Reunion

 

Reunion

 

Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Joseph forgives his brothers 

 

45:3 Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.

 

45:4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Come closer to me." And they came closer. He said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.

 

45:5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.

 

45:6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.

 

45:7 God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors.

 

45:8 So it was not you who sent me here but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

 

45:9 Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, 'Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me; do not delay.

 

45:10 You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have.

 

45:11 I will provide for you there, since there are five more years of famine to come, so that you and your household and all that you have will not come to poverty.'

 

45:15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them, and after that his brothers talked with him.

 

This is NOT a reunion Joseph’s brothers were either expecting nor desiring. As we know from the story, their jealousy of Joseph and his special treatment by their father led to their selling him into slavery in Egypt, and faking his death to lie to their father, Jacob. Now, here they were, hoping to garner some food from the stores of Egypt because of famine in their land, and who do they meet, but their old “bro.” I’m guessing that once they recognized who this was, they were ready for the stockades themselves. In the vernacular, “We’re screwed!”

 

That Jacob, the father, had played favorites never helped the situation, back in the day. Jacob—one not known as having much discretion—had pulled the wool over so many peoples’ eyes in his life that it took an actual “wrestling match” with God to get serious. Unfortunately, when it came to child-rearing, he hadn’t learned much. Joseph was a gifted lad, indeed, but to shower him with gifts and praise in front of his siblings certainly helped percolate the eventual bad deed, on their part. The “coat of many colors” of the story’s fame, is more symbolic, than anything else. It’s a convenient story element or “shortcut” communicating dad’s favoritism, AND standing for how public Jacob was with it. Every loving parent has played the “favorite” card as a technique in parenting as a means of encouraging a child, but never overtly, and certainly never in front of any siblings, as this would be both stupid and cruel. Telling a child privately that there is something about them that you particularly are proud of can be quite uplifting, especially to a child who may be waning in self-confidence. Using the old “Why can’t you be more like your brother (or sister)?” is moving in the wrong direction, though. Jacob goes way beyond that. Sure, as a “man of God,” Jacob may have detected that Joseph had the “Prophet’s gift” on him, especially in the way he could interpret dreams and such, but rubbing Joseph’s brothers’ noses in it set the stage for Joseph’s exile to Egypt. Jacob, by the way, was one of those “Godly scoundrels” in the Bible, like David. While I like that God demonstrates time and time again that God can use anybody to advance the cause of the Divine Commonwealth, I do sort of question why so many of the “heroes” of the Bible have such a checkered past. We should remember that this history was largely written by men, and for whatever reason, many members of my gender LIKE the “scoundrels” and get excited when they “do good.” Note that even the Bible history is soft on the repercussions of their sin, to some degree. David sends Uriah the Hittite to his death on the battlefield so he can claim Bathsheba, and we don’t really hear much about how much pain that must have caused Uriah’s family, or even how it affected Bathsheba, because the story is all about David. 

 

Joseph was no paragon of humility, either. He parades his “coat of many colors” around his brothers, which includes bragging about the self-aggrandizing dreams he is having. In this, Joseph sounds much like the proverbial “chip off the old block,” as humility was never one of Jacob’s traits, either. (After all, he WRESTLES WITH GOD and complains that God CHEATED!) 

 

All good biblical stories are about redemption, aren’t they? I’m not one that gets excited about stories centering on judgment or retribution, as these don’t build community, though certain acts of law and enforcement may be necessary to maintain it. Some people like the apocalyptic stories we find smattered throughout the scriptures, but usually for the wrong reasons. Their original intent was to offer a persecuted, down-trodden peoples hope that God IS in charge, ultimately. Modern “fans” of it, though, often find fascination in the “fulfilment of prophecy” or see “justice” in the Second Coming, believing that Jesus will return to judge and “get even” with bad actors. I am not convinced that this is at all what is going to happen, as we believe in a forgiving, redeeming God, not one that “exists” to slam those whose path has taken them away from the divine will. Thankfully, the Joseph story in this text is truly one of forgiveness and redemption!

 

The brothers experience these values when they find themselves before the brother they sold into slavery over their jealousy. Joseph offers them redemption as a kind of “Christ” figure, acting out what Jesus would someday exclaim from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Joseph’s version was, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good,” meaning that Joseph’s ultimate “salvation” of Egypt, using his prophetic gift during the time of drought, also led to his reunion with his brothers, where he saved them and his father, too. 

 

I referred to Joseph as a “Christ figure,” meaning that he is the key redemptive element in this story. However, Joseph finds his own redemption here, too. Think of it—he could have decided to lock up his brothers and punish them for what they did to him, when they presented themselves unexpectedly before him in Egypt. The same people who get off on the “Second Coming” stuff might have liked it, had Joseph used his power and position to get even. But Joseph takes the high ground, forgiving his brothers, rejoicing in his reunion with them, offering the “What you meant for evil…” theological lesson, and literally saving them from starvation. Joseph chooses the better way. And while he does take a bit of a brief ego trip—referring to himself as the “Lord of Egypt”—he survives as a humble servant of the Most High God, and a loving sibling to his brothers.

 

The story may also serve as our own “reunion” with the values Jesus taught us, namely the aforementioned forgiveness and redemption. We are called to the “ministry of reconciliation,” in the words of the Apostle Paul, not as “enforcers” of God’s anger over the stumbling of our neighbors. Remember the parable Jesus told about the guy who owes his master a huge sum of money? During a jubilee year, the master forgives the man the great debt. However, rather than paying it forward, the forgiven man goes out and finds a poor schlepp who owes him a few dollars and DEMANDS that he repay it immediately, under the threat of being thrown into debtor’s prison. When the master hears of this, he has the man brought before him again, and he revokes his own pardon of him, telling his servants to “throw him into the outer darkness.” We have been warned about carrying grudges and relishing in retribution. 

 

We are also reminded yet again that God forgives and redeems us in Jesus Christ, and we must now choose how to pay it forward in our own lives. The story of Joseph and his brothers is yet another reminder of just who God is, and how the genuine people of God are to respond to our own redemption. Our final “reunion” is with our own conscience. May we, like Joseph, choose the better way to behave! Amen.

The God Bless Its

The God Bless-Its

 

Luke 6:17-26

Blessings on the poor, woes on the rich 

6:17 He came down with them and stood on a level place with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.

6:18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.

6:19 And everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

6:20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

6:21 "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

6:22 "Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.

6:23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

6:24 "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

6:25 "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

6:26 "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets."

Today’s text is the Lukan version of what are classically called the “Beatitudes” teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Note that the crowd came for healings and supernatural deliverance from demons, seeking “the power that came out from him.” They got some of that, for sure, but they also got an earful. Jesus mixed morals with pleasure, something that has never been popular with “the crowd.” We like our pleasure sans morality, generally, as somewhere along the way, we’ve adopted the idea that pleasure must be edgy, lustful, even “evil,” if it is to be any fun. I suppose this is really nothing new, as otherwise, Jesus wouldn’t have felt the need to offer his corrective words over two thousand years ago. His assessment of what was good and right runs smack into the face of temporal, carnal, self-indulgent pleasure.

I had a guy in my first church, many years ago, who used to challenge me on something. He was a really good guy whom I quite liked, but he had a hangup over “deathbed” or “jail cell” conversions. He would say, “You mean to tell me that these people can enjoy carousing around, drinking to excess, chasing women (remember, this was a guy born in the 30s and it was 1985), and mocking God, then make a commitment to Christ at the last minute and go to heaven? That doesn’t sound RIGHT to me.” I would answer back, “Listen to yourself! You make it sound like those things are the only ‘fun’ things in life, and that somehow you don’t enjoy life because you don’t DO those things! You are a good, God-fearing man who loves his wife and family, had a great career, loves hitting the links, and are a dynamite Sunday School teacher.” I reminded him of the parable of the Prodigal Son, and how the elder son was angry with “the father” because he forgave the carousing, wasteful, younger son. He pretty much repented right in front of me. However, his “sin” here is more the norm than it is the exception. Don’t many of us think life might be more exciting if we could get away with a few things? I guess it’s just the “human nature” in us, or what theologians have classically called the “original sin” in us? Rather than beat us up with it, Jesus just tried to reframe our understanding of our setting in life, and how we honor God and others by behaving admirably in it.

