy five hundred. He has forgotten that he has put his coffee cup and briefcase on the roof of the Range Rover, and there they remain as he drives away.
The lady neighbor is right behind him in her eight-year-old Just-Get-Me-There-and-Back-Please-God Ford sedan. Fulghum is behind her in his 1952 GMC two-ton Go-Ahead-and-Hit-Me panel truck. The lady begins to honk her horn at the Range Rover, which the man ignores because he is already on his cell phone talking to London. She keeps honking. He finally hears her, flings down the phone, leans out of the window, and makes an obscene gesture at her. She continues to honk while waving him to stop.
Fulghum, then, hits his horn which he salvaged off an old Model A. It goes AAAOOOGAAH. The man jams on his brakes, flings open the door of the Range Rover and tries to get out--without first unlatching his seat belt. At the same moment, his morning cup of coffee slides off the roof, bounces across the hood, and smashes onto the street. This is followed by the brass-bound briefcase, which crashes onto the hood and scrapes paint off as it screeches to the ground.
The dear lady coasts slowly around the scene of the accident, smiles, waves, sings out “Have a nice day!” to her neighbor still dangling from the car in the clutches of his seat belt. Let me quote Fulghum, “And, no, she did not, as you might anticipate, run over his briefcase. No, she did not,” he writes. “I did.” Fulghum reports the man is a little distant these days but his wife smiles and waves. Fulghum writes, “He’s not a bad guy. Like me, he takes on more than he can handle sometimes. Like me, he gets confused about what’s important. I see myself in his mirror. It’s less embarrassing to talk about how he runs his life than to talk about the cartoon quality of my own.”

Most doctors and life coaches would tell this man that there need to be some changes made in his life. He could continue charging around the planet like a lion in search of prey, but his life is likely to be cut short by stress and unhappiness.

Change. Did any of us believe that word could be a buzz word? It is a simple word that we use all the time. Change the channel. Change the diaper. Change into different clothes.

But that word could dictate who the next president of the United States is. Democrats aren’t the only ones using the word, though they are all trying to look like the biggest change agent in the country. Even the Republican candidates, of the same party as the current president, are constantly talking about change. I did a word search of the Rochester Post-Bulletin for just one day’s newspaper this past week, and a list of 59 uses of the word “change” came up. Oh, yes, 19 more uses of the word “changes”, and 11 more for “changed”. Eighty-nine uses in one day’s newspaper!

General wisdom is that people don’t like change, and yet it is something we seek! Doesn’t make sense, does it? Back in the days of John the Baptizer, John was preaching a message of change. “Repent!” he would cry. That obviously means changing one’s ways.

People were looking for the Messiah--they wanted change. John pointed to the Messiah. Twice in today’s Gospel lesson from John, this different John, John the baptizer points out Jesus to those around him by exclaiming, “Here is the Lamb of God!” The second time he points this out, two of John’s disciples follow Jesus. Evidently they are intrigued enough, they are interested enough in change, that they will follow a man said to be the Lamb of God. Jesus sees them following and asks what they want. They really don’t know, so they make up an answer—they want to see where Jesus is staying. Yeah. Good answer. But Jesus invites them anyway. They spend the day with Jesus. One of them is Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He finds Peter and tells him, “We have found the Messiah.” In other words, change is about to take place. Simon follows Andrew to Jesus, and Jesus changes his name to Peter. It is the start of a whole new church, a church that has progressed through the ages to this very church on this very day.

Without doubt you have heard some, “How many does it take to change a light bulb jokes?” There is even a religious version, and I pull out only the Lutheran part:
How many Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb?
There is some question here. But we have it on good authority that the Lutherans have appointed a committee to study the issue and report back at their next meeting.
-Or-
We read that we are to so fear and love God that we cannot by our own effort or understanding comprehend the replacement of an electromagnetic photon source. It is, rather by faith, NOT by our efforts, that we truly see, and that our own works cannot fully justify us in the presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Of course, it is still dark.
-Or-
None. Lutherans don't believe in change.

So is that it? We just don’t believe in change? That is the joke. Churches just don’t change. People don’t change. We complain about change.

Are we as hungry for change as the disciples in Jesus’ time? If John the baptizer were here today and pointed out the Lamb of God to us, would we follow because we wanted change in our lives? I suppose that some of us would follow, and some of us would not follow. Most of us, I believe, are more like Robert Fulghum—a man who recognizes his own deficiencies, even as he observes the shortcomings of others. We recognize them, or we wouldn’t be in this place looking for the Lamb of God. Some of you have been here for decades. Goodness, haven’t you found it yet? What are you still seeking? It could be that you recognize the fact that change is needed every day in our lives. You recognize that you need the Messiah in your life, and you come here every week for reassurance.

Others of you may be visiting here, or are watching over the television, wondering what it is that brought you to this place or made you stay on this channel. Maybe it is because something or someone like John has prompted you this week with a little teaser about the Lamb of God who is Jesus. You know that there is something more in life than working forty hours a week, perhaps caring for a family, paying the bills and keeping up a home. There is something more. And when you were enticed to follow the Lamb of God, you showed up. Maybe you don’t have the most intelligent question in the world, like John’s disciples who asked where Jesus was staying.

It doesn’t make any difference. Jesus is sincere in his invitation. Come and see. Come and see. Thank you for coming. Change awaits us every day in Christ. AMEN.