Sermon by The Rev Chris Yaw, 1/22/2023, Matthew 4:12-23
My friend "Alex the Architect" landed his dream job at a prestigious architecture firm where he worked for 10 years - before he got the bug to move out on his own.
Alex had a dream and a vision for how architecture could positively change people’s lives.
He wanted to build environmentally friendly, community enhancing homes for the masses that could really make a difference - and the work he was doing at his prestigious firm - mostly designing strip malls and rest homes - was no longer speaking to his heart - and fulfilling the destiny he felt was awaiting him.
So Alex started networking with other like-minded architects - both in his firm and in other firms around town. He would talk to these friends about his vision - about the life-changing work his new firm would do - and about their interest - in whether or not to join him.
Alex also had to line up clients, most of whom said, ‘Build it then we’ll come’ - before the day finally arrived — and it was time to make the change.
So Alex sent out the emails - first, to his boss, notifying him he was quitting - and then to the handful of his architect friends - all of whom put in their notice to their surprised bosses - before they left their comfortable corporate jobs to head off into a new world - with an untested leader, but one who had a vision and a message that was worth it.
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My friend Jim is a church planter.
He begins his work by selecting a community. There, he finds a place, like a coffee shop, to set up home base - where he makes friends, and over time finds out what kinds of religious needs people have that are going unaddressed.
Some people have a church and are dissatisfied, others have stopped going to church, and others have never gone at all.
So Jim talks to them - and paints a picture of a community - a movement - that can meet these needs, and more. He talks about Christianity not as a rote, boring practice, but as a lively, robust, dynamic relationship with a God who has a purpose and plan to heal our divisions, assuage our loneliness, and bring equity and healing to our broken world - and how, by banding together and following Chris more nearly, they can help bring this vision to life.
Jim, then, looks around town for a suitable meeting place, usually a school or community house.
Then Jim plans a service, usually on Easter or Christmas, and arranges for furnishings and refreshments — before igniting his network of coffee shop friends.
Jim contacts each one of them and asks if they’ll leave behind their churches and Sunday morning habits - and follow him - to build something new, substantial, and life—changing - a church, a movement, that can vastly improve themselves and their communities.
Most of his friends come - they agree to leave behind the familiar for a shot at something exciting, different, and new, that just might take them closer to the hopes and dreams of their hearts.
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I wonder how much of Alex and Jim’s stories correspond to this morning’s Gospel about the calling of Jesus’ first disciples?
Was it as dramatic as it sounds — with a total stranger walking by the sea of Galilee, who had a tractor-beam personality no one could resist? …such that people immediately ‘dropped their nets’- leaving their homes, families, and jobs, without a moment’s hesitation?
Or had Jesus, growing up in the region where the population was in the hundreds not millions, had a previous relationship with these early disciples and sensed their desire for something more — more fulfilling, more purposeful, more in keeping with their sense of destiny and purpose - and had Jesus painted a picture of such a movement, of a parallel reality that was alluring and satisfying - that promised to change them, and the world, in real and substantive ways?
And did Jesus spend time, previous to this, getting to know Peter and the gang, sharing his vision, and preparing for the movement - such that, when the day of action came, these fishermen were, without hesitation, on board?
And, so, you and I now come...
We are sitting here 2,000 years later - but also in the presence of the Risen Christ -
How might we be going through the same thing?
We may take note of how Christ has been courting and grooming us to go deeper - to love more, give more, sacrifice more - as a way for us, too, to satisfy, more fully, the yearnings of our hearts.
The call and response of the disciples is a call to us, of maturity, courage and a deeper faith in Jesus Christ.
This story seeks to awaken us to the reality that Jesus is also standing near to us - calling us to deeper places of vocational authenticity and faithful obedience.
It asks us to ask ourselves:
How are we being called to the next level - the next place of destiny and fulfillment?
What are the nets we need to drop?
What are the routines, rituals, and secure places, in which we have become accustomed, and have become places we now need to leave behind?
And is it now up to us to make the same kind of cool, calculated decisions those architects, pioneering church members, and disciples made to switch course and follow our hearts in order to make ourselves, and our world, better?
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Management guru Tom Peters says the only way to remain competitive, to remain relevant, in today's world, is to continuously acquire new skills - to continuously embrace change.
He thinks that the demise of corporations in our country has much more to do with our inability to build-in regular times of substantive renewal, than anything else.
Many of you know that my favorite icon of Jesus is that of a reformer.
He did not come to throw away Judaism.
He did not come to start a new religion from scratch.
No, Jesus came to reform the laws of Moses and the teachings of the prophets, to better conform to the same vision that he had given Abraham and his ancestors.
Jesus came to shake things up - to reform, recalibrate, reconnect, revitalize... And we do well to embrace that same work...
