The Call we Walk

 

Sermon 1-24 – 21

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

I grew up on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin, where my sibling and I learned from a very early age to pay attention to where we walked. In fact, on the door to the barn hung a funny sign that warned, “Don’t follow in my footsteps – I think I stepped in something!” You know exactly what I’m talking about. If you are walking around a farm for any length of time, most likely you will get SOMETHING on your shoes. It goes with the territory.

No unlike farm life, fishing life gets messy too. Jesus was not strolling along a pristine beach dotted with tiki bars. I imagine, fresh from his baptism, he strode along that beach with purpose – dodging some fish guts here and there, weaving his way through the bustle of business, on a mission: to confirm the members of his administration’s inner circle. The moment was at hand: John the Baptist had been arrested, and Jesus needed a “few good men.”

Simon, Andrew, James, and John were certainly not theologians, great communicators, knowledgeable, powerful, wealthy, or even literate. After all, where did Jesus find them?... At the wharf, slogging through a day’s work at the family business.

But if it were not for these ordinary, flawed, people, WE would not be here, listening to Mark tell the story of Jesus to us now. WE are here because of everyone who mentored us in the faith before us fished for people…. Who fished for people… who fished for people… who eventually caught US. … so that we may be CALLED by Jesus to follow him too, and fish for people ourselves. No bait and fishing pole required!

In the Jesus administration, it doesn't matter what school we attended or how much money we make or what our children amount to. We don’t have to fill out an application showing how many committees we've served, how many years we've faithfully taught Sunday school, been in youth group, or sang in the choir, though these are all worthwhile things. To be called by Jesus, to work in his administration, you only need one thing on your resume: being a child of God. Which, by the way, you already are, by virtue of your baptism.

Whether you are young like Samuel, stubborn like Jonah, eloquent like Paul, thoughtful like Mary, brave like Moses and Miriam, faithful like Mary Magdalene, eager like Peter, curious like Philip…. We are all ages, genders, backgrounds, abilities….  And Jesus has a place for you here…  among his students. And he has called you for a reason…. to follow him and learn how to fish for people.

Well, a more accurate translation of what Jesus says here is actually “I will make you BECOME fishers for people.” We aren’t instantly good at it. It’s still hard, especially at first, and we of course can’t get good at it unless we PRACTICE. This doesn’t mean get out the boat and the fishing tackle, obviously. But are there skills, interests, talents, relationships, motivations, and passions that we already possess that we can use, to share our faith and help connect people to the Kingdom of God?

If we are truly to follow in the footsteps of Jesus though, I think that we must walk exactly where Jesus walked, even it takes us to places and to people we perhaps would rather not go to, and step into thing we would rather not step in. Jesus walked with people who were on the margins, who were neck deep in dealing with the muck of the world… forging relationships…. Treating all people with dignity and respect. 

This will probably mean getting a little messy, stepping into places that might leave a mark on us, slogging through some muck with people, entering into the mess of what it means to be human with one another. After all, this is exactly what Jesus did – stepped into the mess with us.

Jesus walked where we walked, so that we may walk with others who are in desperate need of a companion right now. This is the walk which we are called to. We walk without stopping until we all get to Justice, Mercy, and Freedom. Even if we step in things like Fear, Misunderstanding, Rejection, and the Unknown. We follow in Jesus footsteps, and we have to be willing to go where that takes us, even if we don’t feel ready or prepared to go there. 

We aren’t sure what we may be facing. Poet Laurate Amanda Gorman shared this week, “…We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter…“

Much like the disciples could not have known what they would face as they dropped their nets to follow Jesus. It turns out they stepped into … some very big footprints. Theirs was a big job, and it wasn’t easy, and they failed many times. We face a difficult hour too, in more ways than we can even name.

We may not feel up to the task, but as we heed the call of Jesus, we pray. We pray along with the Reverend Dr. William Barber II as he preached Thursday – we ask our Lord to “Grant us wisdom for the facing of this hour until love and justice are never rejected” …  because we know that God will provide for us.

As we heed Jesus’ call, we pray for the wisdom and courage necessary to keep walking “until the poor are lifted, the sick are healed, children are protected, and civil rights and human rights never neglected” because with us, God abides with us.

As we heed the call of Jesus, we will keep walking in the light of God, and we aren’t going to stop, until we arrive at Justice.

The time is now. The kingdom is at hand. We are ready Get your boots on, let’s go. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Having Jesus-Vision

 Sermon 1-17-21 “Having Jesus-Vision”

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

In every place I have ever lived, one thing has remained the same: there are always “those places.”

You know exactly what I’m talking about. No one in New Jersey goes to Trenton or Camden if they can help it. In Pennsylvania, I can’t tell you the number of people who would tell me “Oh yeah, I used to live in Philly…. Until it ‘changed’. It’s SO different now.” Growing up in Wisconsin even, Milwaukee was talked about in a similar way – one of those places that surely “nothing good happens.”

