Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Weekly sermons from our Central Lutheran Church preaching team plus quick reflections from Pastor Ryan Braley.
Real talk, ancient wisdom, and honest questions — all designed to help you learn, grow, and find encouragement when you need it most.
At Central, our mission is simple: FOLLOW Jesus together, be a community where you BELONG, and LOVE our neighbors across the street and around the world.
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Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
What Are You After? with Pastor Ryan Braley
What if the most powerful spiritual practice isn't finding answers, but asking better questions?
When Jesus encountered his first followers, he didn't greet them with a sermon or statement of faith. Instead, he asked a deceptively simple question that cuts straight to the heart of human existence: "What are you looking for?"
This question—the first words Jesus speaks in John's gospel—reveals something profound about spiritual growth. In ancient Jewish tradition, faith wasn't about memorizing correct answers but wrestling with meaningful questions. Jesus carried this tradition forward, asking over 300 questions throughout his ministry. These weren't rhetorical devices but invitations to relationship, dialogue, and transformation.
Questions operate on multiple levels. When Jesus asks "What are you looking for?", he's inviting us to examine what we're truly pursuing in life. Many of us chase surface-level desires—wealth, fame, pleasure, uniqueness—without recognizing the deeper longings beneath them: to be seen, to belong, to matter, to find meaning, to receive grace we don't deserve.
The disciples responded to Jesus' question with a question of their own: "Rabbi, where are you staying?" This wasn't evasion but engagement—the beginning of a relationship built on dialogue rather than passive reception. Jesus' response was equally significant: "Come and see." Not a lecture or list of rules, but an invitation to journey and discover.
As we navigate our complex modern lives with endless demands and distractions, could we benefit from living inside good questions rather than clinging to rigid certainties? What are you truly looking for? What lies beneath your surface pursuits? These questions won't be answered in a day, but living with them, wrestling with them, might lead to the transformation your soul is actually seeking.
Subscribe now and join us as we explore Jesus' most profound questions and discover how they still speak powerfully to our lives today.
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also the Lord forever. Amen. So, god, we pray that this morning you would give us a deep sense of your goodness and mercy is coming after us, it's following us, and that you have set this table before us. And, as David writes, in the presence of our enemies, you anoint our head with oil and our cup it overflows. And this morning, god, may we gather in this room and be reminded of your goodness and mercy and undeserved, unmerited grace and favor in our lives, so that we can then leave and share with others. Give us wisdom that we could tap into, this deep, ancient wisdom found in the scriptures that's thousands upon thousands of years old, that still resonates today in our lives, and may it be a tether for us, may it be a guiding light in every single way, and may we use it as we navigate our own lives in this world today, with ordinary jobs and school lives and social lives. May it impact us deeply in every way. We pray, god, that you would wake us up and inspire us in all the ways. We need it so desperately this morning, and would you help correct any kind of yeah, just false paradigms that we hold this morning, and would you bless us as we gather in Jesus' name. Amen, amen, all right, how are we doing this morning Without fail? Whenever I get to talk, I just have this frog in my throat. So it's not anyway, all right. Well, hey, good to be with you guys this morning. It's a celebration. Oh no, I'm good, no, anyway, yeah, thank you, I appreciate it. Actually, I'll take a sip, all right, thank you, olivia, okay, Okay, let's jump in.
Speaker 1:So we are launching a brand new sermon series and we're calling it this Isn't Rhetorical the Questions of Jesus. We're going to get into it, but Jesus asked over 300 questions in his life, at least, according to the gospels, 300. And so we're going to unpack one of them each week, and so that's what we're doing here. So I think questions are unbelievably profound. If we let questions work on us and let them sink deep into our lives, into our souls, into our daily lives our daily lives as students, as teachers, as lawyers, as whatever it is that you're doing If we let these questions sink deep into our hearts and our souls, I think they can really bring about transformation. See questions, reveal and uncover information. When you ask them, you ask the right ones, and questions also, in a similar way, can lead to profound transformation. If you let them work on us, they can change our lives, can lead to profound transformation. If you let them work on us, they can change our lives.
