It
all started off so simply. Perhaps you
remember: Jesus walking by the docks on
the shore of the Sea of Galilee early in the morning. The fishermen, just returned with their
nighttime catch, mending their nets in preparation for the next evening’s
haul.
He
called out to a couple of them – Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John who
were the sons of Zebedee. “Come, come
with me, and I will make you fish for people.”
He did the same in the market place later in the day when the shops and
bazaar had opened for business. He strode
into the offices of Matthew the tax collector and Judas Iscariot the
accountant. “Come. Come and follow me.”
Each
one of the men dropped everything. Maybe
it was the sense of adventure that all-of-a-sudden permeated the air around
them. Perhaps it was only the gnawing
need to be doing something new.
It
could have been his tone of voice or the words he spoke or just the look in his
eye that drew them away from their wives and fathers and their childhood
friends to form something new – a community with a different family and
different friends and, best of all, a family that they were absolutely certain
had God at its head.
Hanging
out with Jesus turned out to be a fun and adventurous experience too. They did a lot of walking, but they also
attended weddings, one in particular with the best wine any of them had ever tasted. They watched Jesus heal the sick and the lame
and offer hope to the homeless and the indigent. They parted the crowds when too many people
were milling around, so he could pass by more easily, and they tried to keep
the lepers at bay (though often unsuccessfully).
They
listened to him preach and shouted out a hearty “Amen” every once in a while
from the back pew to help him emphasize a particular point. They cheered when he performed something akin
to a miracle. Once they distributed a
young boy’s lunch to a crowd of at least 5000 people on a hillside, and, lo and
behold, they ended up with 12 baskets of leftovers to drop off at the local
food pantry.
They
made sure he had a roof over his head at night.
Andrew did most of the shopping, and Judas kept the books. That Judas!
He could be a bit stingy, but they always had fresh, local, organically
grown food. Evenings were particularly special when
they sat around a campfire, poking sticks into the coals and listening as he
told them stories about the Kingdom of God, which was, they learned quickly,
the way life should be.
With
Jesus, they imagined the incongruity of tiny mustard seeds growing into trees
large enough for the birds to make nests in.
They pictured in their mind’s eye pearls of great value. They thought what it would be like to be a
lost sheep found or a ne’er-do-well son welcomed home. They imagined themselves to be grapevines,
connected to one another and to God in strong and nourishing ways.
All
in all, it was a good life – until that day when everything changed. It happened after breakfast when they were
enjoying a second cup of coffee and talking quietly amongst themselves. Jesus
cleared his throat. That was a sign that
he had something important to say. All
twelve of them stopped chatting and listened intently, waiting for Jesus to
outline the day’s activities.
However,
Jesus did not present the daily calendar.
Instead he told them flat out that their training time was over. Now the work of ministry needed to begin
because there was no time to lose.
The
poor were getting poorer, and the rich continued to make millions off their
golf courses, hotels, and other global investments. The inequities were getting
worse and not better, and with the rising cost of healthcare, well, healing –
and even raising the dead - was an important task.
“So
I am sending you out into the world because I cannot do it all alone,” he
proclaimed. “I need you to be my hands
and feet out there. Change will come
much more quickly if we all are ministering, and everyone is not just depending
on me – or figuring that God will work it all out somehow.”
He
continued by telling them, “This is your mission - should you choose to accept
it. Go to the lost and the confused. Tell them that
the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the
untouchables. Kick out the demons.”
The
twelve of them were shocked by this unlikely spur-of-the-moment
declaration. They had not been expecting
this at all – actually having to work rather than just being a “hail fellow,
well met” glad hander and cheerleader for Jesus.
But
they were not nearly as shocked as when they heard all his instructions. In a nutshell, he declared in no uncertain
terms that their ministry (if you wanted to call it that), their ministry would
not be a bed of roses.
First
off, he expected them to share their beliefs in public no less. How did he put it? “Stand up for me against world opinion…What I
tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear,
proclaim from the roofs.” Well, that was
a lot to ask, don’t you think?
Moreover,
he told them outright that the world needed to hear their voices. Just a single voice could make a difference.
How did he put it? “Don’t be bluffed
into silence by the threats of bullies…..don’t be intimidated by all this bully
talk.” He expected them to put
themselves out there. Well, they had not
bargained for that!
And
then he talked about their relationship with their own flesh and blood. “I’ve
come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother,
bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free
you for God.
Well-meaning family members (not to mention
neighbors and co-workers) can be your worst enemies.” Mom?
Dad? Cousin Ed? Great-Aunt Martha? Free them from God? What was he implying?
Jesus
summed up his disturbing instructions this way:
“Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy.” That was the gist of it.
