Slipping Out Before the Offering

Matthew 5:21-26

February 16, 2020

William G. Carter

“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

Last week, we heard the entire Sermon on the Mount. As planned and led by our Worship, Music, and the Arts committee, the entire text was read, sung, and prayed by our congregation. A few of you mentioned that, at first glance at the worship bulletin, you saw a lot of words. It seemed daunting. But soon, you were glad to be here.

The Sermon on the Mount is the central teaching of Jesus. It is the first and foremost of the five speeches of Jesus, whom Matthew portrays as the New Moses. Just like the book of Deuteronomy for the Jews, the Sermon on the Mount is a binding and liberating Word for the church. It announces who we are: salt of the earth and light of the world. It declares the higher righteousness of the kingdom of heaven, a righteousness that exceeds that of people who are merely religious. Above all, it teaches us how to live, now that Christ has come.

It is a big text. The Lord’s Prayer is here. The Golden Rule is here. The law and the prophets are here – and they are exceeded. Like I said, this is a big text. So big, in fact, that some of it seems impossible.

·         “If anyone strikes you on one cheek, offer your other cheek.” That’s hard to do, without feeling like a punching bag.

·         “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away.” Seems a bit extreme, don’t you think?

·         “Don’t worry about your life, especially about what you will eat or what you will wear.” Thanks, Jesus, for the advice, but all of us know people who live to worry.

·         “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of heaven.” There are some people who refuse to believe that verse; they think it is impossible.  

This, of course, is Matthew’s book. He pushes the church to extremity. Matthew wants to see deep discipleship. For him, casual churchgoing is not enough. No one who takes the name of Christian will drift in and out whenever they feel like it. They are called to go deeper, to walk the extra mile. As he quotes Jesus, “Many will show up and say, ‘Lord, Lord, Lord, don’t you remember me?’” And he will reply, “Go away, I never knew you.”

It is in this context that we hear the teaching for today. Jesus says, “If you call somebody an idiot, you could go to hell. If you insult a brother or sister, even if you get angry with them, you will have to answer for your actions at the highest level.”

Now, he is not saying, “Don’t get angry.” Anger is a very human emotion. Conflict happens all the time. What matters is what you do with the anger. Not that you swallow it and give yourself cramps, and not that dismiss it and pretend it doesn’t exist, but that you process it, that you work it through, and do so in ways that does not destroy another person.

I ordered a couple of sandwiches last night from Jersey Mike’s. We were kicking around the house in comfortable clothes, so I called in a Number 11 for my wife and a Number 42 for myself. I went over to pick them up so we could eat at home. When I returned, I discovered they made a change on my wife’s order. Worse than that, the onions and peppers that I usually expect on my chicken cheese steak were not there. I ordered them, but they weren’t there.

It was annoying. Seventeen bucks for two sandwiches and not what we wanted. So what do you do? I suppose you could get in the car, drive back over there, call somebody a name. But what would that solve?

Or you could get in the car, drive over there, demand they make the sandwiches again and get them right. But we were hungry enough to eat what we had already received, and not interested in eating any more.

So I took a breath, groaned to myself, and went online to express my concern. I typed in the computer, “Hey, you let us down.” Then I assured them that someday I will return and order more sandwiches. After all, we’re talking about sandwiches. Pretty good sandwiches, too, even when they aren’t perfect. What would it help if I went over there and called somebody a name?

The clue here is the word “brother,” “brother or sister.” This is a family text, an internal text, a church text. Church is the community where we are called to work things out, to live above our differences, to practice the truth of reconciliation. At the center of it all is Jesus Christ, who forgives each of us and calls upon us to forgive one another.

That’s how the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls us to understand our life together. Christ is at the center of it all. All of us stand around him as forgiven sinners. As Bonhoeffer notes, my brothers and sisters are those who have been redeemed by Christ, delivered from their sin, and called to faith and eternal life. Our community with one another consists solely of what Christ has done to both of us.[1]

It is through Christ that we have the miracle of living in communion with one another. It is a delight for those can receive it.

