Gospel: John 1:29-42
Come and see.
In 1930 the 24-year-old pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, fresh from a stint ministering to a congregation of German expatriates in Barcelona, arrived in New York for a one-year residency at Union Theological Seminary. Having received the prestigious Sloane Fellowship, awarded to just three international students each year, Bonhoeffer came to Union for postdoctoral studies with some of the most important theologians of the day.
The Germany from which Bonhoeffer had come was still reeling from the effects of the First World War and the economic impacts of the Versailles treaty, and his early theology had been “conceived in the wounds of war.”[1] Now, in the United States, he was looking for something new in the realm of theology, but the experiences of his first several months disappointed him. In a country that itself was burdened by the crushing weight of the Depression, he found that “academic and church theology … continued to yield very little concrete insight for Christian living.”[2]
And then he received an invitation from his classmate Albert Fisher. Fisher, the son of a former pastor of the historic 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, asked him to come to Harlem and experience Christianity in a new way. It was through this invitation that Bonhoeffer was introduced to Jesus as he was encountered in the lives, worship, and work of the primarily black congregation at Abyssinian Baptist Church.
Come and see.
During his many visits to Harlem and Abyssinian, Bonhoeffer learned of the Jesus of hope looked to by a community feeling the weight not only of the Depression but of the marginalization and discrimination of the day. He shared in the lived experiences of a community who looked not only for the kingdom of God of their future, but who worked as a church inspired by Jesus to build up the world of their present. He was inspired by the preaching, literature, poetry, and work of those he encountered as well as many who were cornerstones of the Harlem Renaissance. He began to teach Sunday school classes. He let himself be washed over by the powerful hymns and spirituals of their faith tradition.
By the time he departed New York he had become fully aware that “fidelity to the life and ministry of Jesus depended on acknowledging life in this world and affirming that Christians should act to relieve suffering.”[3] It was this understanding he took back to Germany, a theology that in the coming years he not only preached but lived. It was a theology that led him to speak for those oppressed by tyranny, to work for the relief of the suffering of those in his own country who faced marginalization and discrimination, and ultimately to his death on the gallows just days before the end of the Second World War.
For Bonhoeffer, everything that came after was rooted in that invitation. Come and see.
Then we have Andrew and another disciple who in today’s Gospel reading had only moments before started to follow Jesus and answered that same call, offered in response to their inquiry about where he lived. Accepting the invitation led to so much more in the future than simply visiting a home. Seeing where Jesus lived led them to become witnesses to how Jesus lived – and for whom. Following Jesus led them to become observers of how Jesus worked – and for whom.
It began with these two disciples, then Peter, then grew to a group of twelve, and later still grew into a great cloud of witnesses. The nation into which Jesus had come was still reeling from the effects of Roman occupation, and those first disciples shared in the lived experiences of a world who looked not only for the kingdom of God of their future, but who looked to Jesus as one who could build up the world of their present. They watched as Jesus, time and again, reached out to the marginalized … the sick … the forgotten … the ignored. They watched as Jesus, time and again, called out the powerful, embraced the sinful, and loved the unlovable.
For the disciples and apostles, everything that came after was rooted in that invitation, one extended first by word and later through action and spirit. Come and see.
It’s important to note however, that the invitation of Jesus here in John is greater his just asking the two disciples to visit his home. Albert Fisher’s invitation to Dietrich Bonhoeffer was about more than coming to see how the community in Harlem lived and worshipped. These three words are a challenge to faith – the faith of the disciples, the faith of Bonhoeffer, and yes, our faith. Come and see is about far more than following and observing; it’s about “those who come to Jesus … those who look on him and … those who believe in him.”[4] It’s about coming to Jesus and especially about coming with Jesus on his journey. It’s about seeing who Jesus is and especially about seeing what Jesus does. For those early disciples and for Bonhoeffer, it’s about witnessing and experiencing how Jesus comes to the communities of the oppressed and downtrodden and elevates, relieves, and renews them.
Now, to us and to the community and world we see, know, and inhabit, Jesus once again speaks those words. Come and see.
Come and see who I am and those to whom I go. Come and see the love I bring to those for whom love is absent. Come and see the freedom I bring to those for whom freedom is an abstraction. Come and see the protection I bring to those who are defenseless. Come and see the food I bring to those who still hunger. Come and see the world I promise and the world for which others can only pray. Come and see the light I bring to the darkness in which others live.
In short, Jesus’ invitation to us – his challenge to us – is simple. Come and bring love. Come and bring freedom. Come and bring protection. Come and bring food. Come and bring healing. Come and bring light. This is the call to us, in every hour of every day. When we hear the call, how will we answer? I pray we always answer in a way that echoes strongly with those looking to us as the Church and as a community acting and living faithfully. I pray others look at us and how we work for others and hear their own call.
Come and see.
Amen.
[1] Reggie L. Williams. Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance, p. 8.
[2] Williams, p. 17.
[3] Williams, p. 95.
[4] Raymond E. Brown. The Gospel According to John: I – XII, p. 79.