"How Much Do We Trust Today?"

Intern Pastor Katie Insalaco

So in the movie version of today’s gospel, I imagine Jesus walking down the street minding his own beeswax when John shouts at him and two guys randomly start following him. I picture Jesus looking behind him like “are they still following me?” before turning around and being like “Uhh … what are you looking for?” And then when the disciples identify Jesus as “Rabbi”, Jesus is like, “ok, these guys know who I am” and he relaxes. Maybe he even turns fully toward them and shines a welcoming smile, putting them at ease, too.

Our gospel writer, John, tells us how to identify Jesus and demonstrates how to follow him. John the Witness, otherwise known as John the Baptist in the synoptic gospels, tells the story of personally witnessing the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus that we heard in last week’s gospel from Matthew. Remember that the Holy Spirit takes on the form of a dove and stays with Jesus. The word used here is μένω (meno) which can be translated as “stay” but also as “abide” or “dwell”. John identifies Jesus as someone in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. He goes on to name him the “Son of God” and “Lamb of God”. John is beside himself because the one who he’s been evangelizing about and preparing his disciples for is finally here walking around the neighborhood. Can you even imagine?

And what happens when John points to Jesus and says, “Him! He’s the one!”? John’s disciples immediately follow Jesus. They don’t even introduce themselves or ask permission. They just go. And that word that John the Witness says in the first part of the gospel when he talks about Jesus’s baptism reappears - that word, μένω (meno), which can mean stay but also dwell - as Andrew and his unnamed buddy ask Jesus, “Where are you staying?” or “Where do you dwell?”. And Jesus simply replies, “Come and see”. And they do. And we have Jesus’s first act of ministry in the gospel of John.

We don’t know what happened that afternoon - until 4pm to be oddly precise - but we know that whatever it was led Andrew to go get his brother and proclaim, “We have found the Messiah”. So Simon Peter joins Jesus. And then in the verses immediately following this gospel, Jesus tells Phillip, “Follow me” and he does.

As I was wrestling with the text this week, the Spirit kept pulling me toward the word “trust”. It was a little weird, actually. At first it was just lines that jumped out at me from a book I was reading where I felt compelled to highlight this line, “Trust and fear cannot coexist. It is one or the other. Trust makes us more active, creative, and free”^[1]. Then, I picked up a book that I’ve read probably five times and noticed this line, “When we’re in the domain of the soul, we act with integrity . . . We are trustworthy and trusting of others, and our self-expression flourishes.”^[2] And then I was at home and noticed a bookmark on the shelf that said, “Trust is having faith is the honesty, integrity, and dependability of others . . .  we won’t get to where we need to go if we don’t invest in trust”^[3]. I honestly have no idea where this bookmark came from. I’d never seen it before in my life. It was super weird. And then it dawned on me (with the Spirit in the background saying “duh”) that today’s gospel might be about trust. John the Witness trusts what he saw when the dove descended on Jesus and Jesus was baptized in the Holy Spirit. The disciples trusted John to point to the “Chosen One”. Then the disciples trust Jesus to show them where he dwells. And Jesus trusts the disciples to take the gifts he’s offering with pure hearts and open minds.

How much do you trust today? I feel like I can hear a collective groan. For some of us in this room, we may not trust people in our families. We may not trust that we will have enough food to eat or heat to keep us warm this winter. We may not trust experts who do everything from repair our roofs to diagnose our illnesses. We may not trust the government, elected leaders, or the media (and perhaps should not). There is so much skepticism and cynicism in our everyday lives. At least there is in mine. And today’s gospel made me think what might it feel like if we trusted Jesus as completely as John and the disciples did. If, instead of constantly questioning motives and scanning the horizon for the next scheme, we just went and saw. Where might we be led if we released the fear that keeps us from recognizing Jesus among us and just followed?

