Sermon for Epiphany 3A
Matthew 4:12-23
Last night I dreamed that
all but ten of you heard this sermon. The rest of you walked out in protest.
Hopefully that won’t happen in real life. Dreams are funny, especially in the
telling, they reveal a deep truth. So perhaps I’m a little anxious about the
content of this sermon because I need to hear this one especially.
Anyway, in my dream the Archbishop of York,
John Sentamu, and other dignitaries were there, as were a few of my seminary classmates,
and since I don’t see any of them here, I think we are safe. The funny thing in
the dream was that you all came back for the Creed, so you were definitely
protesting the sermon, but you were committed to Trinitarian Christianity, so
that’s good. That’s the thing about my dreams in particular, they are strange,
but perfectly reasonable. There are no unicorns or hobbits in my dreams,
everything really could happen. My wife finds this to be rather boring: my
dreams are just reality, but slanted.
Come to think of it, that
is what Jesus was after: a slanted reality. A reality where everything is the
same, but everything is different, where somehow the lighting has changed so
that we see more of reality. It’s in this slanted reality and his invitation to
it that we catch up to him today in our gospel.
Jesus begins his ministry
because of the arrest of John the Baptist. There is continuity in the two
ministries of John and Jesus,but they are not the same: John was preaching the
repentance of sins, Jesus was proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven. Today we see
that Jesus begins calling disciples. There is a word in these accounts of Jesus
calling his followers that always interests me that word is, “immediately.”
“Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”
Immediate. There is no
waiting. There is no preparation. There is no, “waiting for the right time,” or
the right season of life. They follow him immediately. Following Jesus is a
right-here, right-now occasion. None of us can ever be prepared for following
Jesus: it’s not that kind of thing. You get prepared for following Jesus by following
Jesus. I want to say to anyone who is thinking about going deeper in
their spiritual lives, or committing to an outreach mission, just do it, follow Jesus immediately,
come with us, we don’t know exactly what’s going on either, but Jesus is
leading us into some interesting territory.
Immediately they left
their nets and followed him.
Now, we Christians believe
that Jesus is the perfect icon, the most-full manifestation, of the God of love
that the world has ever encountered.
When Jesus leads us, he leads us onto more and more profound avenues of
love. That is the way of Jesus, as a spiritual and political path.
Now, don’t get antsy, I
can’t have you walking out on me, I know you won’t, because the part where you
leave, isn’t this part, it’s in a minute. Anyway, the way of Jesus is the way
of love, as a spiritual and political path. By politics I mean any public act, yes it can be voting and advocacy
but it also means how you buy, sell, work, parent, be a friend, or talk to any
of your neighbors. The way of Jesus is the way of love. When we follow Jesus we
are lead more and more into love.
So, my questions for you
today is: how is that going? This is the part of the sermon where you walk out.
Is your love for others total or have
you left a few people out? Have you followed Jesus into every avenue of your life or is there one person that you have
walled off from Jesus’ leading? You see we can do that, even though we follow
Jesus, we can still direct him. Jesus is so non-violent that he will allow us to forbid him to go into
certain areas of our lives. It’s as if we say, “Yes Jesus I will follow you but
not over here, or over there, and that place over there, you can go there in a
year.” Do you see what I am saying?
Where have you walled off
Jesus’ way of love in your life? Is it in your family’s past? Perhaps your
college roommate. Maybe you have walled off Jesus’ leading in how you make a
living or in your sex life. Maybe you have refused to love the mayor, our our
governor, or our president.
You see, when we remove
even one person from our love, from Jesus’ guidance, we are showing that our
following of Jesus into love is not complete. As one of my spiritual mothers
says, “When we leave one person out of our love, or commit one act of
un-kindness, we are revealing that our so-called
love is only there because it pays.[1]”
“We are revealing that our
so-called love is only there because it pays.” We are admitting that since
there is even one that is walled off from Jesus’ leading that we aren’t
following him at all, we are in fact leading him. We are
treating Jesus not as our lord but as a dog that is leashed. Yes, he walks
ahead of us, but we are the ones who are leading.
“Oh Jesus I love that you are
leading me, No! Not there! Bad Jesus, let’s not walk over there. Good Jesus, we
don’t walk over there, that area, that person is undeserving of my love.”
“When we leave one person
out of our love, or commit one act of un-kindness, we are revealing that our
so-called love is only there because it pays.” That one person that you don’t
love, it shows that the entire system, your entire well-meaning-ness is really
just a cottage industry of quid-pro-quo of affection and respect based on the
condition of pleasing you. Jesus wants to trample that old system and set up a
new one of unconditioned love, and he has empowered you to do it too.
Now, when we found that we
have not been following Jesus into certain places and relationships, we are not
lost or even bad, but we have the opportunity to, just as those first disciples
did, to immediately follow Jesus into
all of life. Immediately, not later, not soon, not once we have a moment to
deal, immediately.
Love does not mean
approval by the way. We seem to have forgotten that. Love does not mean
approval. We can love, we can be lead into love by Jesus, even though we might
be actively opposing a given person or policy. We are called to follow the lord
of love more deeply into love. We can pray for those we love, and we can
actively oppose them, that is possible. But what I expect from all of you is
love.
I implore you, please,
please allow Jesus the Lord of Love to lead you into every corner of your
lives. Let him illuminate all the darkness that you don’t let love into. If you
allow him in, he will transform you. Even those you do not like and who are
evil, you can love and fight even more, but you will love them.
You’re still here.
Must have just been a
dream.
I’m glad. I’m glad you are
here. In fact, I hope you believe me when I say, I love you.
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