St. Paul's On-the-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

January 27, 2008; 3 Epiphany

Matthew 4:12-23

Psalm 27

JESUS CALLS

Communicates A Lesson, Leave Self

FOLLOW ME

Jesus is walking on the shore of the sea. Jesus is walking across the road. Jesus calls from the pavement just outside the car door; from the street just outside the office window.

“Follow me.” “Follow me.”

And you are there in the boat helping your father with the nets. And you are there in the library studying. And you are there in the office working, helping your company to a successful future and yourself to a successful position.

“Follow me.”

And you don't know what to do for you are there working. And your father is there working, and your grandmother before him, and your great grandparents all the back to the beginning.

And what right have you to leave, and to say that all their work was for nothing, and you can abandon all the customs and commitments they ever had.

“Follow me.”

And you do. And it is very hard, for you still see your cohorts working away at the same old priorities – and you're not.

You feel valueless for a while – not making the same amount of money, not chasing the same goals.

Different goals. Different savior. Different savior – who cares for you and loves you and teaches you – to care for and love others and not compete with them; but help them, care for them.

And in helping them and caring for them, calling them to follow the same Lord, the same Savior, the same Master and Teacher.

By your life spreading his life, his example, his teaching. And so freeing them from their boats, their offices, their homes; or their priorities even if they're staying in the same houses and jobs.

Those homes, priorities, offices, successes, people you impress – all of these are not so important, you say by your life and action and teaching. He is; the One who calls you by the seashore, across the street, outside the car door. He is. Follow Him.

Try his way of love and caring and teaching. Try that.

Try not caring only for yourself or only for your family. Try caring for others too. Try making a difference in someone else's life. That's what Jesus calls us to.

Jesus calls us to a liberation. The world calls us to care only for ourselves. The world says we can only care for ourselves and our family, at best our neighborhood, perhaps our nation.

Jesus says you're bigger than that. You can care for someone other than that. You have what it takes. You don't have to care only for yourself. You are not that limited. Your resources aren't that limited. Your love isn't so limited. Its stronger than that. It – and you – can have an impact on other people and other lives too.

Come, follow me. I will make you fishers of men.

Come, follow me into other lives, he says. Come, follow me into other worlds, other communities, the lives of other people – he says.

Come follow me. You could be like me, something like me, he says. Not God. But certainly fully human, and not a drone.

You could help other humans. You could love.

That is Evangelism. It is Spreading the Good News – that people can love. It is an invitation to love. It is an invitation away from lives that trap and kill and fate people to a neverending commitment to self alone, a neverending quest that can never bring enough, just a greater and greater suffocation under the things of this world that never satisfy.

We are invited to being just as countercultural as Christ, inviting people out of their comfort zone – into a place, a shelter as the psalm says: “for in the day of trouble he shall keep me safe in his shelter” (Psalm 27:7), a shelter like this one among people like these, where he is present.

We are being invited to make people uncomfortable and that is why we don't want to do it, for evangelism – inviting people out of their lives into a new one – is uncomfortable.

But they are already uncomfortable, for the same reason we are, or were. They are already uncomfortable for there is already unresolved pain in their lives and they don't know what to do with it or Whom to take it to. There is no God that exists for them, no God they have ever met, no God who has ever been vouched for or even properly introduced to them, because perhaps you have never done it. There is no God that they know of who has ever borne their pain or carried their sorrows, because you didn't tell them of the one who has carried yours.

And we all have sorrows in common. We just don't all have a Carrier of that sorrow in common, if they haven't been told.

And in this day of multiple religions and fear of offense, we don't have to seal the deal or threaten with hell. We just have to make the call – pass on the call.

Jesus calls us. Follow me.

Let them listen to the voice, the insistent voice, that may in fact lead them to a different place, or this one. But they won't understand the voice or listen for it if you don't describe it, represent it, by your actions or words.

And not knowing it, they won't listen for it. And not listening for it they won't be healed. And not being healed they might still be in pain.

So evangelism is about relief – for other people.

Let them leave their nets, their office, their priorities and follow him. But they have to know his voice; and you, and I, have to identify it, by our clear words and actions.

As a church, that means signage, and advertising! That's one of the big things we talked about at the Mutual Study of Ministry. Signage for Salvation – for relief from pain and messed up priorities. And if that means maybe not getting to something else, perhaps that's a good thing.

The better to remember our priorities of saving lives from pain or confusion or aimlessness.

It means advertising, which costs money. But this kind of advertising might not just be service times and addresses, but statements of the kind of faith people will find here among us – a safe place to seek God. We'd like to have a small group of people – good communicators, marketers and evangelists – to talk about what might go into such ad's, and when to put them out.

It does cost money, and we don't have a lot although you all have given so very generously in your pledges this year – but perhaps its worth spending those generous gifts to heal a soul, celebrate a life, and bring more people into this parish, which is one thing we need both for ourselves and for them as we continue to build our witness to the world.

That witness is our job – both personally, and with the activities we have. And of every activity we must ask: “Does it witness?” “Does it spread the Gospel of Love?”

Jesus calls us. Do we call others?

To call others we have to be comfortable calling others. We have to be comfortable talking of the Jesus who called us.

We have to be comfortable living this life, talking about this life. So we'd like to design some way, some forum in which we can share our faith with each other – so we can learn to share it with others still.

We'll be getting a book called “Fireweed Evangelism” that may help us to do it, about sharing our faith in a multicultural society; our beautiful faith of love. We don't have firm plans about how to use it yet, but perhaps one big and loving place to share that faith – to speak of an early experience of faith – would be at the Maundy Thursday dinner when we come together in love around our Risen Savior, and remember how he washes our feet, and touches us in that tender, vulnerable and healing way.

Perhaps that would be an iconic, a symbolic beginning to inviting others to a place where God “shall keep me safe in his shelter;” as the psalm says.

So we call people to Jesus. But not a doctrinal Jesus or a judging Jesus, but a loving Jesus. We do not even define him. We invite Jesus – we allow Jesus, the Risen Jesus – to do that himself as he comes slowly into a friend's life and gently heals and teaches. We trust Jesus to do that. He does not need a Church to speak for him.

But he does need a Church to speak of him and to invite others to him so they might feel his healing touch in a world of pain, seek his face in a world without answers, celebrate life; and then themselves learn to help others instead of always being obsessed with only their own life, their own welfare, their own fate, their own trap in this world that keeps us in our little pigeon holes and says we cannot possibly help anyone beyond ourselves.

Yes we can. We can do a great deal of it. With Jesus' help, we can change the whole world.

Amen