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

DANCE A NEW DIRECTION

A Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January 27, 2008
Pastor Laura Gentry

Matthew 4:12-23
Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he 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 he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. (NRSV)

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

During the time I was attending Luther College, I did an exchange with Saint Olaf College for a January term class, so I spent a month in Northfield, Minnesota taking a drawing class. I was amazed at how the intelligent students at this prestigious school behaved at meal time. Right next to the cafeteria, there were two large, walk-in closets with sturdy hangers for the big winter coats Saint Olaf students need for braving the cold Minnesotan winter winds. And above those hangers were shelves for storing the students’ heavy book bags. Surely the architects of the student union had thought of everything. But what they had not factored in was the vim and vigor with which Saint Olaf students come to dinner. I remember the first time I entered the cafeteria area—there were NO coats hung in the easily-accessible closets, NO backpacks stashed neatly on the shelves—NOT ONE! No, the entire floor outside the cafeteria was covered in coats and hats and gloves and book bags. They were strewn every which-a-way from the lounge furniture to the floor, right up to the very entry of the cafeteria—like they couldn’t get out of their coats fast enough to eat. As we approached the mess one day, a classmate looked at me and said, “It’s hard to believe the students here are so smart the way we throw our clothes on the floor like a bunch of little kids.”

Every time I read today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew, I imagine Peter and Andrew dropping their fishing nets with the same sort of recklessness as those Saint Olaf students. Matthew tells us that Jesus approaches them with the simple call: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Peter and Andrew were fishing with the kind of nets that are thrown from the shore. And Matthew doesn’t tell us if they neatly pack up their nets or not when they hear Jesus’ call. He just says that, “Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

“Immediately” isn’t even Matthew’s favorite word like it is Mark’s. In the Gospel of Mark, just about everything happens immediately, but not with Matthew. So we have to sit up and take note that he uses this word twice in the course of a short passage. Immediately Peter and Andrew leave their nets and follow Jesus and immediately James and John leave their boat, their nets, and even their father, and follow him. To me, this sounds like a wild abandonment paralleled only by savagely-hungry college students.

When I heard this story as a child, I remember wondering why those fishermen just left their nets and followed. I mean, they were leaving their careers, their families, their whole lives to follow Jesus—and at this point, they don’t even really know Jesus. What in the world would posses them to do so—and to do it immediately, without even deliberating about it for a while? They don’t fuss around with lots of excuses like: “Well, perhaps I’ll follow you at a more convenient juncture in my life—perhaps on a day when the fishing isn’t to good...” No, they throw down their nets in messy heap and follow immediately. But why? As a kid, I could never figure it out.

Well, perhaps the key to unlocking this mystery lies in the fact that Jesus was out preaching a message of repentance. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” cries Jesus along the shores of the Galilee. In our modern world, I think many people are confused about what it means to repent. In confirmation, I learned that it means: to feel so sorry about your sins that you never want to commit them again. While this is an accurate definition, it left me feeling deeply sorry for my sins, but with no where to go from there. Many people share that view of repentance, believing it is nothing more than a Christian concept thrown around to make them feel guilty.

But when I got to college, a theologically astute dance professor of mine explained that to repent means, “to turn around.” In fact, to help us to embody this teaching, he would have us dance around any way we wanted and then he’d yell, “REPENT!” and we’d all swing around 180 degrees and dance in the opposite direction. For me, this changed my whole perception of repentance. It is not just about turning away from our sinful path, but it is about turning towards and running into God’s arms of love. So what if we have to give up our old lives? We are given altogether new ones! God turns us around and gives us a new direction in which to dance.

Perhaps if we look at the story of the calling of the disciples in this light, we can understand why they followed. We can get a sense of why Peter and Andrew are so hasty to throw down their nets and follow and why James and John actually bail ship in order to become fishers of people. In that simple call; “Follow me,” Jesus offers these men a brand new future—and it is so full of life that they can’t stand to delay their response. It is an offer they can’t refuse. They want to follow him right now. They immediately throw off their past and turn around into God’s arms.

And where does Jesus lead them from there? To a life of evangelism. Their whole mission is to be fishers of people: to turn the world around, the way they were turned around. They spend the rest of their days letting people know that they are walking in darkness—but that that’s not the whole story. They proclaim that the light has dawned, and the world must turn around and embrace it.

