Epiphany 4, 2015

Christian communities have always struggled to discern what it is God wants for them. Past of being a community that follows Christ while continuing to live in an ever-changing world means constantly asking God, “Where to next?” God has never intended for the Christian church to exist in a frozen state, unchanging. That would be a dead church. Christ’s church is living, and we know that all living things grow and change and respond to the environment around them, and then eventually die in order for something else to grow. And so the Christian church also grows and changes and responds and even dies in order for something new to grow. But always in God. We always do these things in God, and never on our own. And so we are always asking, “What next, God? What is your plan for us next?”

Because God does have a plan for the church, and for each congregation in particular. God has a plan for St. John, even if we can’t see what it is yet. Psalm 139, that wonderful psalm about how God has known us from before we were even born, says, “In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.” God knows all of our days, as individuals and as a congregation. God has formed all the days of this congregation from before it even started. God has a plan for St. John.

So, what is it? What is God’s plan for St. John? Ah, well, that’s the trick, right? We don’t know yet. We might each have our own thoughts and wishes for what happens next in the life of this congregation, but our thoughts and wishes are not the same as God’s thoughts and wishes. We might know exactly what we would do, but that is not always what God plans for us to do. We don’t know yet if what we want and what God wants are the same thing.

But God will tell us. God has already told us some of God’s plan for us, at least insofar as we are part of the larger church. God calls St. John, as a body of Christians, and as a member of the larger body of Christ, to testify to the power of God in raising Christ from the dead. We are called to live out a congregational life that demonstrates our faith that we are not afraid of death because our God has the power of life over death. We are called to give glory to God in all things, whether it is death or new life. These are the calls that God issues to every Christian body and to every congregation, and so we know that God is calling us to do these things.

But what about specifically? What is God calling this congregation to do? Well, we don’t know yet, but I can assure you that we will. God will reveal God’s plan to us. Our God may be mysterious, and certain things about the world may always remain a divine mystery, but God promises to reveal God’s plan to God’s people. In the first reading from Deuteronomy, we hear that God will raise up for the people prophets, who will tell the people what God’s will is, and point out when they have gone astray from that will. God’s will for the people of Israel is not hidden, but revealed. In the Gospel reading from Mark, we hear that Jesus goes into the synagogue to read from the Scriptures and to interpret God’s word for the people, “with authority,” so that they, too, would know God’s plan for them. God’s will for the Jewish people of Jesus’ time is not hidden, but revealed. And in the second reading from 1 Corinthians, we have Paul helping the people to understand what it is God wants for them, as the congregation in Corinth. God’s will for the very first church is revealed. Throughout the story of our life as God’s people in Christ, we see time and time again that God reveals God’s plan to us.

And so today, beginning with our annual meeting, we are going to enter a time of seeking out what God’s will for St. John is. We are going to take time, as a congregation, to ask questions, and to pray, and to seek out God’s plan for what is next. And God will tell us. 

Of course, the question always arises - how will we know that it is God’s voice we are hearing? I said earlier that we each have our own thoughts and desires for what St. John should do next, and sometimes our own opinions can be so strong that they can drown out the divine voice speaking to us. So how can we tell whether we are hearing God’s voice or our own? How do we ensure that we are following God, and not ourselves?

Well, God gives us tools to test whether we are hearing God’s voice or our own. The first tool that God gives us is whether we are alone or together in what we hear. God does not give conflicting calls to one congregation. God does not say to one person, “St. John should keep going the way it is,” and to another person, “St. John should close.” God says the same thing to every person. And so we test the voices we are hearing by seeing if they agree. We hear this in the background to the reading this morning from Deuteronomy. Moses tells the people that God will send a prophet to tell them God’s truth, but in the background is the notion that there is actually a group of prophets. There are several of them, in different places, that God tells God’s truth to, and if one of them is saying something different from the others, you must examine that one very carefully, to see if what that the one is saying is true or not. Because God does not give conflicting calls to one group of people. So we test, and it’s a test that takes some time, because individuals do not all recognize God’s voice at the same speed, but we test - is the sense of God’s plan for St. John the same for everyone?

The second test is whether the voice we are hearing and the plan for what’s next that’s emerging is a voice and a plan that points to God, and not to ourselves. You see, we do not exist as a church for ourselves, whether we are talking about a congregation or a denomination or even Christianity in general. We do not exist so that the world can look at us and say, “wow, what a group of Christians.” We exist so that the world can look at us and say, “Wow, God is really working among these people.” We exist so that those who see us are immediately directed to look at God. Congregations are like road signs that point to what God has done in Christ. We aren’t the destination. We’re just the arrows directing people where to look. And often, what that means, is that we look nothing like what the world thinks success looks like. God calls us to turn away from anything that might make the world think that we are great because of our own efforts, instead of because of God. That means that we test any plan that encourages worldly markers of success and power to see if it demonstrates that God is strong where we are weak. We test to see if the plan points to God’s work, and not our own.