Yet there’s the rub. The New Testament may declare that “Christ breaks down the wall of hostility.” In a heavenly sense, that’s true. Given the power of the cross, there is absolutely no reason for us to be hostile to one another. Christ forgives sin. Yet it’s often difficult to believe that. Even in church, the community that gathers around Christ. Especially in Christ.

Years ago, I remember meeting a woman who has the same last name as a man I had met. “Oh,” I asked, “are you related to him?” She said, “Used to be.” From then commenced a little weekly game. He would arrive and sit with his girlfriend, holding hands, sharing a hymnal. The ex-wife would arrive a few minutes later, sit across the aisle about two rows behind, and glare at them through the whole service.  Those were the days before we added the “passing the peace” to the worship service. Not sure if it would have worked, anyway.

 It's hard work to stay angry. You have to keep nursing the grudge, stirring the resentment, and in the end, it comes to no good. I like how Frederick Buechner gives it a delicious description:  

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back -- in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.[2]

Over the years, I have discovered something: people drift away from church. Not merely from boredom or relocation, but from something far more sinister. The cause usually isn’t the minister (I used to fear that it was). No, they don’t always have a problem with me; they have a problem with somebody else.

A harsh word is spoken. Or affirmation is withheld. Perhaps it happens in the hallway or during a potluck supper. I’ve heard it can even happen at a committee meeting. It might be so small that nobody else notices, but it’s not small. Then it takes on additional weight. It becomes heavy. Then it’s even heavier. Pretty soon, there is lost sleep, tossing and turning, and finally the resolution: I will have no more of this.

And the easiest way to address it is to refuse to address it. To back away. To avoid any further pain. And when somebody pulls back, stops coming, and the church is big enough that nobody notices right away, it can be weeks, months, even years, before somebody says, “Whatever happened to those people who once were here? What were their names?”

So, it is within the church family, to those whom Jesus calls “brothers and sisters,” that he offers his most demanding word: “When you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” 

I had to read it a second time to be sure it says what it says. I wanted it to say, “If you have something against somebody else, go and make it right. Set them free and make it right.” But that’s not what it says. Jesus says, “If someone has something against you, you go to them. You take the initiative. Even if you are falsely charged, even if you are fairly accused, nevertheless, you must be the peacemaker.” Oh my, now that is going the extra mile!

Jesus is pushing us out of any complacency. He is pushing us beyond indifference, pushing us beyond self-righteousness. Since Christ has forgiven each of us, we are not free to say, “Well, she has a problem with me, and that’s her problem,” and then we write it off. Oh no. We are called to bridge the gap that we ourselves may have caused. And that’s hard work.

“Go,” says Jesus. “Even if you are in a worship service and it’s time to make your offering.” There’s something more important, he says, than making that offering.

Obviously, Jesus never served on a finance committee. Nor was he a pastor. A couple of years ago, somebody recommended we have a fire drill on a Sunday morning. I suggested a Tuesday morning, when nobody was here, and John and I could go out to Starbucks, but no, it had to be on a Sunday morning when the room was full.

OK, but when? Someone said, “How about we have the fire drill in the middle of the sermon?” Somebody else piped up, “How about in the beginning of the sermon?” I said, “Now, wait; if you are going to do this, give me enough notice so I don’t bother to write a new sermon.”

Then someone else said, “Wait, we are thinking about this all wrong. If we’re going to have a fire drill, whatever you do, have it after the offering. Not before!” Why? Because we should never miss the opportunity to take up an offering.

And Jesus says there’s something even more important than that: it’s making peace with somebody who has something against you. It’s working through the differences between us, since the work of Christ on the cross has already justified all of us in the sight of God. Now it’s up to us what that means for one another, for in the kingdom of heaven, relationships are as important as prayer.

So the word of Jesus still stands: “When you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” There is something more important than that gift, and that is the hard-earned gift of peace between us.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper and Row, 1954) p. 25.

