| Mark 1:16-20 "Spiritual Habit of Courage" |
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| Written by Rev. Don Lee | |
| Saturday, 09 February 2008 | |
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“All life is a call and response.” I believe those words are profoundly true. All of life is a call and response. God calls us into life…How we live is our response to God! “Call and response” is the concern of this morning’s Gospel narrative. Jesus calls, the disciples respond…though not all who are invited respond by joining him on his Journey. Our scripture reading comes from Mark 1:16-20. As you are able, please stand for the reading of the Gospel. 16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. 17And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ 18And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. Prayer: Oh God, I thank you for having created me as I am. I thank you for the sense of fulfillment I sometimes have: that fulfillment is after all nothing but being filled with you. I promise you to strive my whole life long for beauty and harmony and also humility and true love, whispers I hear inside me during my best moments. Amen. -A prayer from the diary of Auschwitz victim, Etty Hillesum. Verse 16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. It’s a wonderful image! “As Jesus passed along the Sea….” There is a sense of movement and purpose in those words. You can feel the sand under your feet; the smell of salt in the air; hear the crash of wave after successive wave against the shore. It’s unclear whether Jesus is there specifically to recruit disciples among these anglers or whether he merely sees an opportunity and seizes it. The word “passed” suggests its more “opportunity seized” then intentional fishing expedition. Perhaps it would be easy to argue that Jesus was the consummate angler; someone who always carried his tackle in the back of his pickup, always looking for that Honey hole; constantly seeking opportunities to fish…for people. Verse 17And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ “Behold, I cast my line and wait.” It is not we who catch Jesus but we who are caught. We who find ourselves in the belly of the great fish where Jonah’s prayer becomes our prayer: “You brought my life up from the pit, O Lord.” Ever been in the pits? Suffered a loss so significant that it devastated your assumptions about yourself, how the world works; even your sense of God? A grieving mother writes in her blog, “I find myself in awe that the world still turns, people, including me, st ill get up every day and go to work, eat meals, laugh at jokes, make plans. It seems wrong that life continues on without you.” And it does, doesn’t it? German Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr uses the metaphors of “shipwreck, gladness, and amazement,” to describe how our faith moves us from the pit of despair, to relief that one has survived (in the belly of the whale), to amazement that our future still holds promise (on the shores of Nineveh). What does this have to do with Jesus’ invitation? Jesus taught the Gospel was more then mere words; that in the Gospel is life, orienting purpose, and hope. During 2006-2007 academic year, three SMU students tragically died of drug overdoses; the most recent being 21 year old Meaghan Bosch. A substance abuse task force was formed by the University’s president and now that Task force has released its report with 30 recommendations for possible implemented by school administration. Our young adults are shipwrecked! They are binge drinking themselves to death; Some are taking their own lives. They are returning from war with post traumatic stress and in some cases, minus limbs. They feel bored and empty and lacking direction. They are looking for happiness and meaning but are having difficulty finding anything substantive to hold on to. Despite all this technology at their fingertips, they are still asking, “Isn’t there more to life then this?” My faith tells me our Young Adults are eager to be caught by something greater then themselves.. Verse 20 Immediately…they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. Not everyone who hears responds by joining Jesus on his journey. Like Zebedee I can think of a thousand reasons why I ought to stay in the boat mending my net, bidding my time, and maintaining the status quo. But Jesus’ answer to each and every excuse is the same: Go Fish! But Jesus, I’m busy….(and Jesus answers? Go Fish). I’ll have to give up too much. (Go Fish). But Jesus, we’ve always done it this way. (Go Fish). We’ve tried that before, it doesn’t work. (Go Fish). It’s not in the budget! (Go Fish) It takes great courage to put yourself on the line for Jesus. Robert Coles is a Child Psychiatrist and Harvard professor who provided counseling to four black (six-year-old) girls who initiated school desegregation in the early 1960’s in New Orleans. Tessie was one of these girls who each day, accompanied by armed federal marshals was escorted safely into her newly desegregated school, as students and parents from the community screamed obscenities and in some cases, even death threats at her. Cole was impressed both by the Tessie’s resolve and the strength and conviction of her maternal grandmother. On one particular day, recovering from a bout of flu, Tessie suggested over breakfast that perhaps, for the first time she stay home from school. Her grandmother replied: “Its no picnic, child- I know that, Tessie-going to that school. Lord Almighty, if I could just go with you, and stop there in front of that building, and call all those people to my side, and read to them from the Bible, and tell them, remind them, that He’s up there, Jesus, watching over all of us-it don’t matter who you are and what your skin color is. But I stay here, and you go-and your momma and daddy, they have to leave the house so early in the morning that it’s only Saturdays and Sundays that they see you before the sun hits the middle of its traveling for the day. So I’m not the one to tell you that you should go, because here I am, and I’m watching television and eating or cleaning things up while you’re walking by those folks. But I’ll tell you, you’re doing them a great favor; you’re doing them a service, a big service. She stopped briefly to pick up a fly swatter and go after a bee that had noisily appeared in the kitchen. She hit it and watched it fall to the floor, then she plucked a tissue from a box on a counter, picked up the bee, still alive, and took it outside, where it flew off… “You see, my child, you have to help the good Lord with His world! He puts us here-and He calls us to help Him out. That