The third test we can use to determine whether it is our own voices talking or God’s voice, is to see whether what we think we’re hearing corresponds with God’s call to the world-wide church to act in love for the weakest in the community. Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians this morning was very clear, “Love builds up.” The apostle Paul is explicit, and he emphasizes this with every congregation he writes to: God’s will and plan for all Christian communities, including this one, is that we act in love to strengthen those who are weakest in faith. We do not act to strengthen ourselves. As Christians, God calls us always, always, to act for others. God calls St. John, as a Christian congregation, always, always, to act for others and not ourselves. And so we test any voice that comes before us, we test any proposal for what God wants us to do next, with the question, will this serve us? Or will this serve those who are weakest among us? Does the next step for St. John serve only ourselves, or does it serve the poor and marginalized and weak? Does it demonstrate only love for ourselves? Or does it show how much we love those whom God favours - those whom the world does not love?

And keep in mind that the weak we are called to serve in love may be the weak within this congregation, but it may also be the weak in this community, or even in the wider Lutheran church. Again, we have to test what we think God is calling St. John to do with the question: how does it strengthen others? How does it strengthen other congregations? If a plan comes forth that draws away from other congregations and leads to them weakening, then it’s not God’s plan. Any plan that strengthens St. John at the cost of someone else is only something that we want - it’s not something that God wants.

I have no doubt that this congregation is ultimately committed to following wherever God calls. I know that when God’s plan for St. John becomes clear, you will do what must be done to carry it out. The Holy Spirit has moved through this congregation for years, and will continue moving among you. But I also know that it will be a difficult task to discern God’s will for this congregation, because we will all have to sort out between what we are telling ourselves that we hope and what God is telling us. There is a distinct possibility that what we want and what God wants for St. John are not the same thing. That being said, this is not a time to despair or to lose hope. We know that God’s voice will become clear to us, as we hear that voice together, point always to God over ourselves, and seek to act in love towards those who are weak among us. This is a time to move forward in openness and prayer, and to trust that God wills all good for those who follow Christ. As we will sing in our closing hymn today, “Lead me, guide me, along the way. For if you lead me, I’ll not stray.”  ...    God will lead us and we will follow. Thanks be to God, Amen.

Epiphany 3 - January 25, 2015 - St. John, Calgary

Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Ps 62.5-12; 1 Cor 7.29-31; Mark 1.14-20

Do you ever feel God calling you to new adventures like Jesus called James and John? A call to leave behind the life you know, to die to your predictable and safe life so far, to begin a new life of adventure and danger and witness to Christ with nothing but the clothes on your back?

I’ve always stood in awe and a little bit of envy of these great martyr stories. These wonderful witnesses to the Gospel of Christ, the way they gave themselves wholeheartedly to the cause and held nothing back, the grandeur of their sacrifice - I look at that and something inside of me wishes I could do that. Something inside me wishes I was brave enough - that I had the guts - to do that. And I think to myself, “if only...” If only I wasn’t married, I could be a missionary in China. If only I didn’t have children who still need me, I could be a missionary in Darfur, or Saudi Arabia, or some country where Christians are persecuted. Don’t get me wrong - of course I love my husband and my children - they are God’s gifts to me - but truth be told, I live a much less adventurous life because of them. 

But then again, maybe those are just excuses - maybe God calls us to give up everything, including relationships with our family, to follow Christ. That’s what James and John did, after all. Those are the Christians we look up to. Those are the followers of Christ that we think we ought to imitate. If you take out your green book, and look at the front, there’s a calendar with special days on it. Those are the names of the saints that the church celebrates - individuals who left behind everything, sacrificed everything, and followed Jesus’ call to die to themselves and receive new life. All of these people did amazing and awe-inspiring things. There’s something about being the kind of Christian in such a visible way, so that people look at me and say, “wow, she is so committed to her faith,” that draws me in.  

“As he went a little farther, Jesus saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.” That’s the Gospel of Mark, which we just heard. The Gospel of Matthew has almost exactly the same story: “As Jesus went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.” 

