Sunday, January 27, 2008

Sermon: Third Sunday after Epiphany

12Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
15"Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles —
16the 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."
17From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."
18As 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. 19And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21As 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. 22Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
23Jesus 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.

Good News: God continues to call.

The Calling

“You have come down to the lakeshore seeking neither the wise nor the wealthy, but only asking for me to follow…”

(“We are called to act with Justice. We are called to love tenderly. We are called to serve one another. To walk humbly with God.”)

We’re going to sing those words in a minute; words that repaint the picture we have in today’s gospel and place us in the role of Peter and Andrew, James and John.

The calling, Jesus crying out for those fisherman to follow him on this journey he was to take.

They are unlikely candidates, by the way. I mean, think about it, why did Jesus call these folks? Why fisherman when he could have called orators, or politicians, or Jewish priests, or philosophers, or book keepers. Why did he choose, as his first disciples, to call fisherman?

I don’t think it was because of the great analogy between snagging fish with a hook and snagging God’s people with the gospel. After all, there’s no indication that any of these guys are any good at speaking. In fact, as we get to know Peter more and more, it turns out that he’s a rather brash guy who seems to annoy people more than attract them.

So why fisherman? Why them as the first; why them as the inner-circle?

I think I know. I think I know because, well, I spent a lot of time in a boat fishing when I was younger.

When I was a little boy living in Toledo, my father would wake me and my brothers up early on some summer mornings. We’re talking early early. For young boys, waking up at 4:30 is not something to be proud of or lauded over. But my father would wake us up and say, “Let’s go get the big one”

And we knew we were fishing. We’d don our old jeans and ratty sweatshirts. We’d grab our little reels from the garage, my younger brother had a reel with Snoopy on it, and we’d pile in the Chevette toward the lake.

My father would stop by the bait shack off the road and buy a bucket of dirt. My brothers and I would sit in the car and wipe sleep from our eyes. Then we’d all pile out, get into the tin row boat that was barely big enough for the four of us, and he’d paddle us out into the lake.

And we’d sit.

We’d sit with our lures in the water, secretly hoping we’d catch a big one. And we’d talk. Dad would tell us stories. We’d tell him about school, or karate, or what we wanted to do on vacation.

And we’d sit.

We’d sit until four in the afternoon, until our little bodies could no longer take the sun, until the crusts that we’d throw to the fish ran out, and we’d just sit. We never caught the big one. Sure, we caught little Sunny’s, blue-gills, occasional small mouth bass. But we never caught the big one.

But what we did catch was the stories. What we did catch was the time spent together. What we did catch was the experience of knowing, first hand, that our father loved us and wanted to spend time with us. What we caught was love.

But we would have missed it had we not stuck with the fishing. If we would have gotten frustrated with the time of day, frustrated that the fish weren’t biting, if we had grumbled about the stories, if we would have let our own agendas get in the way, we would have missed out on that time.

But people who fish know that we aren’t working in a normal time frame. It takes patience, it takes a hearty resolve, it takes conversation, and it takes a willing heart to do that work. And even though we didn’t catch the big one, we caught something much more precious. We caught love.

I think Jesus called these fishermen, the first people called, because he knew that it would take a fisherman’s attitude to walk that walk with him. It would take time, and at times it would seem pointless. It would take conversation, even though the stories wouldn’t always make sense right away. And it would take a willing heart, willing to stick with it, knowing that, at the end of the day, it would be worth it.

That is the call that Peter and Andrew, James and John answered. Jesus needed those who would stick through it to the end.

Jesus needed to call people who would last through thick and thin, who would survive the storm of the raging waters of Galilee. Who would survive being touched by lepers, who wouldn’t feel shame in hanging around with prostitutes and tax collectors, people that others thought were shameful and dirty. God needed those first disciples to be people who could stand in the shadow of the cross, see their rabbi, their mentor, their God crucified, and still come back to grace the door of the empty tomb.

God needed disciples who would stick with it and people who fish stick with it.

