Fishing for People: Sermon for January 22, 2006

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea-- for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people."(Mark 1:15)

Here in the midwest, as in most of America, our vision, our understanding of fishing is as a singular pursuit. A fisherman takes a rod and reel, baits the hook, casts out into a river, a stream or a lake. You may put very little effort into fishing just cast your lure out there somewhere, plant your poll and sit back; you may put a great deal of effort into fishing creating your own "flies" and casting repeatedly to mimic the actions of living insects. But little effort or a great deal it is a singular pursuit a one-on-one confrontation between the angler and the fish.

The poet Don Marquis has written, rather correctly, I think: "Our idea of fishing is to put all the exertion up to the fish. If they are ambitious, we will catch them. If they are not, we let them go about their business." (Prefaces, New York; London: D. Appleton and Company, 1919.)

I believe that American singular notion of fishing, that it is a one-man, rod-and-reel, catch-one-fish-at-a-time operation, colors the way we American Christians have understood Jesus's call to Andrew and Simon, which is, in fact, Jesus's call to all of us. We have understood evangelism to be a one-on-one operation; one Christian going out into the stream of humanity, casting about to catch one sinner, and dragging that sinner into church, then going back to cast about again and, hopefully, catch another sinner.

Perhaps that is why we Episcopalians shy away not only from the activity, but from the very word "evangelism." We see in it something akin to the single angler standing on the river bank casting his bate into the stream, and with that view of evangelism we feel about it as comedian Steven Wright has commented about fishing, "There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot." One-on-one personal evangelism feels like "standing on the shore like an idiot."

However, the fishermen of Galilee were not anglers. They were (and still are) seine fishers ... they are not interested in catching one fish at a time: they drop nets into the sea and pull up hundreds or thousands of fish at a time.

When Jesus called them to be fishers of men, or fishers of people as the N.R.S.V. has it, he was calling them to an audacious ministry to reach many, many folks with the Good News of God's Salvation ... not just one or two at a time.

It is an outrageous calling! Some, I'm sure, would say it is over-broad; some would say it is too big, too ambitious, too presumptuous; some, I'm positive, would even say it is arrogant. But it is precisely what Jesus was calling Andrew and Simon, and James and John the sons of Zebedee, and all the Apostles and all the disciples in that time and every time since, to do ... not cast about catching one sinner at a time, but to cast a net into the ocean of society and pull in a huge haul of human beings all with souls longing for God.

I believe what the Psalmist wrote in today's Gradual (Ps. 62:6) is true of every human being:

For God alone my soul in silence waits; *
truly, my hope is in him.

I believe that deep within each human being is a longing for the Lord, a hunger for God. If we do cast our net into the ocean of humanity, every man, woman and child who may be caught will have a deep, deep craving for the Divine.

Jesus' called his disciples to the audacious, outrageous, enormous, even arrogant ministry of fishing the sea of humanity and gathering great numbers of people to the Good News of God's Salvation. But Jesus did not call the Apostles, and he does not call us to be concerned about how great those numbers may be; Jesus did not call them and he does not call us to "grow the church." Jesus called them and he calls us to be the church and to preach the Gospel. He called them and he calls us to cast the Gospel net, but not to be greatly concerned about the number of fish the net may catch.

We at St. Paul’s have expressed our understanding of this calling in our parish mission statement published on the cover our bulletin: we have set before ourselves a vision fully as audacious, outrageous, enormous, and maybe even arrogant as the call to be fishers of men.... We have claimed that we are engaged in the ministry of inviting "others to join us in proclaiming the Gospel through worship, prayer, learning and reaching out in mission and ministry." It is an audacious, outrageous, enormous, and maybe even arrogant claim, but I believe it is a faithful response to the call to be fishers of people.