Have you ever been working around the house at dusk? You can be working away and not even notice the sun setting and the light becoming dimmer and dimmer until someone else walks in the room and says, “Why are you sitting in darkness?” and flips on the light switch with a reprimand like, “Don’t ruin your eyes!” You see, when you are in the darkness, it is hard to notice it because you forget the brilliance of the light. The call to be fishers of people, is a call to bear witness to the light, so that those walking in darkness will understand what they’re missing and will turn around to find the light for themselves.

Isaiah’s ancient words ring just as true now as they did in his day: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.” (Isaiah 9:2-4)

We, too, have been called to follow Jesus and be fishers of people. We are also called to immediately drop whatever is holding us back and to go out and bear witness to the light. Certainly, we have seen our neighbors walking in darkness, carrying their heavy burdens in pain. Perhaps we have been doing some of our own darkness-walking and burden-carrying. And to all of us, Jesus urgently calls: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near—turn around and dance in a new direction! Dance my way!

At our congregational meeting following the service today, we’ll be looking at a number of things, including ways in which we can continue growing numerically. Most Christian churches are declining in membership, especially small ones. And we search for business strategies to attract new members so that we’ll continue to survive as an organization. I’ve read a great number of resources that address this problem with fancy strategies for growth. But I think at the heart of all church growth is our ability to convey this call that Jesus issues to follow him. Can we make Christ so real for others that he grabs a hold of them and urges them to follow also?

American philosopher, John Caputo, wrote an interesting book called On Religion. In it, he writes:

“Religion kicks in, not necessarily when we sign on the dotted line of some confessional faith or other, but when we confess our love for something besides ourselves, when we bind ourselves over to something other, which means something other than ourselves, when we gather ourselves together and center ourselves on a transforming focus of our love. Something grander and larger than us comes along and bowls us over and dispossesses us. Something overpowers our powers, potencies, and possibilities, and exposes us to something impossible. Something makes a demand upon us and shakes us loose from the circle of self-love, drawing us out of ourselves and into the service of others and of something to come. The religious sense of life kicks in when I’m rigorously loyal, ‘religiously’ faithful to the service of something other than myself, more important than myself, to which I swear an oath which has me more than I have it.”

I think this explanation is powerful. The question for us today is: Does Jesus have us more than we have him? Do we notice him grabbing hold of us and calling us to live a life beyond self-centeredness? Can we can step out in faith like Peter, Andrew, James and John and say YES to this call?

Scripture promises that if you can immediately, recklessly drop your old life and give God your heart, you will be swimming in the light—even in the midst of deep darkness. Jesus desperately wants to touch each one of us and remove our burdens, so that they will be strewn all over the floor like the coats and bags of the hungry Saint Olaf students, and like the abandoned nets of the disciples. God wants to lead us in a new dance so that we will be filled rejoicing—as with joy at the harvest—and our joy can bear witness to the amazing light that God has breathed into our midst in Christ. May we say YES today and dance in a new direction! May God use our YESES to turn the world around.

Now, may the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.


© 2008 Laura E. Gentry

WHO'S GOD GONNA CALL?

A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
February 3, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Isaiah 6:1-13
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory." The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!" And he said, "Go and say to this people: 'Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.' Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed." Then I said, "How long, O Lord?" And he said: "Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate; until the LORD sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land. Even if a tenth part remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled." The holy seed is its stump.(New Revised Standard Version)

1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you--unless you have come to believe in vain. For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them--though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe. (New Revised Standard Version)

Luke 5:1-11
Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." {When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him. (New Revised Standard Version)

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In a popular eighties film, the theme song would describe all kinds of ghost scenarios and then pose the question: “Who you gonna call?” to which there was the great big response: “Ghostsbusters!” Ever since, the phrase “Who you gonna call” is really overused, especially in advertising.

And yet, as I was thinking about all of today’s scripture readings, that silly question and tune kept popping into my head—because these stories are all about callings. They give us examples of the kinds of people that God calls to carry on God’s amazing work. So they are fascinating stories to explore.

