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January 27, 2008

God is Close at Hand

Sermon: January 27, 2008
Isaiah 9:1-4,
Psalm 27:1, 4-9,
Matthew 4:12-23

Our Gospel lesson this morning from Matthew ties into the reference from the Prophet Isaiah--God will act. The northern tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali in Isaiah’s time had experienced gloom and darkness at the hands of Assyria. Isaiah assures them that their condition will be reversed when God acts and makes an appearance. Likewise, in Jesus’ time, Roman occupiers claimed the land. The Jewish people were experiencing darkness and death this time at the hands of the Romans. It is from this memory of Israel’s prophetic past that the Gospel writer Matthew makes the connection--through Jesus, God has acted.

God’s actions resulted in a baby being born and now that baby has become a man. John the Baptist has been arrested by the powers in Jerusalem. John’s arrest is an indication of things to come--more difficulties for both John and Jesus. Having been baptized and tested, Jesus begins his ministry. And scripture tell us that he returns to the region of Galilee, not to Nazareth his home town, but to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee.

We are familiar with Jesus’ contact with tax collectors and prostitutes. We are encouraged not to miss the significance of where Jesus begins his ministry. According to one scholar, the location of Jesus’ ministry would have been upsetting to certain people. The Galilean area was a mixture of people where Jews and Gentiles worked and lived alongside each other, probably intermarrying too. The Jews in this area were scorned by the Gentiles, and simultaneously regarded with contempt by the patronizing ‘pure-minded’ Jews of Jerusalem. (1)

We are reminded that racism has been a constant thorn in humanity’s side and the Galilean Jews experienced it from both the Gentiles in their region and their countrymen from Jerusalem.

It is significant that the first disciples Jesus calls are Galileans. Jesus intentionally sought a diverse group of oppressed people, not the powerful Jews in Jerusalem. It was here in Galilee where he officially begins his ministry with the announcement—

“Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven (or God) has come near.”
Here in this place far away from the Holy City of Jerusalem and the Temple Isaiah’s prophesy came to life in Jesus. The Kingdom of Heaven came down and touched people’s lives. In a place and in a way that was not expected, God acted…and people responded. They left everything and followed Jesus…

Now I don’t know about you, but I wonder how that happened. How was it that Jesus called brothers Simon and Andrew, James and John and they dropped everything and followed him? Wow. I assume that there are parts of the story that were edited—didn’t make the final manuscript. You know, the parts where Jesus invites others to follow him and they strongly refuse, ignore him, give him an excuse, or don’t even hear him. Just because I have a hard time understanding how someone could walk away from everything, just up and leave, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. But let’s hear from another person who describes how she answered Jesus’ follow me…a testimony from Anne Lamott:

I’d been hanging around at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church Marin City, CA. St. Andrew’s is right next to a huge flea market that comes to life every Sunday. The music is what drew me in and kept me hanging around. I had to leave before the sermon—I didn’t want to be preached at about Jesus. I could sing about him, but I always left before the sermon. A couple months after I started hanging around St. Andrews, I had a particularly tough week, even for me...

I got in bed, shaky and sad and too wild to have another drink or take a sleeping pill. I had a cigarette and turned off the light. After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone.

The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there—of course, there wasn’t. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.

And I was appalled. I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, “I would rather die.”

I felt him just sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching over me with patience and love, and I squinted my eyes shut, but that didn’t help because that’s not what I was seeing him with. Finally I fell asleep and in the morning he was gone.

The experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But then everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left.

And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hung over that I couldn’t stand up for the songs, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kit, and I opened up to that feeling—and it washed over me.

I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels. I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God’s own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, “@#@# it: I quit.” I took a long deep breath and said out loud, “All right. You can come in.” (2)

Anne Lamonts story offers another example of how someone responded to Jesus invitation to follow him. There are numerous other stories out there—many of you have a story. The important thing to know is that we too can be those people on the beach. We can be someone who accepts Jesus’ invitation to follow him. However, we cannot respond to Jesus’ “Follow me” without first responding to his proclamation “Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near.”

Repent…Before we can follow, we must repent, or as Anne puts it, we must quit. Quit fighting.

When we fight, we miss seeing, experiencing God’s kingdom because we are too focused on ourselves. For example, we focus on ourselves is when we have too much self-inflicted pain, too much self doubt, too much self-righteous anger, too much self-pity, too much self-seeking gratification, too much self reliance.

Think of yourself as a container. We can only hold so much. When you pour yourself a cup of coffee you can only pour so much coffee into the cup before it overflows. The same principle applies to us. When we are consumed—filled to the brim—with ourselves, our imperfect humanity, we are unable to hold anything else.

