One of the questions I’ve really loved asking people in my first couple of months here has been: what first brought you to this church? I’ve loved the diversity of answers I’ve received - it’s taught me a lot about you. One answer in particular intrigued me, because I heard it multiple times. People came back because they found St. Andrew’s to be a church filled with interesting and fascinating people. I really have come to believe that is true. Each one of you I’ve met with and gotten a chance to talk to even briefly - you all are fascinating! But I want to turn that statement on its head, too. I really believe that St. Andrew’s is a church that invites interestED and fascinatED people. People who ask questions and listen closely. People who wonder and want to learn more. And that’s absolutely essential to being a healthy, welcoming church. It’s less important to be fascinating people and more important to be a people continually fascinatED - fascinated by God, by our faith tradition, and by each other.
As part of my training for pre-marital counseling - the sessions a couple does with a priest leading up to their wedding - I got familiar with the work of the Gottmans, two psychologists who’ve spent the last forty years studying and writing about what makes for long, happy marriages.
That question, by the way, why did you first start coming to St. Andrew’s - that’s straight out of the Gottman playbook. Remembering, reflecting on what first made you fall in love can help rekindle a relationship - any relationship, even a relationship with a community. Or a relationship with God.
And choosing to be continually fascinated by each other - that’s Gottman principle number one. Their key advice to couples at any stage is to Stay Curious. Resist the urge to feel like you know the other inside and out, that you can predict one another’s every thought and reaction. Curiosity is a stance - it’s a stance of openness, of leaning in. A willingness to be surprised and learn more. Curiosity is the antidote to the great relationship poisoner, contempt. When I listen to people talk about their experiences and relationships here, I listen for curiosity and I listen for contempt - where they’ve encountered it in others and where they’re expressing it themselves. Contempt corrodes relationships and shuts down connection. But curiosity - curiosity is the energy behind genuine, joyful connection.
Today is a day to reflect on what makes St. Andrew’s, St. Andrew’s, but it’s also a day to reflect on what makes St. Andrew, St. Andrew. What makes our patron saint stand out amidst the rest of the twelve apostles? St. Andrew has earned the title First Apostle for good reason. In the Gospel of Matthew scene we just read, he and St. Peter are the first to be called to follow Jesus from their fishing nets. That’s the story of St. Andrew I’m used to focusing on - that first moment, two brothers casting down their nets and leaping into a whole new adventure. But now, here, because of you all, because of that big beautiful window behind us - I’ve started to think of Andrew a little differently. And so I’d like to add another title for St. Andrew, based on the stories about him from Gospel of John: St. Andrew is the Great Connector.
There are three stories about Andrew the Apostle in the Gospel of John. In John Chapter 1, Andrew’s call story is told very differently. In that Gospel, Andrew started out as a disciple of John the Baptist. One day, he and another of John’s disciples heard their teacher remark, “Look, here is the Lamb of God” as Jesus went by. The two let their curiosity take over and followed Jesus to see what he was all about. Then the Gospel says, “One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’. He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Peter.” The first thing Andrew did was bring his loved one to Jesus - and then, it’s interesting, Andrew stepped back and let his brother shine. Peter went on to be a much more famous, prominent disciple of Jesus. Andrew is the guy who connected them.
Another moment comes later, in Chapter 12, when some Greeks approached another disciple, Philip. The Greeks were curious about this Jesus guy and wanted to know more, wanted to meet him. What did Philip do? He went to Andrew first, then he and Andrew went to Jesus. I’ve got to wonder why Philip went to Andrew first - could it be that Andrew was that guy, that guy that connected people to Jesus?
But the main story about Andrew from the Gospel of John, the one this parish highlights in stained glass glory right behind us, is from the Feeding of the Multitudes in Chapter 6. Go ahead, take a look at it - and by the way, if you want to know more about the window’s history here and what it means to this parish - ask Dick, Claudette, or Nancy.