Speaker 1:I love good questions. In fact, here's some that I think are really poignant and worth asking. Oh, we had this happen this morning. It wasn't Hang on one second. Oh, it's me again. I had my thing off.
Speaker 1:By the way, this is a true story. I got three hours of sleep last night. Can you tell? Okay, the sermon title. I have no idea why. I just could not fall asleep. I was so excited to see all of you guys. The sermon title is called what Are you After this Morning?
Speaker 1:Okay, here's some great questions. Yeah, when was the last time you felt fully seen? If I were to ask you this question, when was the last time that you felt fully seen? Yeah, I want to work on you for a minute or two. How about this question? I love a good question. Where do you go when your soul feels tired? Yeah, where do you go?
Speaker 1:A lot of levels of that question. You can see already how a good question can sort of just take you deep into something that maybe you weren't even expecting, and it got layers to it and it can reveal information, or at least begin to invite you to wrestle with these thoughts and ideas. That's what good questions do. How about this great, profound question? Yeah, why do we press harder on the remote when we know it's just that the batteries are dead? If I press harder, I think the batteries will work. Why do we do that? It's a profound question. How about this deeply profound question?
Speaker 1:And if you are under the age of 19, this one's for you. What exactly does six, seven mean? Nobody knows what it means. Anybody never heard of this before. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, the wolves know what's up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, how about this one? I'll move on. Okay, how about? Why do I remember a song learned from 1998, way back in the 1900s, but I can't remember. I put my phone 10 minutes ago. Yeah, don't pretend this doesn't happen to you. I see you. I know this is a lot of us out there. How this one and this one has haunted me since I found this question. I'm like this is a good one. If a tomato is a fruit, does that make ketchup a smoothie? Maybe you need to go home today and have a nice smoothie, fruit smoothie, although you guys are all Minnesotans, so this is probably too spicy for you, that ketchup. You know I'm right too. You know I'm right. You too, you know I'm right, you Minnesotans are soft. I'm just kidding, I'm a Minnesotan too.
Speaker 1:Now, I love a good question. They're unbelievable. A good question, when you hear it, can challenge you, it can sink deep into your heart and if you hear it it can work on you, it can work you over, it can echo in your thoughts and in your sleep even. It's what good questions do it can bring transformation in your life.
Speaker 1:A couple of years ago I was on a retreat with a guy called Kent and my friend Kent and Kent, if you know Kent Dobson, he's an unbelievable question asker. I often jokingly but seriously say he's always like one or two or three questions away with me from making me cry. It's unreal, I'm not kidding. So we're on a retreat and I had this dream and he does dream work with me and he'll kind of unpack my dreams. And I had this dream one night where I was driving a car and I was leaning back and there was a young man in the back of my car. I was doing a blessing, I was giving him the benediction, I was blessing him, and I just felt this profound sense of meaning and I woke up. And so Kent goes.
Speaker 1:Oh, let me ask you a couple of questions. He goes. Number one how did you feel when you were blessing him? I go oh man, I felt like I felt really good. I felt like this deep sense of meaning and purpose. I just loved it. I loved blessing this young man. He goes, okay. Question two why do you think you felt this deep sense of meaning? Oh, I just think it's like part of my calling to bless other people to words. And then question three, which is what snapped me in half and made me weep like a baby. He goes Ryan, who does this for you? Nobody, I just cried, not nobody, I'm just kidding, but I did cry, I wept like a baby. I'm like what is wrong with me?
Speaker 1:A good question can sink deep into the most inner, hidden we thought parts of our souls and, like some, unearth something down. That's what questions do. So I love a good question. A good question can invite us.
Speaker 1:Oh, by the way, this is what Confucius said about questions. He said uh, the man or woman who asks a question is a fool for a minute. The man who does not ask is a fool for life. So don't point fingers, but ask questions. It's what helps us to not be foolish in our lives. How about this famous question?