bee doesn’t belong here; it belongs out there. You belong in that McDonough School, and there will be a day when everyone knows that, even those poor folks-Lord I pray for them! Those poor, poor folks who are out there shouting their heads off at you. You’re one of the Lord’s people; He’s put His Hand on you. He’s given a call to you, a call to service-in His name! There’s all those people, scared out of their minds, and by the time you’re ready to leave the McDonogh School they’ll be calmed down, and they won’t be paying you no mind at all child...” As she was speaking, Tessie finished her breakfast, marched confidently to the sink with her dishes, put them in a neat pile, and went to get her raincoat and empty lunch pail from her room-all without saying a word. She was going to school, I realized. No further words on the subject were exchanged. Later when asked what she thought her grandmother had meant, Tessie replied: “If you just keep your eyes on what you’re supposed to be doing, then you’ll get there- to where you want to go. The marshals say, ‘Don’t look at them; just walk with your heard up high, and you’re looking straight ahead.’ My granny says that there’s God, He’s looking too, and I should remember that it’s a help to Him to do this, what I’m doing; and if you serve Him, then that’ important. So I keep trying.” Those are courageous words coming from a six year old! Courage is a spiritual habit. You know what I learned this week? The word courage is derived from the French word for “heart.” You see courage is about being bighearted; it is having the heart to care enough to act. “Courage doesn’t always roar,” writes Mary Anne Radmacher. “Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, ‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’” How do we “lure” people to Jesus? We do it by: Living generously Loving recklessly By speaking and making peace with others. By telling the stories of Jesus And our own stories as well. We are the live bait of God’s grace dangling before a hungry world. You may be wondering why Holy Covenant is sponsoring a panel discussion on Immigration this coming Wednesday. Why do this, breach this controversial issue? Because God loves the immigrant… papers or not! And we need to be in prayerful holy conversation about how we can be faithful to a Gospel that calls us to be in ministry to all people. In his last sermon before his assignation, Archbishop Oscar Romero said the following: “Let no one be offended because we use the divine words read at our Mass to shed light on the social, political, and economic situation of our people. Not to do so would be unchristian. Christ desires to unite himself with humanity, so that the light he brings from God might become life for nations and individuals. I know many are shocked by this preaching and want to accuse us of forsaking the gospel for politics. But I reject this accusation…Each week I go about the country listening to the cries of the people, their pain from so much crime, and the ignominy of so much violence. Each week I ask the Lord to give me the right words to console, to denounce, to call for repentance. And even though I may be a voice crying in the desert, I know that the church is making the effort to fulfill its mission.” Like Zebedee daily we decide, are we going to stay in the boat or go fish. As a pastor I used to take it personally when people stated they were not growing spiritually; that is until I had an epiphany! Jesus, the founder of our faith, the son of the living God recruited 12 disciples who would live with him 24/7. They would eat and sleep and travel together for the next three years. He would teach them and model for them and at the end of that time, one betrayed him, another vehemently denied even knowing him. In defiance of his Gospel message, some took up swords to protect him, and then all deserted him. Following his resurrection, his disciples hid in fear, doubted his return, and even after seeing him face to face still return to their former way of life as fishermen. (John 21:3)"I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you." So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. “That night they caught nothing…” Hmmm. Could the lack of spiritual growth be due to a return to former ways of living and doing (that Jesus has called us out of), and then expecting God to bless us anyway. That is not who we are! Who are we? God’s prophets called to Nineveh. Anglers of the human flesh and soul. We cast not one line but thousands, hoping for a great catch that will nearly burst our nets. Jesus invites us on a grand adventure; a fishing expedition like no other. We are to join him, learn from him, and eventually be transformed from novice to expert angler. Call it “catch and release” theology. News correspondent Charles Kuralt, did a story on 76 year old Bill Maggie, a outfitter in the Minnesota North Woods. The guide was 76 years old at the time. Maggie regaled Kuralt with stories of a lifetime spent guiding in the Minnesota-Ontario wilderness and then invited him to join him. “Over supper, he said to me earnestly, “You know, I want to take one more long canoe trip before I get too old to carry a canoe on the portages. I believe I like you well enough to invite you to come along with me.” I could tell he meant it. I felt honored and a little abashed. “I don’t know much about canoes,” I said. “I could teach you everything,” he said. “You like fishing, we’ll catch our supper every night and listen to the loons and live off the land the way I used to. I’ll promise you this: I can take you to some lakes that [darn] few people have ever seen. I’d like to see them one more time myself.” Knowing he could never take that much time off, Kult left Maggie’s offer hanging and received several letters over the winter renewing the invitation but Kuralt never responded. A year or two later, Lucille Maggie wrote to tell him Bill had died. Kuralt writes “I wish with all my heart I had made the long canoe trip with Bill Maggie. I can’t remember what I was doing from the fourth of July to the end of August the summer he wanted to go fish every night and listen to the loons and see those distant lakes one more time. What could I have been doing that would have been better than that?” (On the Road) As the season of Lent begins, we are invited to join Jesus on his great adventure. It is said the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. That step is the spiritual habit of courage. The journey has its risks but what could you or I do that would be better than this? Next week: the Spiritual Habit of Centering. |
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