“Is There Salvation for the Old?”

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

happy-old-people1Our U.S. culture was right all along.  It’s all for the youth preferably under 30.  Baby Boomers and those older may spend all the healthcare but there’s a reward for the young in heaven.  Heaven is reserved for the young.  Running, walking straight, perfect vision and hearing, limbs all in tact, always awake and alert with a crisp mind…who does Jesus think he is?  (Didn’t he live just 33 years?)

Just listen to your Bible and decide for yourself.  St. Paul says “he’s run toward the goal and he’s run a good race.”  (I don’t like walking to my car!)  St. Matthew says, “If you have ears to hear.”  (What’s all this about “years.”  I don’t get it!)  He also says, “God has blessed you, because your eyes can see and your ears can hear!”  (Thirty years ago that passage might have meant something to me.)  “If you have ears, pay attention!”  ( I have ears but that’s not the problem!)  St. Mark wisely asks, “Are your eyes blind and your ears deaf?”  (Yes!  That’s what I’m trying to tell you.)

Back to Matthew, “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, chop it off and throw it away!”  (If I could feel it, I would.  Or, if I could reach it, I would.)  Matthew again, “And don’t carry a traveling bag or an extra shirt or sandals or a walking stick. Workers deserve their food.”  (Then let me starve because my cane is my new-found friend and I don’t want my “foot to slip” as the Bible says.)  Matthew once more, “A little while before morning, Jesus came walking on the water toward his disciples.”  (Water’s easy.  Try walking  down the hallway toward the dining room without stopping!)

“Stay awake for you know not the hour!” the Bible says.  (Good luck with that.  That’s the best part of my day is the slow slumber with a book in my lap. Most days I think it’s afternoon when it’s still morning.)

Cut out your eye?  Life’s already done that for me regardless of my past sins.  Cut off your hand?  I knew I shouldn’t have had all those Florida vacations.  There’s no need to cut it off.

Thankfully there’s little mention of a dwindling mind since mine is frozen in the 60’s.  (Peter’s three-time denial of Jesus would have me say, “What did I say the first time?”)

Hearing can be relative when I announce that Confessions are Friday at 4:00 p.m. and there’s not a peep.  I say Friday’s Cocktail Party is cancelled and suddenly a hearing miracle occurred.  “Praise the Lord!”

Faith tells us when there’s less of you then there’s more room for God to enter our lives.  Boomers and those even far older have a lot of room for the saving and loving presence of God to fill in emptying eyes, selective hearing, wobbling legs, a slow, staggered walk but also have strong hearts for a body that is growing old but is always ready to receive the Body of Christ.

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Fourth Sunday in Catholic Ordinary Time: “Evil, Me?”

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

Good_vs_Evil_by_umerr2000It’s great to be a sinner. I’m glad to be a sinner.

How much of our lives are in search of a sinless existence?  “Someday!”  “Just one more rosary!”  “Just one more indulgence fulfilled!”  “Just two more good deeds and I’m sinless forever!”  There’s only two recorded cases of sinless people as far as I know (and only Catholics believe one of them is Mary, although the majority don’t really think about it much.)

But we are sinners.  And throughout our lives we lament, remorse, guilt-ridden, harbor and fight with ourselves over what, our nature?  We do not have a sinless nature, otherwise we were not born from the loins of Adam and Eve.  But we were.

I wouldn’t want to be sinless.  Know why?  Because then I wouldn’t know what evil or wrongdoing is like.  I’d be immune and oblivious to it because I would only know good.  (Are my wings and halo showing?)

We ought to be celebrating our sins because it leads us daily to God.

Sinless folks don’t worry about a union with God since it is already present.  We, however, in our sinful, nefarious ways and behavior know all about sin, transgressions and other sordid selfish acts that cause us to discover and rediscover a forgiving and loving God.

Does a sinless person rely on a forgiving God?  Of course not. Why would he/she?

Today’s gospel (Mark 1:21-28) presents a problem that has always puzzled me.  It is always the demons and unclean spirits that recognize who Jesus is and what he’s about.  “Get away from me, Jesus of Nazareth!” and “What do you want from me?” are strewn throughout the gospels.  It is because of their evil that they know and question the good. It is because of the evil they have chosen.  You can only choose if you have a choice.  Sinless people have no choice. Evil people choose not to do good, to be good.  It is because of their evil that they’ve become uncomfortable, unsettling roaming spirits with no place to call home.