I like to call these first statements the “God-Bless Its.” Maybe it goes back to my childhood, nightly prayer time, when I’d say the “Now I lay me down to sleep…” part and then finish with a bunch of “God bless” so-and-so, and just add names to the list. Late TV preacher Robert Schuller, of “Crystal Cathedral” fame, wrote a book about the Beatitudes in which he dubbed them the “Be-Attitudes.” He was panned for it by “serious” theologians and critics, but honestly, I kind of liked his idea. Its central theme was that these were not just “rules” for living, but a way of “being.” Paul Tillich wasn’t around by then, but I’ll bet he might have liked Schuller’s idea. And I like the way Jesus stated them: “Blessed are…”. It’s almost like, “You can do what you want, but if you do THIS, you will be blessed by God.” It doesn’t condemn, just offers a kind of loving “reward” for doing the right thing. Another story from many years ago…I had a friend who had a bit of a lead foot while driving, and yet he was a very committed Christian man. One day, as he was really romping on it because he was late for something, he told the story of how he said a little prayer for “protection” as he was speeding. He said that he heard a little voice in his head that told him, “Hey, I have sent a guardian angel to watch over you and protect you…but he’s back there doing the speed limit, so…” My friend said the experience slowed him down, permanently. I think about his story when I’m punching the MINI Cooper a little hard, but I confess it doesn’t always get me to let up, as it should!

So, back to what Jesus says in these “God Bless Its.” Let’s look at them:

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Is Jesus trying to make poverty a virtue? Or is he just saying that there are poor people in the world, and that God’s blessing and “welcome” into the Beloved Community is always extended to them? I think the latter. And maybe even stronger, Jesus may have signaled that if God has a bias for any group, it is probably the poor and the oppressed, for their lot in life may not totally be a moral choice—or any choice, for that matter—of their own. 

"Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.” This is both a promise from God AND a moral statement about patience. The listener might be tempted to steal food, or engage in some kind of contraband to fill one’s stomach, but patience and the willingness to suffer for a season may be a pathway to God’s provision.

"Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” It would be many centuries before psychologists like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross would teach us about the healthy stages of grief. Jesus knew then that working through our pain would lead to healing in the soul, and even possibly being able to laugh about times past that brought us so much anxiety.

"Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.” Jesus well understood this truth, as he was experiencing this brand of revulsion and exclusion from the religious leaders of his day, eventually leading to his fatal victimization on the cross. As he shared knowledge of what was to be with God, he knew his disciples would also be persecuted unto death, as would countless saints down through the ages, for so had they persecuted the other prophets God sent to warn and guide God’s people. For them, Heaven would be a place absent these life-stealing treatments, and a place of honor for their discipleship and dedication in this life. “Rewards in heaven” were typical carrots on a stick in Mid-Eastern philosophy and theology. If we were to bring this into our modern age, we might say that our “reward” was eventually seeing the truth win out over serial lies, false promises, and manipulating rhetoric. We can certainly use a dose of this now, can’t we?

Luke’s version of the “God-Bless-Its” includes a list of countering, intriguing “woes”: 

"But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”  Jesus would say something similar about those who bragged in public about their good works, saying they “have their reward,” as opposed to those who carried out their benevolence toward others in secret, who would receive their reward directly from God. In this case, as a counterpoint to the “God-Bless-It” addressing the poor, the rich have “negotiated” their own reward, begging the question if by being rich and hoarding their wealth, they have cut themselves off from God’s greater blessings that far exceed a big bank account or a large investment portfolio. 

Jesus has other “woes” addressing those who are full or those who laugh, especially in the presence of many of their sisters and brothers who are suffering, and his allusion is that they may be hoarding these “resources,” also. The final “woe” in this passage is the one that should add caution to any of us who profess to speak for God:

"Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets." The danger of the preacher or teacher is that we may fall prey to the temptation to speak in such a way that our audience’s ears are “tickled” by what we say, rather than encouraged, challenged, or moved by it to continue the transformation the Spirit of God wants us to experience by our faith in Christ. If we just say what people “enjoy” or are entertained by, we risk entering the domain of the “false prophets” who preceded Jesus. Personally, I love to preach and teach, as these have been two of my best gifts in ministry. I can honestly say I have worked hard to NEVER be guilty of “false propheting,” studying long hours in my two seminary degrees to facilitate well-resourced biblical interpretation as the “raw material” for sermons and Bible studies, praying unceasingly for guidance in being able to accurately and aggressively communicate God’s truth to the people I have served, and asking God for the courage to speak the “hard word” to folk when led by the Holy Spirit—or mandated by the scriptures—to do so. On the other hand, I’ve never forgotten what the president of our seminary, Dr. Carnegie Samuel Calian, told us in our Intro. to Ministry class: “There’s a fine line between being prophetic and being a jerk.” I know I’ve crossed that line more than a few times, but in purposing NOT to, I quickly retreated, in most cases, and this often required an apology to the one, or to the many. “Speaking for God” from the pulpit or the classroom lectern has been a stressful enterprise for me. In 36 years of ministry, I couldn’t even eat breakfast on Sunday mornings, as my stomach churned constantly until the preaching was completed for the day. I GET what Jesus meant by this “woe,” as, for a “natural” communicator/public speaker like me, it would have been so easy to perfect a delivery and message that would have cultivated popular appeal and garnered accolades from the “audience.” Responsible preaching is never “fun,” even when it contains “easier” or welcome content. A solid message about love and grace may bless the soul, but it also challenges its listeners to be accountable to the source of these virtues and to apply them equally to all of God’s children and not just to the ones who are “easy to love.” The same wonderful Christian man I mentioned earlier who struggled with the efficacy of “deathbed” conversions used to say to people who showed appreciation for his kindnesses, “It’s easy to be nice to nice people.” While he always meant it as an affirming compliment, it could also serve as a reminder that being nice to NOT so nice people was also a Christian virtue, and once that wasn’t so easy.

One final word on this passage of scripture beyond the “God-Bless-its”: It may be a good thing to regularly ask yourself why you are coming to Jesus. The crowd came wanting to benefit from the “power that came from out of him,” while Jesus had a different agenda in mind when they gathered. So it may be with us and with the church, if we are not careful. And in our service, it may prompt us to offer a WORD of witness and grace, even when folk come for our benevolence outreach. The message of God’s “Bless-Its” is ever important. Amen. 

We're Just Leaving

We’re Just Leaving

 

Luke 5:1-11

Jesus calls the disciples to fish for people 

5:1 Once while Jesus was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God,

5:2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets.

5:3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

5:4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."

5:5 Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets."

5:6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to burst.

5:7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.

5:8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus's knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"

5:9 For he and all who were with him were astounded at the catch of fish that they had taken,

5:10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who are partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people."

5:11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

 

This is a wonderful Bible story, and one that has a humorous reprise. In this telling, Peter, James and John are the fishermen Jesus calls to be his disciples. At first, they are plying their trade, and aren’t catching anything. Jesus gets himself invited into Peter’s boat, and has him row it near enough the shore that the gathering crowd could hear his teaching. When he finishes the lesson, he tells Peter to row out to the deeper water and let down his nets. Peter is skeptical, in that he and his buds have been fishing all night, fruitlessly. But he does what Jesus says, gets such a haul of fish he is concerned the nets will burst. They get so many fish into the boats that they begin to swamp. The “miracle of fish” causes Peter to bare his soul before Jesus, but Jesus doesn’t condemn him, instead issuing him a calling to join him in “catching people.” Later, after the chaos surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, the fishermen disciples decide to go back to what they knew best, so they put out in their boats, once again. Of course, they caught nothing, until “some guy” on the beach starts yelling at them to “throw your nets on the other side of the boat,” which surely sounded like some dumb “bass master” who had no idea. Still, having experienced one miracle of the sea, they did what the stranger suggested. Again, the nets were blooming with fish. John—“the disciple whom Jesus loved”—brilliantly observed, “It is the Lord.” This “call story” of the fishermen/disciples ends with the phrase, “…they left everything and followed [Jesus],” which may be a fairytale ending like, “And they all lived happily ever after.” Have YOU ever tried leaving “everything” to do anything?