[2] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking (New York: Harper and Row, 1973)

Treasure in the Trash Heap

Matthew 5:1-12

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Ordinary 4

February 2, 2020

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:3)

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. (1 Cor. 1:26-29)

Here is a little story, overheard from the check-out line of a large store. Two people were in line. The first was paying for his purchases and took notice of the next person behind him. It was someone well-known in the community, somebody often interviewed by television reporters and regularly quoted in the newspaper.

The first person recognizes this public official. It isn’t long before he starts fawning all over him. “Good to see you. I didn’t know you shopped here. I was glad to hear your recent statement on the news.” So on and so forth.

The public leader changes the subject. It was Christmas time, so he comments about the beauty of the season. The lights are impressive. The music is uplifting. The religious message is timely. So the first person says, “I couldn’t agree with you more. In fact, you should come to my church. We have a lot of important people at our church.”

That is the sum and substance of the conversation.  

I do not presume to know which church was being marketed, but I find that a most curious description. It’s a church with “a lot of important people.” The assumption is some people are important and some are not, but if they are important, they go to that church.

I can’t say if the description is true. Who is important? Who is not?

Years ago, a seminary professor named Ben Johnson visited a church and stuck around for a potluck meal. He was standing in line with a paper plate, and somebody comes up and says, “Are you Newt Gingrich?” He said, “No, I’m not.” The other person spun around and walked away. Ben said, “I guess you have to be Newt Gingrich in order to have anybody pay attention to you in this church.”

The man said, “We have a lot of important people in our church.” Is that true? Some of us would say, “Everybody is important!” and we want to believe that is true. Everybody here has value as a child of God. Everyone has inestimable worth.

But if everybody is important, that’s like saying nobody is important. Like the fourth grader complained to his mother after the sports banquet, “I got a trophy and I’m the worst player on the team.” In such a situation, the trophy doesn’t count for much.

Leave it to the apostle Paul to flip the whole thing on its head. “Look around your church,” he says to Corinthians. “Not many of you are very smart, not many are rich, not many are well connected.” (Thanks, Paul; you know how to win friends and influence people. Pretty soon, you expect him to say, “And you’re ugly too.”)

Scholars think the Corinthian church was small, maybe fifty or sixty souls. It was a mixed bag, Jews and Greeks who didn’t normally spend time together. People from different stations in life, and if the rest of the rest of the correspondence is any indication, a gathering of unfinished saints. Very unfinished. Not an expert in the bunch.

Yet his point is this: the only important one is Jesus. He is the Lord. He is the Savior. He is the One who gathers the church around him. It has nothing to do with how attractive we are. He doesn’t go after the high and mighty or the rich and famous. He goes after the people who need him.

In fact, says Paul, look at how Jesus the Lord becomes the Savior: by dying. Not merely by dying, but by dying as a convicted criminal of the empire. He is a loser who loses everything – and that is his saving power. It doesn’t make any sense to those who spend all their time, energy, and money on climbing to the top of the heap. But to those who know what it’s like to be rescued, it is the most powerful gift of their lives.

Are there any important people here today? It doesn’t matter. In the kingdom of God, ego and accomplishment don’t count for much. A long list of items on your C.V. simply says you’ve been busy, perhaps preoccupied. If you climb to the top of the heap, you may discover it’s only a heap. If you soar too closely to the sun, your wax wings melt. That’s the truth about being human. And it’s an important lesson to remember. No one is exempt.

About twenty years ago, some friends and I collaborated on a book. We are thrilled to collect some sermons and get it published. Our editor was one of the outstanding preachers in the world. When he was done polishing our work, every one of the contributors sounded great. One friend said, “I can’t wait to put this on my resume and get a better job.” Another wanted to wave it in front of his detractors and say, “See? I’m better than you thought I was.” It was a wonderful book. We sold twenty or twenty-five copies. It felt like a big accomplishment.