In our Old Testament reading, who’s God gonna call? Isaiah! In the Jerusalem temple, Isaiah has a vision, which reads like a science fiction thriller. It is so overwhelming that it is downright scary. Understandably, Isaiah is terrified about encountering the glory of the Lord and responds: "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” God’s not going to take no for an answer, it seems, and so an angel takes a smoldering coal from the altar with a pair of tongs and sears Isaiah’s lips it to purify them so he will be ready for his prophetic career. Then God asks, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And Isaiah responds: "Here am I; send me!"

Then, we have another calling described in first Corinthians. Who’s God gonna call? Paul! Now this guy, like Isaiah does not see himself as worthy of the calling. Paul thinks back about how he had persecuted and killed many Christians before his conversion. He is horrified about his past actions and explains, “I am the least of all the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle." Even after he answers God’s call and is busy doing God’s work, it seems his violent predisposition plagues him and he says—in present tense—”I am the worst of sinners!" It is only because of God’s grace that Paul’s effective ministry is happening.

Finally, we have the story of Jesus inviting the men to become disciples and follow him. Who’s God gonna call? Simon Peter! You see the fishermen have worked all night and caught nothing, but then Jesus comes along and tells them to sink their nets into deeper waters. When they do so, their catch is enormous. Archeologists recently uncovered a fishing boat from that region and era that was 26.5 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, and 4.5 feet high. We must assume that this was about the size of Simon Peter’s boat. People in those days were smaller and most stood no taller than 5’5”, which made the boats extremely deep for them, with great capacity to hold fish. This story says that two boats were so filled with fish that they began to sink. A phenomenal amount of fish, this is indeed.

It so impresses Simon Peter that he says to Jesus, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" Like Isaiah and Paul, he does not feel worthy to be called by the God of the Universe. But Jesus isn’t really interested in taking no for an answer. He presses him: "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." And so Simon Peter and his friends leave their boats and everything else to answer this calling.

Is it any wonder that these three stories from different time periods in the bible were put together for today’s lectionary readings? I can see the theme, can’t you? Who’s God gonna call? Normal people! People like you and me. People who are not perfect. People who didn’t sign up for this sort of thing. Still, God calls.

Sinfulness, failure, and inadequacy—none of these is an obstacle to God’s call. God can use broken people. God can transform our shortcomings into useful qualities. God’s grace, as Paul discovered, is sufficient.

That is the epiphany, the shining truth in these lessons. God has been and is continuing to call us and it doesn’t matter how unworthy we may feel. God is ready and eager to use us. We are invited, like Simon Peter and the other disciples, to leave it all behind and follow. Just what does that mean in our modern world? Most people don’t drastically change their lives when they receive Christ, unless, of course, they decide to move to the other side of the globe and become a missionary or pull up stakes and go to seminary.

And it is easy for us to read these dramatic callings and think about how nice they are, but feel they simply don’t apply to us. So we go back to our old fishing nets, so to speak, instead of answering the call to a deeper discipleship that God is offering us. I mean, isn’t it possible that we could be transformed right where we are? Isn’t it in God’s power to completely revolutionize our hearts so that the way we interact with the people in our lives is different? Our God is an ever-present God and a God who’s ways are unexpected. God surprises us by accepting us as we are, healing us and then sending us forth to carry on the mission.

I remember reading a story in Reader’s Digest about a jewelry store employee named Melodie Hartline. She described how she would help couples ordering wedding bands to decide about putting a special inscription on the inside. She once asked a bride-to-be what she would like inscribed inside her fiancé's ring.

"We aren't very romantic," she replied. And she even explained that they were marrying on her fiancé's birthday just so that so he wouldn't forget the date!

Melodie persisted, "Isn't there something you'll want him to remember as he looks inside his ring?"

"There sure is," she said. And that's how "Put it back on!" came to be inscribed inside her husband's ring.

I think as we hear the calling stories of Isaiah, Paul and Simon Peter, we hear a call from God for us to recommit to our own callings, to “put it back on.” We so easily want to wiggle out of the call that God has placed upon our lives. It is a demanding call and we struggle with feeling inadequate. “Get someone else, God! Get someone who can do a better job.” But God says, “No, I want YOU! Put it back on. Put on your commitment to your calling. I have the grace to take you all the way!”

Who’s God gonna call? YOU! Today, let us answer this incredible invitation with the willingness of Isaiah: “Here I am Lord, send me.” Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© Laura E. Gentry 2007