If someone asks you: “Where do you live?” how do you answer that?
It is known as the St. Louis question – and there are two variations on it. The first – What high school did you go to? The second – What parish do you belong to? Both of them reveal a lot about who we are and what makes us tick. Prep South High School, and Our Lady of Providence parish, are my answers. The first tells you that I was in the seminary from early on. The second tells you that I grew up in white, lower middle class suburbia. But if you are like me, you get tired of those questions, don’t you? Because both of them lead to rather predictable conversations – about different pastors and priests or different high school sporting events or plays or competitions. And, I confess, I long for a bit more. When someone asks you ‘Where are you staying/where do you live, how do you answer them.
In today’s gospel, we hear that question: “Rabbi, where are you staying?” And the response of Jesus is not the usual street address /parish/high school kind of answer. “Come and you will see!” As if to say: “You can’t answer that question with words – only with actions, only with what really reveals the heart and soul. And notice what happens in the gospel. The two disciples stay with Jesus the rest of that day, from 4:00 on. And what they see as they watch Jesus interact with his family, with his friends, for the rest of that day is enough for Andrew. There is something about this Jesus, something about how he lived that ordinary day at home that clinches it for Andrew. He tracks down his brother and says: “THIS IS IT.” I’ve found the one. And now I know where I will live for the rest of my days – following this one, letting his dream become my dream, letting his passion become my passion. “Where am I staying? Peter, I will spend the rest of my days staying with this one called the messiah. That’s where I will stay, that’s where I will live.”
“Where are you staying?” It is one of the more important questions that the disciples ask Jesus. But I believe it to be one of the important questions that the gospels ask of us. Where are you staying? Where do you live? For as the disciples discovered, there are no guarantees in that reply of Jesus. ‘Come and you will see’ took them to work among the poorest of the poor. ‘Come and you will see’ invited them to journey to the Cross at Calvary and their own crosses, scattered throughout Christendom. ‘Come and you will see’ may take you and I to the inner cities of St. Louis to work with the poor. It may call you to March in usually freezing cold weather in Washington D.C. proclaiming the value of LIFE from the womb to the tomb. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, it may bid you to combat racism in all its forms, to march in political rallies, to get involved in the shaping our laws and policies. To all the places where Jesus lives, where Jesus stays, we are invited to stay. “Where are you staying?” Close to the master. Close to the places where He spent His energy. Close to his love.
This week, I invite that gospel question of the disciples to be the question of your prayer – “Where are you staying? What are the things that you are passionate about, the places where you are ALIVE and not just surviving…?” And then, like Samuel in the first reading, in the urgings that are revealed to us, in the longings of our hearts, may we hear the voice of Jesus calling our names, and like Samuel, may we respond: Here I am Lord, I come to do your will…