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| Feeding of the Multitude window |
Here’s how the scripture story goes in John - a great crowd of people had begun to follow Jesus because of his miraculous healings. When Jesus looked out and noticed their hunger, he asked Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Philip did a quick calculation and declared that “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little!” It’s then that Andrew spoke up. That’s how the New International Version Bible translates it. “Another of his disciples, Andrew, brother of Simon Peter, spoke up.” I love how my children’s storybook bible tells it, too. “But Andrew had noticed a little boy, who shyly stepped forward, holding out his lunch. It was only five small loaves of bread and two tiny fish.” It’s Andrew who told Jesus about the boy with the lunch no one else had bothered to see. Andrew who connected Jesus with the easily overlooked person with a humble gift to offer - a gift that seems like nowhere near enough. But, of course, we know the rest of the story, it’s right there in the window. In Jesus’ hands, with God’s blessing, the five loaves and two fish became enough, more than enough, for all gathered to have as much as they wanted, with baskets leftover.
Curiosity and connection run all through the account of Andrew in the Gospel of John. Andrew was curious and acted on his curiosity. He brought his brother in. Andrew was open to curiosity in an unexpected place - Gentiles who asked about who Jesus was and what Jesus could mean in their lives. And Andrew noticed the overlooked. He noticed the potential of a small, humble offering from a small, humble person who was easy to ignore. And he was wise enough to bring that person to Jesus.
Andrew’s call story from Matthew, the casting down of nets and jumping from the boats, it’s dramatic. But if that’s the only story we tell about Andrew - the only story we tell about what evangelism looks like - we can miss other ways people are brought to God. And what our role might be in it. Because it’s not always a what that first brings us to church. More often than not, it’s a who.
For St. Andrew, evangelism didn’t look like yelling at people on the shoreline to stop what they are doing and follow him. For St. Andrew, it looked like finding the One he had been seeking, and sharing his discovery with the person closest to him, the brother who’d been searching and longing for him, too. It looked like listening for curiosity about Jesus from the outsider, and acting on it. And it looked like noticing the one holding out what they had to offer, and bringing it to be blessed in Jesus’ hands.
It’s important for us to notice that Andrew connects people who are already curious about Jesus - already being drawn to God in many different ways. Healthy, meaningful evangelism cannot, must not come from a place of contempt. Of judging others as lost or in need of correction. To follow St. Andrew’s example is to listen for those in need of connection.
In my experience, and this is something that really hooked me into the Episcopal Church, the Episcopal faith and the Anglican method of theology nourishes curiosity. There are always more questions to ask, greater mysteries to probe. We are encouraged to wonder, and discouraged from being satisfied with easy answers. Bring your questions to scripture, your priest, your Bible study group. Dive into that aspect of liturgy and the divine, that intersection of faith and social justice and science and history that fascinates you. It is safe to be curious here - and if it isn’t for you, I’d love to know - how can I get you there?
Perhaps I’ve been a bit unfair to the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. After all, we have just caught another glimpse of Andrew in the Gospel of Mark last week, did you catch it? St. Andrew was one of the apostles that brought a big question to Jesus about the signs of the end times.
Stay curious. And listen for curiosity. Because people really are full of questions about God and faith and Jesus. And it’s easy for us to forget how much people don’t know. Like, have you ever noticed how people have never heard of Ayer? Well, let me tell you that people are still continually shocked to discover that woman priests exist. They are also surprised to learn that there’s a church that teaches and practices love without coercion, a relationship with God free from shame, and traditional ways of worship resistant to rigidity and stagnation.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard comments like: I didn’t know a funeral could be like this…I didn’t know a church could be so welcoming…I didn’t know Jesus was like that…And even from life-long Episcopalians, I didn’t know Christianity was all about love.
I hope we hear, today, the challenge from the passage from Romans: “And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?” Listen for the curiosity, the fascination. It’s there, in unexpected places. And you, yes you, have something to say and do in response.
Invite the curiosity in - jump at the chance to connect - and let Jesus do the rest.
Amen.
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