So imagine my delight, when returning from a church meeting in Harrisburg, I stopped by a Christian bookstore and there it was – our book! Right in the front of the store! Above it, a big sign: BARGAIN BIN. 90% OFF. ALL SALES FINAL. GET IT OUT OF HERE. A friend said, “We’ve been marked down.”

It's humbling. All of us are going to get marked down. Maybe not today, but some day. All the things we’ve done, discounted, perhaps by age or weakness or the passing of time. The apostle Paul is absolutely correct: if you are going to boast about anything, boast about God. Brag about the mercy of Jesus. Don’t swagger about like a rooster to show off how wonderful you are, because sooner or later your feathers might fall off. Your beak might crack.

Back in the days when I was even more full of myself than I am today, it was easy to shrug off this spiritual truth. I’d race by those texts that say, “God saves those who can’t save themselves.” Or maybe it would be a Sunday in church, and we would read through the Beatitudes of Jesus, all the listings of “blessed are those,” and try to ignore what it implies.

 Ever notice who Jesus pronounces as blessed?  The poor in spirit, the grieving, the meek, the hungry, the kind, the pure, the peacemakers, and those who get beaten up for doing what’s right. Not a lot of winners on that list! Not many high achievers.

As time goes by, sooner or later we discover we are on that list. It has nothing to do with our strength, nothing to do with our ability. Instead the life of the kingdom of heaven is all about God’s strength and our availability. Jesus seems to offer no blessing for those who are self-assured, mighty, or arrogant. To be quite blunt about it, heaven promises no blessing for those who have no need for God.

But for those who can be vulnerable, for those who will not put up a bulwark of defenses, for those who come open-handed and broken-hearted, Jesus says, “Blessed are you.” Blessed are all of you. Not because of who you are, not because of what you’ve accomplished, but because of the gracious Christ who offers the blessing.

Sometimes God shows us the blessing. I spent forty-five minutes on Friday with a woman who may be dying soon. When I walked into the hospital room, I didn’t know what to expect. What I received was forty-five minutes of laughter, fond memories, good conversation, and then the best part of all: “Tell everybody how grateful I am for their friendship and love over many, many years. It hasn’t always been an easy life, but it’s been a good life. Very, very good.” I said, “Can I tell them that?” She said, “Tell them that. Tell them how grateful I am.”

And Jesus said, “Blessed are you.” His blessing always exceeds our need.

Are there any important people here today? Ah, who cares. Jesus never talks that way. No, Jesus seems only to be interested in loving the people who need to be loved, in lifting off the burdens that push people down, and in healing what we make available to be healed. Quite literally, he is dying to bring us alive. And the fullness of his life is the stuff of our blessing.

This doesn’t make sense to the self-sufficient. It is frequently dismissed by all who labor to be impressive. But for those who can receive bread they did not bake, for those willing to taste the cup of mercy, for those who were lost that God has now found, this is precious Good News. It is the mystery at the heart of the Gospel.

In the kingdom of heaven, there is something so much better than being important. That “something” is being found by the Lord, the Lord whose blessing always exceeds our need.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

Leaving Boats, Nets, and Dad

Mathew 4:12-23

Ordinary 3

January 26, 2020

William G. Carter

Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the lake, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: ‘Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the 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.’

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’

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. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As 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. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

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.

Back in graduate school, I had a next-door neighbor from Egypt. He stayed to himself, for the most part. Perhaps it was the language barrier or the cultural difference, but he has a pleasant smile and dark, wise eyes. In the four months that our dorm rooms were next to one another, we had a nodding acquaintance.

There was only one conversation that I can recall. It was dinner time, and both of us emerged at the same time from our rooms to head over to the cafeteria. “Ibrahim,” I said, “tell me about your family.” He broke into a big smile and said, “I have six brothers and four sisters.”

What do they do? “Oh,” he said, “we have a family business. We run a corner market.” That’s interesting, I replied. How long has your family been running the market? He paused on the sidewalk, thought for a minute, and said, “About three thousand years.” Here he was, leaving all of them to study and do something different with his life.