When I visited the Dachau concentration camp it was a haunting experience.  I knew what to expect but I couldn’t help but wonder with Munich, a major metropolitan city, only a short 30 minute train ride away what it meant to those German citizens during those dark, evil years.  As Christians, they knew about the goodness and love of God…most of our famous Christian theologians are German.  Yet…yet… and I don’t have an answer, only the question.

Why?  Because I’m a sinner too!  How else could I know what warped and skewed thinking they were thinking when Christian tolerance condoned and even encouraged outrageous acts.

The prayer between the “Our Father” and the concluding doxology still bothers me in the new translation of the Mass.  It says, “free us from all sin.”  I don’t want to be free from all sin.  I don’t want to be sinless.  I want to keep sinning in order to know about the good or evil that I can choose to discard and when good is forgotten to feel the forgiveness of God.  I want to keep sinning so I can recognize evil when I see it and then call it by its proper name.

I want to keep sinning so that I can tell the difference between good and bad.

The beginning of the Easter Vigil has that beautiful, sung prayer when the priests sings, “Oh, happy fault of Adam’s sin.”  How happy we can be in the forgiving and powerful peace that God offers us each and every day.

I don’t know about you but I know about me.  Right after Mass I most likely will commit a sin between 11:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.  Why?  Because I’m a sinner and I like that.

I sin, God forgives.  It’s not an endless cycle unless you want it to be.  It is called moving from an unclean spirit to one that is trying his best to know the difference between evil and good.  And then choosing the good.

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How Long Is A “Moment?”

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

TheMomentHorizon2The Easter season is full of joy except it’s never a season but a belief, a hope, a promise. Easter joy is a moment because I believe a moment is the only timed word without a time or limit. Ask anyone how long a moment lasts and they’ll give you that weird look like asking how fish breath.

It’s got to be in the top three of my favorite words. It is timeless but controlled.  Limitless but has an end. It has a specific beginning but you never know the end.

The worst of all “moments” is the nurse’s departing comment, “The doctor will be with you in a moment.” “Oh good,” I say to myself as that good feeling melts into wondering if he’s reading a medical journal to hone up on my medical procedure. I’ve already read the Pain Barometer poster and the other poster of what a wonderful hospital this is and that cheesy, tranquil picture I’d never hang in my home. I’ve seen the stuff that he’s about to use on me but refuse to examine it for fear of knowing too much.

So, what’s left while lying on my back, half naked and staring up at the ceiling tiles and refusing to count them for fear of being labeled obsessive compulsive. How many moments have passed since I was told it would only be one of them by the kind nurse who is now telling the next victim (I mean “patient”) that “it’ll be a moment before the doctor arrives.”

Ceiling tiles provide a wonderful opportunity to examine my life. I wonder now if the spinach my mother encouraged but I ignored could have avoided this visit. “When did this all begin,” I ponder to myself since that word moment now becomes plural. Lying there, I become the waiting-for-the-doctor in diagnosing my own problem. “I looked this up,” I say to myself after reading one online article instead of the six extra years after college that the waiting-for-doctor has invested.

My moment feels like forever when forever is something in an unknown future. A moment with a good friend feels like one second while wishing for a second or third moment more. A moment playing with a six-year old lives eternally in your mind even when he asks for the car keys at seventeen.  The moment a 65 year marriage ends is one that continues counting for the rest of her life.

You can elude, avoid or put off whatever you like and you can also savor, never forget and hold deeply and tightly within yourself that once fleeting but eternal yet temporal word, “moment.”

My dad, self-employed, cleverly put a sign on his door at lunchtime, “Back in moment.”  He had nice, long lunches.

The doctor enters the room and says, “I bet you’d rather be 100 places other than here right now.”  I respond, “I bet you say that to every patient.” He replies, “Yeah.” Afterwards, he leaves the room by saying, “Your day can only get better now, and yes I say that one every time too.”

I’m okay, but I had a moment with those ceiling tiles. If I died St. Peter would ask me, “Did you see the light?” I’d say, “No, I saw ceiling tiles and they weren’t all straight!” I saw my life’s recollections about my life, my extensive medical experience (one or two articles), my regrets (few, but still!) and happiness’s (more moments than there are moments) and my half-clothed body waiting for the moment when this moment would finally end.

What is Easter joy and how long does it last? Please give me a moment to think about that one. Thank you.