Speaker 1:The wright brothers famously asked what if humans could fly like birds? It's a silly question, isn't it, isn't it? Look at us now. Who would would have thought I love a good question. Did you know this?
Speaker 1:By the way, kids are not afraid at all of questions. They, on average, ask about 1,000 questions a day. Do you know this? Yeah, some dads are like yes, I do. Actually, I'm totally kidding, it's only 300. But you guys weren't even surprised when I said 1,000. Oh, yeah, 1,000. No doubt kidding, it's only 300. But you guys weren't even surprised when I said a thousand. Oh, yeah, a thousand. No, no doubt. Yeah, yeah, you totally believe me. In fact, some of you, teachers or parents of talkative kids, are like only a thousand. I think my kid asked that in an hour alone. Okay, 300 is still a lot. And I think over half of these are the question why, why, why, why?
Speaker 1:But keep in mind the words of Confucius, who said that a person who asks a question is a fool for a minute and the one who doesn't is a fool for a lifetime. You know how many questions adults ask in one day. Kids ask 300. Adults ask a measly 20 to 30. Who's the fool now? Jesus said have faith like a child man. What happened to us adults? Why do we get so serious and where did our passions go and our curiosity, our wonder? What sucked the life out of us as we got older and aged? Where our questions go? Questions can lead us down pathways to discover new and wonderfully beautiful things.
Speaker 1:A question, by the way, innately, is an invitation. By the way, I love this one. Uh, this is one of the more famous lines, I would say maybe the most famous line in all of English literature. Hamlet says to be or not to be. That's the question. He's, if you know the play by Shakespeare, he's wrestling with existence itself. Is it better to exist or not exist, To be or not to be? The most famous line in literature, in the most famous line in literature, in English literature, is this one it's a question To be or not to be. That is the question. Yeah, I love a good question.
Speaker 1:Questions are, of course, invitations to relationship. Questions are not statements. A statement is one directional. I tell you something, that's kind of it. A question invites relationship. It assumes there's another on the other side of that question that might respond, might give me something, you know an answer or something else. But there's this invitation to a relationship and that way a question is very much like a door it's just opening. You can kind of walk through and invite others to walk through. It's a beautiful dance or wrestling match or something like this. This is what questions do and what they do for us. I love it.
Speaker 1:Questions also operate on many levels. There's the literal level, there's like emotional, psychological, spiritual. There's all kinds of levels to questions. For example, if I asked you, are you hungry? Well, maybe you know this, but there's the Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert, in the southern part of Africa, in South Africa. They often talk about two different kinds of hunger. There's the big hunger and the little hunger. The little hunger is, of course, hunger for food. I need some calories, nutrition, nourishment, something to get through the day, some fuel. The big hunger, though, they say the Bushmen say, is meaning and existential meaning, direction in life, purpose. That's the big hunger. It's many levels. So if I said, are you hungry? You might answer in any number of ways. You could answer by talking about food, or we're talking about meaning and purpose. This, by the way, is called polysemy. It's when words have a variety of levels of meaning. Polysemy, not polygamy Don't confuse that, you get into trouble in certain communities but polysemy Because questions have many layers to them and sometimes we would do well to go one or two or three layers down.
Speaker 1:Questions also activate curiosity. Psychologists suggest that when you are asked a question, your brain releases dopamine. Now, for those of you who love questions, it sort of excites us. We all get kind of jazzed up and we're ready to answer. And for those of you who get maybe stage fright or don't want to be wrong, you might get nervous and you have like a flight response to this dopamine release. But it like sort of causes this, like sort of curiosity within us, and it's something different than a statement. The brain reacts differently than if someone just does a statement to you, because it invites us to be curious and good questions create openness. That's what they do, like an open door. They also frame possibility right, like what's possible, and they sort of invite us to wonder and sort of think outside the box and allow for discovery, even self-discovery.