Andy Stanley is a Baptist preacher in Atlanta, Georgia. About a decade ago, he and a few others started North Point Community Church in a suburb of that city. Today, 5,000 people attend church at North Point every Sunday. In envisioning the ministry in which they were engaging, in the leadership of North Point Church saw their activities as occurring within three kinds of environment. Stanley describes them this way:

1. The foyer environment, where people are made to feel welcome as a guest.
2. The living room environment, where they're treated like a friend.
3. And the kitchen environment, where they're made to feel like family.
Everything we do hangs on one of these hooks, or we just don't do it. The goal is to move people from the foyer to the living room to the kitchen. (Leadership, Invite Them Into the Kitchen, Winter 2000, page 24.)

When I read that, it struck a chord with me; it sounds like the way the church ought to be.
Next week, at the annual parish meeting, I will share with you the statistical information that we are required to report to the diocese and the national church. It shows, I’m sorry to say, that we've not been as successful at North Point Community Church has been, if one gauges success only by numbers of persons attending church. But that is not the only measure of Christian growth.

Loren Mead, the Episcopal priest who founded The Alban Institute, a church consultancy organization, has written that there is much more to church growth than numbers of worshipers. "The character of the community, the relationship between the congregation and its community, the nature of the congregation's understanding of its primary mission all these and more are a part of what we mean by growth." (More Than Numbers, Alban Institute, 1993, page 14.)

Mead also writes that what he calls "maturational growth," in which the members of a congregation "challenge, support, and encourage [one another] to grow in the maturity of their faith, to deepen their spiritual roots, and to broaden their religious imaginations," must be "at the center of the agenda" of every congregation. (Ibid., pp. 40, 59.) I believe this congregation has experienced and continues to experience "maturational growth." Over our nearly two hundred year history, St. Paul’s has weathered some tough times, but we have matured as a community and as persons within that community, we are each striving to "lead the life that the Lord has assigned." (1 Cor. 7:17) As we mature in our faith, deepen our spirituality, and broaden our religious imaginations, we make the Gospel nets we cast into the ocean of souls.

I believe, too, that we have experienced and will continue to experience what Mead calls "incarnational growth." He writes that there are two elements of such growth: Building and Sending. About building, he says:

Congregations must build themselves up as religious communities, as bases from which ministry is done. They need first to get clear that this is their primary business. They are in business to help people find God and be found by God, to build a community in which God's Word is studied and reflected upon, a community in which people are nurtured, healed and fed. (Ibid., page 100-01.)

This is our primary task: to be the people of God gathered, nurtured and fed at God's table.

The second element of "incarnational growth" is sending. Mead writes:

The flesh through which the values and meanings of the Gospels will make impact in the social order is the flesh of people who are nurtured in congregations. Theirs are the feet and hands and brains that will grapple with the ambiguities of the world.... (Ibid., page 101.)

In terms of today's Gospel metaphor, ours are the feet and hands and brains that will cast the net into the sea of humanity. In terms of our own congregational vision statement, ours are the lips and the voices that will invite others to share in mission and ministry.

I am not greatly concerned about our membership statistics. This congregation and many like it have seen fluctuations up and down in their numbers of active members and worshipers; such fluctuations are caused by many factors, many beyond our control. Numerical growth is not controllable, nor is it something which we should seek as a primary goal. Our primary goal is maturational growth as individuals and incarnational growth as a community. In a word, our primary goal is to live the Gospel, or in God’s words to Jonah, to get up, go to the community around us, and proclaim to it the message. If we do that, we need not be concerned about numerical growth, or financial growth, or program growth -- they will happen.

Andrew and Simon, and James and John, were called, and we are called, to be fishers of people, to invite others to join in worship, in prayer, in learning, and in reaching out. We have recognized that call and, as individuals who are maturing in their faith, and as a community both building and sending, we have claimed it as our own.

Let us pray: Lord Jesus Christ, you called Andrew and Simon, James and John, and us to be fishers of people that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, casting the nets of our lives into the streams of humanity, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.

Endings & Beginnings, Changes & Transitions: Sermon for January 15, 2006

Beginnings Are Important

Beginnings are very important things. Rogers & Hammerstein, in their great musical about the Von Trapp family, The Sound of Music, have Maria teach the children to sing the Do Re Mi song. The first line of that song is "Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start...." Today we have two Biblical stories of beginnings.

