Now Playing: The Search for Jesus

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
September 12, 2004

Now Playing: The Search for Jesus
Matthew 28:16-20
Psalm 139:1-18,23-24

Friday evening. 5:30 pm.
My secretary had just left and the office was quiet.
I leaned back in my chair and put my feet up on the desk.
The oaks slats in the chairback creaked and the springs shrieked for oil
as I swiveled around.
The office was dark as twilight descended.
The shadows from the lights outside my office danced across the walls.
The new sign at the Full Gospel Tabernacle across the street
threw an unmistakable image on the ceiling.
It was a large red neon cross-
Each time it flashed on, my office was washed in red.

I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the world.
But just as I was beginning to put the day’s stresses behind me,
I heard the door to the outer office open.
I figured it was my secretary – she was always forgetting her keys.
Then the door to my office opened, and a woman I’d never seen before
poked her head into the red-hued dimness.
She asked, “Are you Sam Noir, the private detective?”
In my line of work, I’ve learned to be careful
so I said, “Who wants to know?”

“I need you to help me find someone”, she said.
She’d come to the right place: I was the best in the business.
I could find anyone, anywhere, anytime.
I could find whoever she wanted me to find……
for $100 per day plus expenses.
I swung my feet off the desk and sat up in my chair,
“So, who do you want me to find?”
She told me the guy’s name was…Jesus.
Kind of an odd name I thought, probably Greek, or Italian.
“Got a last name?”, I asked.
“No”, she said.
This wasn’t going to be as easy as I first thought.
Strange first name, no last name.

“So, who is this guy?” I asked.
All she said was, “He was once a part of my life,
and then I lost him.
I need him back in my life.
And I need you to help me find him.”

She threw a book on my desk,
along with a brown envelope.
I like brown envelopes because they’re usually filled with green.
Before I could reach for the envelope, she said,
“The book will tell you about him
and the envelope should cover my retainer.
I’ll be back the same time tomorrow to check with you.”
And with that, she disappeared into the darkness.

I picked up the envelope and counted out 10 crisp new $20 bills.
Yeah, that’s a good start.
Then I reached for the book.
It was heavy, with thin paper and small print.
I flipped through it.
A New York City telephone directory would have been easier to read.
I got as far as a story about some poor guy
who had to live through more rain than they get in Seattle
when I decided it was time to get out of the office.
This wasn’t going to be easy.

I pocketed the money and left the book on the desk.
figuring I’d start fresh in the morning.
Find some guy named Jesus.
No last name,
No picture.
No social security number.
No drivers license.
No work address, no home address.
no telephone.
No nothing.
I like a challenge, but this was starting to sound impossible.

I walked down the stairs to the ground floor
and out into the cool evening air.
There was a crowd around the door at the Full Gospel Tabernacle.
The aroma of turkey dinner was coming out the door.
I looked at the people waiting to get in.
They all looked like they were down on their luck:
Old men, young women, there were even some kids;
in fact a lot of kids.
A man at the door said to the crowd,
“Don’t push folks, just take your time;
we’ve got plenty of food for everyone.”

I walked around the corner and almost knocked over a guy
who was standing there, right in everyone’s way.
I was just about to tell him to move it,
when I saw the cane – the white cane.
Rush hour traffic was heavy and he wanted to get across the street.
The poor guy didn’t have a chance.
But just then, a woman walked up to him, said something to him,
and then took him by the arm
and got him across to the other side.
Then she turned around and came back to my side
and went on her way, the opposite way of the guy with the cane.
I guess she had time on her hands.

As I walked, I wondered who this Jesus was
and what the woman wanted with him.
I was lost in thought when suddenly I heard a voice.
“Mister! Hey, Mister!
Throw us the ball!”
It was a kid with a baseball mitt on the other side of a fence.
His ball on gone through the chain link.
I picked it up and tossed it over to the kid,
who caught it and ran back to his pals.
There were kids everywhere in the park, shouting, singing,
playing under the floodlights the city put in last year,
floodlights paid for with my tax dollars.
They were making a racket that was louder
than six guys with jackhammers.
I don’t think kids should be seen or heard after 6:00 pm.