Speaker 1:I love it in Genesis 3, god, when the humans rebel against God and they eat of the fruit and they go and hide from God, which is a fascinating idea because God is the one person, person, the one being, the one thing that can help them. And they run and hide because they're full of shame, of course. And God goes to the humans and he says this where are you? Now? Look, I assume that God knew where they were Like oh, you're behind the bush. If God is everywhere, god's like you can't really hide. I can see you. You're like oh, you're behind the bush. If God is everywhere, god's like you can't really hide. I can see you're right there. What does God ask him? Or why does God ask them in this and there's multiple layers here where are you? Where did you go? What happened in implicit? And this is why are you hiding from me? Why are you ashamed? Where are you? I love it. Good questions invite us to reflect and to wrestle these kinds of questions that sink deep into our souls.
Speaker 1:I've told this story before, but when I was younger I was about 19 years old, and I had wandered far from home, if you will, and had sort of been to foreign lands, literal and metaphorical, but metaphorically there was nothing out there for me. I tried lots of things, there's nothing really out there that's life-giving. So I began to kind of venture my way back home, if you will. But one night, as I'm kind of wandering back home metaphorically I was out with some friends. We're at a party, hanging out and drinking a little bit too much or a lot too much, and they're out on the front porch and I had this sense of this deep existential emptiness and I remember saying to my friend out loud I go man, what are we doing out here? What are we doing out here? And he goes oh, we're hanging out, man, we're watching the sunset, we're just gonna hang on, talk for a little bit. No, like he didn't get it. You know, no, dude, what are we doing out here? Where are you? Where have you gone?
Speaker 1:Questions are also subversive If you know the story of Socrates, one of the more famous philosophers in Athens of his day. He asked a lot of questions that made a lot of people mad, the powers that be. He asked such subversive questions that undermined their authority and maybe their unhealthy behavior that it got him killed. He was sentenced to death Socrates was because of the questions that he asked. That sort of subverted the narrative, got him into trouble.
Speaker 1:Questions can also be liberating. If you remember the civil rights movement, during the abolitionist movement, one of the questions that people asked was am I not a man and am am I not your brother? Yeah, so it was written on signs and people who were protesting segregation and sort of this way of life in the 60s and 70s in the 60s anyway, they began to ask hey, am I not a human, am I not a man? Am I not your brother? It was a liberating question for those who could hear it and it subverted the narrative that no, you're not, you're not equal to me. No, no, am I not your brother? Yeah, questions can be this kind of liberating thing.
Speaker 1:Questions can also be dangerous. Just ask any NFL head coach after a loss of a game. They don't want to answer a lot of questions. Or ask politicians. You watch them dodge questions. This is why, because questions can be dangerous, they can reveal things that they don't want to be revealed.
Speaker 1:Questions can be indeed a dangerous, dangerous thing. They also slow us down if we let them. Where are you? What are we doing out here. Where did you go? They also invite us to wonder. I wonder, where am I? I wonder if Adam and Eve asked themselves I don't know. I wonder what happened. Where am I? What am I doing out here? What's going on? That's what questions do. So we're beginning this series on the questions of Jesus called.
Speaker 1:This Isn't Rhetorical. Jesus asked over 300 questions 2,000 years ago. But I believe the beauty of this ancient text. Now look when you read the Bible. I get it. It's ancient, it's antiquated, it feels archaic and old. I get it. But you guys, there are still things in there that resonate deeply with us moderns, enlightened people, thousands of years later. That's the reason it's still sold so many copies, this thing called the Bible, and that we still read it and we talk about it, because it's incredibly insightful into the human condition and our place in the world and with God and each other and the communities that we're around and we're in. It's an unbelievably helpful ancient text and in a world of rapid fire tweets and shallow thoughts and quick opinions, we could use some deep wisdom. Are you with me? And so Jesus asked these questions. I want to ask us the same questions today, so we're going to take one question each week. Unpack it a bit, and I want to ask us that question. And then have you asked yourself this very same question throughout the week. So write it down, put it on your mirror, put it on your car, put it on your front door, whatever you got to do, but ask, let this question work on you. Maybe it'll bring some enlightenment or some transformation in your life. And let these questions be an invitation to you.