The First Beginning

The first is the story of Samuel and Eli the priest, which our lectionary text has us come in on at a point other than the beginning. We enter the story in chapter 3 of the First Book of Samuel where the narrator says, in a very matter-of-fact way, "The word of the Lord was rare in those days." Beginning back in chapter 1, this book of Scripture consistently portrays a society that did not automatically expect the presence of God.

For example, when Eli first meets Hannah in chapter 1, he does not immediately recognise the intensity of her expression as prayer.

"The fact [is] that Eli assumes that Hannah has come to the shrine to drink rather than pray [which] suggests what Eli's general experience has been. On the whole, apparently, he has not been used to people coming in off the streets to fall on their knees before the Lord. He has come to expect that the shrine will be used as a shelter from the sun, a place to sleep off a good party, or a place from which his sons will run their rackets. Eli does not expect people to turn to the shrine to seek the word of the Lord." (Jane Williams, 2nd Sunday of Epiphany, Church Times)

Eli sounds like many contemporary clergy who have given up expecting people to turn to the church to seek spiritual guidance.

Unlike most of us current priests, however, Eli almost certainly inherited his priestly role, and his sons are planning to do so. They have been treating the temple at Shiloh as a family business, rather than any kind of sacred vocation. I don’t think this is the sin of our present class of ordained ministers; I certainly hope that it is not mine. But I do believe that many clergy and lay church leaders experience the same frustration, disappointment, and discouragement that characterized Eli’s ministry.

To speak in Eli’s favor, however, his training and faith rise to the surface under pressure, as do ours. It is notable that Eli, who could not see, who is the embodiment of the narrator’s observation that "visions were not widespread," is nonetheless the one who realizes it is the Lord God calling to Samuel. Frustrated, disappointed, and discouraged he may be, he is nonetheless able to perform his priestly ministry of discerning and calling attention to the Presence of God.

When he does so, the boy Samuel is able also to discern the voice of God and doing so, is told that Eli’s ministry in the house of the Lord at Shiloh is about to come to an end. Samuel does not want to relay this word to Eli, but Eli presses him to do so. And, again, as frustrated, disappointed, and discouraged he may be, Eli is nonetheless able to accept God’s judgment on his priesthood: "It is the Lord," he says, "Let him do what seems good to him."

And in this story it seems good to God to begin a new thing – the ministry of Samuel as priest and prophet in Israel.

The Second Beginning

One of America’s great modern philosophers, Yogi Berra, who once gave the very sound advice, "When you come to the fork in the road, take it." The thing about coming to a fork in your path is that at nearly every step of one’s life there are forks to be taken, decisions to be made, one direction to go or another, and every fork in the road is a new beginning. Nathanael, confronted by his friend Philip with the invitation "Come and see," was standing at such a fork in his road. He had to take it. One way lead to meeting Jesus, following the path along which he would lead, and living the life he would demand; the other, to something else.

Each of us, I assume, have been at that fork and we have all taken the branch that leads us along the path of the One who said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Many people see a polarity between that claim, the premise that there is "one way," which is, Christ, and the assertion, usually, perceived as anti-Christian, that there are "many paths" to spiritual enlightenment. A writer I recently encountered addressed this divergence saying:

"I think both these phrases are cliches that people use without asking what they really mean. What exactly is a path? What exactly is a way? Are we all thinking of the same thing when we use those words? I doubt it! Analogy: The Field of Thistles. There are many paths across the field of thistles. You can run from one side to the other. You can walk backwards around the edge while waving pink handkerchiefs in both hands. You can practice professional dance routines and look a complete fool while no-one's looking (if a fool dances in the field of thistles when no-one's there to watch, do they make a mistake?). There are many paths. But the only way across the field of thistles is to wear good shoes." (Adrian Morgan, The Spiritual Journey: "One way", "many paths", or possibly both?)

