This coming Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time. 38 Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come, and you will see.” 

As the two approached Jesus he turned and asked, “What are you looking for?” Jesus initiates the conversation and the question makes sense in the narrative flow. But also note that these are Jesus’ first words in this gospel and forms one of the central questions of the gospel: what do people seek when they follow Jesus?

To our modern mind the response of the disciples is a bit odd and not really an answer to Jesus’ question. They responded “where are you staying?” Their words probably imply that what they wanted with him could not be settled in a few minutes by the wayside. They were hoping for a long discussion. John Calvin notes that this is a critical flexure point in one’s journey of faith. Calvin notes that there are many who are satisfied “with a bare passing look.… For there are very many who merely sniff at the Gospel from a distance, and thus let Christ suddenly disappear, and whatever they have learned about Him slip away.”

The question “where are you staying” uses a Johannine word, menō, that is used elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel to assert that the relationship of God, Jesus and the Spirit with one another and with believers (e.g., 1:32,33; 8:31, 35; 14:10, 17; throughout ch. 15) is permanent and not sporadic. In the broader Greek use menō also refers to a room available to travelers. So, the disciples’ response may also include a query about what lay ahead for them at the end of the day.

The two address Jesus as “Rabbi,” the customary form of address for disciples speaking to their teacher. The Evangelist explains the Aramaic word for the benefit of his non-Jewish readers.

Jesus’s response does not answer the would-be disciples’ question, but issues them an invitation that opens the doors for them to discover for themselves the answers.

Image credit: Saint John the Baptist Preaching to the Masses in the Wilderness | Artist: Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564–1638) | Galerie de Jonckheere, Paris | PD-US