 

Years ago, I knew two young pastors who were serving an unusual new church called Hot Metal Bridge in Pittsburgh. Their sermons were dramas based on scripture which they wrote and acted out. Quite clever, actually, and extremely well done, given that they both were drama majors in college. One of my favorites they “acted out” at one of our Annual Conference sessions in Grove City, and it was based on this “fishers of men” call story. In their skit, they play fishermen—the brothers Peter and Andrew, as I recall—and their struggle with “leaving everything” to follow Jesus. While they were moved by Jesus, his words, and his “fishing miracles,” but in the skit, they debated what it would mean to “leave everything,” and both of them held tightly on to a fishing net, as they weighed with words how hard it would be to leave their tried and true profession to join an unusual “spirit man” who promised they would be “catching people,” whatever that meant. In the pastors’ skit, after a long dialogue about this challenging dilemma, they finally drop the net onto the floor and leave the stage in silence. What an impressive image. Made me think about the “nets” I dropped to head off to seminary. In my own telling, I report that my wife and I—two small-town people who loved the small town—left our cozy little home in Rock Grove for a third-floor apartment in East Liberty, with our two small children, ages 2 and four-weeks, to learn how to “fish for people.” Not only was it not easy to do, but I confess to thinking, from time to time, about that little wood house in a town where you never even had to lock your doors, and wonder what life would have been like there. Maybe this is why I chuckle at the fishermen/disciples who, in the confusing aftermath of Jesus’ death and resurrection, go fishing again. The temptation is always there, I guess.

 

What about you? Do you have a “call story” wherein you were beckoned by God, career, or a need within your family to leave a secure, beloved place in life to pursue a new dream? Your story may be something huge from your past when you “took leave” to chart a new course in your life, or it may be from yesterday, when some nudge took you to a new place to do something novel. I happen to believe that these “nudges” or prompts to leave something behind and move in a new direction or to THINK in a different way about something, are among the most meaningful things God does in our lives. As one who tends to espouse “Process Theology,” I believe God is always trying to lure us toward new experiences/ministries/horizons (pick your favorite word here), and it is in this “call forward” we see the most meaningful “call language” being employed. Gone are the days when to be “called” of God meant that you were off to seminary to train to be a pulpit pastor, or sent to a faraway land as a missionary. God’s call has never been limited to these traditional fields of ministerial endeavor, but WE have tended to discount the myriad other “calls,” or unfortunately, to ignore them. One of the things I’ve tried to emphasize in my many years as a pastor—especially among the youth I was privileged to work with—was that God calls EVERYONE to a “calling” in life, be that as a teacher, a doctor, an accountant, a librarian, or as a “homemaker.” Ministry, while an important pursuit in the religious career life, is but one of the alternatives. People of faith should never put themselves or their life’s calling down, if they believe they are doing what God called them to do, regardless. On the other hand, neither should any of us stop listening for a fresh or a refreshed call to enhance what we do, or do something else God may call us to do. If we believe in the Holy Spirit of God as working in our lives and in the world today, then we dishonor God if we: discount our activities or career when we believe we are using our best gifts with them; shut our ears and hearts to new opportunities God may be nudging us toward; or believe that what we are currently about is ALL that we ever need be about. If we believe God is a co-creating God of compassion, progress, and novelty, then God may never be finished with us. As a retired pastor now back serving a church, and as one who never closes my ears to the next “nudge,” I can attest to the power of the call! And I’m seventy years of age! I DO believe my best, even my most creative years may be yet to come! How about you?

 

And today’s scripture again begs the question, what must you leave behind to pursue the divine nudge? As an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, which operates an itinerant ministry (meaning they move us pastors around from church to church, as some bishop sees fit), I can say that God’s next call literally meant leaving! We left new friends with whom we had become quite comfortable. Our kids left friends and schools behind. Sometimes we left a spacious parsonage for a “crackerbox,” or a locale rife with shopping plazas and restaurants for a more remote venue that required a car to go for a good coffee or a roll. But new opportunities always beckoned. We left with warm, rich memories of where we had been, and ready—sometimes reluctantly—to make new ones with a whole new group of folk. Some “leaving” involves sacrifice, doesn’t it? I will never forget the response my two children had to leaving a large, North Hills school district (Shaler) to move into the third smallest district in the State of PA (Cornell, in Coraopolis). They could have panicked, but instead they thrived, making the choice to make the most of a new situation. I am convinced that it was in this willful, yet reluctant transition, they learned the most valuable lesson of their education. The later adjustment to university—often a crisis time for many—was easy-peasy for Shelah and Evan. 

