Staying Power
THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY
Isaiah 49:1-7 • 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 • John 1:29-42
In the fourth century, a humble weaver of wool turned up at the election of the next bishop of Ravenna, in northern Italy. His name was Severus. The only reason Severus wanted to attend the election was because bishop elections were those rare times when you were basically guaranteed to witness a miracle: a dove would land on the head of the bishop elect. (At least according to an early medieval writer.) When Severus arrived, he hid behind the church doors, because he was embarassed about his ragged and dirty clothes. Imagine his surprise—and everyone else’s—when a dove found Severus in his hiding place and landed on his head not once, not twice, but three times.
That day, Severus became the next bishop of Ravenna.
Today, the Episcopal Church chooses bishops a bit differently. After a long process to select candidates, a bishop is elected when she or he receives a majority of votes from both the clergy and the lay voters on the same ballot. Just like one dove-landing might not convince everyone, sometimes we need more than one round of voting to reach a consensus.
Today’s process seems more democratic in many ways, but a humble weaver is far less likely now to shoot through the ranks, whatever his gifts and charisma. Today’s process also seems more technical, less miraculous, and yet it too can be spirit-led.
Yesterday afternoon, I followed a bishop election with great interest for almost three hours. Compared to this nation’s political electoral process, this bishop election was obviously swift. Still, I was very impatient to know the results, and I longed for the simplicity of the church’s early days, when the landing of a dove on one particular person made everything quick and simple.
After all, a dove-like descent was pretty much all John the Baptist needed to know that Jesus was the anointed one. According to today’s gospel, John had been told what sign to look for: “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one.” And John confirms, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.” Clearly, this Jesus was the Christ, the leader John had been waiting for.
Of course, John here testifies that he saw the Spirit descend like a dove, and not in the form of an actual dove. The dove-test in early Christian legends is probably just a shortcut through the greater discernment of spirit that’s actually required for choosing religious leaders.
There’s one aspect of what John sees the dove-like Spirit do that seems to me an essential part of that discernment. The Spirit doesn’t just descend like a dove; it also remains.
Maybe that’s because a bird could land on anyone’s head or shoulder once in a lifetime or so. It’s if the bird stays that you’d know God had to be at work.
But the significance of the Spirit remaining is very easy for us to miss because of the gospel translation that we use in worship. This word for “remain” shows up later in the passage as well, only there it’s translated as “stay.”
When John points out Jesus to two of John’s own disciples, they leave John and go after Jesus. When Jesus asks them what they’re looking for, they ask him, “where are you staying?” He invites them to come and see, and, as we just heard, they “saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day.” But all these words for “stay” and “remain” are the same.
Now, as a sometimes English professor, I know the virtues of showing some variety in our vocabulary. It would sound a bit dull to write, “They said to him, ‘where are you staying?’” and then, “They . . . saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him.” That’s a lot of repetition.
But Biblical writers often limited their vocabulary to a few key words, because they wanted us to notice something important about how things are connected, and about how a word can deepen its own meaning for those who stick with it.
Here’s what we miss by translating the word as “remain” in the first half of today’s gospel, and as “stay” in most of the rest. We miss seeing the parallels between the events of two days in today’s passage. On day one, John the Baptist had heard that the Spirit would descend and stay on the one he was waiting for, and, lo and behold, the Spirit descends on Jesus and stays with him. On the next day, two followers want to know where Jesus is staying, and they see where he’s staying, and they stay with him.
So, to recap: the Spirit stays on Jesus, Jesus stays where people can find him, and the people who find him stay with Jesus. It’s all the same movement—the Spirit resting on Jesus, and Jesus pausing in place long enough for disciples to find and stick with him.
If we didn’t have this common word “stay,” we might not see how closely connected these stories are. We might also see the Jesus movement as something restless, with Jesus constantly on the move, and disciples swapping teachers left and right. But really, the presence of Jesus is a call to rest, to stay. Yes, there’s movement. Yes, there’s change from one leader to the next. But there’s also rest. There’s also staying power.
This word turns up again much later in John’s gospel, only there, most translators use something that sounds much fancier or more spiritual than just “stay.” The word appears multiple times in Jesus’s long speech toward the end of his earthly life. He gives his disciples the metaphor of a vine and branches to show how they’ll always be connected. The translation we use in worship has Jesus say, “Abide in me as I abide in you . . . I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit . . . abide in my love.”
All those “abides” are the same as the “remains” and “stays” of today’s gospel.
The Spirit descends and stays on Jesus. The first two disciples find and stay with Jesus. And much later, at the end of his ministry, Jesus once again invites his people to stay not just with him but in him, to stay in his love, and he promises to stay with them.
Deep underneath all the comings and goings of Jesus’s own ministry, and of life in the church, there’s a much stronger sense of staying, of remaining, of abiding. For those of us who have moved long distances in response to God’s call, or just because some job or family member dragged us someplace new, or because some crisis or collapse drove us away from where we called home, in some other sense we may also have been staying—staying faithful by offering our very best to God, and by trusting God with what we offer.
In John’s gospel, “stay” describes the permanent relationship among God, Christ, and us. In the wider world of Greek writing, it means to lodge, to last, to stand fast as in battle. It’s used as the precise opposite of being in exile.
The invitation of Christ is sometimes to go, or to come and see. But in one sense or another, it’s also an invitation to stay, at least for a little while longer. Sometimes the “stay” part is a bit more obvious, unmissable. Maybe even the result of a bishop election. But the call to stay is beautiful, abiding; and for many, it’s good news.
© 2020 The Rev. Dr. Lora Walsh
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas