Dropping our nets or the thing we have to do before we can really follow Jesus.

Below is the message I shared yesterday at Good Shepherd.  The text for the message is Matthew 4:12-23.  I hope you find in it a word from our God.  

Many of you were here last week when we talked about Evangelism or sharing the Good News of Christ in your life with others. 

One of the ways we talked about Evangelism was that is was inviting others on the journey of following Christ with you.

As I was thinking about that, and looking at the passage from Matthew for this week, it occurred to me that maybe we had skipped a step. 

In order to invite someone to join you on the adventure of following Jesus through this life, you have to be following Jesus yourself first.

Following Jesus is something we talk about a lot.  It is a phrase that comes from, at least in part Jesus’ invitation from Matthew that we read just a few minutes ago. 

The phrase itself is often used as a replacement for or synonym for accepting or believing in Jesus.  I know that I do that sometimes.  But it isn’t really accurate.

Believing in or accepting Jesus – asking God into your heart and your life is, obviously, a critical thing for us to do. 

Following is something more than just that choice or decision, though.  It implies action, movement and a continued effort to reproduce the will and actions of Jesus

So the ‘first step’ in a life of following Jesus is certainly the choice or decision to believe in God and ask God into your heart and life.  There is another step that Jesus indicates before we can truly begin to follow him.

It is right there in the Scripture: After Jesus’ invitation to Simon Peter & Andrew to ‘Come and follow me’ with the promise that they would be made fishers of men or people.  The brothers, the Scripture tells us, ‘at once left their nets and followed him.’ 

Don’t mistake the beginning of that sentence for a non-essential narrative.  Because I believe it is critical to understanding what it really means to follow Jesus and how we can begin to do that more fully in our lives. 

Those nets were more than just the means to an end for Peter and Andrew and the other fisherman, they were representative of Who they were.  They were Fisherman – in fact we still know them that way, which goes to show how wrapped up in their identity those nets were.  So dropping – immediately no less – those nets was no small thing. 

It was and is a physical symbol of what has to take place in our hearts, minds and lives when we make the decision to follow Jesus. 

Before we can begin on the journey of Following Jesus and accepting the new thing God wants to do in and through us., w must set down and let go of whatever it is that we allow or that we look to define who we are.  

I don’t know if you have seen or heard about it, but there has been a lot of talk in the news and just all around this past week about horoscopes and a possible ‘extra’ sign that is changing what some people’s signs are. 

I have never paid any attention to horoscopes, don’t understand them and couldn’t even tell you my sign so I certainly am not the one to give the details of what is going on, all I know is, as I said it has something to do with a ‘new’ or ‘extra’ sign.   

And maybe because of my lack of connection to the zodiac and horoscopes I was really surprised by the amount of attention this got and even more surprised by the angst that some people showed over a potential ‘new sign’. 

I saw status updates in all caps screaming about how there was ‘no way I am a Virgo! This girl is a Sagittarius all the way’.  I heard interviews with people who were clearly, visibly shaken at the thought of being a different or new sign.  And many more like that with similar themes. 

So clearly for some people ‘their’ sign is very important to them.  It was apparent that it does more than give hint to when they were born, but – at least in their eyes – it gives insight to personality traits, likes and dislikes, and is in fact an important part of who they are. 

While I still don’t get horoscopes and as a Christian think they are suspect at best, when you just think about the connection some people have to their sign and the meaning that is gleaned from their sign and their horoscope, then it is pretty easy to see why the news of signs changing would be so disturbing and upsetting.

For Some people their ‘sign’ is an important symbol or marker of who and what they are.  For Simon Peter and Andrew their nets were those symbols.  Directly connected to who they were, what they did and what was important to them. 

The call of Jesus to follow him comes with a caveat:  Drop Your Nets and follow me.  To really be able to focus on and follow Jesus the fisherman disciples had to leave their nets (the very symbol of their old life) behind. 

They had to leave who they were behind so that they could embrace who God was calling them to be, what God was calling them to do. 

Whatever it is that symbolizes who you were before you invited Jesus into your life – fishing nets for Simon Peter, Andrew and some of the other disciples; the money that came with being a tax collector for Matthew; your Zodiac sign. 