Speaker 1:The great Rilke, the poet Rilke, said this be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart. Well, we love answers, don't we? We love answers in our post-enlightenment, post-scientific revolution. We love this, our modern Western. We love answers. Gotta find the answer. But Rilke says just be patient and let these unsolved answers, let them just hold attention and try to love the questions themselves. He writes Like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given to you, because you would not be able to live them. He says you don't know yet. Just hang tight, and the point is to live everything. Rilke says Live the questions now and perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. I love that. Be patient, let the questions work you and marinate. Let yourself marinate in the questions.
Speaker 1:See, the Jewish faith was built around questions. It revolved around questions. So the rabbis believe that truth wasn't passed down like as a propositional truth statement. Here's the truth. Rather, the truth was discovered by rustling and debate and dialogue and discussion and arguing around walks and journeys and campfires and these kinds of things. It's how you discovered the truth. It wasn't just passed down on a sheet of paper. That's how they did it and they believe this too, that the questions were not a form of rebellion but a form of faith. It helped deepen your faith, help you discover the deep meaning of faith.
Speaker 1:When I first became a pastor here years ago, there was a pastor in the area who was sort of a theologian in residence in the area and a Lutheran pastor, and I wanted to know like hey, is this Lutheran story narrative tradition for me or not? So I wanted to ask him all kinds of questions, and so I did. And this person it wasn't Pastor Paul, by the way, if you're wondering, it's not Paul, but this person they couldn't really handle all my questions because they sort of assumed I was attacking the faith and they got defensive and they kind of put the sort of the fences up and they got like irritated, like I was always attacking. I'm like no, no, I'm just trying to wrestle with the faith. I got to know what it means to be a Lutheran and to live as a part of the stream and tradition and it just was not helpful for me at all. So I left that dialogue after trying for many weeks and I went and said I was a part of Luther Seminary, getting my work done there, my Lutheran core courses there, and met a guy called Dr Stephen Paulson, and Paulson was this wizard man and he let me ask any question I wanted and he was not insecure, he was not afraid of my questions, he loved it. We would wrestle and argue and it was awesome and I found incredible responses from Dr Paul. It was super helpful and it built my faith. It sort of rooted my faith. It helped me root my faith Because questions are not rebellion always, but a form of faith.
Speaker 1:That's what the rabbis believe. This dialogue, this back and forth, this wrestling, is how we discover our faith. So of course Jesus would ask lots of questions, the disciples too. The Talmud said this a wise question is half of the answer. So, as I mentioned, jesus asked over 300 questions. He asked questions like what do you want? What does he want me to do for you? What do you think? What does he want me to do for you? What do you think? Questions of self-discovery what do you want? He also asked is your Facebook marketplace item still available? Things like that. You know deep questions. And here's the question that he asked today. So John is out walking around. John the baptizer has a couple of disciples with him, because John was also sort of a rabbi, had followers. And when these followers and John see Jesus, john says oh, by the way, let me just read this before I say the question why does Jesus ask so many questions? Well, because that's what rabbis did In the Jewish world. The rabbi doesn't give you the answer, a neat answer, but he gave you a question big enough to live in.
Speaker 1:Think back to the Rilke poem Faith was never about shutting down a conversation. It was about keeping the search alive. That's why, at Passover, children don't receive answers first. They ask questions first. Let them ask them. Jesus continues this tradition. He doesn't hand out formulas. He invites us to wrestle and to wonder and to seek. I love that.
Speaker 1:So John is out with his disciples, his followers, and they see Jesus. John says, hey, look, there's the Lamb of God. The two disciples hear him and they say they hear him say this and they begin to follow Jesus. So Jesus is out just walking around. John's like yo, that's the Lamb of God. John's followers leave John, they go find Jesus. They start following Jesus.
Speaker 1:Jesus turns around, says hey, what are you looking for? I love this question. This is his first question that he asks in the Gospel of John, by the way, whenever in the ancient text, when it was a person who speaks for the first time, in this case it's this very first question. It's significant, it's like a signature. So notice what, what the person says, what the first question they ask is.
Speaker 1:And jesus's question is what are you looking for? It sort of frames his whole ministry. He's asking him what are you looking for? What are you after? Also, when jesus, you know, years later, when he's resurrected, the first question he asked after the resurrection, he asked mary, hey, well, whom are you seeking? So there's this like frame, this bookend of Jesus's life and at least the latter three or three, three years or so of what are you looking for? Whom are you looking for? What are you seeking? What are you after? Yeah, and in the Greek text it's something like this. It's like Jesus asked him what are you seeking? And, by the way, the word seeking it's not like a passive wish, it's not like oh, I wish I had a million dollars. It's not this passive verb oh, I really would like to have an ice cream cone. No, it's more existential. It's his quest, it's his longing, it's a pursuit in the original Greek language. So it could be like this he's asked them hey, what are you guys looking for? What are you after? What do you want? What do you seek? What do you desire? It presupposes they are looking for something. These two young men are after something and they think they've seen it in Jesus. So they go follow him and he asks them what are you looking for? Yeah, what are you looking for? It was this piercing existential challenge for the disciples these two especially, by the way, I love this.
Speaker 1:In the hebrew culture and context and language, there's this idea called midrash or midrash. Midrash is this idea of interpreting texts or the ancient laws by wrestling, by conversation. It was an interpretive tool, so you would do midrash. This, by the way, is how I preach a lot. I just do midrash around the text. You ask, ask all these questions, you wrestle with it, you try to find stories and you kind of align it together. It's this incredible way of wrestling with the ideas and texts. It's called midrash, and the Hebrew word for seeking is the same root word as the word for midrash. It's the word darash, and so Jesus could be asking them hey, fellas, what are you after? What are you seeking? What's your midrash? What's your midrash? What interpretation of life are you seeking? What framework for life are you after? Because we all have a framework, by the way. Do you know this?
Speaker 1:I mean, this past week, we've seen a lot of folks frame life in this way oh, if you don't agree with somebody, let's shoot them, okay, or yell at them online or cut them out of our lives. Or maybe it's framed like oh, violence is indeed the way to go. This will solve all of our problems. It's more violence. You know, we've had a number of shootings and acts of atrocious, senseless violence, and I think back to when I was just out of high school and we had the Columbine shootings in Colorado. We had just become friends. One of my friends was shot and killed in that in that incident back in 90, 99. And yeah, they found out later the two shooters, eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, when they unpacked all of their writings and their journals.
Speaker 1:These two young men had adopted a form of philosophy, it's sort of something like nihilism, and they railed against God and society and their community and all the people that had harmed them, and it became this sort of nihilistic way of being that just nothing means anything. Forget all of it, screw everybody, and then it leads inevitably to destruction and violence. This is, of course, what always happens when you embrace these sort of dark forms of this philosophy called nihilism. Read Fight Club or watch the movie. I guess, too, that's what happens when we untether ourselves from a proper frame of life. It leads to destruction and violence. So you have.
Speaker 1:I don't know all the time why these folks do what they do, but we've all adopted some framework of life. Some are better than others. I'm just telling you, and Jesus asks them what is your framework of life? Some are better than others. I'm just telling you and Jesus asks him what is your framework for life and what are you after? What do you want? Yeah, then they found it, whatever it is in Jesus. What are you after? By the way, you notice this too, that sometimes the things we're after are not the things we're really after. Sometimes we're up here on the surface level, but there are things deeper that we're actually after. We just don't know it yet.
Speaker 1:I mean, many of us, you know, we would love to be rich and famous. I know I would be. Anyway, it'd be awesome to be rich and famous. You know, like well, why. Why would you want to be rich and famous? Well, because then people would recognize money. I could just buy a nice car and drive around in a sweet car. It would be just awesome, it'd be so great. Okay, well, why does that matter to you? Oh, well, then, because you know, then I, it'd make my life a little bit easier. I don't have to stress out about it. Okay, yeah, fine, fine, but why?
