‘What’s occurring?’ If you’re a Gavin and Stacey fan you’ll know where that catchphrase comes from, and you will no doubt be looking forward to the Third Series. The series hasn’t been written yet, but Ruth Jones (who plays Nessa in the series) and her co-writer James Cordon are soon to sit down and get the scripts on paper. Speaking at the Royal Court's Young Writers Festival she said the pressure is on but the scripts should be finished by the end of March. She also talked about what it feels like to write. 'With acting you are a little bit protected,' she said, 'you have other actors with you, as well as the writer and the director. But when you've written something it's such a fragile and lonely process. You are never quite sure how it's going to be perceived.’ She refused to give any hints as to what happens to the characters but she said, ‘We've always known how it's going to end, it's a good thing to know where you're heading to.’
That’s not bad advice for life, really, is it? And it’s not bad advice for us in our Christian discipleship: to have some kind of direction in life, to know where we’re heading. That’s not to say that we won’t experience unexpected events or circumstances, or that we won’t get confused along the way, that we won’t feel fragile or lonely at times, or worry about how we are perceived by others. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be willing to be led in certain directions if that is where God is leading us. But ultimately our direction is or should be towards God. (Sometimes, of course, we veer away from God: it’s so easily done and before we know it we can find ourselves a little lost and off track and far away from God. But Jesus never abandons us, and it’s never too late to get back on track, to look to where we are heading).
I love the image in the gospel reading of Jesus taking those followers home to where he lives. They are searching and seeking for the Messiah, they have been waiting for him, and now they think they have found him. And so they go out to see. They follow Jesus, and Jesus (aware that they are following him) turns around and asks them, ‘What do you want?’ (Maybe Nessa would have another turn of phrase: ‘What’s occurring?’) ‘Rabbi, where do you live?’ they ask. It doesn’t actually answer his question. Or does it? They haven’t directly said what they want, but they obviously want to know more about Jesus: they want to know where he lives. Maybe they are waiting for an invitation. Maybe they are too timid or fragile or scared to ask directly, ‘Can we spend more time with you? Can we talk with you? Can we be with you? Can we follow you? Can we come home with you?’ Jesus answers them, ‘Come and see.’ It’s an invitation for them to come and see for themselves. And so they go home with him. They spend the rest of the day with him at home with Jesus.
Apart from being extremely funny, Gavin and Stacey is about relationships, it’s about falling in love and being in love, it’s about the ups and downs of life, of being together and trying to find your way through it all. The Gospel reading today is quite obviously about discipleship, about following. But discipleship is also about a relationship: it’s about wanting to be with Jesus, to be where Jesus is, to live as Jesus wants us to live, to love as Jesus loves us. When we follow Jesus there is (or should be) a sense of feeling at home, of being at home with Jesus. Yes, there is and always will (and always should) be a sense of awe and wonder (as in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when Mrs Beaver says about Aslan the Lion ‘If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.’) But there’s also an intimacy, a closeness, an intimate friendship. In the first reading, Samuel is called whilst he is lying down, trying to get some sleep. It’s a very homely image, a nice domestic scene. The voice he hears is so intimate, so close, so familiar, that he thinks it is Eli calling him in the night. It is, of course, God.
We too are called to be close and intimate with Jesus, called to have a warmth about our faith, called to be be and feel at home with Jesus. It doesn’t mean being over familiar, or flippant or casual. Perhaps we could call it having an intimate or familiar holiness. Here in this Eucharist we are gathered around the table of the Lord. How intimate is that? But more than that, he gives himself as food and drink. Henri Nouwen said, ‘The Eucharist is the most ordinary and divine gesture imaginable.’ And I think I read somewhere that Mother Teresa once said of receiving communion, ‘I’m not sure which is the case: that I receive Jesus in communion, or he receives me.’ It is, of course, both. Through sacrament and prayer, through reading the Bible, through discovering Jesus at home and in every part of our lives, we really can and should feel at home with Jesus. And, of course, be able to take Jesus home with us!
Readings: 1 Samuel 3:3-10.9; 1 Corinthians 6:13-15. 17-20; John 1:35-42
The homily illustration may be found here
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