“I remember
when…”
“Daddy (or
Mommy, or Granddaddy, or Grandmommy), tell me a story…”
Something
happens when we tell a story. The people who study this kind of thing tell us
that when we tell a story, especially one that might begin with “Once upon a
time,” something amazing happens inside our brains. With the right equipment
researchers can see it as it happens… right before their very eyes! It is as if
a different part of the brain from the parts we use every day is activated and
energized. We are not just talking about facts; we are painting images in our
minds and turning them into words.
Once upon a
time, my father had a study with a drafting table and an old oak teacher’s
desk, and on this desk was an old tabletop AM/FM/SW radio about the size of a
modern-day microwave oven with a set of ‘rabbit ear’ antenna on top. At that
drafting table, he would sit on a tall metal chair under a goose neck lamp,
with mechanical pencils, a T-square, various tools, and a slide-rule, working
on these great big drawings of I-don’t-know-what except that I was absolutely
certain that he was drawing plans that would one day land a man on the moon!
On Saturdays,
when he would work in the study, he would set me up with my own little drafting
table near his, and I would sit and make my own designs for fantastic machines.
Together,
we’d listen to a Red Sox baseball game over that big radio while he worked. He
taught me keep a box score… a record of every play of a baseball game. And in
filling out a box score, I learned that you did not need a television to
visualize a baseball game, just a careful ear, imagination, and a yellow number
two pencil.
Stories are
important parts of our lives. They tell us who we are, what is important to us
and how we understand ourselves. The stories could be from books or movies or
plays or shows or comic books. The stories might happen around a dinner table,
or at bedtime. They might be fantastic tales of romance or adventure, or they
could recall something as simple as a family picnic, a day at the beach, a day
at work, or a funny thing that happened at the store.
How many
times have you heard a group of people who have all seen the same play in the
same ball game tell each other exactly what they saw? They might do it
immediately right in the stands or during the commercial break or the next day
at work. Or how many times have you seen a group of people talk about a really
great movie or tv show? These are not simply sharing information or confirming
that the other person saw what they saw. They are drawing us into their
experience.
All of
today’s scripture readings are about what it means to be God’s storytellers. We
are invited by God to share good news and to tell what we have seen and heard.
In Isaiah, the prophet says that before the servant was born, he was called to
be one in whom God would be glorified. He is called to be a light, and not only
to Israel, but to the whole world.
"I will
give you as a light to the nations," God says to the servant in Isaiah,
"that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." Salvation is
not just for those who know the story. It's for those who are going to hear it
for the first time wherever they may be.
The Psalm
today says, "I have spoken of your faithfulness and your
deliverance." And Paul talks of his apostolic calling and "the
calling of the Corinthians to give testimony to Christ, to tell of him."
I
particularly love today’s Gospel story. Right after that great hymn to the
Logos, the word of God, the one we heard on Christmas Day, is a story of how
people experience and then tell the story of the Logos to others.
In today’s
Gospel, Matthew tells us that there’s a whole line of people who tell each
other they have seen Jesus and who they think Jesus is. John the Baptist points
to Jesus and because of that two of his followers, John, the Beloved Disciple,
and Andrew decide to peel off to follow Jesus. Then Andrew tells Peter who then
goes to Jesus who, after meeting him, follows him too. Next, in a part of the
Gospel we don’t get to hear today, Jesus calls Philip, who then goes and tells
his brother Nathaniel, who—while scoffing—goes to see to Jesus anyway and
because Jesus knows him, he decides to follow Jesus too. In all of this we,
too, are invited to “come and see” and to tell what we have seen and heard.
This is how
the Logos, Jesus, is God’s Own Best Expression of Godself, works. This is how
he is made known – through people who tell the story! At the end of the first
chapter of John, Jesus describes the process to Nathaniel, it is just like
Jacob’s vision of angels ascending and descending to earth from heaven on a
heavenly ladder. God comes to our world, but no one knows it until, we go and
tell. This is how God’s word works: when people who have discovered God’s love
and learned God’s love have also shared God’s love.
When we tell
our Gospel story it becomes a part of us. The sharing of how God is in our
lives makes us more conscious, more aware of how God is at work in us now.
Human beings are storytellers. We are wired to tell stories because it is how
we make meaning out of living. And we tell these Gospel stories because we are
also wired to be at home with God. We are looking for a home. Looking for a
place to be.
In the middle
of today’s Gospel, Jesus asks the two disciples "What are you looking
for?" That question is for us, too. "What are you looking for?"
It’s kind of an odd question, really. He doesn’t ask "What do you
want?" He asks, “What are you looking for?” The heart of the story that they meet Jesus,
and he meets them!
The Gospel is
not just about information. Anyone today can look on Wikipedia, search on
Google, or go to the library and find all the information they want. We don’t
lack for information. No, the Gospel is compelling because it tugs our hearts
much as much as our minds.
Notice also
that two disciples did not ask Jesus, “what are you doing?” Instead, they
asked, "Where are you staying?" Yes, the disciples were curious, but
what they are looking for is a different
kind of information. They are looking for a place to be, a place to rest, a
place—a person with whom the can “abide.”
And that’s
what we are all looking for—often without knowing it—a place to stay, a place
to be.
Once upon a
time, the poet Kathleen Norris moved to the plains of South Dakota, where her
family had lived and had deep roots. One day, she went to a tavern and had a
conversation with an old cowboy, who sought her out because she was from
"one of the old families." He wanted to tell her about a side saddle
he owned, made by his great grandfather as a wedding present some 150 years
before. She tells of how they mused awhile on the subject of their ancestors,
when suddenly the old man said, "Who are we and where do we come
from?" That's the real question, isn't it? Before Norris could reply, he
smiled and said, "And here we are telling each other lies."
"Stories!" she said, laughing. "Call them stories!"
"Stories!" he nearly shouted back, pounding one hand on the bar.
"That's who we are!"
One of the
things I have discovered and enjoyed the most in my ministry is both parishes
and in hospitals over the years is the variety of stories that have been shared
with me, in homes, hospital rooms, small groups, and in congregations. All
these encounters with God in Christ happen in a variety of ways and in a
variety of places and they are made alive as we share stories.
All of us
have a Gospel story. A story of how God came to us, met us when we needed to
meet God the most, or broke through our pain, our addiction, or our stuck place
to breathe new life into us. Maybe we are living that story now, and we are
still turning the page wondering how it will turn out. In any event, God in
Christ meets us as we are and where we are to take us home, to the place God is
preparing for us even now.
In today’s
Gospel, we hear Jesus ask Andrew and John, the Beloved Disciple, "What are
you looking for?" Jesus is asking us that question, too. To people who
wondered if they had a place in Jesus’ story, he says, as he said to those
first disciples, “Come and see.”
The thing
that moves people from "What are you looking for?" to "Come and
see" to “We have found the Messiah!” is the story the Church is called to
tell. It is, in fact, the only story the Church has to tell! For
all the things we do, for all the activity, for all our programming, for all
our ministries, and for all our worship, the only thing we have to offer is the
story—our Gospel stories of our encounters with Jesus—from which we draw hope,
strength, power, and direction. You all have a Gospel story where you share
Good News and tell what you have seen and heard. And the story is being written
as we live, learn, and do the work of Jesus every day. The home to which we
invite people to “come and see” is a person, Jesus Christ, and the best way to
tell his story—perhaps the only way—is with our lives.
+ + + + + + + + +
Scripture for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A, January 18, 2026
St. Chad's Episcopal Church, Tampa, Florida
Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here
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