Don’t you think that to follow in modern America is swimming upstream? We are supposed to all be leaders, right? Our culture praises the individual, especially if she is successful all on her own. Trusting and following are oftentimes deemed foolishness and weakness. It’s getting scammed. But today’s gospel says “No” and reminds us that God doesn’t scam people. Trusting and following God leads to liberation every time. And to follow means to follow completely, even when, or maybe especially when, it’s uncomfortable. The disciples who trusted Jesus and followed him wholeheartedly didn’t sign up for a life of ease. And neither do we. And they didn’t interview for the honor of being a Jesus follower. They just trusted and went. All we need to do to be a Jesus follower is follow Jesus. Sounds simple, but we all know that it’s not.

Jesus will take us on a path that encounters intense suffering alongside joy, oppression alongside justice, and death alongside everlasting life. Following Jesus will hurt and can be very dangerous. Just this last week, New Hampshire Episcopal bishop Rob Hirschfeld called on clergy to get their affairs in order, to get their wills ready because he believes we are entering into, or are already in, an especially dangerous time to follow Jesus^[4]. He openly named that in participating in peaceful protests against ICE, the risk is no longer simply being arrested - which is traumatizing in itself- but being shot. To be clear - he in no way advocates violence - but he does illuminate the truth that following Jesus to stand for those most vulnerable among us is especially dangerous right now. 

Today’s gospel urges us to trust that Jesus will lead us to where the Spirit dwells and to find the courage to recognize Jesus walking among us. If we can call him by name and persevere alongside Jesus when others call us weak or naive or foolish, Jesus will lead us through the suffering  into the healing liberation of the resurrection. But like the book I read to my children a thousand times, “we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we’ve got to go through it”^[5], trusting all along in the divinely ordained path on which Jesus treads alongside us. 

And trusting and following God is not something we do alone. The only person in today’s gospel who is depicted as being alone is Jesus. And that is only momentarily before he is recognized. Once he is seen for his true self, he surrounds himself with people who trust him and whom he trusts. He is in relationship with his followers, creating a divine web of trust.

The 1 Corinthians text reiterates that God calls us to follow Jesus in community. You may have noticed that I altered the NSRV translation slightly to make the plural “you” of the original Greek more explicit. Paul reminds the Jesus followers in Corinth that God invites all of them into relationship, enriching all of them with gifts to share, and strengthening them as a community with the call to follow Christ. The call to follow Jesus, to trust God completely, is a communal one and not something we need to answer alone. The trust in Jesus and the call to follow comes out of relationship. Relationship with God, relationship with Jesus, relationship with each other, and, I would argue, relationship with creation. And, isn’t that such good news? When that familiar skepticism and cynicism starts to creep back in, we have this abundance of relationship to bolster us to come and see where Jesus is dwelling in our lives today.

So, I invite you to consider the web of trust that you dwell in this week. Is Jesus there front and center? Do you recognize him walking down the street and, if so, how do you identify him? Do you have the eagerness of John the Witness to publicly celebrate that Jesus is among us? Is it difficult for you to abandon the societal pull to lead and instead follow Jesus, trusting him completely? How might you answer God’s call even when you don’t know where it will lead? Especially when you don’t know where you are being called to dwell?

We’re having a listening session after worship today. Come and see how the community of Zoar might be called to recognize Jesus and follow him completely here in Canby and in the larger church body. Where are Zoar’s trusting relationships strongest and where could they be bolstered? What might it feel like to point to Jesus with the enthusiasm of John the Witness in all that we do? I have a feeling that Jesus is turning towards Zoar with a big smile inviting us into his dwelling place. May we have the courage to trust and follow him.

^[1] Honda, Ken. Happy Money: The Japanese Art of Making Peace with Your Money. London, England: John Murray Press, 2020. 208.

^[2] Twist, Lynne. The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life. New York, NY: WW Norton, 2017.

^[3] This quote was on a bookmark advertising The Aspen Institute’s Weave: The Social Fabric Project.

^[4] Smith, Tovia. “Amid ICE Clashes, New Hampshire Bishop Urges Clergy to Prepare Their Wills.” NPR, January 18, 2026. https://www.npr.org/2026/01/18/nx-s1-5678579/ice-clashes-new-hampshire-bishop-urges-clergy-prepare-wills.

^[5] Rosen, Michael. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. 30th ed. Little Simon, 2019.