As I left the park, I walked by the hospital.
It was the biggest hospital in the city.
I remembered the nurse who looked after my mother when she was dying.
The nurse didn’t know my mother from any other patient,
but she always seemed to be in her room, fixing her pillows,
giving her some water, even reading to her.
Why anyone would want that job was beyond me.
Long hours, and lousy conditions.

Find Jesus, huh!
I might have to tell the woman this is too tough a case
I might have to tell her I didn’t have a clue as to how to find this Jesus.
No, she didn’t give me enough to go on.
One lousy book, more than a thousand pages.
Did she really expect me to read it?
And how would reading it help me to find Jesus?
I’ll just tell her I don’t have time to read it;
if there is something in that book she thinks I need to know,
then she’s gonna have to tell me.

It was getting dark and I had been walking a long time.
I had been so lost in thought that I had wandered into a part of town
I knew all too well: the wrong part of town.
Suddenly, four tough guys were around me,
and then one pulled me into an alley.
I felt the first punch, but then after that,
someone turned out the lights.

It was the smell that brought me around: a powerful acrid odor.
I opened my eyes to see a guy, an old guy, kneeling next me.
“Are you okay, mister?”, he asked.
He smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a month,
like he’d been sleeping in garbage,
but his hand was gentle on my swollen face.

I tried to get up, but as I did, I stumbled.
The old guy grabbed me and steadied me.
“Are you sure you’re okay? I saw what those guys did to you.”
I didn’t say anything.
I reached into my pocket to get a dollar to give the guy.
I figured that was all he was interested in.
It was then I realized my wallet was gone
along with the $200 bucks.

The old guy said, “I don’t think anything is broken; you’ll be okay.
There’s a coffee shop just down the street.
Why don’t you go get yourself a cup of coffee.”
And with that, he reached into his torn and tattered trousers
and pulled out a dollar.
He squeezed my hand gently as he slipped me the crumpled bill,
and then he disappeared down the dark alley.

The next morning I went to my office and saw the book lying on the desk.
When I opened the window, the wind flipped the pages,
page after page, and then just as quickly, the wind stopped.
I looked at the page the book was opened to and read these words:
“Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to the heavens, you are there,
and if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me
and your right hand shall hold me fast.”
I sat there wondering what those words meant,
when another gust of wind caught the pages
and turned them to something written by a guy named Matthew
Someone was speaking, I wasn’t sure who.
All I read was,
“and remember, I am with you always
to the end of the age.”

Late in the afternoon the woman came back to the office,
The neon cross from the Full Gospel Tabernacle
was flashing on and off, once again washing my office in red.
She sat down and all she said was “tell me everything”
I told her.
I told her
about the crowds at the Full Gospel Tabernacle
about the woman and the blind guy,
about the noisy kids,
about the nurse at the hospital.
I even told her about my little dust up in the alley,
and about the old guy giving me the buck.

And then I said, “I had a busy night,
but I sure didn’t have any luck tracking down your Jesus.”

She pushed her chair back and a smile filled her face.
“On the contrary, Mr. Noir, I’d say you found Jesus everywhere you went.
And you showed me where to look for him.
You’ve earned your fee, and a bonus besides.

She stood up, and tossed another brown envelope on my desk,
and disappeared out the door.
I tore open the envelope and found 10 more crisp new $20 bills.
I didn’t know what I had done for the her,
I didn’t know how I had helped her find Jesus.
But as I sat there in the darkness, the neon cross flashing on my ceiling,
those words stuck in my mind:
“And remember, I am with you always,
even until the end of the age.”

I walked downstairs in the cool evening air.
I went across the street, up to the man standing at the door
of the Full Gospel Tabernacle,
the one who was shepherding the people inside for dinner.
He said, “We have plenty of food sir. If you’ll just wait in line.”
“I’m not here for the meal”, I said,
and then I handed him the brown envelope:
the brown envelope with the green.
I didn’t say another word;
I just I turned and walked down the street.
But as I rounded the corner I couldn’t help but feel
that the woman was right:
that somehow, some way, I really had found Jesus after all.

AMEN