Whatever it is, in order to really begin to follow Jesus you have to make the choice to drop or let go it. 

God is doing a new thing in and through you and as long as you are holding on to what used to represent or define you, then you aren’t really letting God in.  If we don’t begin by dropping whatever defines us and picking up the mantle of Jesus Christ then we can’t really, truly follow Jesus.  As long as we are holding onto our nets – whatever that looks like in our lives – then we haven’t created enough space in our hearts, minds and lives to allow the Holy Spirit of God to work in us and through us. 

If we are still holding on to our nets – it will be that, not the Holy Spirit, that guides us on the journey of our lives and it is only with the leading power of the Holy Spirit that we are able to follow God. 

Of course, it is a difficult thing to ‘drop your net’.  The thing or things that define who we are do so for a reason. 

For the Peter and Andrew their nets represented what they did and who they were.  They also represented what they were best at and, probably the only thing they had ever really done or known.  Simon Peter and Andrew were fishermen, their nets represented the work they did. 

So they were not so different from many of us then.  Often times the thing that defines us most clearly is the work we do: We are nurses or teachers, leaders in business or in research. 

Just like fishing, there is nothing wrong with these things – Jesus didn’t tell Simon Peter and Andrew to drop their nets because there was something inherently wrong with fishing. 

Rather they had to drop their nets to allow God to transform every part of their lives so that they might be able to truly and fully follow Jesus. 

Jesus asks – in fact demands to be first in our lives.  And to really and truly follow him means to be defined by and primarily identified with him first. 

This is why Mother Teresa warned not to mistake your work for your vocation.  Saying that we all share in the same vocation – the love of Jesus. 

In all of this, though it is critical to understand that God created us as who we are for a reason.  We are good at math – or not.  Interested in history – or not.  Talented artists, good negotiators, gracious caretakers – or not, because of the unique way that God made each of us. 

And we are made how we are made for a reason and a purpose. 

This is why Jesus told those fishermen 2000 years ago that they would be made fishers of people. 

God has given each of us the unique capacity for something  - and for most of you many things. 

But we can’t – if we are to be followers of Jesus – be defined by what we do, what we like or even our personality traits. 

And we aren’t all to become ‘fishers of people’ either.  We are in the sense that we are all to share God’s love and invite others into relationship with Jesus.

But God did not intend for each of us to be fishermen and God did not create us all with those gifts. 

Instead God gave us each a unique combination of skill, interest, aptitude and location all for a specific purpose. 

When we drop our nets – or our signs, or our uniforms, or our work, whatever it is, and take up the mantle of Jesus Christ seeking to define our lives with God’s love for us and for the world.  An amazing thing happens.

God takes what we love, what we have been gifted for and our particular situation and uses all of that to make us fishers, or teachers or students, or nurses or whatever of people. 

When we drop who we were to fully embrace who God created us to be and who God calls us to be, we truly begin following Jesus Christ and the way we live our lives invites others to join us on the adventure that is the life of faith, following Jesus Christ.

So let us drop our nets and follow him.

Amen.

