Note: This is from a 1/26/14 Sermon I did at my church in Ellensburg Washington from the first part of Matthew Chapter 4. Even though this was written for a Christian audience, non-Christian readers can generalize the message to learning to discern your own deepest callings of Spirit in response to what speaks to you from that sacred place - an important task for all faiths.
When Jesus approached Peter and Andrew, most historians
believe they were probably using cast nets.
Elizabeth
McNamer
The cast net is circular, about 20 feet in
diameter, with weights of lead attached to the border. One man usually flings
the net in a round circle from the shore but it is also done from boats. It
required great skill since it had to open completely when it landed on the
water trapping the fish underneath it. Peter and Andrew were occupied with this
type of fishing …when they spied Jesus standing on the shore (Jn 21:7)
Jesus spied them too, and it perhaps wasn’t an accident
that he chose who he did. Fishing was
the primary commercial activity in that time, and those engaged in that
business had to be both hard working and socially competent, able to speak
Hebrew, Aramaic, and some Greek, and able to get along with the poor, working
classes, just as well as the ruling politicos (to whom they paid their taxes),
and the commercial/business class. Fish
knew no borders, as they graced the tables of jews and gentiles, working poor
and high-society Greeks and Romans – and fishermen crossed all of those borders
effortlessly. They were the chameleons
of that society. Jesus calling them was
no mistake.
Think about your own day-to-day job, or activities, and
put yourself in Peter and Andrew’s place – looking up from your cubicle, or
book, or classroom to see Jesus looking at you expectantly. Not sure what metaphor Jesus would have to
use for you here. Put down that
Powerpoint presentation, and follow me!!
And herein lies the mystery – why did Peter and Andrew,
and soonafter James and John, follow him?
Why did they choose that moment in time, in their lives, to drop
everything and follow Christ? In those crossroads of their life, they turned
towards Christ and answered God’s call.
This is no small thing – leaving their father and, presumably, their
family business behind. Maybe, like some
of us, they truly hated their jobs, and so anything sounded better – but that’s
hard to believe given Jesus’ financial disposition. He only promised them crosses and
homelessness and persecution.
We can speculate from Scripture and theological
commentaries that Andrew, who followed John the Baptist, learned from his
“behold the lamb of God” comment that Jesus was the Messiah – the Son of David
who would become the new King of the Jewish people. Perhaps Peter and Andrew saw in Jesus a
chance for a place in this new Kingdom.
That was, indeed, a very compelling story at the time, even if their
idea of “kingdom” was much different than Christ’s.
We’ll return to the idea of “Kingdom” later, but first
there is another compelling story here by these dropped nets. A call story. In
his call to the disciples – Jesus conveys urgency to follow him. No small task for fisherman, who left their
father behind. But they follow without hesitation. It is one of the most critical moments in the
New testament – A “Kairos” – the Greek word for time in the urgent moment, versus chronological time – a supreme moment.
What are some of your “Kairos” moments in faith? Can you
recall the moment (or moments) in your life where you decided to answer a
spiritual call – to follow Christ – to seek a relationship with the Divine? How did it happen, and why did you choose
what you did? Obviously, you’re sitting
here in a church, so unless you’re just here for the awesome coffee hour food,
you have a call story.
I remember a moment when I attended the Methodist
Exploration 1990 in St. Louis, MO. This
was the same event that some of you attended last year, but back then I believe
it was in black and white. I had to
sneak in, because I wasn’t 18 yet, but I was seriously considering ministry at
the time, and doing a lot of discerning and stuff :p.
I was walking down the hall with my friend Beth, only 18 or so herself, when we came across a middle-aged woman sobbing outside of her hotel room. Without saying a word, Beth wen up and starting hugging the crying
woman twice her age whom she had never met, and telling her "don't worry, it's going to be OK". The woman looked up with disbelief and gratitude, saying "thank you so much for caring!".
I can’t remember a single lecture or presentation from
that whole weekend, but I’ll never forget that moment – it was the moment I
first thought I wanted to be a Methodist minister.
And then, just as quickly, the moment passed.
-
On my 18th birthday, January 16,
1991, my country invaded a sovereign nation under the pretense of Peace, with
our president concluding the speech announcing this invasion with “May God
continue to bless our nation, the United States of America”
-
The next year, in 1992, the General
conference of United Methodist Church voted 710-238 to reject an amendment
removing the Book of Discipline language asserting that Homosexuality was
incompatible with Christian Teaching.