That’s what strikes me about this well-worn story of Jesus calling the four disciples. The local economy was well-established. One of the fishing boats had a hand-painted sign on the side of it: “Zebedee and Sons: Purveyors of Tilapia and Other Fine Fish.” Jesus comes along and disrupts a family business.

It's the immediacy of Matthew’s account that I’ve always found so striking. Jesus collects two sets of two brothers: Simon and Andrew, James and John. All four of them are working the water. When Jesus walks by, Simon Peter and Andrew are hurling a net into the sea. Jesus calls out to them, just as the net leaves their hands, and they leave it in the water. As far as we know, it’s still there.

A few steps beyond, James and John are in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending the broken strands of their nets. Jesus calls, and James and John immediately walk away from their father, leaving him behind to keep fixing their nets. “Follow me,” he says. He doesn’t say where. He doesn’t offer a map or any directions. So far as we can tell, all five of them stick around Capernaum for a while. It has become Jesus’ home base.

But that day, for whatever reason, four professional fishermen walked off the job.

As a kid, the story was explained to me by Wilma Caswell, our favorite Sunday School teacher. She said, “They left their work as fishermen to go into the ministry.” As a second grader, I thought long and hard about that. I was glad I didn’t like to fish because I was sure that I never wanted to become a minister.

My dad was an impatient fisherman. He never stuck to much fishing, so he became an engineer. And the pastor of our church – I don’t know if he liked to fish, but he had come to town on a motorcycle. My parents hated motorcycles and said I could never have one, so I was pretty sure I would never ever become a minister. I could breathe easily!

All of that may sound like garbled reasoning, especially given my present occupation. But it struck me at the time as a garbled story. This was the call of the first four disciples. What did it have to do with the rest of us?  It is a particular story about a particular foursome of men. It’s not about us.

In fact, I’ll bet one of the people in the story – old man Zebedee – was a good bit annoyed that Jesus the woodcutter kidnapped his two hardest workers. We don’t know. File that under “Zebedee: The Untold Story.” It does make me wonder why Zebedee himself was not invited to come. We don’t know!

And to be clear: Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John were not called into the ministry, whatever that is. They were invited to follow Jesus. They didn’t know where he was going. Maybe back to his hut in Capernaum, maybe wandering around the region to preach and heal. He didn’t tell them up front, he just went – and then he invited them to come with him.

He didn’t say, “Let me get my clipboard and make assignments. Simon Peter, you take crowd control. Andrew, you go ahead of me as my publicity coordinator. James, you serve as my lead usher when the crowds show up. John, you handle the t-shirt sales in the lobby.” But Jesus never said anything like that, so far as we know.

No, the invitation to follow is an invitation into a relationship, to stay with him, to listen to what he teaches, to watch what he does, to come close enough to see that God is ruling over heaven and earth, that God is coming close enough to heal and renew. That’s what it means to follow Christ – to stay with him, to take on the habits that help us to stick to him. As Jesus invited the first four fishermen to come, they chose to leave their nets behind. That sounds so dramatic . . . but there’s more to the story.

We know a bit more about Simon, Andrew, James, and John. For one thing, they got back into the boats. Jesus goes with them on one boat ride after another. All through the Gospel of Matthew, he insists on going back and forth across the Sea of Galilee. For every day they spent on the sea, they needed something to eat; you may recall Jesus was not one for turning stones into bread.

One day, in fact, a huge crowd showed up as he taught and healed. There were five thousand people, as far as the eye could see. Jesus asked, “How are we going to feed them?” One of the disciples said, “I have a couple of fish.” (Matt. 14:17) Well, of course he did. Just because he once got out of the boat doesn’t mean he didn’t go back into it. Just because he once dropped the net doesn’t mean he didn’t take it up once again.  

I have known people like that.