To repent then is to surrender to God, to say I don’t have all the answers; I can’t make it on my own. To repent is not to grovel before God…it’s more like opening yourself to God. Some of us do this in little steps, some of us walk right up and just let go. Going back to the coffee metaphor, we need to pour out some of the coffee in our cup out to make room for the cream. Even a little cream changes a cup of coffee, so it is with us. Even opening ourselves up a little to receive God will change us in miraculous ways.

Our God is loving, caring and compassionate. If we find it hard to believe that God really wants to have a relationship with us, we just need to look at Jesus and his legacy on earth.

Jesus doesn’t strike me as someone who haphazardly did anything. He intentionally went to Galilee and invited people to follow him who were common, working class people. Jesus invited Jews who were thought of as impure among their own people; Jews who probably questioned their heritage and right to attend Temple. It was to these people that Jesus went and sought out his core group. As if to say, those that society, religion, and families reject, I accept. Not only does Jesus accept those that are rejected, he teaches, loves, and hangs out with them. These rejects are his people, his homeboys, his girlfriends, his confidents. So anything we think might make us unworthy of God’s love is set aside.

Jesus, born in a stable to a young woman and her carpenter husband, came to show that the God of Heaven was not exclusively about laws, vengeance, purity, segregation, scarcity, or blood lines. This God was about offering love, compassion, healing and forgiveness to all. The Kingdom of Heaven came near in Jesus Christ. If people allowed themselves to get close enough, to stop what they were doing and really look into his eyes, I imagine they saw this loving, caring, compassionate God.

Sisters and brothers…hear the Good News—the same Spirit that was in Jesus Christ is among us today. Christ is alive. Christ is among us inviting us to experience the Kingdom, right here right now.

Jesus’ trip to earth tells us that we need not wait until we die to experience the Kingdom of Heaven. When we surrender to God, when we admit that we cannot handle life by ourselves, then we open ourselves to experience the Kingdom of Heaven. It is fleeting…like the Spirit. And here’s where the invitation to follow Jesus naturally follows. If we can get ourselves out of the way, then we give ourselves permission to say yes to the invitation to follow Jesus. I want to say two things about this invitation.

This invitation to follow Jesus is the beginning of a journey. We have our struggles, our distractions—that’s life. The disciples followed Jesus and he continued to invite them to know him on a deeper and more intimate level. As we observe their lives throughout the New Testament, we see that sometimes they understood and accepted the invitation to follow Jesus where he was going. Sometimes they missed the boat completely. But when they stuck with Jesus, they got glimpses of the Kingdom of Heaven.
It works the same for us. We are invited to hang around with Jesus—to make room for God in our life. Sometimes we do and other times we don’t or don’t know how. In all cases, if we stick around—stay open, we get glimpses of the Kingdom.

Golf is a really tough game. It’s you, an expensive stick, a tiny little white ball, and the golf course. I’ve played some golf. And the amazing thing about the game is that even as a beginner, you usually have “the shot.” The shot could be a chip from the edge of the green that stops close to the hole or the shot could be the one that doesn’t dribble along the ground but actually goes up into the air, flying beautifully straight down the fairway. It’s that shot that gives you a glimpse of how golf is supposed to be played. And that glimpse is what keeps you coming back.

Secondly, following Jesus is not a one-time offer. It’s not like the used car salesman who tells you that this offer is only good for the next 15 minutes and then the price is going up. Anne Lamont’s story tells us this. The invitation to repent and follow is there for the taking. It’s up to us.

Before we come together for communion, we take time to reflect and repent of the ways we kept ourselves from God this past week. It’s part of the invitation to follow Jesus. We acknowledge that a life that seeks to put God at the center is a journey, not a destination. We don’t just arrive. We come to believe…and then the real work begins.

We realize that we cannot stay the person we are and have the kind of relationship with God that we desire. It’s not necessarily about good verses bad. It’s more about being present or being distracted. It’s more about believing that you are worthy to be loved by God. God desires to have a relationship with you. Otherwise, God would stop trying. But God doesn’t. God’s still hanging around, like the feeling that Anne Lamont described—like a cat hanging around her feet.

Even if you have opened yourself to God before, or if you never have, I encourage you to do it this morning. Surrender to the loving, caring, compassionate God of Jesus Christ. It’s time to say once again, “I quit trying to do it all myself. I need your help.” Ask God to fill you with more cream so that your coffee, your life, might be transformed.

Footnotes:
1. Virgilio Elizondo, Galilean Journey: The Mexican-American Promise, New York: Orbis Books, 1985, pp. 50-51.
2. Anne Lamont, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, New York: Pantheon, 1999, pp. 49-50.

Posted by vickie at 10:00 AM