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Martin Hanford is the author of several popular children's books featuring "Waldo," a dapper little fellow in a red and white striped shirt and cane. He is lost in a mass of other cartoon figures making it difficult to locate Waldo. Kids love to pour over the large pages, delighting in pointing out Waldo. Adults, unless they have lost their inner child, also enjoy joining with children to search for Waldo. Let a couple of weeks pass by, and in returning to the book, both children and adults find the search for Waldo almost as difficult as it was the first time.

In these six Sunday lections from John 6, Jesus is a bit like Waldo. The crowd pursuing him finds him difficult to find. Last week, in John's story of Jesus, the crowd caught up with Jesus on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. Pausing, he fed them with his meager resources of five loaves of bread and two fish. Later, his disciples got into a boat and headed toward the western shore and the city of Capernaum. Midway out on the water, a storm blew up and they were frightened. Then Jesus, who was not with them, walked across the water toward their boat. He stepped aboard, the storm calmed, and they landed in Capernaum.

Meanwhile, the crowd, wanting to find Jesus, secured some boats and also headed for Capernaum looking for Jesus. Finding Jesus was of great importance to them. It is the same with us. Jesus is a great lure for us. We feel that finding him will give meaning and purpose to our lives. We study the scriptures hoping to find his saving effect upon us. We read books by students of the Bible convinced that in knowing something about him, he will become real for us. We listen to sermons about Jesus, and we cluster around those who radiate the presence of Jesus. We are desperate to find him just like the crowd that John tells us about.

Keeping Jesus Close

However, there is a danger lurking in our quest for Jesus. Too often, we want to find Jesus so that we may use him as our security against the inevitable pains of life. Sometimes we want Jesus in order to spare ourselves from the threats and insecurities of loving others. In so many places in the Hebrew Bible, the struggle of faith was located between the domesticated popular gods versus the God of Israel who made no easy promises of security, success, and prosperity prior to justice and righteousness in the land. Sometimes, we want Jesus to bless our personal agendas without our least concern for the will of God. We want Jesus to bless America, telling us that it is all right if we live well at the expense of others. We want Jesus to straighten out all the rough spots in our personal and corporate lives enabling us to sail along with ease.

A prominent clergy person has said that our beloved hymn, "In The Garden" is an example of attempting to keep Jesus close, delivering us from facing the inescapable hardships of life, as well as blocking out the cross-bearing call of Jesus. Our hymn critic noted the hymn celebrates a personal relationship with Jesus, conveniently eliminating any thought that Jesus makes serious demands upon us. Instead, the Jesus relationship is offered as a close, cozy, emotional experience, with the lyrics using the first personal pronoun 27 times! The hymn has no hint that the call of Jesus is not for some tender moments, except as they might come as we express concern for others. The hymn also tells us this delightful encounter is utterly exclusive -- "none other has ever known." Here is experiential religion gone sour. We may be a bit hard on this hymn, but it does come close to offering Jesus as our hedge against finding Jesus, rather than caring for others and taking up our cross of discipleship.

One New Testament scholar makes the point that when we describe Jesus as "Lord and Savior," we need to pay attention to the order of the terms. He notes that this confession says that Jesus is first "Lord," and in following him we discover him as "Savior." This means we do not first find Jesus as Savior, and then commit ourselves to him as our Lord. A study of the New Testament gospel narratives makes this clear. The disciples initially fell under the spell of Jesus who called them out to announce the nearness of God's kingdom. They followed him, often with a great disruption of their lives. As they followed Jesus, they came to know his impact on them. Jesus imparted meaning to life, overcoming all the hardships, the sufferings, and the sacrifices he called them to make. They became fearless about pain and disappointment. They sensed the graciousness of God that not only forgave their sins, but also helped them to discover the power to live more holy and righteous lives. And, in the end, they feared neither the changing forces of history, nor their own deaths. But we do not find this saving experience of Jesus at the moment of our decision for him and his mission. We find Jesus as we go with him in his call for love and justice on earth. Finding Jesus really is a matter of being found by him.

