Stop Searching & Start Finding

Maybe we are searching to hard for the Messiah that we do not see God right in front of our eyes.

Easter Sermon

There is this inherit feeling in the human being that is always pushing us to search, Adam and Eve story touches a little bit on that, once it was in them the idea that they were not complete even tough God say that it was good…they went in pursue of that that they thought it was what they wanted.

Christianity is sold to us as that too…the answer to what we are missing is there and we come searching for that that will fill the whole in our lives.

For some it was the answer to pain, for others prosperity, for the mayority the assuarance that first: Somebody thinks that we are worth it and Second: Salvation

We search and search.

There is this BOOK about a man Called Siddhartha and his friend Govinda, both of them spend their life searching for Ilumination, at some point they parted ways, they started together, looking for the same thing, but the outcome was different. What was the difference?

· Quoth Siddhartha: “What should I possibly have to tell you, oh venerable one? Perhaps that you’re searching far too much? That in all that searching, you don’t find the time for finding?”

· “How come?” asked Govinda.

· “When someone is searching,” said Siddhartha, “then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don’t see, which are directly in front of your eyes.”

I believe that we, those that want to follow Jesus fell victims of that, we read Jesus story as a way of searching for salvation, and all we try is not to lose and all we do is pointing to people the ways thy are wrong and will be condemn.

Jesus was always talking in parables, sharing stories.

Good stories do more than create a sense of connection. They build familiarity and trust, and allow the listener to enter the storywhere they are, making them more open to learning. Good stories can contain multiple meanings so they're surprisingly economical in conveying complex ideas in graspable ways.

So petters tells a story:

Peter fairly exploded with his good news: “It’s God’s own truth, nothing could be plainer: God plays no favorites! It makes no difference who you are or where you’re from—if you want God and are ready to do as he says, the door is open. The Message he sent to the children of Israel—that through Jesus Christ everything is being put together again—well, he’s doing it everywhere, among everyone.

37–38 “You know the story of what happened in Judea. It began in Galilee after John preached a total life-change. Then Jesus arrived from Nazareth, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit, ready for action. He went through the country helping people and healing everyone who was beaten down by the Devil. He was able to do all this because God was with him.

39–43 “And we saw it, saw it all, everything he did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem where they killed him, hung him from a cross. But in three days God had him up, alive, and out where he could be seen. Not everyone saw him—he wasn’t put on public display. Witnesses had been carefully hand-picked by God beforehand—us! We were the ones, there to eat and drink with him after he came back from the dead. He commissioned us to announce this in public, to bear solemn witness that he is in fact the One whom God destined as Judge of the living and dead. But we’re not alone in this. Our witness that he is the means to forgiveness of sins is backed up by the witness of all the prophets.”[1]

Sermon:

Good stories do more than create a sense of connection. They build familiarity and trust, and allow the listener to enter the storywhere they are, making them more open to learning. They help us to understand things that in other ways might be incomprehensible fo us

Jesus himself, of course, told stories a good deal. The parables were designed to woo people in to a different world, a different way of looking at things. When the story finished, they were left somewhere quite different from where they had begun. They had changed, because their way of looking at the world had changed.

Jesus with his stories was teaching them to find, rather than to search, because in giving them the ability to find he was setting them free, opening their minds. People were in constant pursue of the Kingdom of heaven, while Jesus keep telling them: The Kingdom is near.

What do I mean? In their searching, they were not able to find.

Every time that Jesus got a question, he did not give a direct answer, he told stories, because they were so focus on searching for an answer that people could not see more than what they were searching for and ended with this feeling that Jesus was tripping.

The story that Peter shared had a powerful effect too, the message itself is powerful. The message is not about the ways you can get saved, which is what most people search for, ways to be saved and who is not. This message was about Jesus, who was murdered, crucified and risen. the one who is the Lord of the whole world. The message itself carries its own power.

Let’s break some things down:

The message was, first of all: Good news, so let me tell you this first; if I talk to you about Jesus, is not about you going to hell. Is actually Good news. When we talk about Jesus and Jesus’ resurrection was not about searching for the effect of how what jesus did made us saved,

rather was about a path to help us find God in this world and be God’s partner in it too.

Now, the story telling way in which petter shared this good news have the purpose or showing you a new way to see the world and from there to change you, because the world has change.

the resurrection of Jesus affirms that what he did and say is the way to go.

Now, Peter shares that God does not show favoritism, my first reaction was: BS to that, God has showed favoritism, at least from my point of view:

- Abel

- Abraham

- Issac

- Jacob

- Joseph

- Israel

- And go on!