 

book_list

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“Body, Mind & Spirit?” Good Luck

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

Spirit Mind Body 1Three new buzz words put together to “wow” you into whatever program or purchased service is offered to you, usually when you’re older.

What better unity than one between “body, mind and spirit.”  However reading St. Paul you’d think the body is the least of the three with “spirit” winning our attention.  Never mind that mind is not mentioned much by Paul, it was the division between body and spirit that captures his words.  (Is that his problem or ours?)

The Catholic Church encourages a diminished body making way for the spirit that needs development and then finding a oneness with God.   I recall many seminary classes when St. Paul is discussed and how the lowering of the body is replaced by an emphasis on the spirit.  (I always thought it was an awkward division but I needed at least a “B,” so I bought into it.)

We’ve all seen movies where, in the name of God, the body is mortified to the glory of the spirit as though there’s a division and constant struggle between the two.

As often happens in theology, the thinking is great but the application very often fails.  Creating a division between body and spirit is our first problem.

When you’re young, your body is a physical object to be tested and tested again in both sports and alcohol.  “How much?” is the unconscious question repeatedly asked by a youthful 18 year old.  The tested body of an 80 year old seeks a spirit to make sense of the body’s aches and pains that match her age.  (“If God wanted me to live this long, then why didn’t He…” is often said but never answered.)

The referee to all of this is the mind.  The body may yell and we may yearn for the spirit but the mind is the middle piece that somehow unites the three.

I don’t wish the mind to be in control because it never is, it’s too influenced by all kinds of stuff out there and has a difficult time processing it all.  That’s where the body steps in to help inform the overwhelmed mind.  That’s where the spirit haunts the mind until it is reckoned with.

Save your money.  There is no program or service that can unite three totally different pieces of life.  Trying to combine them makes for a great looking ad campaign or a healthcare slogan but the work is done through our own personal prayer life, and it’s free.  In youth we have a growing mind controlled by the body with little regard to the spirit.  In later life we have a failing body and a history-ladened mind that is searching for fulfillment through the spirit.  Who’s right?

Well, I guess it depends what age you are.

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“The Green Screen”

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

thMost of you have probably heard of the “green screen” that’s used in movies as a background for whatever and where ever the director wishes it to be.  De Niro is not in Dublin solving a series of murders but safely in front of a “green screen” that shows whatever city he enters.  Even walking down the streets of Algiers is nothing more that walking down a carefully selected path in a safe sound studio with a turkey sandwich waiting for you in your trailer when you’re done.

Just look at a character’s shoulders and you can see how clean and neat it appears yet slightly not in union with the background.  Welcome to money saving location shots.  Fake?  yes.  Realistic?  You bet, these guys have perfected the art of imperfection.  Fooled?  Not if you’re drawn into the story and don’t even notice that Pacino is not inside a bank.  Acting?  I imagine that this is more acting than actually being in Algiers which would help your character development.  Standing in front of a green screen with a fan blowing demands some kind of acting, doesn’t it?

I’ve been ordained a priest less than a day and my first Mass is in the parish’s convent next door to the rectory.  My real official “First Mass” isn’t for another two months but the resident priests didn’t feel like having Mass for the nuns less than my 24 hour dripping wet ordination.  So, I carefully follow the book to honor my first “out there” experience to a group of nuns who do this everyday.  The consecration prayers come up and I expect a little Algiers-action or at least some smoke behind me.  Nothing happened.  The nuns are silent with heads bowed and I’m speaking the words of Jesus.  (I had longer hair then and a little fan to my left might have helped those powerful words be delivered.)

The Mass ended, the nuns were content with their daily ritual and it’s 8:30 a.m. in the morning and there’s no turkey sandwich waiting for me in my trailer with my name on the door (along with a star!) and the director telling me that the first take was the best.  It was just another Mass for another group that expected another Mass for a new day.

After 34 years I’d still like the “green screen” to accentuate this ordinary daily Mass experience.  Alas, I only have the same old crowd, doing the same daily ritual and calling upon the extraordinary power of God to be the “green screen” I don’t have behind me.

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Christianity’s “Hub”

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

World_Logistics_Hub__Manchester_Airport_City__2_Airlines ingeniously came up with one place for a convergence of multiple airplanes and then send them forth to their respective destinations.  Travelers don’t care for it much but it enabled airlines to reduce direct routes and then redirect to the traveler’s final destination.