• I remember the oral surgeon who shut down his office and went to seminary. When he graduated, you know what he did? He went to West Africa to pull out broken teeth.
• Or the attorney who closed down her practice to study the Bible. When she re-emerged, she started the practice again and took on death row prisoners who were unjustly condemned.
• Or there I was, a few years ago, in a remote New Mexico monastery. At dinner, I discovered one of the monks had been the director of development for the Santa Fe opera. It’s one of the biggest opera companies in the world, and he was their fund raiser. Now he raises money for the monastery and its mission work among the poor.

All of them dropped their nets and picked them up again. All of them used the skills they had developed for years to bring the Kingdom of Heaven ever closer. They did the spiritual work of getting closer to Christ – prayer, study, spiritual formation - and then they picked up their fishing nets again. Their lives were not about making money – they were about making a difference. They were finding a greater purpose for themselves, for the greater purpose of bringing God closer to a world in pain.

They were following Jesus, who was teaching and feeding and curing and preaching and healing every disease.  Matthew’s favorite description of Jesus is “authority.” He has authority over everything that damages us. When we follow him, he has authority over us. When we continue the work that he does, especially out in the world, we see his authority slowly spreading over those we care for.

When we follow Jesus, do we have to leave our nets behind? Maybe or maybe not.

There’s that man on Keiser Avenue during tax season, dressed up like a green Statue of Liberty. He’s out there in front of a tax preparer’s office, and he must be freezing. That job can’t pay very well. People pass by and honk and gesture and laugh. If Jesus were to come along and call that man to leave that job behind, would he do it? I hope so. A lot of us remember jobs that we would never want to do again.

But sometimes we leave the job behind because we believe it is not worthy of God or the kingdom. Some years ago, we had a seminary student spend a year with us. Roger was a second career student, sensing Christ’s invitation to serve the church. One day over coffee, he said, “So how do you get away with it?” Get away with what? “How do you get away with playing jazz as a pastor?”

I said, “It was killing me not to do it, so I tried to find a way to integrate who I am with what I do.” He was most curious. Then I discovered he had an electric bass, that he used to play at the pavilion at Harvey’s Lake, that his band would often back up the traveling rock stars who passed through this region. That’s how Roger Griffith played the bass for Chubby Checker!

“Roger,” said, “why aren’t you playing the bass?” And he said: “It never occurred to me.” Within a few months, he put his rock band together, and they have been playing ever since.

What I’m saying is this: When Jesus invites us to follow him, he invites the whole person to follow him. The whole person, the whole package.

• If God has given you a family, they are as important as any work you do, and probably more so. Caretaking our loved ones is part of our calling.
• If you have a brain, use it.
• If you can sing, sing like a bird.
• If you can tutor a child to read, find a kid to teach.
• If you have a heart for people in need, give your heart to them.
• If you have any special skills or abilities or super-powers, there’s a very good chance that God gave those abilities to you for a really good reason. After all, if Jesus wanted to go back and forth across the Sea of Galilee, it was a good idea to befriend some fishermen.

Beneath it all, there is often a difference between the work that we get paid for and the work that we were put on the planet to do. Sometimes they overlap, and that is a blessed gift; sometimes they do not, but life is always more than that. I have known people who had well-paying jobs that they hated, but their daily work made possible the other work that they are really here to accomplish.

And sometimes, we can work and work, putting in long years to labor at something that does not seem so exciting. In fact, it’s a long routine. But all that may be a rehearsal, preparation for the moment when we are invited to save somebody’s life or cure somebody’s pain. During all that time, perhaps God has been preparing us for that one defining moment. It’s too early to tell.

As Jesus walks by the fishing boats in the town where he lived, he invites two people to follow him. Then he invites two more. The spiritual life is always an invitation. Christ beckons us to draw closer to him. The church is here to help us do just that. We worship, we pray, we study, we serve, because our souls are at stake. We come to listen to the One who invites us away from the things that are diminishing our souls, and move toward the things that can give life to us and to the world.

Why did Simon, Andrew, James, and John drop everything? Why did they stop what they were doing and draw closer to Christ? Because they were ready.  Whatever was going on in them - or around them – was sufficient to prepare them. When the Lord came and said, “Follow me,” they went. They left their nets, they came back to their nets, and they were never the same.