There were certainly “those places” in Jesus’s time as well. Like Trenton and Princeton, the town where Jesus is from – Nazareth – is so close to the town Nathaniel is from. And yet, they were obviously worlds apart. Nathaniel clearly sneers at the thought of anything good coming from Milwaukee, I mean… Trenton…. I mean… Nazareth. And yet somehow, his friend Phillip is undaunted: Come and See! He insists, even though he has only known Jesus for like 5 seconds. Miracle of miracles, Nathaniel puts aside his preconceived notions about Nazareth, and follows Phillip to Jesus. And boy was he surprised! 

We are currently in the season after Epiphany, at time in cycle of the church year where we focus on all the ways that God reveals Godself in our lives, in the past, in the present, and in the future. It’s when we usually hear the parts of the Bible that tell us how Jesus started his ministry and called the first disciples… like snarky Nathaniel.

Up until that moment, Nathaniel was a man who was SURE that he knew how God operates. He saw the world as many of us do – God uses some people but not others, God is present some places, but not others. But Jesus sees a different way. Jesus saw something in Nathaniel – Jesus saw him for who he truly is – beloved child of God.  

This might sound like a small thing – but is it revolutionary, then and now. The kind of love has the power to save us from the depths of shame and crippling despair, and the power to make us very, very angry. Just a few chapters later in the Gospel of John, Jesus says the line he is most famous for: “For God so loved the world that God gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” To see the world through the vision of Jesus is to see a world where all people have value. And…. THIS is still an extremely controversial message. It was back THEN, it was during the Civil Rights movement… and it STILL makes people angry even now.

Back when I drove a lot more, occasionally I would get wrapped up listening to NPR shows, like “This American Life.” A man shared how when his daughter turned 4, she became very interested in WHY we celebrate Christmas. With some simple but exemplary evangelism, he got his daughter a children’s bible, and they began to read it together (well done!). They talked about how Jesus was a preacher, and he spread the message that God loves everyone.

Not long after, they drove past a church with a HUGE cross in their front yard… which the girl of course asked about. Her father admitted that they had not gotten to the ending, and to his credit, was both honest and age appropriate about telling her about how Jesus was executed by the oppressive Roman government because of his message.

Fast forward a few weeks later to MLK day weekend, and he took his daughter out to lunch on her day off from school. She saw a picture of MLK in a newspaper, and of course asked who it was. When he said Dr. King was a preacher, and she got excited and asked, “For Jesus”? Yes, he explained, and Dr. King also taught that you should treat everyone the same no matter what. For a moment, the girl was silent in thought. Then, she looked up at her dad, and asked him, “Did they kill him too?”

The ironic thing is that the show this aired on was called “Kid logic: Stories of kids … arriving at perfectly wrong conclusions” …. But this kid got it EXACTLY RIGHT! This 4-year-old totally SAW the way the world works in a way that most adults miss, or refuse to see.

The season of Epiphany is about seeing things in a new way. On this weekend we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we remember that he had Jesus Vision. And, like Jesus, he not only saw injustice, he also called it out. Dr. King went to “those places” like Birmingham and Montgomery, to name the sin of racism for what it is – evil. And he called out his fellow (white) pastor colleagues for their lukewarm support. They wondered why Dr. King would go to Birmingham, which prompted him to write in his famous letter while he sat in a jail cell: “I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

I have said at one time or another something to the effect of “I don’t see color” or “I’m colorblind.” This statement seems innocent enough. But I have since learned that this idea erases and dismisses the real experiences and struggles of people of color. This is also why saying things like “Just be kind to one another” is not enough, because no amount of “kind acts” on the part of individuals will answer for the 400+ years of racist history we must wrestle with if we are indeed serious about healing and unity. We must name the evil if we are to cast it out on Jesus’ name. And as we can see… we have our work cut out for us.

Can anything good come from …. Any of this? We don’t know it yet. We can’t see it yet… at least not with our own eyes. Nathaniel took a chance on what he did see, he took the risk of being wrong… and Jesus told him – you are going to see greater things than these. And he did. As a follower of Jesus, Nathaniel saw water turned into wine, people being healed of their illnesses, the hungry being fed, and the dead being raised.

Can anything good come from… any of this? This weekend, our Bishop, Leila Ortiz shared this message: “This is not the first time that the church has been in the midst of utter chaos, destruction, and crisis. Through it all, and in every age….  God has not and will not abandon God’s beloved.” That means, God loves and will not abandon all the Nazareths, the Birminghams, the Milwaukees or the Trentons of the world. And God will not abandon US. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Special Delivery

 

Sermon 1-3-21

Grace and peace to you from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Hey it’s 2021! We made it! This year, more than most, we have we been looking forward to starting something new - though I think our “new years resolutions” might look a bit different than normal – like “move to the other side of the room,” “put on something besides sweatpants” and “less screen time.”

Beginnings give us hope. Maybe it’s the reason we return over an over again to hear our favorite stories, with their recognizable first lines: “Once upon a time” and “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” “It was a dark and stormy night.”

