St.
Alban's Episcopal Church
Austin, Texas
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Austin, Texas
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From the Pulpit:
Most years we get to have a rather leisurely stroll through the season of Epiphany. It is one of the seasons we call ordinary time, not because there is anything unremarkable about it, but because we give these Sundays numbers. This is the third Sunday after Epiphany and some years we get as many as eight of them. Not this year. Next week is the Transfiguration, and the Sunday after that is Lent. I only get to wear my new green stole this one day before I have to put it away until after Pentecost, which is late in the spring. And it doesn’t help me that I actually missed two Sundays being sick and didn’t even get to hear Pat’s sermons, so as far as the messages of Epiphany are concerned, in my case, today is it. Please bear with me as I try to get as much as I can out of today’s little lesson. But today’s reading is a great encapsulation of what Epiphany is all about. First of all we get the prophet Isaiah telling us that the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. This light out of the darkness is one of the major themes of the season. It is after all the season that began with the star that led the wise men to the stable where they found the Baby Jesus. It is the season of enlightenment, and Matthew echoes Isaiah as he prepares to tell us about Jesus calling the first disciples. Now I do know that last week you heard John’s version of the calling of the disciples, and it was a bit different from Matthew’s. But there is one element common to both stories, and it is one we often overlook. It has to do with John the Baptist. In John’s version, it was John the Baptist who pointed Jesus out to his own disciples who in turn chose to follow Jesus. But in the reading from Matthew we just heard, Jesus takes up his own ministry only after hearing that John the Baptist had been arrested. There is no question about it, the Baptist’s ministry was the precursor to Jesus’s, and the message they proclaim is the same: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. We’ve talked quite a bit about repentance, and will continue to talk about it as it is a major theme of the season of Lent. But repentance meant something quite different to these two men. For John the Baptist it had to do with being cleansed of one’s sins so that one would be stainless to face the wrath of God. That wasn’t what Jesus meant, and of course it was in Jesus himself that the Kingdom of God had become present in the world. I think that this morning’s gospel lesson is our picture of what true repentance means. Peter and Andrew, James and John – two sets of brothers, who went to work on an ordinary morning. For them, as for many of us, one work day looks pretty much like any other. They were commercial fishermen. If you saw the movie Mystic Pizza or the first part of The Perfect Storm, that is more what it would have been like for them than A River Runs through It. Fishing was their livelihood, not a sport or a pastime. Think of the soggy clothes, the smell of fish on the deck of the boat, the tired muscles and the long nights. That morning Peter and Andrew were up to their waists in the water, throwing out the heavy nets and hauling them in sorting through the slippery fish for the keepers and tossing the rest back. James and John were sitting in the boat with their dad, mending the nets, a boring but necessary job, when all of a sudden Jesus comes along. It’s interesting to look at what has come before this in Matthew’s gospel. There was the birth narrative, the flight to Egypt, Jesus’ baptism and his trial in the desert. No preaching in the temple, no healings or miracles. We don’t have any reason to think these fishermen had heard of him and yet all he has to say is ‘follow me’ and they leave their livelihood and their families to give their lives to him. Somehow they are able to see in his eyes, hear in his voice something they knew was more valuable to them than everything they had. Our adult Christian Formation class right now is called Foundations in Discipleship. If you haven’t joined us yet, please do consider coming next week. Every one of us is here today because in one way or another we have heard a call. It may be faint or vague. It may sound a whole lot like your parent telling you to get dressed. It may sound a whole lot like you just don’t even know what, but you are here, and because you are here you are willing to listen, willing to entertain the idea that there may be something more for your life than just the humdrum school or work or shopping or TV. The invitation might be a whisper or an itch you don’t know what to do with, and the answer might not be clear at all. Haven’t we all wished at one time or another that God would simply stamp what he wants on our forehead and make it easy? That Jesus would show up as we’re waiting for the bus and say ‘Follow me!’ and it would be so clear. But discipleship is more subtle than that. The one line I’ll bet all of us remember is when Jesus says, “I will make you fish for people.” I think what we have to pay attention to is the fact that Jesus meets the disciples where they already are. He takes them with the lives they are living, with the skill sets they have, and invites them to put them to use for the kingdom, and that is how Jesus will use us as disciples. Just as God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you,” God knows each of us intimately and will call us into discipleship as we are. Jesus knows us with all our gifts and limitations and chooses us to follow him with what we have to give. Follow me, fisher-people, and I will show you how to fish for people. Follow me, singers and musicians, and I will show you how to make music for the kingdom. Follow me, cooks and bakers, and I will show you how to feed the world your delicious food. Follow me teachers and coaches, and I will show you how to teach the wonders of God’s creation and coach people to be their best. Follow me police people and doctors and nurses, and I will show you how to protect people and heal people so that the world may be safe and whole. Follow me students and children, and I will show you how to learn God’s own wisdom and to share your joy with all creation. Follow me, peace makers and prayer people, and I will show you how to make peace in the world. Follow me gardeners, and I will show you how to beautify the world. Jesus will never call us to be disciples out of what we don’t have to give, but will always call us to give from the blessings we have been given. Do you remember how little Mary responded to the news that she would be bearing the child of God? She said, My soul magnifies the Lord. Her soul, when she said yes, would make the Lord of the universe larger, and that is what each and every one of us does when we say yes to the call of Jesus, no matter how faint or trivial that call may seem. We may not be called to leave our job or our school or our home or our family, but when we answer the call, when we say yes to Jesus, we actually make Jesus bigger. Peter and Andrew, James and John – Jesus needed them even though he was God incarnate. He needed friends and he needed disciples who would love him and give their lives to sharing his good news with the world. They would learn from him and when he was gone, they would pass on the good news to the nations, and their disciples would do the same, and their disciples all the way down to us. Our discipleship, then, is hearing Jesus call us by name, by our own true name, the name by which God knows us, the name with which God has named us. It is the call to be ourselves. It is the call to mirror God, as Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says, We have to find out what is our particular way of playing back to God his self-sharing, self-losing and compassion, the love of which he speaks and calls in the first place. To be a disciple, then, is nothing more and nothing less than to claim our integrity, to own the courage to be who God created us to be, and to trust God that if we give our lives to God, if we give up safety and security to answer the call, God will use us in ways we would never be able to imagine ourselves to bring the kingdom into reality. Will you listen? Can you hear him calling? Will you follow? Amen.
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05/16/2008 | ||||||
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The
Rev. Margaret Waters