Well,
none of the twelve had signed up for any of this. This ministry business – done right – would
be downright hard work – much more than sitting in the back of the synagogue
every week, singing in the choir, or even dishing up gravy in a supper
line.
So
that was it! Making s’mores over an open
fire and listening to stories was nice, but feeding the hungry was more
important. Intellectually understanding
about the kingdom of God through those wonderful tales he told was a start, but
actively seeking and working for this dream God had for the world was what really
being his follower meant.
They
were all pretty stunned by the expectations.
No doubt about that! Needless to
say there was a fair amount of hemming and hawing and avoiding eye contact with
him and becoming particularly fascinated by the small stones on ground and the
ants crawling about.
And
just when the first of them was about to say, “Forget it! This ministry business is not for me”, Jesus
spoke up one more time.
“Don’t
be afraid,” he said. “Trust that not
only have I prepared you well, but trust that you will never minister alone. God will always be with you, giving you the
strength you need to speak out and the courage you require to stand up to all
who bully you or just laugh and tell you that you are out of touch with the
times.”
The
twelve reflected on that profound final message for a moment or two. It had such a ring of truth to it. As they pondered its meaning for them, they
gazed at a couple of small brown birds hunting for seeds on the ground just
over there.
“See
those sparrows?” Jesus continued. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet
not one of them will fall to the ground outside of God’s care. God’s eye is on the sparrow, and you should
trust that God watches over you too.”
Peter
sighed just then and ran his grubby fingers with the bitten off fingernails (a
bad habit since childhood), ran them through his jet-black hair. Jesus smiled and gently finished up. “And even the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more in
God’s sight than many sparrows – and a million hairs.”
And
all twelve of them – Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas,
Matthew, the other James, Thaddeus, Simon, and Judas – made a decision right
then and there. Knowing now that they
would never walk alone and knowing that God loved them, they took the plunge and
decided to continue on this always new and always adventurous, albeit bound to
be difficult, journey of faith.
The
Gospel writer of Matthew sure makes this ministry business sound like a
dangerous mission. And much of the language
he uses is quite apocalyptic. However,
such language is merely a reflection of the era in which he wrote and the
audience he addressed. You see, it was a
time of serious Christian persecution, unlike today when we have gone to great
extremes to acculturate the Gospel message.
However,
though we are unlikely to face martyrdom and in spite of our efforts at
domesticating the Gospel, every day each one of us is thrown into situations
where we must make a hard choice about whether we truly can claim the name of
Christian. On a hot day, do you give the
woman on the street corner with the homeless sign a bottle of Gatorade that you
carry in your car? Do you carry Gatorade
for just this purpose?
Do you even make eye contact with her, thereby
acknowledging her existence? Do you
smile before the light turns green?
As religion professor Richard Swanson noted:
"Just for the moment, imagine that the Bible is more substantial and
interesting than a greeting card. Imagine that biblical stories are more challenging
than uplifting, that they give life by provoking their audiences out of their
dogmatic slumbers. Surely this
troublesome passage (he goes on to say) means much more than simply, "Love
God a lot" (and go to church every Sunday unless something better is going
on). That is asking a lot. Are we ready for it?
This passage –
like so many others in our four Gospels – calls us to action by inviting us to embrace
the same mission that the Twelve took on.
These verses call us to speak out on behalf of those the world has
chewed up and spat out. They call us to
challenge our politicians in Augusta and in Washington to represent the needs
of the down-and out. Have you been in touch with Susan Collins about how you
think she should vote on the Senate healthcare bill or your state legislature
about the current budget crisis? This passage calls us to intentionally decide
each day whether we will strive to live out that day as a Christian, as a
follower, as a disciple.
These verses
invite us to come along on a faith journey – not alone but with this
congregation at our side and with God in our midst. It will be a journey that will lead us deeper
into embracing the meaning of this morning’s passage that Episcopal priest
Michael Marsh summarized in his blog:
- Whoever loves friend more than me…
- Whoever loves work more than me…
- Whoever loves power, reputation, or wealth more than
me…
- Whoever loves country and flag more than me…
- Whoever loves politics, agendas, or ideology more than
me…
- Whoever loves church, denomination, beliefs and
practices more than me…
- Whoever loves self more than me…
- Whoever loves anyone or anything more than me…is not
worthy of me.
It will be a journey that will have us
talking about and acting like the real Jesus, and it will be no Sunday School
picnic. Rather, it will be downright
dangerous.
Christian writer Annie Dillard put it
well: “Why do people in
church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the
Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely
invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are
children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of
TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet
hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue
life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the
sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us
to where we can never return.”
Our training time is over. We are ready, and the work of Christian
ministry desperately needs us to begin.
As followers of Jesus, that is your mission – should you choose to
accept it….
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