There are many paths and, occasionally, as we follow the "one way" together we find ourselves at forks which we must take. Some of us will go one direction and some of us another, yet all of us will still be following the "one way." None of us is ending our journey, but we come to the end of our journeys together and the beginnings of new, separate journeys. When we do so, we trust in God that our paths will converge again somewhere up ahead and that, on the last great day, we will all arrive at the same place.

Perhaps the greatest example of the fork in the road is not one we take voluntarily, the fork we call "death." That is surely the end of our companionable journey with our beloved departed, and yet we express in our burial rituals our conviction that, at the end, we will see the deceased once again. A collect in the BCP burial office asks in part:

"Give us faith to see in death the gate of eternal life, so that in quiet confidence we may continue our course on earth, until, by your call, we are reunited with those who have gone before; through Jesus Christ our Lord." (The Book of Common Prayer 1979, page 493.)

Beginnings Are Also Endings

Every fork in the road entails both an end and a beginning. At Shiloh, the end of Eli’s ministry as priest of God in Israel meant the beginning of Samuel’s ministry as priest and prophet. At the fig tree in Bethany, Nathanael’s decision to follow Jesus as "Son of God" and "King of Israel" meant the end of an old way of life and the beginning of a new one. We have a fancy name for these ending-beginning events: we call them "transitions."

I love the poetry and majesty of the Psalms as they are translated in The Book of Common Prayer. You may have noticed, if you’ve tried to do any Bible study using the BCP that the language and even the verse numbers of the Psalms in the Prayer Book don’t seem to match what you find in the usual translations of Scripture. That’s because our BCP versions trace their lineage back to the Great Bible, a translation made under the auspices of King Henry VIII and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1539. When King James I & VI authorized the translation that came to bear his name, the new translators changed the versification and all subsequent Bible interpretations have followed their lead ... but not the editors of the Prayer Book.

What this means is that when one runs across a Psalm reference in a scholarly text and wishes to look it up in the BCP, one must compare that references in a standard translation of Scripture to the Prayer Book texts to make sure one is reading the proper verses. This can be very illuminating, and I have found that while I still prefer the poetry of the Prayer Book, there are times when the BCP versions don’t speak to me as forcefully as other translations. The final verses of our Psalm today are a case in point.

In the BCP, these verses are numbered 16 and 17 and read as follows:

How deep I find your thoughts, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
If I were to count them,
they would be more in number than the sand;
to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.

In the NRSV, however, the corresponding verses are 17 and 18:

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
I try to count them – they are more than the sand;
I come to the end – I am still with you.

"I come to the end, God. I am still with you." Through every transition, no matter what else may change, we are still with God.

Handling Endings and Beginnings

In those last words of the Psalm is the key to handling endings and beginnings, transitions and changes. In there are some very real clues to dealing with the changes in our lives. The first is to not complain about change! Because we are still with God even as something comes to an end, we ought not see endings as something bad, something negative, something to criticize. They are not. Every ending, as I have just said, entails a beginning. Focus on that, look forward to all the possibilities that a wide-open, open-ended future offers. Learn from Eli: he could have complained and moaned and groaned about losing his ministry at Shiloh. He didn’t: he accepted that a change in the priesthood was part of God’s plan. "It is the Lord," he said, "Let him do what seems good to him."

Learn from Eli to accept such change and do more than that. When we present our gifts at the altar in a few minutes, we will sing, "All glory to our Lord and God for love so deep, so high, so broad." If we really feel that love in our hearts, such hearts cannot harbor complaints, only songs of gratitude.

Second, we should not blame other people for the changes in our lives. Others may be involved in the endings and beginnings we experience; they may even be instrumental in them. But, in the final analysis, every transition, every change is so multifaceted that no one individual, no one cause can be found responsible. For the ending of his priesthood, Eli might have tried to blame his unscrupulous sons, or the neglectful society around him, or Hannah for bring Samuel to the shrine, or Samuel for simply being there, but he didn’t. For the changes Jesus caused in his life, Nathanael might have blamed Philip for introducing him to Jesus, but he didn’t. Trying to assign blame is a fruitless activity.

Blame isn’t the issue; choice is – and the choice is ours. We can choose to be the victims of change, in which case transitions will work against us. Or we can choose to be agents of change in our lives, in which case transitions will work for us. There simply is no one else to blame, nor anything to be gained by casting blame.

Let me, in this regard, draw your attention to another of today’s hymns, our dismissal hymn, in which God asks, "Whom shall I send?" and we answer, "Here I am, Lord. I will go, Lord." In that hymn we acknowledge and accept the call to a changed life which being a Christian entails. Take that hymn and that acceptance to heart.

The third clue or lesson about change is: trust God; trust Jesus. When we come to a fork in the road, when we make the choice, God will be with us. "I come to the end," wrote the Psalmist. "I am still with you."

"Follow me," said Jesus; and he promised Nathanael that he would see heaven opened, that he would see angels. He makes the same promise to each of us. He didn’t say follow me and there will never be another change in your life; he didn’t say follow me and you’ll never come to forks in the road. He said, "Follow me" and "you’ll see heaven."

Again, remember the words of that final hymn, "Here I am, Lord. I will go, Lord, if you lead me." Live those words; don’t just sing them! Like Samuel, say "Here I am, Lord." Like Nathanael, leave the comfortable shade of the fig tree and follow. Go where Jesus leads and trust in his promise!

In closing, I’d like to share with you a prayer attributed to St. Francis de Sales. It is a parting benediction –
Be at peace.
Do not look forward in fear to the changes in life.
Rather look forward to them with full hope as they arise.
God, whose very own you are,
Will deliver you from out of them.
He has kept you hitherto,
And He will lead you safely through all things.
And when you cannot stand it,
God will bury you in his arms.
Do not fear what may happen tomorrow.
The same everlasting Father who cares for you today
Will take care of you then,
And everyday.
He will either shield you from suffering,
Or give you unfailing strength to bear it.
Be at peace.
And, put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.
Amen.

A Matter of Choice: Sermon for the Baptism of Our Lord, RCL Year B

Today's lessons are about making choices. Our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, from the very first book of the Bible is about God’s decision to create ... the choice that began it all.

Although Luke in telling the story of Paul baptizing the disciples at Ephesus doesn't use the word "choose" or "choice", it is clear that both Paul and the Ephesians are making a choice, a choice to for them to become fully members of the Christian community.

And then we have the example set by Jesus who, though he had no need to do so, chose to join with his people and undergo John's baptism of repentance. He sets for all Christians, for all time, the example of choosing the proper path.

Three lessons about choices ... choices are always necessary ... and choices always have consequences.
Eleanor Roosevelt has been quoted as saying this about choice:

"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words. It is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility." (Quoted in Tim Kimmel, Little House on the Freeway (Questar 1994), p. 143).

Like the Ephesians to whom Paul was ministering in our reading from Acts, we must each make the choice to follow Jesus. We may have made it initially in our baptism when we followed Jesus' example, or it may have been made for us by others who brought us to the waters of baptism as infants. That initial choice was made, but it is a choice we must make anew each morning. Everyday, we must rise, face the decision: "Will I continue to follow Jesus? Will I follow the proper path? Will I (as Peter put it - 1 Peter 2) fear God and do what is right?"

Back in World War I there was a Chaplain, a "Padre," in the British army named G.A. Studdert-Kennedy. He was known as "Willy Woodbyne" because he had the custom of handing out Woodbyne brand cigarettes to the troops. He was also a poet.

After the war had gone on for some time, he was confronted by a soldier who had suffered a crisis of faith after seeing the horrors of war. Studdert-Kennedy responded to the questions the young man had raised with a poem, which he titled Faith. I want to share that poem with you today:

How do I know that God is good? I don't.
I gamble like a man - I bet my life
Upon one side in life’s great war. I must,
I can't stand out. I must take sides. The man
Who is a neutral in this fight is not
A man. He's bulk and body without breath,
Cold leg of lamb without mint sauce - A fool.
He makes me sick. Good Lord! Weak tea!
Cold slops!