The Elusive Jesus

Jesus is always on the move and we find it necessary to try to keep up with him. It is thinkable that Jesus would have found it pleasant to stay in one place and let the people come to him. Perhaps he could have made his headquarters in Galilee, letting it become known he was available for healing, teaching, and occasional miracles. Some entertainers in our time who travel around in those huge buses from city to city, often doing one night stands, tell us that they long for those moments when they are not on the road. Willie Nelson might praise the traveling entertainer life in his famous song, but it does take its toll on body and soul. Jesus must have been tempted to settle down like his family wanted him to do. Instead, he was always on the move.

The Apostle Paul was like Jesus, refusing to stay very long in one place. Having been to most of the major urban areas of the Near East and Greece, he tells us in his Letter to the Romans that he wanted to go to Spain and preach the gospel. Spain stood on the farthest western edge of the known world. The circuit riders of the American frontier were always on the move, too. Not only did they ride a different circuit year after year; but also, if they wanted to settle down to a fixed location, they were dropped from the lists of active ministry.

The geographical location of Jesus is really not the issue in our own time. Today, the concern is the spiritual location of Jesus. Jesus has a way of moving beyond the comfortable tradition and our present arrangements, telling us that we may find him in the great issues of our day, issues that cause stress and trouble. One of these troublesome issues became focused on Eugene Robinson, a gay Episcopal priest, who was elected a bishop. This became quite upsetting to many Episcopalians, as well as members of other Christian traditions. It goes beyond what has become familiar and comfortable for us. Yet many Christians say they find Jesus in affirming any consensual, committed, sexual relationship, even when this belief brings the disdain and abuse of others. Doing this is a difficult leap for many, but it may well be another instance that Jesus is always on the move and we find him in new places, new issues, and new insights as to styles of behavior.

We Still Wish For An Available Jesus

Francis Asbury is the central figure in the early days of the Methodist church in America. John Wesley appointed him as leader of the American Methodists shortly before the Revolutionary War. At the end of the war, Asbury believed the future of the church was going with the southern and westward expansion of the new nation. In rural areas, in villages, and the wilderness, Asbury, and the preachers under his appointment, opted for the vast number of people who were traveling away from earlier coastal regions, putting them in touch with the church. Climbing on his horse, he set the example for his circuit riders. Eventually he was known as "The Prophet Of The Long Road," for he traveled thousands of miles to preach the gospel and to found little churches. Many complained about Asbury's obsession with traveling out to the edges of the wilderness settlements. They preferred a Jesus who was in the cities and towns where one did not have to risk the dangers of the frontier -- hostile Native Americans, the heat of summer, and the chill of winter, disease, occasional belligerent audiences, and depressing loneliness. We wish our Jesus would concede to our comfort instead of always launching out into frightening and uncomfortable places.

In his earthly ministry, Jesus was always moving out beyond the comfortable and familiar ways. He healed on the sabbath, he affirmed the equality of women in his entourage, he overrode the standard systems of mercy and forgiveness, and he said that family ties are subordinate to one's place in the larger family of God. All this earned him great hostility and disapproval. In the end, these issues became part of the complaint provoking his death. We are uncomfortable with a Jesus who is always nudging us out of our comfortable ways. We want to keep him close at hand, easily found, and ready to bless our own personal or church agendas. Some have called this "domesticating Jesus," an illness afflicting much of the modern church, noticed when the church shies away from any issues that might reduce attendance and financial support.

In our free enterprise, market economy, praised almost to the edge of idolatry, and without much serious criticism by our politicians and economists, we find another area we would like Jesus to bless. The last thing we want Jesus to do is to point out that there are serious justice issues here. We don't want him to notice that the gap between the wealthy and the poor is growing rather than shrinking in our market economy in this country. We don't want Jesus to remind us of the price of our economic health often coming in terms of environmental pollution, cycles of unemployment, and the creation of large corporations slipping beyond any serious regulation and control. We don't want Jesus to point out that our economy, or any economic system, is under the biblical injunctions of justice and the welfare of all, especially those at the bottom of the socio-economic heap. Jesus is a bothersome chap who resists efforts to locate him in those places catering to our rather selfish interests and needs. There are times when we would like to scold Jesus for being so grouchy about the way our systems are benefiting we "haves" and devastating the "have-nots."