That is why we have to hear this call again today, this story in today’s gospel to wake us up in the early hours of this Sunday morning to come and sit here with each other. To come here to experience the love of God again because we know that when we get out of this pew here today, when we step back on shore from this boat right here that we’re in, the story continues, the call hasn’t stopped.

Are you fishers? No, let me rephrase that. You, Edgebrook Lutheran Church, ARE fishers. How do I know? Because you’ve been called. You’ve been called at your baptism. You’ve been called here today in this gospel lesson. You’ve been called through that nagging movement in your guts that tells you that poverty, homelessness, that violence, and war, that loneliness and despair are not the way that God wants us to be in this world!

And here you experience the opposite of those things! Here you experience a place where people greet each other. Here you experience a world where everyone has enough food at this table, where we sing songs instead of fight wars, where no one is alone because we’re all in this boat together. That is, by the way, why we celebrate the cycles of the church year. You know, starting with Advent and the birth, moving straight through Epiphany to Lent with the death, and then to glorious Easter with the rising. And then we spend a long six months in Pentecost, that time where the disciples told others about the birth, the death, and the rising.

Here you hear the call, and here you catch a glimpse of that story that God has in store for all of us. And that’s the good news about being fishers: God is calling you, wanting you, talking to you. You have a relationship with a God who loves you and wants you to be that person to share that love, in actions and words, with others.

But we must stick with it. We must be the fisher disciples, who despite the ups and downs of life, despite the ups and downs of even church life, can stay through the storm to tell others of the cross and the empty tomb, those symbols of hope that tell us that God has another way for us to be and live for each other. Those things that show us how God loves us, even past death into new life.

Today we have the congregational meeting, an important meeting where we decide, once again this year, to sit with Jesus in the boat, listening to this story of love, knowing that we must go and share that story, sit in other boats and tell the story to others.

Dear people, God is calling to you again today. Follow Jesus to the cross, to the tomb, and back again, both as a people and as a church. God has called you to show others that there is a different way of living with one another, a salvation that, as Jesus reminds us, is close at hand!

Oh, and don’t worry if you “don’t catch the big one.” If you don’t eradicate poverty in one swift stroke, if you don’t get a million people to come to church to hear God’s story. We’re not on a time crunch here; we’re fishing. Stick with it and, if nothing else, you’ll be caught in God’s love.

But I look out there and think: If God in Jesus has called us, if we are fishers as God has named us, God’s going to do a lot more through us. More than we can ever imagine.

So come, God’s calling out, the Good News must be spread. Let’s go fishing.

Amen.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Sermon-First Sunday of Christmas

Edgebrook Lutheran Church

First Sunday of Christmas

Matthew 2:13-23

13Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." 14Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son."
16When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
18"A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more."
19When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead. 21Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."

Be Not Afraid

The midnight flight to Egypt.

Matthew does a superb job at crafting a story that will require telling. In the first two chapters of his Gospel message there are angels, an illegitimate birth, visions, and now violence.

Joseph, having been warned in a dream, takes flight to Egypt with Mary and his newborn son.

Herod, having been told by the Magi about the birth of what he believes to be a rival king, makes a violent raid on Bethlehem, killing any male two years or younger in the attempts at preventing this king prodigy from ever growing to take his place.

And what is Joseph’s motivation for his saving act? Trust. Trust in the God that desires to save.

And what is Herod’s motivation for his bloody act? Fear. Fear that someone will take his political status. Fear that someone will unseat him. Fear that he will lose power.

Joseph trusts; Herod fears.

And Herod’s fear has bloody consequences. This text is known as the “slaughter of the innocents.” It is the text that clearly shows what happens when fear and power collide. It is the text that shows what happens when those in power make decisions out of fear, instead of trust.

Innocent people die. In this case, in many cases around the world, those innocents are children.

I’m thinking of Uganda, where children are kidnapped at night and drafted into the guerrilla army because the guerrilla’s fear that they will not be able to continue fighting if they don’t have a young, ready crop of children who know how to shoot a gun.

