January 27, 2008
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany (Year A)
Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1, 5-13; I Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23
The story of the fishermen who left their nets to follow Jesus strikes me differently each time we hear it, but the immediacy of their response is always something that pulls me up short. They left their vocation and families, and followed Jesus.
Immediately.
For those of us who know Jesus and have spent a lifetime following in faith, this is a particularly difficult passage. We think it is calling us to fish for other people (so to speak); but in reality, I think the immediacy of the response of Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, and John is far more challenging for us. For we have come to know what it is to follow Jesus. We include it in our everyday lives. We come to church; we help others; we bring our children up in the faith; we share our faith with others in our day to day lives as appropriate. By most standards we are already fishing.
And yet, I wonder, are we really?
I am not talking about the times when we could have referred to our faith and/or didn’t in a secular setting; or the times we could have asked a friend to church, or only put someone on the prayer chain, but then didn’t invite them to church or include them in a gathering of church friends. I am not talking about that kind of fishing. No, I want to go back to the immediacy of response that we find from Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, and John.
They were already religious people. They were already following the practices of their faith. They were already living according to the law of their ancestors. And yet they left all that they had in order to follow Jesus, at that point just another rabbi, another of the same faith as they.
The challenge I think this presents for us as already followers is not only to be evangelists who gather people in Christ’s name, but also to let go of what we think we know about Jesus and be open to what Jesus is saying to us now.
If we live in the comfort of what we know of God and God’s word and God’s people and God’s requirements for us, then we will not be open to what it is God is saying today, how God is calling today, what might be incorrect in our thinking or our perceptions, what was true for a moment and has been usurped by what is true for now, for what is required now.
God may have called us to one thing, then. God may have said, “I love you and you are mine” in a way we could tangibly hear it and believe it and know it for all time, for all of our lives. But if we are to be like Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, and John, and follow “immediately,” then we also must live in the immediacy of God’s ongoing, current, and ever changing call to us.
As our lives continue, and we have different gifts to offer, and different demands on our lives, with children who change ages, and as our financial situations change, and our own interests wax and wane, so we have new and different ways of understanding God’s call to us. God’s invitation to follow, though ever present, can be perceived in different ways. Could it be that Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, and John had finally gotten their children off to their own boat, and now could safely leave their fleet in the care of the elders? Could it be that one of them was a recent widower who suddenly was open to seeing things he could not have seen while his wife was still with him? We do not know the circumstances of the lives of these men, any more than – frankly – most of us know the details of the lives of most of the others who are in the church with us this morning.
But the circumstances of our lives, no matter what point they are in, no matter how full or how empty, how rich or how desolate, how healthy or unhealthy, how faithful or unfaithful they are, our lives AS they are, are what we have to give and bring to God, and what God can use to bring others into the community of believers. And just as our lives change with the passing of time, so what we bring changes, and even more importantly, how we know God changes. I would debate with you about IF God changes or not but that is not the point of this sermon!! The point is: I know that WE change and with those changes comes a difference in what we are able to offer to God, and even how we perceive God, or even what we think God has said to us in the past.
Further, it may well be that what we have always thought to be absolutely and undeniably etched in concrete about God becomes less etched, is worn over with time or even has cracks appear in the concrete and crumbles. I believe that for Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, and John the day on the fishing boat when Jesus asked them to follow, to leave their nets and follow him, was just such a concrete crumbling day. I believe following Jesus is about letting the concrete crumble around us daily so that when the entire wall begins to crumble, we can step over the rubble and follow – just as Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, and John did when they dropped their nets and left behind what they had thought was their calling.
This morning I am going to ask you to put your hands into a bowl shape, and to hold them out stretched in front of you, to close your eyes and let go of any awkwardness about doing this.
Hold your hands in a cup shape, and now see that cup filled with all the suppositions and knowledge and sense of ministry and calling and life that you think God has given to you. Your hands may feel weighted down, heavy laden and full, bursting with abundance, spilling over with God’s grace.
Now bravely separate your hands and let all that was contained therein go. Let it become a sea of swirling waters at your feet, holding you steady, keeping you buoyant, but still holding you, the fuller, ever growing, ever learning you, holding you not as an anchor, rather as a staging area to be set free, to be launched anew.
Now bring your hands back together in the bowl shape. Keep your eyes closed for a minute. But know that you will go from this place today with your hands open. Imagine how that will be. You are ready to receive God’s new call to you, God’s new invitation to follow, Christ’s even more abundant grace. Let this image of being open to receiving the invitation to follow as God intends now, surround your days this week. Rejoice in today, in being fully who you have become and are becoming, hands open, heart open, preconditions, old habits, past callings set aside. Hold your hands open to receive grace upon grace, and to feel the withered concrete of what you thought was unchangeable, change you as you follow – just like Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, and John did.
Amen.
You may lower your hands; and when ready, open your eyes.
The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd