Grace, peace and mercy are
yours from God who is the light of the world.
Amen.
All four Gospels have a
version of today’s text, Jesus calling his disciples. It’s a pretty important
story, how Jesus selected the people who would accompany him in his ministry.
While each Gospel account has its own details, they all emphasize Jesus
interrupting the disciples in their work and these men dropping whatever they
are doing, and following Jesus. No arguments, no protesting, not even a single
claim of, “Well, I have a few loose ends to tie up at home. I’ll see you in a
couple days.”
I think we’ve all heard
this text in sermons many times. It’s a favorite of preachers attempting to
exhort their flocks of parishioners to get out into the world and DO something.
And it’s a favorite of Sunday school teachers everywhere because of its fun
imagery (fishing nets! boats! Jesus!) and simple message: When Jesus comes
calling, say “YES!”, drop everything you are doing and follow him. You just have to DO it. Easy enough,
right? Yeah…I don’t think so.
Maybe this message isn’t so
simple after all. I think that the disciples are often cast as these models of
piety and religious observance and we are told that we should do everything in
our power to emulate them. James and John didn’t seem to take issue with
leaving their father behind, we are told that they “immediately left the boat
and their father and followed Jesus.” And we don’t hear about these disciples
packing a U-Haul, so we can assume they left behind the comforts of home and
most of their possessions. Simon Peter and Andrew were hard at work using the
tools of their trade, and they “immediately left their nets and followed him.”
It’s really tough to
imagine giving up the comforts of home for the unknown, and leaving behind
loved ones, so we are thankful that someone else is doing it. We don’t have to consider ourselves
disciples. Aside from the practical
concerns of whether or not it would be possible or desirable to devote one’s
life to being a disciple, we wonder if we would ever be qualified. If Jesus
really knew what we were up to, like
our doubts about faith or that decade when we didn’t go to church or our
youthful indiscretions, would we make the cut? We think we can’t possibly
be good enough or religious enough.
Which is why we would prefer that someone else do it. A
professional. Like missionaries or
pastors. But, I will let you in on a
little secret, even pastors don’t always feel qualified to be disciples. Because every single one of us in this room
is only human. We all make
mistakes. We are often wandering around
in the darkness of this world and running into walls and tripping over stuff. We
will continue to do so. And if we focus
only on the “should’s” and “ought’s” of being a disciple and put ourselves into
a punishing routine of morality, we miss what Jesus is up to.
But what is actually
happening in the text? Jesus is walking along the shore of the sea
of Galilee when he encounters these men who will be his disciples. We don’t really hear if he has interacted
with Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John in the past. However, what we do know is that the
disciples were not plucked out of some seminary or discipleship training school.
There was not a job interview or a competency exam. Jesus came to them right in the middle of
what they were doing. Jesus called ordinary people right in the
middle of their ordinary lives to do extraordinary things. They were not called based on their stellar
qualifications. And as the Gospel of
Matthew moves along, we hear that the disciples are just human. They repeatedly fail to notice that Jesus is
the Messiah. They just cannot seem to
get their heads around the fact that he is a different kind of King and isn’t
going to take down their enemies in some show of force. They fall asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane
when Jesus asks them several times to stay awake. Simon Peter, one of the first disciples
called by Jesus as we hear today, will go on to deny Jesus three times. Another disciple, Judas, will actually betray
Jesus.
If
Jesus was using accomplishments to grade the effectiveness of the disciples,
they would have failed. But they were
NOT called to DO. They were called to BE. To be in relationship with Jesus and with all
people in the kingdom of God. Just as we
are called to be in relationship with Jesus and with those whom Jesus loves. This
is not the sort of personal relationship with Jesus Christ where Jesus is your
best friend or your therapist or your fairy Godmother who gives you everything
you want if you just pray for it in the right way. This is the sort of real and raw relationship where you die to yourself
and what you think you want, and that space of self-determination is filled
with Christ. When your hardened heart is
broken and is replaced with a new and tender heart of God’s own, which feels
the pain of the world and is moved to love in spite of itself.
We are not called to DO,
we are called to BE. We often
want to equate vocation, one’s call to be of service to God in the
world, with occupation. I
remember around the time I was graduating from College, when I was looking for
the dream job which would be my vocation, my younger sister Katie said
something that I will never forget. Katie did not go to college right
away. She went to cosmetology school
and at the time I was looking for what I considered my dream job that would
change the world, she was working in a hair salon. It was not a fulfilling job. It was long hours, grueling work, and often
thankless. Katie told me that your vocation was not what you do for work, but
how you are connected to other people.
So after many hours of cutting hair and standing on her feet, Katie
would volunteer at a nursing home to cut and style the hair of the residents. She would make residents feel special and
beautiful, in a place where many people feel forgotten. Katie taught me that vocation uses your gifts
and qualifications, but more importantly, it uses your connectedness to other
human beings. Katie has since moved onto college and graduate school and has
taken this understanding of vocation into her career as a speech pathologist,
but I will never forget what she taught me.
So all of us gathered here are called to different vocations in service as disciples. Some of us have occupations that match up with our vocations. Some of us do not. But what we have in common is a sense of connectedness with the people of God. So how are you being called into relationship with others in the name of Christ? How is God inviting you to use your gifts as a disciple?
So all of us gathered here are called to different vocations in service as disciples. Some of us have occupations that match up with our vocations. Some of us do not. But what we have in common is a sense of connectedness with the people of God. So how are you being called into relationship with others in the name of Christ? How is God inviting you to use your gifts as a disciple?
But,
we all protest, what if I am not useful enough?
Let’s entertain a metaphor. This
quilt that I made ten years ago, ,
this was my very first attempt at such a complex sewing project. As you can see, the squares don’t match
up. The colors don’t exactly align. This quilt is not perfect. But its imperfections do not render it
useless. Despite the fact that it doesn’t look quite right, it’s been on my bed
or on my couch or accompanied me on dozens of picnics for the last decade.
People of God, we are like this
quilt. We have lots of little pieces that make us who we are. Sometimes they are messy. Sometimes they are broken. But they make up one splendid whole that God
uses for good in the world. We all have
a vocation to be disciples. So...go and do likewise!