I wanna be a billionaire so . . . . bad

So go the lines of a fairly popular song right now.  I ask that, if you know it, you sing along with the PG lyrics in your head.  The desire to be rich is if not quite, almost, universal.  Everybody - or, again almost everybody - would be able to rattle off what we would do if we had an 'extra' $100,000 or a million.  Right, we all have things that we would do and stuff that we would buy, right now.  
The pursuit of money is a tricky thing, however.  {Warning: many of you have heard me say this before] John D. Rockefeller, at the time one of the richest men in the world, when asked the question 'How much money is enough?' Immediately responded, 'Just a little bit more.'  
That is the rub with the pursuit of money, or the desire for the things that money can buy, there is never really an end to it.  There is always 'a little bit more' money to be made, 'a little bit more' stuff to acquire.  And so on.  When we allow the pursuit of money or stuff to become our focus or even just 'a' focus, we succumb to that dirty word, greed.  
This is where today's daily lectionary passages come in (which, as always can be found here: http://gamc.pcusa.org/devotion/daily/2011/1/19/  ) 
The passage from Ephesians 5 begins by calling us to be imitators of Jesus Christ.  Paul calls the Ephesians, and all of us, to the high and challenging life of following in Christ's footsteps.  At this point Paul goes on to illustrate some of the things that imitating Christ isn't.  There is to be no fornication or impurity of any kind.  Different people will 'draw the line' of what is 'fornication' in different places, but for this discussion let us just agree that Jesus holds us - and himself - to a very high standard of purity.  
Paul says that you can't have 'even a hint' of impurity and really be imitating Christ.  And, of course, it is in imitating Christ that we are able to share God's love with others.  
It isn't until the passage gets to a discussion of greed, though, that we get the bottom line reason as to why all of these 'impurities' must be eliminated from our hearts, minds and lives. In verse 5 Paul equates someone who is greedy with an idolater.  
This is the point, when we allow things into our lives: sexual sin, desire for money and/or stuff, other relationships, anything that is not focused on God and our call to follow Christ and participate in the mission and work of God, we become idolaters.
That is an important understanding for us to have, and one that is easy to ignore.  It is easy and even natural to say its only this little sin or 'everybody wants more money or more stuff', etc.  But none of it is little.  When we choose to allow anything into our hearts that is not of God we allowing that to - even if only for a moment - to become our God.  
When our allow our hearts to lust, we are practicing worship of something other than God.  When we become greedy - as opposed to gracious and thankful for what we have been blessed with - we let money become our God.  When we give in to sin and impurity we make space for something to come between us and our God.  
How do we move away from the sin, impurity and darkness in our hearts, minds and lives?  We simply ask God to shine the light of Jesus Christ in our hearts, through our minds and in our lives.  
May the light of Jesus Christ shine in your heart and mine.  In your life and mine and may that light guide our minds and our actions.  Amen.

On the curb or in the parade?

Below is the message I shared yesterday at Good Shepherd.  I hope that in it you here God calling you to join in the mission of God that is already happening all around us.  


James 2:14-26 (The Message)

 ^14-17Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

 ¹⁸I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, "Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I'll handle the works department."

   Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.

 ^19-20Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That's just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?

 ^21-24Wasn't our ancestor Abraham "made right with God by works" when he placed his son Isaac on the sacrificial altar? Isn't it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners, that faith expresses itself in works? That the works are "works of faith"? The full meaning of "believe" in the Scripture sentence, "Abraham believed God and was set right with God," includes his action. It's that mesh of believing and acting that got Abraham named "God's friend." Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a barren faith but by faith fruitful in works?

 ^25-26The same with Rahab, the Jericho harlot. Wasn't her action in hiding God's spies and helping them escape—that seamless unity of believing and doing—what counted with God? The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.

As you may have already figured out from the title of today’s message – if you were reading ahead, we are going to spend a little time this morning thinking and talking about parades.  For some people parades, like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade or the Rose Parade on New Year’s day are established and important traditions. 

For others their primary connection to parades is through an experience in a marching band, having walked in seemingly countless ones in all sorts of weather.  And for still others, the best part or the most memorable aspect of a parade is that at some point at least, someone is going to be throwing candy.

For me my connection – and my appreciation for – parades stems from two moments from my childhood that I still remember fondly. 

The town I grew up in always had a parade Halloween night, in which any costumed person could march.  There were prizes for various catagories and age groups and every child that made it to the end got a goody bag filled with candy from some of the local businesses.

When I was 5 years old  I won the prize for funniest costume – its amazing what a little makeup, old clothes and a pillow stuffed in a shirt can do.  And as the winner, I got my picture in the paper and a small prize.  It was awesome.

My other ‘parade memory’ was walking (with my ‘boom box’) along with several of my friends as part of the ‘float’ for 1160 radio as a 6^th grader.  This was for a memorial day parade and we were all wearing jean shorts, neon green shirts (with the sleeves rolled up), hats on backward and carrying our boom boxes on our shoulders.  Again – awesome.

Maybe because of these two experiences I am always pretty gung ho about parades and I always push us to make a concerted effort to get the family to every parade possible.  But if I am being honest, I realized recently that I really don’t like parades that much.  Or at the very least I have found that most parades leave me at least a little disappointed. 