Now.  Replace “airlines” with “Christian religions” and you have the beginning of something big.  Most Christian churches honor a week of “Christian Unity,” the last week of January each year.  (Catholics believe that this week of prayer will make everyone Catholic as I’m sure the Lutherans do.)  But that’s not the point.  The point is the convergence.  You’ll love the biological definition of convergence, “the tendency of unrelated animals and plants to evolve superficially similar characteristics under similar environmental conditions.”  (We’re the animals, by the way, and the plants is what’s been cemented in our religiously rigid minds since the beginning of religion.)

I’ve grown to love the Atlanta hub.  It’s always hubbing with hordes of folks departing one plane and hurrying to find the next only to end up bored with the endless waiting for their next flight.  I love absorbing the hurried hustle and short swings to avoid the cart carrying the older adult and I’m wondering how I can get a cart like that.

And I love C18 which is one of the few places to smoke between flights.  You don’t even need to light your own, just walk inside and inhale.  In this room of folks waiting for this moment for the past hour or two hours or even four hours captures the Christian spirit.  (Catholics and Episcopalians  would call it incense, but that’s just us.)  It’s uncomfortable at first because she may think I’m about to steal her purse (I guess I have that look).  Slowly, a common thing is discussed and the door is now open.  “What about this Virgin forever stuff,” may be a question.”  I’d come back with, “What about this ‘justification by faith alone’ that you guys hold on to so tightly?”  She’d replied, “So everything the pope says is infallible?” followed by my “We don’t kneel as often as you may think, especially when you get older.”

That’s the biological “superficial” stuff but it’s the “characteristics” and “environmental conditions” that lead us to a deeper conversation.  I’d tell her that if I were born Lutheran, I’d be a good Lutheran today and she suspiciously looks at me as though I’m mocking her.  “Wouldn’t you be a good Catholic today if your parents were…”  She doesn’t answer but I know her answer.

Many “mixed religions” as they’re called in marriage sometimes ends up with, “Well, he gave in because it was too tough going to two churches.”  Hardly a conversion moment to share on Oprah but environmentally speaking a good one.

She and I finish our cigarettes and notice the time of our respective departures.  She smiles at me and thanks me but I thank her at the same time.

She gets on her Lutheran plane to some Lutheran place and I hop on my Catholic plane.  We converged, for a brief moment.  She may think of our conversation on her Lutheran plane because I’m confident that I’ll recall our short talk on my “one true faith” plane.

Did we merge?  No, that’s not the point.  We converged.  “Characteristics” and “environmental conditions” prohibited us from merging.  But that’s what a hub is for.  Perhaps the next time we could talk about those characteristics and environmental barriers while sharing a hub moment in Atlanta’s C18.

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Hope: Virtue of Verb?

Posted on January 25, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

hopeMy dad always told us young kids that there should always be something waiting for you.  His words were more like, “If you have it now, then what?”  So each of the five of us needed to wait for “my” bike or an extended curfew.  If you have everything you’ve always waited then perhaps you have a lot of stuff to dust each week.

An aphorism says that if your dreams are more than your achievements then being young will always be yours.  I wouldn’t want to be young again but I get the point.  Picture this: five 90 year old women are having a two hour breakfast and talk the whole time.  If I ease drop, which I do from time to time, the topics change quicker than the time it took me to write this sentence.  It begins with the Packers fatal defeat to the evening’s dinner offerings to what happened to the waiter they all liked to “are you going to share that leftover or not?”, to a grandchild’s recent success followed by a sad story of a floundering grandchild and then admiring a necklace that she always wanted to buy but couldn’t find and is now worn by one of the five.

I truly dislike exaggerated phrases that abuse this already abused language.  “Totally unique” is utterly impossible and expecting “110% involvement” from my boss is mathematically  just weird and “awesome” used at any time as an adjective is just dumb and even dumber as a stand-alone noun.  The one I love the most is, “we’re a team” as the director directs us toward the direction she had before she entered the meeting.  “Yeah, right.”

The reason for your reading this far is about hope.  It’s one of my favorite words next to grace.  Both words need to be used cautiously because they are powerful words.  Misusing them only confuses people and diminishes the word’s power.  And, we all know that words have power.  “I love (or hate) you” travels miles in a relationship.  The hope for a Packer victory next season cheapens as does a hope for a mild Wisconsin winter.

“I hope she calls me.”  (That’s called horny.)
“I hope my stock goes up.”  (That’s poor investing, try an Indian casino instead.)
“I hope my lottery number wins.” (That’s called, well you fill in the blank.)