For as they drew near to follow and spend time with Jesus, they saw with their hearts that God has begun a salvage operation in Jesus to save the world. His invitation was for their daily work to be part of that. It made all the difference. It still does.

Maybe Mark Twain said it best. "The two most important days of your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why."

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

Finding What You Didn't Know You Needed

John 1:29-42

Ordinary 2

January 19, 2020

William G. Carter

The next day (John) saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).

The cartoon has made the rounds on the internet. A lady opens the door to see two earnest visitors in white shirts and neckties. One of them asks earnestly, “Have you found Jesus?” She doesn’t answer, but behind her, hiding behind a living room curtain, we see a figure with long hair and a white robe, sandals sticking out beneath the curtain.

Have you found Jesus? It’s a good giggle, a bit of good hearted fun at the expense of door-knockers who come to introduce us to their Lord and ours.

Some years ago, when the local Baptist university was larger, it was easy to tell when they were running a class on evangelism. A couple of freshmen might knock on the door and try to initiate a conversation about Jesus. To the consternation of those in my house, I always invited them in.

If they were Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses, I’d offer them a Coke or a cup of coffee, which often sent them scampering for the door. If they represented another brand of Christianity, they might agree to the Coke or the coffee, but pretty soon, they would want to get on to the sales pitch.

One of them might say, “If you were to die tonight, are you confident that you would wake up with God?” Well, of course I would. Where else would I wake up?

He would lean forward, press, and say, “Are you sure?”  Sure, I’m sure.

“But are you absolutely, positively sure?” he’d say. And I would look him in the eye, smile, and say, “Is that the only thing you’re concerned about? You don’t even know my name.” With this, the freshman might look over at his teammate for some support. The teammate would say, “Well, we’d like you to invite Jesus into your heart,” to which I’d reply, “That’s not going to work.”

They would look at one another. What’s this? And then I continued the thought, “Jesus is never going to fit into my heart. He’s too big. He’s the Savior of the Universe.”

With that, they looked at one another with a bit of terror. They hadn’t covered responses like this in class. And so, I kept going: “Listen, kids, we are on the same team. You didn’t know that because you don’t know my name, and you don’t know my story, so you certainly don’t know that I’m a Presbyterian minister. If I could ever reduce Jesus somehow and put him into my heart, I’m certain he would pop right back out again, because that has happened a thousand times.”

Now, I just made up that last paragraph, because the visitors would never have stayed long enough to go that far. But just because I made it up doesn’t mean it’s not true, because it is. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the Universe. His power and presence are enormous. And a lot of times, it seems like he is hiding behind the curtains.

Have you ever felt that way?

The Gospel of John says the fundamental human hunger is to know God. No one has ever seen God, but we are hungry for that. We hear about God, we talk about God, we even tell jokes about God; but when there is a pause in all that chatter, there seems to be an absence of the very thing we’re talking about.

A lot of Christian writers have tried to to say this in a way others can hear it. I like Flannery O’Connor. She wrote stories about the people she knew in Georgia, about how they would be so self-assured in matters of faith, until something would happen to expose how shallow they are. All their talk about God is aimed at propping up their own faith. In a moment of crisis, it falls like a house of cards.

In one of her essays, she said, “I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. The Southerner, who isn’t convinced of it, is very much afraid that he may have been formed in the image and likeness of God.”[1] As she says about a character in one of novels, what if Jesus is hiding, not behind a curtain, but behind every tree, “a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark…” (from Wise Blood)

The point is, you think you’ve got him – and you don’t. You profess to find him and he slips away. There are many stories like this sprinkled throughout the New Testament, but nowhere does it become quite so sharp as the Gospel of John.