Speaker 1:And you dig a few layers down, a few floors, and you realize, oh, I think, deep down, I just want to be loved, I want someone to see me, I want to matter, I'm afraid of dying and I think if I do all these things up here, I won't die, I'll live forever, because sometimes, deep down, the things we desire, not really the things that we desire. So Jesus asks what are you after? What do you want? What do you want? Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I love this. It's pretty great.
Speaker 1:You know, at the bottom is this idea of your physiological needs. And once you have those met, great now what. Well, once you have food and water, okay, now you safety. You kind of go up the ladder. So once you have safety, you're like safe. You got a shelter and maybe some protection in a tribe. Okay now what? Well, social needs you got some friends. You got some friends. You got some belonging Okay, now what. Well, self-esteem, okay now what. Well, self-exercise, okay, now what. And when all these things are fulfilled, and you're still asking yourself now what? There's a deeper hole in our lives, a deeper longing that we're not able to find an answer for. That's the thing. That's the thing that's down in there. That's the thing. That's the thing that's down in there.
Speaker 1:What are you after?
Speaker 1:For many of us, I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1:In our culture today, we just seek to be right. Rightness seems like this thing that we're all after. You know, if I want to be right, then I'll have what's below that, what's down there, yeah, what are you seeking? What are the things that you're after? Maybe it's perfection. If I can just be perfect, I can just put on this and make no mistakes, and then everyone will see okay, fine, what's down? What's down beneath that? What's down there? Maybe it's pleasure.
Speaker 1:I just want to do whatever you know, sort of self-actualization through hedonism, okay, but what's down there, what's underneath that? Yeah, it's power, it's uniqueness. We love to be unique these days, don't we? I was in a retreat just a couple weeks ago and I'm not going to say it. No, I'll move on. We just love being unique, you know, and the more unique I can be, the more I'm important. So what's down there, what's beneath the surface? What's down there? Maybe that you want to belong, you want to be part of a bigger story, you want to have meaning, maybe you want grace that you don't deserve, and if you could just get it from something or somebody who would just, they would call this the jesus hole or the god shaped hole. It's cliche, because it's true for many of us.
Speaker 1:So I would ask you today, as I close here, what are you after these young men show up because they're looking for something. Maybe you're here today because you're looking for something. Maybe you don't know what it is, but you have this sense deep down in your soul like something's missing. And you're here because maybe this group of people can help me, or that weirdo with the beard, maybe he can help me. I don't know. Yeah, what are you after? What are you longing for? Weirdo with the beard? Oh, maybe he can help me. I don't know. Yeah, what are you after? What are you longing for? What do you need? What do you want? What's deep down in there?
Speaker 1:These men see Jesus and they go and take a closer look. Maybe you're here, you want to take a closer look. I'd encourage you to not leave it and to ask somebody to sort of bounce some ideas around with you, around, to sort of bounce some ideas around with you. Maybe. Ask for prayer Someone next to you, someone in the band myself, kirsten. One of the ushers grabs someone to pray with them. Jesus asks them what are you after? And I love their response. They say oh Rabbi, where are you staying? They answer his question with a question hey, what are you after? Oh Rabbi, where are you staying? They're not dodging it.
Speaker 1:This is how the rabbis and disciples would work. They would wrestle by asking they're showing him, we're in, we're serious, we want to wrestle with you, we're in, where are you staying? He responds come and see. Come and see. That's what the faith is Central. May you know in the deepest parts of your souls that God has invited us to question, to wrestle your souls, that God has invited us to question, to wrestle, to debate, to dialogue with the faith, with these ancient texts. And over the next couple of months, when we do that and these questions resonate deep within our souls and our lives, not just today, on Sunday mornings, but tomorrow and on Thursday and on Friday, may they infiltrate all that we do, may they haunt us even as we sleep. That's my prayer for you that you would be haunted in your dreams by these questions. And may, today and for at least the next seven days, may you explore what do you seek. Amen.