What about this one? “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”

And so, began the greatest story of all time, a story could not be contained on just one book or just one lifetime. It is a story that starts at the very beginning and tells of a God who created a world that was good and full of life, and God wanted to share it with us. Even though we tend to mess things up. Again, and again and again. So God decided to begin a new chapter to the story. And this one also began with “in the beginning.”

In an example of divinely sanctioned plagiarism, this is how the gospel of John chooses to tell us the Christmas story. There are no angels or shepherds or censuses or managers or even Mary and Joseph, or even a birth. Instead, John takes us back to the dawn of time, to tell Jesus’ origin story like a dramatic crane shot that zooms out and out and out until you can see all of creation: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”

And so, God’s word became flesh and living among us. The Word made a home with us. The Word landed in your neighborhood and moved in next door. The Word arrived at a new address - A living, breathing, Christmas card – with a message of love from our maker, arriving just in time in just the right place.

Having just moved myself, I feel like learning a new address, navigating mail forwarding, and getting your mail right is always an adventure – especially this year! And then there is always having to deal with getting mail addressed to some of the previous inhabitants.

When I lived in NJ, I got Christmas cards two years in a row from one particular family I didn’t know. Both times, the card had my correct address, but the recipients were Moe, Marc, and Justin, with no last name. Did Moe, Marc, and Justin forget to update their friends and family about their new living situation? Or did they not want to be found? I’ll never know. I just felt sad that, for two years in a row, I returned the cards with my own personal, though not very Christmas-y, message added: return to sender.

Our address, when written correctly and kept up to date, tells others where we call home. It’s an amazing system we use to receive everything from Christmas cards to ads to Amazon packages safely in a timely manner – at least, most of the time. And when we move, we usually leave a forwarding address to point the way to where we can now be found, which is exactly what I did when I recently moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia.

Certainly, the words that I read a moment ago from the Gospel of John is more beautifully written than the loveliest hallmark card. It is the first line of the most amazing story ever told. But it seems to me that it is also an address - not only an address of a physical location, but also an address in the span of cosmic time. This is not an address you could punch into your GPS and find the most direct route. This is an address that takes you back to the very beginning, to the Source, to where everything started. 

It was through words that God spoke our world into being at the very beginning. “Let there be light,” were God’s first words into the darkness. And there was light. And it was good. Then God really got going: “Let there be water and land and plants and animals and the moon and the sun and people!” And God saw that the world that had been created was VERY good, very good indeed. And the Word of God has been on the move ever since. 

God didn’t stop speaking after the universe was formed. Through human history God has been communicating to us, through ordinary people called to speak extraordinary words: through Abraham, Moses, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, and countless more, …. All like letters from God delivered through the mouths of so many who have gone before us. Though sometimes the message didn’t always get through as intended.

But in these days and in these times, God speaks to us by a Son, born in a particular place and in a particular time, giftwrapped for us in rags. We celebrate that the Word didn’t just pop in for a quick visit. The Word didn’t plan an overnight trip just to see how things are going. The Word didn’t have to be up early in the morning beat the traffic home.

On Christmas Day, over a week ago, we celebrate when God moved to a new permanent address. The Word became flesh and lived among us. The Word set up shop and decided to stay.

The tracking number of this very special gift was first revealed to a poor, young, small-town girl in Nazareth. Gabriel informed her that a “shipping label has been created by the Holy Spirit; it is currently en route to womb.” Mary shared the good news with her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, who confirmed that the package was on its way. Then, Mary and Joseph faced their own shipping challenges as they made their way to Bethlehem. When they rested with the animals, they thought they had been rerouted or even gone off course, but were exactly where they needed to be.

The shepherds found him first, at 100 Manger Way, Nowhere’s Ville. It was not very hard to find since they had gotten their directions from the finest heavenly host GPS: “to you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is the messiah, the Lord.” These shepherds, poor and nomadic themselves, were surprised to see that the Word of God packs light. No carry-ons or checked luggage, no U-Hauls or moving vans for Jesus. They found just a wrinkled little baby resting in an animal feeding trough.

Some thirty years later, John the Baptist came on the scene, assuring the world that the Word of God had indeed moved into their very midst. Some people thought that John himself was the one who they were looking for, but John assured them he was just the delivery man. Any confusion was finally cleared up at Jesus’ baptism, when a voice came from heaven said – “you are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Quite the delivery confirmation.

And for three more years, the word of God walked and talked, taught and healed and fed, and proclaimed his message of the kingdom of God, until, like a gift we don’t understand, the world tossed him aside for something else they liked better. God gave us the greatest and most wondrous gift imaginable, a perfect reflection of Godself.

What we didn’t count on was that this love was going to mess up our ideas about God and love itself. So, after all this work on God’s part, and on the part of all the prophets, in delivering this gift, we often act as though we want to send the gift back. We would rather say search for the gift recipe and write on the box “Return to Sender. This is not really what we wanted. You must have the wrong address.” 

But God has already spoken. The delivery was already made, and there is no going back what that was before. A new beginning arrived, and it is very good indeed! In the year one AND in the year 2021. Thanks be to God, amen.