I was reminded of these experiences this week as I heard about and watched a video about Bob Goff and one of his family traditions.  Bob Goff is a prominent lawyer in California and Washington state, a law professor at Pepperdine, dedicated Christian and the founder of Restore International which works through governments and the law to rescues children from slavery in India and many other places around the world. 

Bob lives in San Diego, and when his three children were young they were sitting around on New Years Day, bored. And Bob thought it was a crime anybody should be bored on New Years Day. (Let’s face it, unless you are a football fan, there’s not a whole lot to do.)

Bob asked the kids what they could do to honor the fact God gave them a day. And eventually Bob and his wife Maria, and their children, came up with the idea of a parade. So they set out to have a parade on their street. They went house to house telling their neighbors they were going to have a parade. And the neighbors must have indulged the children by saying they would watch.

But the Goff’s had a better idea than just a parade people would watch. They decided nobody could watch the parade. They could only be in the parade.  And so a few neighbors joined in. The small parade marched from the end of the street to the Goff house, where they had a small cookout, if I remember correctly.

Now, more than ten years later, the New Years Day Parade is a tradition. Hundreds of people join in (nobody watches, everybody marches) and the day has not been boring since. Not only has it not been boring for the Goff family, it hasn’t been boring for hundreds of neighbors as well.

Each year the parade selects a Grand Marshal. One year, the Grand Marshal was the mailman, who marched in front of the crowd throwing letters into the air.  And each year a New-Years Day Queen is selected, sometimes from the local retirement center. And the Queen gives a speech, and there is an annual Queen’s brunch and everything.

In the Goff Family parade nobody is allowed to watch. Nobody can sit on the curb. Everybody marches.  It’s a wonderful, true story about how much better life is when we participate.  If you’ve not made a resolution yet in 2011, make this one with me: I will not watch 2011, I will participate.

I found this story on Christian writer Donald Miller’s blog and it also had a video of the parade, most of the people not doing anything special or different just walking along, being themselves, part of the parade.  It was a powerful reminder of how meaningful life can be when we get up off the curb and join in.

Of course this is exactly what James is calling us to do in our Scripture passage for this morning. 

Having faith but not doing anything with it is sort of like going to the parade and sitting on the curb. 

You are there – you have had the experience of the parade, but sitting and watching doesn’t even begin to compare to being in the parade.

God did not call us to sit and watch life and the world pass us by. 

God did not create us to be observers of our lives. 

God did not call us to be simply observers of the work and mission of God in the world

We were created to participate in the work and mission of God.  We are called to follow Jesus as he leads us through the parade of life  actively participating in the mission of God in this church and in the world.  Life lived with God is not a spectator sport, but rather an action or practice of getting in step with the leader of our parade and our lives. 

And as we think about ‘marching’ in the parade of life, it does of course matter what direction you are marching in.  Who is leading your parade – because who you are following – can make all the difference in the world. 

Part of our call is to live lives that invite others to walk – or march – along side of us.  In fact it is the essence and at the heart of the call God places on the heart of every Christian.   The tragic events that took place yesterday in Arizona only serve to remind us that if we aren’t showing up and sharing with the world – at the very least all of those around us - what it looks like to walk into the light of God and sharing the love, peace and joy that can be found in following behind Jesus then other things and other voices will call people toward different, darker paths. 

But God is gracious and even when we or those around us fall into step behind darker voices, sit down and watch the parade go by or even start following another ‘grand marshal’ that is leading in the wrong direction. 

We hear of that Good News in James as well: Rahab – a prostitute is lifted up as a witness to the work of God and of faithfulness to God’s call for us to be working for God.  It is never too late.  Rahab heard God call: follow me, and she turned joined the ranks of those marching in the parade behind Jesus Christ and began living the life she was designed for.  As long as you have a step left to take God extends his invitation to join in the parade that is the work and mission of the church

As I am no longer a child eager for attention and not shy about seeking it out, one question remains for me in this metaphor: who am I to be marching in any parade – God’s or otherwise – isn’t that for the special or the important people? 

