Sermons
What Do We Do?
BY THERESA MCCONNELL |
JANUARY 27 , 2008 (Epiphany)
1 Corinthians 1:10-18 and Matthew 4:12-23
1 Corinthians 1:10-18 (Divisions in the Church)
10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas’, or ‘I belong to Christ.’ 13Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16(I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. 18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Matthew 4:12-23 (Jesus Begins His Ministry in Galilee)
12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the lake, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
15‘Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles—
16the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.’
17From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. 19And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. 23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
In his Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, the founder of the Methodist Movement, John Wesley, reminds us that “This journey (Jesus began) was not immediately after his temptation. (According to the Gospel of John) He first went from Judea into Galilee, John 1:43; 2:1. Then into Judea again, and celebrated the Passover at Jerusalem, John 2:13. He baptized in Judea while John was baptizing at Enon, John 3:22,23. All this time John was at liberty, John 3:24. But the Pharisees being offended, John 4:1; and John put in prison, (Jesus) he then took this journey into Galilee. Mark 1:14.” http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/notes/matthew.htm#Chapter+IV)
So after his baptism Jesus was back & forth between Judea and Galilee, he baptized while John was in Enon, and he stayed in Nazareth a while. We know from Luke (4.18ff) that Jesus teaches in the synagogue and pulls out the scroll and reads:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” ’ And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.
In this one passage Jesus tells them that he is the One for whom they have been looking and yet they will not be blessed because of their lack of faith - not only will they not be blessed, but the Gentiles - the ones you look down upon as unworthy of God’s goodness and grace – will receive healing, health, freedom of the Good News! Enraged they seek to kill him.
Now we have caught up with the second verse of Matthew’s text … “He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum” – by the Sea of Galilee. After John’s death, Jesus leaves his small hometown, leaves his family, goes to a place where he no longer has the comfort of being known as “Joseph’s boy.”
From that point Jesus proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”! "Repentance (metanoia, 'change of mind') involves a turning with contrition (regret, sorrow) from sin to God; the repentant sinner is in the proper condition to accept the divine forgiveness." (F. F. Bruce. The Acts of the Apostles [Greek Text Commentary], London: Tyndale, 1952, p. 97.) Sense of sorrow for having done “this or that”; being conscious of one’s sin and being intent on receiving God’s pardon (Thayer’s Lexicon, BlueLetterBible .org. http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G3340&Version=kjv). What we learn is that change of mind and heart is a means of preparing ourselves to receive God’s graciousness.
Repentance is not groveling before God- it is and internal mental shift of focus from sin to God. Jesus was saying: “Change your mind because God’s way, God’s will, God’s very presence has come near! The kingdom of heaven is within your reach!”. Jesus was making it clear that the kingdom of heaven is not simply a pre-existent “Garden of Eden” nor an end of time thing! No! The Kingdom of God is a present day possibility to which you are invited! Come to the party! There is Good News and it is for YOU!
NOW WE RETURN TO MATTHEW’S TEXT: “As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. 19And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (Matthew 4.18-19) The text makes us wonder, doesn’t’ it, if this too is a summary verse…that other things transpired before Jesus called Peter and Andrew and they immediately left their nets and followed him? Last week’s text call of the disciples from John’s Gospel was a bit different: “Behold the Lamb of God”; Andrew is with John the Baptist, and follows Jesus after John identifies who he is. Andrew goes with Jesus to find where he’s staying so he might learn from him (Rabbi). Andrew goes to get his brother, Simon Peter. So perhaps, some relationship building had taken place; perhaps, they’d already been taught by Jesus. Perhaps, but we don’t know that, we only know that “they drop what they are doing and follow him."
Jesus’ call was in words they understood: “You are men who catch fish- follow me and I’ll make you fishers of people”. You think these guys did not know what they were up against? Fishing was a hard life: up very early, preparing the boats before dawn after mending nets during the night; fishing on the sea that had unpredictable storms move in quickly; getting the catch to shore and selling what you can and then beginning to dry the rest during that window of time before it begins to spoil. Then there is the upkeep of the boat…cleaning repairing. Hard work. Would the task of fishing for people be any less demanding.
On top of that they had to get their minds around it- that “change of mind”-metanoia. Change of mind (metanoira) leads to change of life. Rev. Fosua of the General Board of Discipleship puts it this way, (we are) “Called to leave comfort and predictability as we enter a life of service to God” (Safiyah Fosua www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=45738&loc_id=733,32,47). So repentenace has something to do with using our same skills for a life of service to God.
You have administrative skills? Put them to use for the service of God. You have musical talent, carpentry talent? Put them to use for the service of God. You have a tender heart and a large smile, like to visit folks? Put them to use for the service of God. You able to drive or talk on the phone? Put these skills to use for the service of God? You able to wheel and deal? Put these skills to use for the service of God. You a hot shot sales person who can show people possibilities they didn’t think possible? You love to sew and cook or have a passion for organization and love old folks or children? Put these skills to use for the service of God.
What we do when we are called of God is shift our priorities so that they are God’s priorities. Metanoia – change of mind. We prepare our hearts to receive God’s blessesing to us through our service and love of neighbor. We have to choose what we are to do.
I want to tell you a story Will Willimon shares. “Last summer I was speaking to a group of Canadian Christians and someone asked, “Do you think we ought to try to convert people to Christianity?” “Sure. Go ahead and give it a try. Of course, since you’re United Church of Canada, it probably won’t work, but go for it!” The group didn’t like what I said, not because I quoted today’s gospel about the fishing and the catching, but because they said I sounded arrogant, culturally imperialist, exclusivistic in my suggestion that Christians were in the business of catching other Christians.
But note the assumption behind, “Ought we try to convert people to Christianity?”
The assumption is that you’ve got these innocent, untainted North Americans wandering around, then you’ve got these pushy, arm-twisting Christians who want to corral everybody, converting them into our narrow, culturally bound point of view. Yet surely one thing we’ve learned from critical, post-critical studies around here is that everyone has a point of view, everybody stands somewhere, everyone has been “baptized” into some culture. It may be that culture that we celebrate and inculcate around here at 11:00 am on Sundays or it may be the more officially sanctioned culture of consumerism, the culture of the modern nation state, but be well assured that everyone has been “converted” into something. Or in the words of Bob Dylan, “everybody serves somebody.” So the issue is not “Will I be converted into a culture?” but rather which pushy, arm-twisting culture will have its way with my life?
I told my Canadian friends, “I don’t know why we should abandon everybody in Nova Scotia to the clutches of late twentieth century North American capitalism. Why must Jesus defer to that? Let’s go ahead, put our stuff on the table, argue, demonstrate that Jesus really has the capacity to make human beings more interesting than The Spice Girls and see who’s left standing at the end.” (Fishing With Jesus, William Willimon, 1999).
That’s really what it’s about for us, isn’t it? Everybody’s selling something, but we’ve got the Best Good News in Town. We have experienced our lives changed and we know who was left standing when the options were given. Do we want to let people go over to the dark side simply because we don’t want to put our skills to use for God’s service? Perhaps, then we have not repented?
Do we want to let people continue to sit in darkness when we know the Light that has the power to change lives around and to set people free? What Do We Do? Indeed, “What Do We Do?”
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