 

Peter, Andrew, James and John left a very successful fishing business to become “fishers of people,” in the words of Jesus. They must have thought that quite crazy, “fishers of people.” Using a net to fish made sense; using words and deeds to lure people to ascribe to a faith? Yeah, crazy. Fish you ate; people required much more attention to their needs, a vital religious community in which to commiserate, fellowship, and worship, and new ways to discover and use their spiritual gifts. It was a tall order for an organization that did not yet exist. Today, with a cultural shift happening around “going to church,” when less and less folk are being reared with a weekly trip to worship as a standard practice, and where Sunday School is often relegated to a single class filled with people over 70, carving out a place in the church for people to serve has been made harder. Maybe this is why the Holy Spirit is working to place the Christian witness in our everyday affairs and in innovative new “mission fields” like Volunteers in Mission teams or Summer youth work camps? Still, to engage in these, one must leave something behind to free up the time. 

 

Often, what we must “leave” is an outdated attitude or an archaic view of reality, in order to pursue God’s creative novelty. I’m sure we’ve all heard it said that the final epitaph on the tombstone of the church will be: “We’ve never done it that way before!” And we’ve probably also heard that uttered in a church board meeting, too. We all have “comfort levels” or “happy places” we like to hold on to like gold bullion, but my experience is that God rarely considers our comfort levels when nudging us to newness. God’s not a bully, though, and we almost always have the option of saying “no,” or at least, “not yet” to something. And a willingness to leave behind our complacency might even prompt us to proactively volunteer for stuff! I was always grateful for persons who said “yes” to a call from myself or a member of our lay leadership committee asking them to serve. It was thrilling to have a person come to ME, saying, “Pastor, I’d like to do thus-and so…” I found it much harder to deal with those who volunteered for little, always said “no” to the nudge from nominations, or just criticized those who were the helpers and the doers. They were much harder to love. 

 

It's always hard to leave things and people we love, or surroundings in which we are comfortable. But rarely do great stories come from the “Norman Rockwell” paintings such as these. No, testimonies and transformational narratives emanate from the uncomfortable new things we take on when nudged to do so, or from the sudden change of venue God or life or both may cause for us. Can you find it in your heart to embrace such novelty? And what are you willing to leave to do so? Jesus talked about “putting our hand to the plow and not looking back” as a metaphor for this kind of thing. I’ve never actually used a plow, but I’m guessing that if you keep looking back to see where you’ve been, your rows get crooked. Many of our churches are hurting and dying because of crooked rows, I’m thinking. When our children were little, rather than criticize them for “not doing something right,” or saying, “Here, let me show you how to do that,” we learned to encourage them by simply saying, “Try another way,” when they were struggling with an effort. It’s time for us to say to the church, “Try another way,” without judgment on the “old ways” or condemning them for their comfortable “stuckness,” I suppose. 

 

“Stuckness,” by the way, is the “sin” of the Process Theology model I follow. Stuckness is putting down an anchor where God sees a rest period on the journey. The opposite of the sin of stuckness in the Process model? Yep—“novelty,” and the “call forward.” Or as I like to say, “the nudge.” 

 

This story invites us to examine two important questions about our faith and our calling(s) in life: what are we LEAVING, and what are we CATCHING. What we’re catching may be a sermon for another day. Thinking about what we’re leaving may be a very important question for you today, though. Are you open to God’s novelty, which may mean leaving something “beloved” behind? Or are you succumbing to stuckness, holding on white-knuckled to a talisman that has become an anchor to a fading past?

 

“Leaving everything to follow Jesus” surely means different things to different people. For some of us, it meant a whole change of careers. For others, it means allying with a whole new group of people. For ALL of us, following Jesus means actually opening our hearts, minds, and journeys to follow JESUS, and not just baptizing our comfort or complacency. Rarely does God call us to do things that are WAY out of our comfort zones or that aren’t matched up with our best gifts, but almost always, God’s “nudge” means leaving something behind so we have hands free to pick up something else. Peter, Andrew, James and John knew this full well when they finally dropped those nets. Watch for the “nudge,” Beloved. Amen.