“I hope my son does well in college or that my chemo treatments work.”  That’s hope.  My dad was right.  We all need something to look forward to, anticipate.  That’s the hope that anyone can hope for.

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“Unity? Hardly,” Third Sunday in Catholic Ordinary Time, Mark 1:14-20

Posted on January 24, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

“(Jesus) walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.  They too were in a boat mending their nets.  Then he called them.  So they left their father…”

thEverybody’s right and everybody else is wrong depending on the hotly debated position you hold dearly at the expense of those you hold dearly.   What better way to consider this then through a song.

Uh huh, hmm hmm
Gonna get along without you now
Uh huh, hmm hmm
Gonna get along without you now

I blame cable’s acrimonious news which I can barely watch anymore.  Three people talking at once is not a good way to become informed for someone in his 60’s.  It’s the old adage does television mimic us or vise versa.  I think it’s the latter.  Television legitimates behavior by showing us in HD that’s it’s okay to use the “f” word as either a noun, adjective or verb (all done in one sentence, by the way) to the revolutionary view of a married couple in bed together (aka Bob Newhart).

You told me I was the neatest thing
You even asked me to wear your ring
You ran around with every girl in town
You didn’t even care if it got me down

But that’s beside the point, the origin of this division.  We’ve all had strong views since time’s beginning and that’s a good thing.  What scares me now is that we all seem to be comfortable in our divided sides and smug in our little positions about big issues.  We label each other after one sentence and then freeze that label in place for all further conversations.  “Oh, she’s on that side,” we quickly ascertain in three seconds.

Got along without you before I met you
Gonna get along without you now
Gonna find somebody who is twice as cute
‘Cause you didn’t want me anyhow

Politics, church, personal behavior – the category doesn’t matter, it’s only our behavior toward another person that matters.  I’ll be the first to admit I implement the preceding paragraph quickly and easily which is why it was so easy to write.  I walk away from a dividing topic with a friend surprised at my abruptness and cavalier feeling while also feeling a slight nausea inside like a piece of pizza that haunts you two hours later.  I’m happy for that delayed feeling because that’s the hope in both country and church.  I haven’t experienced an argument being settled in its heat.  We are then caught and need to protect our views and thoughts even when an opposing view slowly makes sense and causes us to nuance our view.  (I believe that’s called “communication.”)

You told everybody that we were friends
But this is where our friendship ends
‘Cause all of a sudden you even changed your tune
You haven’t been around since way last June

So long my honey, goodbye my dear
Gonna get along without you now

The sandbox of life is only so big and we all need to fit in it and play in it well.  Throwing sand at each other is fun when you’re ten but when the sand becomes divisive and absolute words are thrown about then we all need a bit of nausea from time to time.

I still have strong views about our country and church but believe that my nausea is soften by also believing that I’m a little right and I’m a little bit wrong.

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Funeral Sermon for a Mother

Posted on January 20, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

mother-inspirational-dailyShe’s the beginning and she is never the end. She starts and then she endures.

She is the wisest of all creatures, carries you where ever she needs to be herself – feeds, clothes and proudly places your distorted drawing of an elephant on the refrigerator door; the “Hall of Fame” in every home.

She’s your mother. No matter her achievements or accomplishments outside the home, whether in a big or small job, her dying thought with be as “mother.” She creates as God creates, she sustains as God sustains, and she is sometimes not at her best, as God has also shown us about Himself.

Bishop Oscar Romero said, “We plant the seeds that one day will grow.  We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.”

What a minute! Are we talking about mother or are we talking about God now? Seeds, planting, future promises, laying foundations and yeast? Isn’t that God’s job? Or is God’s job, mother’s job?

Add an “s” to the “m” in mother and you discover it’s high time you find a place of your own. Take away the “m” and you’re talking about everybody else’s because you only have one mother.

In my young, caustic days as a priest, an elderly woman came into the sacristy and said that she would be my grandmother. I told her that my grandmother died. Not the best thing to say as I think back now but I did not need a second “grand” or “mother.”

The qualities of motherhood are qualities we all wish we owned and practiced. Whether achieved by our individual mothers doesn’t matter; the qualities still stand as important and worth achieving.

Not to bore you with a list of ten (for lists always contain ten items), I give you three qualities – patience, anticipation, and resignation. I did not promise you the easiest of qualities but whatever the other seven are, they follow these three words.