I’m thinking of those haunting scenes in the movie Schindler’s List, where the children are hiding in pianos, under mattresses, and in outhouses to keep from being sent to the work camps.

I’m thinking of the children in this country who die of hunger. Yes, in America, children die of hunger. 1 in 28 people in America don’t have enough food for the day. And why? Because our politicians are on the stumps trying to scare up our votes by mentioning 9/11, Islamic extremism, and other bogeymen instead of addressing hunger and poverty.

Yes, when people are trying to get into power, when people are afraid of losing power, they act out of fear and often times there are bloody consequences, and we have a similar reaction to Rachel in today’s reading: we cry over those lost.

You know, this section on Rachel is an interesting one, and often overlooked. Look back at it with me now. It says:

"A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more."

This text is from Jeremiah 31. It was originally written in Jeremiah as a response to the people of Israel being destroyed by Babylon, and many Israelites were taken from their homes, including many children, and made to work as slaves in Babylon. Because of this, Jeremiah says that Rachel weeps for her children because they were destroyed by Babylon, who feared that Israel would align itself with other nations and destroy Babylon.

The Jewish tradition has an interesting take on this verse. The Jewish tradition has stories known as the Midrash. The Midrash are really stories about stories. In this instance, God allows Babylon to take over Israel because Israel was led by kings who didn’t do God’s work. But God is none-the-less sad about it. So God goes to Abraham and says, “Come weep with me over the loss of Israel.” But Abraham refuses, saying that he’s already done what God has asked of him, and so God should have mercy on Israel for Abraham’s sake. So God asks Isaac to come and weep with him, but Isaac refuses, saying that God should have compassion on God’s people for his sake because he was almost killed for God. So God turns to Moses, and says, “Moses, will you weep with me for Israel?” But Moses also refuses, reminding God of how faithful he had been in leading people through the desert. And so he encourages God to be merciful to Israel for all the good that Moses has done.

But God is silent in responding to all of them. So finally, God goes to Rachel. Rachel, who had to give her husband to her sister. Rachel, who has not held a grudge against her sister because she trusted God’s plan. Rachel, who had to live her life as second best for what seemed to be God’s plan, will come and weep with God, but asks God to love God’s people as he promised, giving up his pride as Rachel gave up her pride. You see, Rachel will come and weep with God because Rachel knows that God is not going to let Israel alone. Even when it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, God is still working to save humanity because God does not work out of fear, God does not work out of pride.

And so Rachel, in this Midrash, reminds God of who God is. God is trustworthy. God is a savior. God is greater than those tears and so, yes, Rachel and God cry over Israel as Babylon takes over, but those tears are muffled by another crying. It is the crying that was heard that Christmas morning as the Christ, God’s response to Rachel, is heard in the night.

You see, there are those in this world who combine power with fear and expect us to do the same. There are those in this world who would want to control us, our children, the poor, the marginalized with fear because they are afraid, like Herod was afraid. And so they use power and intimidation to do awful things that result in children suffering in Uganda, people dying in the Holocaust, or children dying of malnutrition and treatable disease in our own country because our dollars are going to fight fears instead of fight hunger and poverty.

But then there are those like Rachel, those like Joseph. Those who know that God is working behind the scenes, and therefore is working to bring about God’s saving work in this world. You see, the good news of God this Christmas is that Rachel’s tears and Herod’s fears are not the end of the story. The Christ-child is. The child who fought power by being powerless. The child that fought fear by being the God who does not fear. The child that would save us from Sin and death so that we can bring life to those in Uganda, on our streets, or anywhere in this world because we know that God does not operate out of fear, but out of love and trust.

If you want to see contrasting examples of kingship, just look at the Christ child and Herod. Herod looks powerful, but is powerless to his own fear. He acts out of it and blood is the result. The Christ child looks powerless, but is powerful in love. He acts out of that love, and our salvation is the result.

In this New Year, people of God, there may be times when we cry like Rachel because of the Herod’s of this world. But God is working, and so we trust like Rachel, we trust like Joseph, and we spread the good news that God is not working in fear, but is working in love to bring salvation again this New Year.