Jesus life showed something like that too, you just need to pay atteing to the people he was hanging with: the oppress, sick, antagonizing the pharisees.

But if I give a closer look I wonder, was Jesus showing favoritismor was trying to bring the balance back into humanity. There is a reason why he said:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted, it was not because the rest are not blessed, is because these ones have been cursed at the hands of humanity and the system that rules it.

Let me putting in context. Please, do not close your ears? Is like the argument about the phrase: Black life matters; it is not because the rest of life don’t matter, is because there has been an unbalance and this lives have been left behind, we are trying to restore the balance, that equality.

We can say to Jesus, bro, you are mistaken, God loves all, All Lives Are Blessed, and he will get back to you and say: why are the poor poor? Why are people mouring? Why are the meek been imposed on? Why are people still waiting for righteousness? If there are merciful, why is the world runned by merciless? If there are peacemakers, does that mean that war is braking in or ? Why are people been persecuted?

Are you with me?

Jesus, singled out specific groups of people, no because the rest didn’t matter to him, but because that group did not matter to those in position of power or carrying priveledg, like the religious leaders of the time. Let’s be honest, things like that trouble people, because for those that are priviledge, equality looks like oppression.

Petter said:

“You know the story of what happened in Judea. It began in Galilee after John preached a total life-change. Then Jesus arrived from Nazareth, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit, ready for action. He went through the country helping people and healing everyone who was beaten down by the Devil. He was able to do all this because God was with him.

The story of the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus is about God’s grace and love for a humanity that was self-destructive, we search and search in that story, looking for Jesus, like the disciples did, but he was not there, eventually they encounter Jesus, and he left them, so they can start the work of finding.

We keep going back so hard to the cross, that we forget that Jesus is not there. We keep talking about the emty grave, and Jesus is not there anymore.

The cross means scarified, the empty tomb means resurrection, while Jesus means a way of living our lives. We read everything backwards, the story does start with the cross or with the tomb, does not even ends there…the story of Jesus starts in the way that petter told it: Good news, help and heal.

Isn’t interesting that we keep going back to the cross and talk about the resurrection, and salvation an all of those are things are out of our control?

Which, I thinkg, it might be because it makes us confortable.

We do not nail ourself to the cross, others do, we do not resurrect ourselves, God does, we do not save ourselves, God does!!

But if we talk about Jesus, suddenly our faith sucks, because God loves people, meaning we have to love them too, Jesus spent his time with rejected, mistreated and forgoten, so do we, Jesus loved and avoid judgment, then we have to do it too!

We made our faith are workless and flavorless faith because we do not want to do the work that the path demands. This works do not have to be done to be saved, Jesus already did, we do the works because we have to.

Jesus was not there anymore guided by the holy spirit ready for actions, he was not there around the country helping people and healing anymore, now it was them, the disciples that have to get it done.

Of all the things that happens in Jesus story, the resurrection and salvation are the only ones out of our hands, that is why petter talks about what jesus did: because, doing what he did, and living how he did is in our hand. It was their time, now, it is ours

Today, do not get stock looking at the cross and wondering over an empty tomb, don’t search for Jesus in the grave anymore, stop looking among the dead for the one that lives,

because Jesus found a group of people that needed to keep up the work he started and trust them to get it done.

Remember this: Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss so we’d know that someone’s public affection for Jesus might not be telling the whole story.

The message of easter today for you is: Stop searching, and start finding, be free and open, leave this place ready for action, help all people, heal all people, love all people, that is the best way to honor what this days reminds you of.

In the word of Jesus, when he is letting people know that are going with him, he told them: I

I was hungry and you fed me,

I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,

I was homeless and you gave me a room,

I was shivering and you gave me clothes,

I was sick and you stopped to visit,

I was in prison and you came to me.’

37–40 “Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’[2]

The story of Jesus is not about you, is about the whole world.Stop searching for Jesus where he is not, and start finding him in those outside of these door, because when you live today, this building will be like the empty tomb, We will not be here God will not be here, because God will be with us, serving God in those outside.

BENEDICTION

the task is ended go in pieces

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our concluding faith is being rear-ended certainty’s being amended and something’s getting mended that we didn’t know was torn

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we’re unravelling and are traveling to a place of new-formed-patterns, with delusion as a fusion of loss, and hope, and pain and beauty.

†

so,

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the task is ended go in pieces to see and feel your world.

[1]Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Ac 10:34–43. [2]Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Mt 25:35–40.