It would be 17 years before I came back to the church, and
when I did, I sat right there in that pew, and once again was presented with a
moment where I would have an opportunity for discernment. Here’s what I wrote about that moment
afterwards, when I was presenting my own call for ministry to the SPRC almost 2
years ago:
When
I arrived to the sanctuary of the Ellensburg United Methodist Church in
February of 2009, I wept. They were the
kind of tears that only come from Grace.
It had been 17 years, half my life at that point, since I really
attended a protestant church, but I realized that I was home. I didn’t need to read the history or mission
of this church, which had risked welcoming all of God’s children, even when it
was unpopular. I didn’t need to ask
people theological questions to determine if they possessed the spirit of Grace
and acceptance that I sought in a community of faith. I could see it in people’s eyes and feel it
in the bones of this church. You guys
know what I’m talking about – you know what this church is. It’s why I can’t think of a better church to
send me toward my call, if that is the will of this church. It’s because you answered your call that I’m
here.
As
for my own call, I spend a lot of time thinking about unanswered prayers – that
person sitting alone in a room, uncertain whether it’s safe to hope, and asking
for God to show up in their lives. I
think about that person all the time.
Maybe they are praying for an end to violence or suffering in their lives,
or for community and connection, or simply to feel the presence of a higher
power to lift them up. We haven’t shown
up for them yet. They do not yet sit in
our congregation, feeling Grace, like I did 3 years ago. God is trying to answer their call, but needs
us to help with that – needs me to help with that. I could spend the rest of my life making
excuses for why some theological detail of the church as a whole doesn’t fit
with me, or why some imperfection in my own life or faith disqualifies me from
the job, but that’s not answering that person’s prayer. That’s not answering God’s call.
How are you called to incorporate God into your
life? I would invite each of you to
engage in a discussion with God about your own “call story”. No, I’m not talking, necessarily, about
ordination – I’m talking about what you have to say to Jesus, calling to you
from the shores of your busy lives. There’s
no need to rack yourself with guilt, or make a bunch of promises you may or may
not keep. Just open up some lines of
communication and have an honest discussion.
Let me explain how to do this.
Look back on this last week, or month, or year, and try
to find some mundane moment where God was lingering just beneath the surface of
an interaction and relive that moment as if God is there next to you, or
peering through you. For example, when
you are asking your friend or family member how their day was – listen and wait
for a response. If you have periods of
idle time during the week where you’re bored stiff or just on autopilot kind of
wasting time, take 15 minutes of that time and give it to God in some way
that’s meaningful to you spiritually – prayer or meditation, volunteering,
writing a letter of support to someone who is sick, writing a letter to the
editor of the newspaper about a social justice issue, calling up someone who
doesn’t know too many people to invite them for a cup of coffee, welcome a
stranger into your life or our church family.
This is a foundational spiritual practice – learning to
listen for and respond to God’s voice in our moments of life – it’s the first
step to deepening our relationship with God and our faith. But we have to take a moment here and there
to stop and listen for God. Can you put
down your “nets” – your Iphone, or your busy schedule, or the second hour of
SportsCenter – and step into the Kingdom for a moment?
We live our lives – always – at this spiritual
crossroads. We’re standing out in the waters of our lives, clinging to our
nets, with Christ calling out to us from the shore. At every turn, in every moment, is an
opportunity to follow Christ and access the Kingdom of Heaven. Behind every
interaction, underneath each breath and spoken word, within each action, is that
open invitation. The Kingdom is near at hand – always. We are lost to the Kingdom by our failure to
recognize those moments, but only for those moments. It’s OK, because we are also found and live
into the Kingdom for each moment where we see and engage God in our lives.
And here’s a reassuring thought. God will be there when you return even if you
lose faith sometimes, like God was for me after 17 years – like Jesus was for
Peter when he began to sink into the water moments after walking on its
surface. The Kingdom is always, ever,
near at hand. We only need to drop our
nets, or trappings, and our distractions, and reach out towards God just for a
moment. With Practice, one moment
becomes a few more, with each successive moment of turning towards God, we take
one more step toward the Kingdom, which again is always at hand.
Richard Rohr has a special name for the saints among us who have mastered these moments so well that they have fully transformed their lives – he calls them “Kingdom people”:
I hope you’ve met at least one “Kingdom person” in your life.
They are surrendered and trustful people. You sense that their life is okay at
the core. They have given control to Another and are at peace, which
paradoxically allows them to calmly be in control. A Kingdom person lives for
what matters, for life in its deepest and lasting sense. There’s a kind of
gentle absolutism about their lifestyle, an inner freedom to do what they have
to do—joyfully.
Kingdom people are
anchored by their awareness of
God’s love deep within… When you live in the
Kingdom, you live in a “threshold space” between this world and the next. You
learn how to live between heaven and earth, one foot in both worlds, holding
them precious together…”
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