I found the answer to that lingering question in this quote from Marieanne Williamson:

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

We are invited, called and qualified to march in the parade of life behind Jesus simply because Jesus asks us to.  But more than that, when we get up off the curb and begin to march in step with Jesus and life a life of faith married with service and action God uses us to invite others to get up and walk along side us.

Each of us has been uniquely gifted and as such we all look at least a little different and add something our own and special to this parade of Life.  But make no mistake our gifts – all of our gifts were made for marching, for participating in the parade of life as we follow along behind Jesus. 

We were not built to be spectators.   

That is Good News.

Amen.

What if God were one of us?

Today we are back to the daily lectionary (which can be found here: http://gamc.pcusa.org/devotion/daily/2010/9/28/ ) After a few days off.  
In the lectionary today there are some great Psalms, and definitely some interesting readings from the Hebrew Scriptures (Hosea, anyone?)  and the New Testament.  But what really caught my attention was two things from the Gospel reading in Luke 5.  
The first is how Jesus took care of himself and responded to the pressures and situations he was in.  I think most of us get that we are supposed to be 'like' Christ or at least that we are supposed to try to be as much like Christ as possible.  But I think for many of us that it is hard to get at God's humanity in Christ and that leaves us pretty frustrated at just how far short we fall, not to mention that when we are thinking about Jesus as God, it makes trying to emulate him that much less tangible.   
I don't feel like I am being very clear, but what I am saying is that when we are striving to be like Christ we have to remember that we claim that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.   We often forget about the human part when we think of Jesus - and it is that part that we can actually relate to, understand and more closely approximate.  
Why am I bringing all of this up right now?  Because in this passage we here about how everywhere Jesus went people followed him - came from all over just to watch and listen to him, actually.  Wherever Jesus went, people were watching him.  Wherever Jesus went people wanted and expected something - miraculous things - from him.
I think that is something most of us can relate to.  We may not have people following us around, per se, and we may not be well known, but I think most of us feel pressure to live up to what people expect from us.  And the truth is, most people in our lives do expect something from us: our teachers, our employers, our friends & family, all of them have expectations of us  and sometimes those expectations can weigh on us heavily.   And I think this is important to note - if we publicly claim that we are Christians, whether we know it or not, people are watching us, looking at how we behave and interact with others to gain an understanding of what Christianity and Jesus is all about.  
The weight of expectations can be incredibly heavy sometimes.  Life is, even in the best of times, tiring.  Meeting the expectations of those around you - and more importantly living up to and into the call God has placed on your life can be difficult and maybe even a little draining.
This is where watching Jesus and learning from him, in his humanity can be so instructive.  In the Luke passage, verses 15&16, we have the summary of the weight of peoples expectations of Jesus and Jesus' response to them: 
¹⁵But now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. ¹⁶But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.
It may not sound like much, but there is the wisdom for how to handle the stress and weight of expectation and how to properly prepare and restore yourself to live the life you have been called to - find time and make space to be alone in conversation with God.  
This is how we find rest.  This is how we find peace.  This is how we are prepared, emotionally, physically and spiritually for the call God has placed on our lives.  Finding time and space to listen to God.  Finding time and space to speak to God.  
If we could do that and do it consistently, I believe that simply by living our lives those around us would be drawn into relationship with God because the lives were leading would be so different than the world around us.  
I think it is worth a try.
Briefly, I wanted to just touch on the rest of the Luke passage, because I love the story of the friends carrying their crippled friend to see Jesus and be healed.  When they can't get close to him, they dig a hole in the roof and lower their friend down to Jesus.  It is a great story and I think it is a witness and model for us.  
What faith these friends had, they trusted and really believed (to the point they were willing to physically carry their friend and then ruin a roof to bring him to Jesus) that Jesus had the power to heal their friend.  That is the question we have to ask ourselves: do we really believe that Jesus Christ matters?  Do we really believe that an encounter and relationship with Jesus Christ has the power to heal the brokenness in our lives and the lives of others?  Do we really believe that following Christ makes a difference in our lives?
If the answer to any of those questions is yes, then why aren't we carrying our friends to see and encounter Jesus?  
And if the answer to those questions is yes, then what walls are we willing to break down, what dangers are we willing to risk to bring our friends to meet and be healed by Jesus?