It’s quite a story, isn’t it? Two brothers are sitting in their boat, going about their regular daily business of fishing, fixing broken nets, hoping to catch some fish to sell, and along comes Jesus. Something about this man compels them to drop everything they have, to leave behind everything and everyone they know, and to follow him. It’s quite dramatic and we love to tell this story in church. We love to talk about James and John and about the power of Christ’s call and about how we ought to imitate these first disciples and sacrifice the comfort and safety of our lives so far and give everything up to follow Christ, to the cross, to death, and to new life.

Today, though, I want to talk about Zebedee. It’s a bit odd - I’ve studied this story as a pastor for twelve years now - it comes around almost every year in January - and this is the first time I’ve really noticed Zebedee. The father of James and John doesn’t play much of a role in this story - he kind of just sits in the background. He doesn’t show up again in any of the Gospels, even though he’s one of only a handful of parents of the disciples whom we hear about. He’s mentioned in this story, and then he’s gone again. This year, though, for some reason, I noticed him. I picture him as an older man - his sons are adults, after all - he would be past his prime, as they say - possibly even grandparent age. I think of him as someone who is still physically fit - he’s in the boat, after all - and I wonder: why did he stay in the boat? Why didn’t he get out of the boat and follow Jesus? It bothers me a bit, to tell you the truth. Him sitting there in the background, remaining in the boat after his sons leave. Why didn’t he go? We often compare ourselves to characters in the Bible, and when I hear this story, I definitely feel more like Zebedee than like James or John. I’ve never up-and-left in dramatic response to Jesus’ call. I tend to be more conservative. I’m not really the fishing-for-people type, which - to be honest - I’ve always felt a bit guilty about. And so I think that’s why I keep asking, Why didn’t he go? Why did he stay in the boat? What excuse could there be for not following Christ and going out to fish for people? If that’s what Jesus calls his followers to do, why didn’t he do it?

So one thing I wonder is if maybe he heard the call but simply refused to go. The pastors who do write about Zebedee, and there aren’t many, build whole sermons around this idea. In these sermons, Zebedee is lifted up as an example of what not to do when you hear Jesus calling. Zebedee is described as afraid, or lazy, or too attached to his material life. He’s criticized for not trusting God enough to get out of the boat. If he really trusted God, these critics argue, he would have been brave, and strong, and left behind everything to follow Jesus like his sons. And, me, thinking of myself a bit like the aged Zebedee, I wonder if maybe I’m also refusing some call of God’s. If my reluctance to leave behind my family and my comfortable life in order to go off on some dramatic mission are signs of my lack of faith.

But here’s the problem with that interpretation of the story. As Lutherans, we believe that God’s call is so powerful, that it can’t be refused. We believe that when Jesus truly calls you, the Holy Spirit moves within you, and you have no choice but to respond. Not because you have to, but because you want to. One of my seminary professors described it as the call of a lover - who ever says no to that? Thinking of my children, I would say that Jesus calling us with the promise of new life is like me calling my children with the promise of a “Cookie....” Who ever says no to that? God’s Word is a living Word, it moves within us through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Book of Concord, our Lutheran confessional authority, is very clear that God’s Word is imbued with a power that we cannot refuse. God’s Word is so powerful that when God calls, we follow. We just do. [Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Election.] And the Gospels are also quite clear - no one has the power to refuse Jesus’ call. Especially in Mark, Jesus speaks with authority, which means Jesus’ words have power, they make things happen - even the demons obey his words. So it’s simply not possible that Zebedee refused Jesus’ call. When Jesus calls, you inevitably follow.

So what then? If it’s not that Zebedee refused Jesus’ call, what is it? Well, maybe Zebedee wasn’t called. Maybe when Jesus said, “Follow me,” maybe when Jesus was issuing the call to be his disciple, he really was talking only to James and John. Maybe following Jesus is a young person’s work. After all, when we read further in the Gospel of Mark, we get to the story in Chapter Six, where Jesus sends the twelve disciples out to travel all over the region, casting out unclean spirits, and that they should bring “no bread, no bag, no money,” no extra clothes, and only the shoes on their feet. They are to sleep where they stop, and to rely entirely on the generosity of others - a risky proposition. That’s not something you call a grandparent-aged person to do. Jesus’ disciples were all young and strong, they weren’t old enough to have families or children. Jesus’ call to fish for people was a call to go out - not to stay home. So maybe Jesus wasn’t calling Zebedee to follow him. Maybe Zebedee was just too old for the work of Jesus. Not that I think Jesus has anything against old people. Jesus says, later on, don’t put new wine in old wineskins, for the old wineskins will burst, and you will lose both the wine and the wineskin. Jesus clearly doesn’t want to see the old wineskins burst - he is concerned as much about the old as he is about the new. So maybe his concern for Zebedee’s age is the reason that he wasn’t calling Zebedee to follow him. Maybe Zebedee stayed in the boat because his age excluded him from Jesus’ call.