I want to live, live out, not wobble through
My life somehow, and then on into the dark.
I must have God. This life's too dull without,
Too dull for aught but suicide. What's man
To live for else? I'd murder someone just
To see red blood. I'd drink myself blind drunk,
And see blue snakes if I could not look up
To see blue skies, and hear God speaking through
The silence of the stars.

How is it proved?
It isn't proved, you fool, it can't be proved.
How can you prove a victory before it s won?
How can you prove a man who leads,
To be a leader worth the following.
Unless you follow to the death - and out
Beyond mere death, which is not anything
But Satan's lie upon eternal life?
Well - God's my leader, and I hold that He
Is good, and strong enough to work His plan
And purpose out to its appointed end.

I am no fool, I have my reasons for
This faith, but they are not the reasonings,
The coldly calculated formulae
Of thought divorced from feeling - they are true,
Too true for that. There's no such thing as thought
Wich does not feel, if it be real thought
And not thought’s ghost - all pale and sicklied o'er
With dead convention - abstract truth - man's lie
Upon this living, loving, suffering Truth,
That pleads and pulses in my very veins,
The blue blood of all beauty, and the breath
Of life itself.

I see what God has done,
What life in this world is. I see what you
See, this eternal struggle in the dark.
I see the foul disorders, and the filth
Of mind and soul, in which men, wallowing
Like swine, stamp on their brothers till they drown
In puddles of stale blood, and vomitings
Of their corruption. This life stinks in places,
'Tis true, yet scent of roses and of hay
New mown comes stealing on the evening breeze,
And through the market's din, the bargaining
Of cheats, who make God's world a den of thieves,
I hear sweet bells ring out to prayer, and see
The faithful kneeling by the CalvaryOf Christ.

I walk in crowded streets where men
And women, mad with lust, loose-lipped and lewd,
Go promenading down to hell’s wide gates;
Yet I have looked into my mother s eyes,
And seen the light that never was on Sea
Or land, the light of love, - pure Love and true,
And on that Love I bet my life. I back
My mother `gainst a whore when I believe
In God, and can a man do less or more?
I have to choose. I back the scent of life
Against its stink. That's what Faith works out at
Finally. I know not why the Evil,
I know not why the Good, both
Remain unsolved, and both insoluble.

I know that both are there, the battle set,
And I must fight on this side or on that
I can't stand shiv'ring on the bank, I plunge
Head first. I bet my life on Beauty. Truth,
And love, not abstract but incarnate Truth.
Not Beauty's passing shadow but its Self -
Its very self made flesh,
Love realised.

I bet my life on Christ - Christ Crucified
Behold your God! My soul cries out. He hangs,
Serenely patient in His agony.
And turns the soul of darkness into light.
I look upon that body, writhing, pierced
And torn with nails, and see the battlefields
Of time. The mangled dead, the gaping wounds
The sweating, dazed survivors straggling back,
The widows worn and haggard, still dry-eyed.
Because their weight of sorrow will not lift
And let them weep - I see the ravished maid,
The honest mother in her shame, I see
All history pass by, and through it all
Still shines that face, the Christ Face, like a star
Which pierces drifting clouds, and tells the Truth.

They pass, but it remains and shines untouched,
A pledge of that great hour which surely comes
When storm winds sob to silence, fury spent
To silver silence, and the moon sails calm
And stately through the soundless seas of Peace
So through the clouds of Calvary - there shines
His face, and I believe that Evil dies,
And Good lives on, loves on, and conquers all -
All War must end in Peace. These clouds are lies -
They cannot last. The blue sky is the Truth,
For God is love. Such is my Faith, and such
My reasons for it, and I find them strong
Enough. And you?
You want to argue? Well, I can't.
It is a choice. I choose the Christ.

I don't think I can add too much to the Padre's poem. Every day ... it's a matter of choice ... I'm with Willy Woodbyne; I choose the Christ.

Amen.