COME AND FOLLOW ME!

A sermon for the third Sunday after Epiphany

by Pastor Laura Gentry

Jonah 3:1-10 • Mark 1:14-20

Crabby people. They tend to be crabby about most everything. “It’s a sunny day!” You say to them and they retort with an irritated response like, “It’s too bright.” Well, that’s Jonah. I would say he’s among the Bible’s most crabby people.

So crabby was Jonah, that when God called him and gave him a special mission to go preach to the Ninevites, he ran away and ended up getting thrown overboard in a storm and eaten by a very big fish. See where crabbiness gets you? But that’s Jonah.

And in today’s passage, he has been spit up by Mr. Fish and God gives him a second chance to go preach the Word to the Ninevites. He does it. He appears to do it quite halfheartedly but it works, nevertheless. It really works! The entire city turns around. They repent and believe. They fast and put on sackcloth to demonstrate their sorrow for their sin. And I don’t mean just a few—the entire city puts on sackcloth, even the animals. Imagine the sight of that! So God looks upon their repentance and changes his mind. There will be no destruction of Ninevah, God will spare them. Mission accomplished.

Jonah’s preaching has saved this entire city—a city large enough that it takes three days to walk through. So is he pleased with this positive result? Oh no! He huffs off and sulks like a spoiled, over-dramatic child. Now do you see why I name him among the Bible’s most crabby?

But for all his faults, Jonah understands something that not just everyone understands. He knows the incredible power of the Word of God. He knows that God’s Word has untold power—power to activate, to radically transform. And that’s why he doesn’t want to proclaim it to the people of Ninevah. That’s why he ran away in the first place. He knows that the moment it springs forth from his lips, God’s word unleashes a title wave force that cannot be controlled. Not by Jonah. Not by anyone.

Surely this is why Jesus was able to call those four fishermen with such ease. I mean here comes Jesus along the shores of the Galilee. He’s nothing but an itinerant preacher. He’s got no credentials, no financing, not even a home to call his own. And he has the audacity to invite them to “Come!” He says, “Follow me.” And they do.

In Mark’s gospel, we hear that Simon and Andrew, then James and John immediately leave their nets and follow Jesus. They don’t even stop to ask questions like: is Jesus offering them a health care plan along with that job or at least a nice 401K so they can retire comfortably? They don’t seem to have a clue who Jesus really is or what he is asking of them. Yet immediately, they leave their lucrative careers, their homes and even their families and get whisked away by this Jesus fellow to begin new lives.

That, my friends, is the power of God’s Word! It is active and alive. It changes things. It changes people. We see examples of this throughout scripture where people encounter the living Word of God and nothing is ever the same. The effects are immediate.

Do we know what crabby Jonah knows? Do we perceive what the fishermen perceived? God’s Word is calling us too. It is calling us to come and follow, to leave our nets behind and be wholly God’s own.

In our own time and place, do we even know what that means? What is God calling us to do? How will we know when we hear God’s voice? Last week during the adult Bible study after worship, we had an interesting conversation about this. It is not always easy to sense where God is leading us and even if we know, it is not always easy to follow these instructions. But that is the exciting thing!

You see, Jesus ushers in a new day—a day of compassion, reconciliation and justice. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer that we want God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. On earth as it is in heaven. How thrilling! Our faith frees us to see the world as God wants it to be, rather than the way it is. This time we live in—this time of hatred and bloodshed, of corruption and exploitation, of injustice and starvation—is coming to an end. The Word of God pushes forward like a mighty plow, overthrowing the old order and bringing in the new, where earth will live in peace and joy as heaven already does.

That’s our calling—to be part of this radical transformation process. Jesus walks along the shores of our lives day in and day out, calling us to come and follow. We are called to believe in the power of the Word of God. We are called to be transformed by it ourselves so that we embrace the joy and freedom given to us, even as we live in this world of pain and woe. And we are called to join the disciples in being fishers of folks—ever about the business of calling others to join us in this great spiritual adventure.

Today, God is calling you. No more excuses, no more putting it off, no more being crabby and running away like Jonah. The Word of God is alive and ready to work through you. Do you perceive it? Are you open to it? Imagine what will happen when you set the Word of God free to change you. Imagine how our world will change as we work together in the Spirit’s power to bring heaven’s reality to earth. There is nothing more important than this calling, no endeavor more life-giving. So “Come,” Jesus says to you today, “Don’t even worry about what you’ve got to leave behind to do it. Come and follow me!” Amen.

© 2009 Laura Gentry

YOU CALLED ME

A Sermon for the second Sunday after Epiphany

by Pastor Laura Gentry 

1 Samuel 3:1-10 • Psalm 139 • John 1:43-51

It was back in 1973 that Motorola unveiled the prototype of the world's first portable cellular telephone. Portable, of course, is a debatable claim as the phone weighed almost two pounds and spanned a foot in length. Oh, and did I mention that it cost $3,995?

It wasn’t until 1983 that cell phones became commercially available. At first, they were just for wealthy dignitaries and drug dealers. No one ever thought they’d catch on with the rest of the population. Why would normal people want to be accessible at all times? That sounded absurd.