A mother’s patience is envious to me. She knows what needs to be done and yet it may take many minutes or months more before the child gets it. It’s that first step, a referee for bathroom visits whether it’s “number one or two,” the first properly held fork, the kneeling at the right times during Mass and “that” girlfriend” you’re seeing who isn’t right for you. A mother is patient, even if she is wrong. She will patiently wait for you to make her wrong, right even if you were truly right. (Only a son can appreciate that sentence.)

Anticipation is the second and easiest, and resignation, the third, is the hardest. “The world is yours,” she tells you constantly as though oysters grow on trees and her resignation for all the decisions she doesn’t make for you but are uniquely yours whether done in success or error.

For all of us which one is the most difficult for a mom to achieve? If I can guess I’d say “resignation” because of its power to set someone you love free without judgment, evaluation, restriction or consequence. “Patience” is a learned quality that may be achieved or not and “anticipation” is the easiest because it is always an unknown future we can safely imagine. “Resignation” is what our Creator God needed to do for us and what mothers reluctantly give in to us. In the Church, we call it “free will” but in mother’s case she’d say, “I think you’re wrong but what can I say?!”

The Catholic Church calls itself “mother” as though it can replace our birth mothers.  Nature claims “mother” as its adjective as though we need to protect her now as much as she protected us. And we love the phrase “the mother of all inventions” because of the anticipation and hope all mothers have for each of their children.

Bishop Romero also says, “We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it well.” I suspect that being God is a pretty big job. I know that being “mother” is also a pretty big job with lots of successes and failures. But that’s the beauty of any laid foundation – we build upon, revise it, sometimes repeat the same mistakes but we plant, influence and water this great gift of life. And, don’t forget to add plenty of yeast. We do this for ourselves and we provide this to our children and gently coach those around us.

Women have told me they lament that they are not able to have children but I’ve learned that motherly qualities are not restricted to childbearing. Each of us can “give birth” to what the Creator gave the created to create, “patience, anticipation, and resignation.”

But I’m still not sure if I’ve been talking about God or about mothers?

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. All available on Amazon.com

“Soulful Muse,” inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,” inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture

Newest books include:
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up

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John 1:35-42, “Second Sunday in Ordinary Catholic Time”

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

john-bapt-435 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” 37 The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. 38 Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come, and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.40 Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus. 41 He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Christ). 42 Then he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

John was standing with two of his disciples and as he watched Jesus walk by he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” or as we’d say today, “There he is.”  The two disciples heard what John said and followed Jesus.

(John is now minus two disciples.  He needs to buy an ad to replace them and training the new disciples will set him beyond the fiscal year’s budget.)

Jesus turns to his newly stolen-from-John disciples and says, “What are you looking for?”

(They reply, “A strong 401K, with Roth IRA investment and deferred tax benefits while on missionary work, a per diem that includes a rental donkey with AM/FM radio, and a small 4-bedroom loft overlooking the sea of Galilee.)

They said to Jesus, “Rabbi, which translates Teacher, where are you staying?”  Jesus said, “Come, and you shall see.”

(As we all know, Jesus was staying at a manger scene that first block the altar but then was lowered for economic purposes.  He’s now staying with friends because of the “no walking stick or second tunic” line that he mentions later on.)

Andrew was one who abandoned John for Jesus for his better benefits which now includes medical/dental which John promised but never delivered and brings along his brother Peter.  He tells his brother that he’s found the Messiah, which translate into “Christ.”  Why he didn’t say “Christ” in the first place eludes readers of the gospel.  Jesus then looks at Peter, ignoring his newest, first employee Andrew and says “You are Simon the son of John, you will be called Cephas which translates into Peter.

Now let’s see what we have here.

The Baptist loses two committed employees who switch to the their new employer with the promise of advancement which is the same promise that John made to them.  The two new guys then want to know where Jesus lives but also want their own time-share 4-bedroom as well.  They call Jesus “Rabbi” which means teacher, then call him “Messiah” which means Christ, then Simon becomes Cephas for only two seconds before him name is changed to Peter.

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There appears to be lots of promises made in this short gospel passage.  Lots of promises and hopes and dreams.  And, lots of translating when they could have just said, “Teacher,” “Christ” and “Peter” and skip all the translating.

Lots of switching employers during a big economic depression.  Lots of promises, hopes and dream being thrown about.

And all done in the simple statement that could have saved us all this time “translating” with the simplest and most powerful question asked of anyone in life, “What are you looking for?”
And our response to our own question is, “Can Jesus deliver?”  Or has he already.

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