The baptizer sees him and says, “Here is the Lamb of God.” He says it twice, and causes some attention. And twice more he says, “I myself didn’t know him.” Listen to the paradox of that. He sees him and he doesn’t see him. This is John the Baptist. Luke’s Gospel says they were related somehow, but in John’s Gospel he says, “I didn’t know him… I didn’t know him, until the One who sent me to baptize said, ‘Watch for the Holy Spirit to come down on Someone and linger. That’s the one.”

How remarkable is that! With all his self-assured faith, proclaiming “the Messiah is coming,” John the Baptist had to have his eyes opened, if only for a brief moment. “I didn’t know him,” he says, “and the Holy Spirit showed me.”

This kind of instantaneous insight is often the way faith ignites like a spark. It is not something we have within ourselves. It’s a revelation, a gift from somewhere beyond. Some call it a gift of God’s Holy Spirit. The New Testament word is “apocalupsis,” the pulling-back of a curtain. Suddenly you see what is there all the time. And then it’s gone. That doesn’t mean it’s completely gone, just that for now you can’t see. Then you see it, now you don’t.

Faith has always been like this. Some of the great spiritual leaders have had their own doubts. Biblically speaking, that seems to be the way it is. So much so, that sometimes it’s tempting to believe that all we are going to have are doubts. I think of that line from Ecclesiastes, certainly the crankiest book in the Bible: “God has set eternity in our hearts, but we can’t know the beginning or ending of anything.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

That’s a grim view. When he taught Ecclesiastes, Professor Jim Crenshaw of Duke used to say it’s like an Easter egg hunt that goes badly. In the morning everybody heads out with baskets and enthusiasm. During the day, everybody searches frantically, grows discouraged. Once in a while someone may yell, “I found one!” and the search is renewed. But in the evening, most go home with empty baskets.

And yet – when you think it’s only going to be an empty basket, you never know when it might be your turn to shout, “I found one!” Or in the words of some of the people who populate the Gospel of John:

• “We have found the Messiah.”
• “We have found the one about whom Moses and the prophets wrote, and he’s from Nazareth.”
• “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who comes from God, for no one could do the signs that you do apart from the presence of God . . . but how can this be?”
• “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. He isn’t the Messiah, is he?”

Now you see him, now you don’t. This is a recurring theme in the scriptures of this season, now that Christmas is over and put away. The Light has come into the darkness; did you see it? We were given a glimpse that Jesus truly exists; was the curtain pulled back long enough for you to see?

So we are left with one of two things: the residue or the search. Either we have the residue of what we’ve heard, what others have told us, what we ourselves might have said – or we decide to keep looking for the Christ, to watch with an awakened heart, to perceive where he is or what he might be doing. And I can tell you first-hand that the search is a lot more interesting.

If someone knocks at my door to ask, “If you were to die tonight,” I would want to know how I might live today. How can I live so completely in the presence of God that I have no need of someone trying to frighten me into heaven?

If they were to ask, “Have you found Jesus,” I would rather be prepared to report on the times when he has found me, and what a difference that has made in how I live and whom I love.

If someone were to press me for certainty, for absolute certainty, and say “Are you sure,” I would be ready to say there is something far better than certainty, something not as presumptuous as certainty, and it’s called “faith.”

And if someone were to dictate where exactly Jesus should be, and where he should go, I would have to shake my head and say, “You don’t know him.” Perhaps he does dart behind the trees, on his way to spend time with the broken-down and the broken-hearted, the disconsolate and the disconcerted, the overlooked and those otherwise deemed godforsaken.  He goes to them. This is where God sends him.

Have you found Jesus? He’s coaching the kid who stutters. He’s talking to the teenager who is not welcome at his own home. He’s pulling some blankets over the lady who slept under the bridge last night. He sits beside the man in the hospice unit who hasn’t had any other visitors. He’s ladling out baked beans in a church basement.

Want to find him? Look for him there. Maybe you won’t find him right away. But he will find you. And isn’t that what we want most of all? Not merely to find, but to be found.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Flannery O’Connor, “The Grotesque in Southern Fiction, in Mystery and Manners (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1969) p. 44.