But today, over 260 million Americans have cell phone service—that’s more people than have land lines—and they spend, on average, seven hours a month talking on them. These wireless devices keep changing to keep up with the demand. Nowadays, you are considered prehistoric if your phone doesn’t include a video camera and allow you to surf the web.

We are more “connected” than ever before. Our friends and family members can reach us just about any time any where. We have the technology that makes communication more convenient than we could have imagined 35 years ago when the first cell phone debuted. But are we really more connected? Are we really listening to each other? Are we really listening to God?

Today’s scripture lessons contain stories of call. No, not cell phone calls, but divine calls. God reaches out and calls people to action.

From the Old Testament lesson, comes the call story of little Samuel. This boy is a miracle baby. His parents waited so long for him, wondering if he’d ever show up. When he does, they are so pleased with God’s gift that they dedicate him to service in the Temple. It is here, in the Temple, that Samuel hears God’s voice.

God calls him by name: “Samuel, Samuel!”

The boy replies, “Here I am. You called me.” But what the child does not realize, at first, is that the voice is God’s. He thinks it is the voice of his sleeping mentor, Eli. I’m sure it would take you by surprise, too, if you heard God calling your name in the night. It is not always easy to discern the voice of God.

Eli helps Samuel to understand that this quiet, persistent call is coming from God. Here in this dark place, God has chosen to show up and to stir Samuel to action—action that will renew the whole nation.

Then in the Gospel lesson, we hear the call of Nathaniel. Philip invites him to follow the one from Nazareth.

“Nazareth?” Nathaniel protests, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Again, the divine call does not meet with people’s expectations. Nathaniel has all kinds of prejudices against Nazareth and is unable to believe that the Savior could be hiding out in such a loathsome town. Fortunately, Philip presses him to check it out anyway.

“Come and see!” he urges.

And sure enough, Nathaniel comes and sees and is transformed by the call of Jesus.

So the question for us to look at upon hearing these stories, is how might God be calling you and me? This call is not ordinarily as obvious as a cell phone call or the callings Samuel and Nathaniel experienced. But as baptized children of God, we can be sure the call is being issued nevertheless. In a still, small voice, God is calling us to an important mission.

The Psalmist understands this intimately. In today’s reading, we heard these amazing words:

“O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me…. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.” (Psalm 139:1-5, 13-14, NRSV)

During my sister’s first pregnancy, I read that the ancients used to acknowledge the sacred state of maternity by giving pregnant women amulets to wear—little pendants with important verses of scripture. They believed in the importance of keeping scripture ever a part of their lives by having it physically manifest on their person, especially when the miracle of new life was happening within. So I went to the mall and picked out a silver pendant for my sister, upon which I had them engrave part of verse 14: “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Kathy wore it throughout both of her pregnancies as a constant reminder of the incredible work that God was doing to create her children.

Do we recognize just how fearfully and wonderfully each one of us was made? Do we perceive the ever present hand of God in our lives—who was with us from the time before we were born? No matter what we are going through, we can be assured of the powerful presence of the Lord. We can hold fast to the knowledge that we are a wonderful work of God who is loved more than we could ever fathom.

And this God calls to us. When we sit down and when we rise up, when we go to the grocery store and when we shovel the walk, when we watch tv and even when we do a crossword puzzle. Wherever we go, whatever we do, regardless of how mundane it may seem, God is with us and every moment is sacred.

Yet we toss this sacredness aside when we fail to listen to God’s call. We cannot afford to do this because God has plans for our lives—exciting plans to give our lives meaning and purpose. At the end of Jesus’ conversation with Nathaniel, he says “you will see heaven open and God’s angels ascending and descending.”

This truth is artistically depicted on the front of the cathedral of Bath, England. I was so impressed by it when I saw it my junior year of college. There are stone carvings of two giant ladders that stretch from the top of the front doors to the roof. There are angels all over the ladder. At first glance they look very heavenly and serious, but upon closer inspection you can see some humorous variations. Some are contentiously climbing upward, while others are tenuously looking over their shoulder as if looking for reassurance that they’re doing it right. And there are some who look downright lost, discombobulated, upside down and barely hanging on to the ladder by their toes.

You see, those angels ascending and descending that Jesus talks about are you and me. We are the ones called to be the bridge—to bring the joys of heaven to earth by our Spirit-filled living. That’s our calling. God wants us to be like Philip and bring others to Christ. We are expected to say “come and see,” not just with our words but with all of our lives.

But like the angels on the Bath cathedral, we don’t always get it right. Some days we don’t feel like we’re good mentor for others—we feel like we’re just hanging on to the Christian life by our toes. Still, God continues to call us to this mission. We are fearfully and wonderfully made and not only that, we are assisted by the Holy Spirit. We CAN do it! We ARE connected. God calls us day and night—and this is a call we don’t even need battery power to receive.

And so as we hear God's call today, may we answer enthusiastically answer with Samuel, “Here I am. You called me.”

© 2009 Rev. Laura E. Gentry