Jesus Is Always On The Move

There is, of course, a Jesus who is near to our real human struggles -- sin, disappointment, betrayal, fate, and death. Often Jesus is the nearest reality we know. After the crucifixion, Jesus' followers sensed his presence, overcoming their despair and panic at his sudden death. It was this nearness that empowered them to once more leave their comfortable places and resume his work. Later this nearness would be described as the Holy Spirit. When they first met Jesus, this Spirit took them away from all that was familiar until they spread out to the entire known world, proclaiming and living out the gospel of Jesus. In all of this, Jesus, as the Holy Spirit, consoled and comforted them, especially in their moments of suffering coming from their response to the call to live for others. This Jesus-Holy Spirit presence was guaranteed as he left his disciples after the crucifixion, "I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20b).

But once we have said this, we need to go on to say that Jesus is frequently found, not in the traditional places and in the typical responses to human issues, but in the unconventional and atypical places of life and witness. Oberlin University is a liberal arts college near Cleveland, Ohio. It has a proud history. Oberlin was the first university in the nation to admit women students. Later, it became involved in the anti-slavery movement. After the Civil War, some professors from Oberlin helped found Fisk University, a school in Nashville, Tennessee, created to meet the needs of the newly freed slaves. Both of these Oberlin ventures are examples of finding the claim of Christ in a commitment to unconventional and atypical ventures.

The person who gave Oberlin its name, John Oberlin, was one who found Jesus beyond the comfortable, familiar places. When he graduated from seminary, he asked for an appointment to a church that wasn't a very prestigious congregation. So his call came to serve a small, rural congregation in a poverty-stricken part of the Alsatian Mountains. He stayed there for the remainder of his life, earning the love and respect of his congregation. Again, Jesus often calls us out into new places, and sometimes into involvement in issues where we might not have otherwise chosen to go.

All of us know the story of Wilbur and Orville Wright, who were the first to manage powered flight. But we seldom hear the story of their sister, Katherine. She graduated from university and began a public school teaching career. When her mother died, she gave up her teaching career and returned home to manage the household for her brothers and her father. Jesus called her away from her love of teaching to domestic duties. She gave herself to providing a warm and comfortable home for them at the expense of her own preferences. Later, when she was no longer needed, she married and moved away. One of the brothers was so upset at her "deserting her duty" that they hardly spoke again. One might have hoped that this brother would have had the same caring for her as she had for her brothers and father. It's an old story though -- Jesus taking us away from our immediate desires and perceived needs, luring us into some Capernaum across the lake.

The New Testament book of Hebrews captures this sense well. There Christians are depicted as pilgrims -- people always on the move toward Christ who calls us onward. Hebrews says that we have no safe, unchanging place where we can live out our lives of discipleship and witness. Instead, we are beckoned to new, strange, and uncomfortable places where we find Jesus calling us. Most of us would rather not make the attempt to rethink our faith in ways and images that connect more readily with our modern world. But Jesus is calling us to do this. Most of us would prefer not to work through new ethical responses to the issue of sexual preference, or to the rights of women and other minorities. But Jesus is calling us into these Capernaums across the lake. Most of us would find it difficult to create new ways of understanding evangelism in the light of the non-Christian religions. But Jesus is calling us to this formidable task. The Jesus of chapter 6 of John and the great pilgrim themes of the book of Hebrews are assertions that Jesus, whom we serve, will not stay put so that we can domesticate and control him to our own advantage. Instead, Jesus has his own agenda and rather than allowing himself to be the servant of our personal wishes, he challenges us to join him in the far cities of our private and public lives. There he puts us to his service, and in responding we really discover what it means to be "saved."