Sermons

 

As I explained to the Weds Bible study class- I usually read the scholars, theologians, and commentaries before I email the class. And I usually copy and paste something someone else has written.

But this week, I decided to trust my instincts. I read the scripture, not once but three times, each time allowed. The scriptures were meant to be read aloud and there’s great value in that.

As I entered the story, and my imagination began to fill in the blanks. And as I stated in my weekly email-

This story, like so many Biblical stories, has my imagination filling in the parts of the story we don’t hear about. Like the scene at home at the end of this day. Can you see it? Simon walks into the kitchen where his wife is juggling dinner, three kids, and the laundry. She’s got a pot of water on the fire and a baby crying in her arms.

"I met a guy named Jesus today," Simon says to his wife. “I’m pretty sure he’s the Messiah so I quit my job and I’m going to follow him. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone." Simon grabs a carrot from the kitchen counter, takes a bite, pretty pleased with himself, and says, "and oh, by the way, I think I’ll be changing my name to Peter."

It’s always astounded me how the Gospel writer gives us no sense of struggle on the part of the Disciples. How difficult must that have been? What was at stake? What a change from the plans made by Simon and his wife.

Simon’s wife, if she’s the June Clever type, probably stayed calm and supported him, kissed him on the cheek, told him to be careful, assured him that she and the children would be fine, and packed him a bag.

But If she was like the Italian women on my mother’s side of our family she would smack him upside the head. “Snap out of it”

Or maybe something in between.

The other part of the story we don’t know is the back story. What kind of life was Simon’s and the others? Were they successful? Were times tough? Was there enough money saved that they could walk away? Or were they so poor they had nothing to lose? Did they know Jesus long, or at all?

Whatever the scenario, there is a very important moment in their lives and in our lives. One that shows up over and over again and it is one of the most difficult to embrace, and that is, the period of the unknown. To walk away from what is familiar to the unfamiliar. From what we have known to what is unknown and to resist the urge to retreat. To leap is to jump over the hurdle into the unknown. The leap of faith. Before I entered Seminary, I was given a card with a Zen saying…”Leap and the net will appear.” I’ve kept that card in my refrigerator now for over 4 years because I find it applies to so much of our lives. Once we’ve leaped we cannot go back. Once we’ve encountered God, really encountered and experienced God, we cannot go back. And Amen to that. But that moment, into the unknown, is what God calls us into. To stay in that period where there is less of us, and more of God. And this can happen as an initial call to a life with God, as in today’s Gospel, or we can understand the story as something that happens again and again, as our life is filled with unknowns, and it’s at those times that God’s call to follow God becomes more important than ever, because God can see around the corners where we can only see straight ahead.

For the disciples to drop their nets, is to give up the familiar and trust that Jesus will take care of their needs. For the disciples to drop their nets is to let go of what they’ve known, and choose to let go of themselves in a sense. For the disciples to drop their nets they will gain so much more they can possibly imagine at that moment. Net Gains, if you will, but not the monetary kind. Rather it’s the kind you are given when there is less of us, and more of God. That’s why I believe the gospel writer leaves the struggle out of this part of the story at this point. There is an initial choice we make that requires an enormous trust, not with our heads, but the kind that comes to us naturally as children. The kind we’ve lost touch with as adults. The kind of ability that comes with curiosity and wonder. Children don’t weigh what they have to lose. They don’t go to their heads, they don’t weigh the pros and cons, they just follow their instincts like following a trail of gumdrops into a forest of trees. And when they get there, although, in fairytales, witches and goblins linger in the forest, God will prevail. Goodness and love will win in the end, if we allow God to lead us, and we follow the gumdrops, or the adult version, love, we say yes to God. And though we can’t see the forest through the trees, we trust that our God our creator, can.

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We say yes. Just like that. Because at the end of the day, if we wait for it to make sense, we may hold back, we might stay stuck and squash the impulse to live into the enormous expression of love that comes from living a life in Christ.

Living a life in christ.

The phrase is huge. How do we make sense of that? Does it mean to follow his teachings? We can wrap our heads around that. To be kind, to take care of the sick, the downtrodden, the brokenhearted, to clothe the naked, to love and to be kind. We do that here at St Luke. And that alone can disrupt the flow of our lives. Just like the fishermen in today’s story, to drop our nets and go is a disruption to whatever we are doing. To leave the dinner table because you have a meeting at the church, to pick up the phone from a friend in need just when you’re headed out the door, to have to stop and buy groceries for the shelter dinner….to have to get out of bed on a cold rainy Sunday morning

But I think this call to follow Jesus can mean more than all of that, and that is a lot.

To live a life with God, with Christ, is to see all of life as sacred. All of it. And perhaps this is why the gospel writer skips over the disruptive parts of the practical. Because maybe we are speaking about recognizing Jesus in all parts of our lives, so that whatever we do, whatever our job, whatever our relationships, we live with God, as part of God, as part of a life that is sacred.

Yesterday I attended an event at the Seminary. And like all these events I attend, I think, why didn’t I invite the entire congregation to join me? I promise to get better at that. It was a lecture led by a Celtic poet teacher minister John Phillip Newell. In Celtic spirituality all of life is sacred and there is no separation between God and us. As he so eloquently reminded us, it’s in the west where we tend to place God up in the sky, apart from us. It’s in the west that we think we’ve figured out with our heads what it means to understand Jesus. So we define and we think and we forget that our imagination is perhaps our greatest gift to the universal and personal yearning for love that we all carry with us from birth. There’s a prayer in his book that comes out of his tradition that sums it up quite beautifully-

Prayer-

God to enfold me,
God to surround me,
God in my speaking,
God in my thinking.
God in my sleeping,
God in my waking,
God in my watching,
God in my hoping.
God in my life,
God in my lips,
God in my soul,
God in my heart.
God in my sufficing,
God in my slumber,
God in mine ever-living soul,
God in mine eternity.

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To follow God comes first as an invitation-What does that invitation look like in your life? Is it a tug to desire-A desire to feel whole? Is it an impulse to ask, to feel complete? Is it a yearning to feel loved despite all of the things you can’t get right? Despite all things you can’t fix, including the people in your lives who come to you asking for you to help them, to heal them, to fix them, and you who have unhealed wounds of your own can only listen, and with a loss of words so you simply nod your head…

Our invitation to live a life with God is born in our yearning. Our yearning alone is an invitation from God to follow, even and especially when we don’t know where we are going, or what God has in store.

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Once we begin our journey comes other struggles and doubts. We will hear that time and time again later in our scripture stories when the disciples get it wrong. Can’t hear, don’t listen, misinterpret…That happens to us. Which is why it’s so important to return to listening for God’s call. To return to listening for our own yearning. To trust in the unknown and to trust that God can see around that corner.

God to enfold me, God to surround me…

We can hear the call- if we listen to it…We can drop our nets and follow.

We drop our nets, and we gain Jesus Christ. We gain a life filled with asking, and noticing and sharing, and life itself takes on an entirely different shape, even if we have to recommit 20 minutes later.

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Frederick Buechner puts it this way...

“If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

God in my speaking,
God in my thinking.
God in my sleeping,
God in my waking,
God in my watching,
God in my hoping.
God in my life,
God in my lips,
God in my soul,
God in my heart.

Amen.