Except... except that the Gospel gives us stories of other elderly people serving Jesus. Immediately after today’s reading, in the reading we’ll hear next week, we have the story of Jesus healing Simon Peter’s mother, who was too sick to get out of bed. He heals her, and she immediately gets out of bed and serves them supper. Scholars today interpret this passage to mean that women were called to serve in the church, and that what we would call “elderly women” have a role in serving God’s people. Their age does not exclude them from service in Christ’s name. So it’s not possible that Jesus’ call to follow him doesn’t leave out people who are too old. Seniors are called to follow Jesus. Zebedee was called to follow Jesus.

So what is it then? Why did Zebedee stay in the boat? If it’s not that he refused Jesus’ call, since we can’t do that, and it’s not that he wasn’t called, because everyone is called, why did Zebedee stay in the boat?

Well, let’s stop for a minute and look at exactly what Jesus calls us to do when he says, “Follow me.” Because I think there are two halves to what he says. The first is “Follow me” and the second is “I will make you fish for people.” And I want to suggest that the second half, “I will make you fish for people,” is a specific example to specific people of the more general call, “Follow me,” which is for everyone. You see, there’s one story where someone asks Jesus what is the greatest commandment, meaning what is the best way to obey God, what is the best way to worship God, what is the best way to be a follower of Christ and do what God wants. And Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God, and the second is to love your neighbour as yourself. That’s what it means to follow Christ - to do these two things. Now, to be sure, as Christians, we know that we do this by dying to ourselves and receiving new life in Christ as we love God and love our neighbour, but this is a very broad call. There are actually lots of ways to live out this call. There are as many ways to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbour as yourself as there are followers of Christ. We don’t all have to jump out of our boats and traipse around the countryside casting out demons to follow Jesus call.

So what I want to suggest is that Zebedee staying in the boat was actually his response to Jesus’ call. That when Jesus called out, “Follow me,” he was talking to everybody in the boat. But Zebedee, who may very well have wanted to get out of the boat with his sons and embark on this dramatic journey, was called to remain in the boat. He was called to stay behind and to carry on with fishing. It was very possibly a sacrifice for him, staying behind. He would have had to die to any desire to be one of Jesus’ “special” followers, he would have had to die to any ideas of ambition or adventure that he might have had. He would have had to die to the idea of having the reputation of being one of those dramatically committed Christians, like his sons. 

Instead, Jesus called Zebedee to the more mundane task of staying behind and continuing to do what he was already doing, to live the life he was already living, to fish for fish. Because here’s what I notice. There are two very significant stories in this Gospel about fish. On two separate occasions, Jesus is gathered with a bunch of his followers and everyone is hungry, and he takes some bread and some fish and multiplies them for everyone as a miracle. But where does this fish come from? Somebody has to fish for them. And who do we know who is a fisherman? Zebedee. Jesus had to call somebody to remain behind, carrying out the everyday tasks that allowed the disciples to go about their work. Jesus had to call somebody to fish for actual fish, and to “hold down the fort,” as it were, and that somebody appears to have been Zebedee. 

At the very end of the Gospel, when you ignore the “longer ending,” which pretty much everyone agrees was added centuries after the Gospel was written, an angel tells the disciples who are standing around an empty tomb that Jesus has gone back to Galilee and that they are to follow him there. The resurrected Christ and the disciples who are now truly following him are called to go back to where they started. To where Zebedee has been waiting, and fishing, and following Jesus’ call in his own, undramatic, way. The ones whom Jesus has called, each in their own way, comes back together again.

Jesus calls us all to follow him. But he doesn’t tell us all to follow him in exactly the same way. Jesus calls some to get out of their boats and to leave behind everything. But Jesus calls some to stay. To fish for fish. To hold down the fort. To remain. And this is no less a calling than the call to fish for people. This is no less of a response to Jesus’ call to follow him. Your response to Jesus’ call to follow him may be dramatic, or quiet. It may be a call to leave behind everything, or to stay behind. It may be a call to change everything around, or to leave things the way they are. As long as your focus is on loving the Lord your God, and loving your neighbour as yourself, from wherever you are in your life, you are answering Jesus’ call to “follow me.” Thanks be to God. Amen.