The following sermon refers to the gospel reading from this week’s lectionary texts, which you can find here.
The gospel reading today gives us a much more familiar version of Jesus calling Simon, Andrew, James and John to follow him than we heard last week from John’s account. In Matthew’s version they drop their nets, leave their boats and their livelihood to obey the call of Christ.
The call is to follow, and in following they are led to change – they are not fishermen anymore, although they do return to their boats as a familiar, safe haven in times of confusion and transition. As they follow Jesus, he leads them away from the water, and instead of working with wind and weather, nets and whatnot, they are working with people, with crowds and miracles, with parables and Pharisees, with stories, questions and quarrels – they are working with spirit.
And that calls them into growth…their ideas about God are shaken and re-made. They outgrow the familiar things of their faith and they find that what has fit before is no longer fit for purpose. In the same kind of vein, last week I identified a number of different concepts, ideals, and patterns of belief and behaving which we need to re-examine because they are not fit for purpose. They are not fit for the kingdom of heaven – that rule and reign of God that empire of the Spirit of Love.
As Matthew tells it, Jesus begins his ministry by calling the disciples and by proclaiming that this kingdom has come near.
Repent, he proclaims. Change.
Really, it couldn’t be any clearer that the call of Jesus is into change, into growth and into transformation – just consider what happens to the disciples as they follow that call… At the end of the gospel accounts, the disciples are all gathered in the upstairs room, traumatised by the events of the previous days and terrified of their consequences. They are overwhelmed by fear.
At the beginning of Acts, they undergo a joyful transformation. They are like women who have laboured through the night and now the baby is born, and all the pain of labour is forgotten. But they are the ones who are born anew, they are the ones who see life with eyes that have never seen before. Crisis and tragedy are transformed by the power of love over death, by the power of the resurrection. And out of that crisis, Peter and the other disciples emerge as carriers of God’s message to the world.
In a way that they probably didn’t realise, they have been trained to communicate this message by being with Jesus and by their interactions with each other. And although they didn’t feel ready for the next part of the calling until it was brought upon them by the crisis of the crucifixion, they find that out of tragedy comes creativity. Out of death comes life, and they are called to show that the kingdom of heaven has indeed come near by the shape of their lives, by what they value, how they show and share the grace and love of God.
So how do we answer that call? This isn’t a trick question, but it doesn’t seem to have a straight answer, does it? So I am coming at it slant.
Later this afternoon I am officiating at a strange sort of wedding. In fact, I married the couple in question two and a half years ago, between lockdowns and in the back garden with less than 20 people attending. We had KFC for the reception dinner – that part was unforgettable, but for me, not in a good way.
The wedding they had originally planned to have is finally taking place this afternoon, with 150 guests and family from Malaysia, Australia and China attending. The couple wanted some kind of ceremony to happen, but the essential parts had already been covered…so what to do?
Well, in the past two and a half years, there have been some big changes for them…they now have a son – two has become three. So as I prepared some options for them to consider, I wondered if there was anything I could draw in from this huge shift from being a couple to becoming a family. I did a bit of reading around and I came across this piece of wisdom from relationship therapist Esther Perel’s book ‘mating in captivity’.
She quotes one of her clients, an exhausted mother, who said:
“I knew we were in trouble when I couldn’t even think about relaxing and connecting with my husband until all the toys were put away”…it’s as if making order on the outside can bring peace on the inside.
But the thing is, in some way, it does. There is something about getting that kind of stuff done that gives a sense of control and efficiency, and offers immediate, measurable results that make you feel good.
We clean the windows, fix the blinds, dust, vacuum, sweep, mow…but none of these jobs is ever truly done except in an ongoing way…and yet how readily we identify these as priorities and we put our energy into these things more than in the less measurable, more risky efforts to build and grow connections –
through thoughtful conversations, through sharing stories, fears and hopes, through asking our questions and wonderings and listening to each other.
We use what energy we have to achieve a practical result that we can feel good about. But the thing is, in doing this, we have only created a fleeting sense of peace, a temporary sense of achievement. We choose to take care of what is at the surface over what is underneath. In no time at all the dust settles, the grass grows, finger-marks appear on the windows…And so we go around again.
At our parish council meeting this week I asked this question: How much energy do you think we have as a congregation?
I wonder how you would answer that question: how much energy do you think we have? How much energy do you have? And what are you willing to put that energy into?
Then I wanted to know, if our energy levels are low – and for many good reasons that’s the general sense– what will regenerate them? What can we do together that fills the tank rather than depletes it? What would you feel excited to do, or look forward to? And just as important, what would feel like an obligation or a burden?
Would you, like the exhausted mother, rather mop the floor or connect with others?
I could be wrong, but I don’t think looking after the building is going to overwhelm us with joy or inspire our creativity, lead us to new life or fresh vision. But if this is what you have energy for, we need to look at that straight on, not slant.
We need to see what is here and what is not, and then – then – we can hear again the call to follow knowing that crisis, struggle and even death are part of the journey into life.