Existentialist, Christian theologian Soren Kierkegaard famously declared in his age that: My job is to bring Christianity to Christendom...
…echoed a few generations later by Reinhold Niebuhr who observed, “the great Christian revolutions came not by the discovery of something new, but by the rediscovery of things that had always been there.”
And so this morning’s message is about helping you and me rediscover who we are and what we have - and to retool our lives to live into that
God is calling us to reform, re-examine, and retool, alone and together, to be more effective and fulfilled with the work of Jesus we are called to do.
What needs revitalization in our lives?
What do we need to hold onto?
What do we need to let go of?
How is Jesus calling us to drop the nets so we can grab hold of something better?
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Have I ever told you the story of Louie the New York City cab driver?
If you are lucky enough to get him when you fly into LaGuardia airport, you will hop in the backseat, and for the first 30 seconds, you will be parked, as Louie says to you,
"I'm sure you're in a hurry, and you have things to do. And I intend to get you to your destination safely, comfortably, and as quickly as possible. But before we depart, I imagine you've been pretty busy today as you've traveled, and I'd like to offer you the New York Times and USA Today to read in the backseat.
"I'd like to offer you a selection of music, pop music, rock, country, or nothing at all.
"I'd like to ask you if you're hot or cold and would like the heat or air conditioning.
"And I'd like to hand you this basket of snacks, in case you weren't able to get anything at the airport and you're hungry."
Now how does that compare with the New York taxi cab rides you've taken? And is anybody surprised at the amount of money Louie brings in each year in tips?
But Louis the cab driver didn't start out like this. He started out doing what all the other cabbies do, competing with one another to see who could be more rude!
I wonder how many of us are doing our jobs the way everyone around us is doing it?
And how God is calling us to do it differently?
And how we might begin by asking: what our job is, and how might it be done better?
Louie's reform came when he did just that.
In fact, I think this is at play as we look at the story of the disciples today. These were normal people, just like you and me, who decided to up their game by taking more seriously the call of their hearts - and ask what their jobs, as Jews, was all about.
In following Christ, I wonder if they pursued authenticity, genuineness, and transparency - giving outward expression to the psalm of their soul - the psalm we sang today: One thing have I asked of the Lord; one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; To behold the fair beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.
The gospel asks us to do that - to connect our souls with our pursuits. Our beliefs with our vocations...
Sure, none of us are called as the early disciples were.
But we each have our own unique call that, absent our assent, would have a detrimental effect on the world God is building.
If you’re a garbage man, said Martin Luther King, Jr most famously, be the best garbage man there is.
If you’re a priest, be the best priest you can be.
And if you own a restaurant, you might want to do like the owner of a memorable cafe in Auckland, New Zealand does.
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The restaurant is called Valerio’s.
And it looks no different than all the other restaurants -
Except when you walk by and see the menu board on the outside - which is like every other menu board you’ve ever seen - except, at Valerio's there is no menu.
Instead, the owner has posted a letter, that says:
’Sometimes menus don’t reflect what you might find in a restaurant.
So I didn’t bother with one.
In our restaurant you will find atmosphere and character.
Friendly and witty staff.
A half-crazy owner, and real food.
The kitchen is in open view to the customers, and you are welcome to inspect it.
The cockroaches left me a long time ago.
The only animals remaining are my cats, Jeffrey and Luigi.
Otherwise, I am left with a bunch of paranoid human beings to deal with.
If you are accustomed to all this, then come on in and join us for a pleasant lunch or dinner.’
For those brave, curious, or intrigued enough to go inside, once seated, a menu arrives, which states the rather quirky rules of the house, right at the top:
‘May I remind you that we don’t do family counseling.
We still love children, mostly ours.
Nothing is free in this place.
We do welcome uncomplicated tourists.
If the noise level is too high, adjust your tongue.
Mamma was always right: no fancy sauces, no frills or nouvelle cuisine, but sensible, genuine, tasty, hearty food.’
Then on the way to the rest room, on the walls, that in other restaurants usually hold framed news articles or letters of praise from satisfied customers, Valerio's has chosen to frame and hang something else: letters of complaint.
In one letter, a local salesman berated the restaurant for lousy service and bad wine.
And below it is Valerio’s framed response, that the customer had taken a 3-hour business lunch and not complained at all - so why, now? And hey, white wine is not the house specialty.'
Yes, the food is great.
But the honesty, and authenticity is what keeps the place buzzing.
So when we talk about reform, we talk about being true to ourselves - who we are, and what we sense God wants of us.
We talk about knowing our hearts and following our hearts.
This is what the early disciples were doing -
This is what we’re invited to do more of.
So what’s keeping us from taking a step into the ’new?’
What’s holding us back from being more open to taking a new path?
What’s in the way for us right now - what’s the hurdle, the distraction, the detour?
Let me leave you with this image:
Think of a spider web - a big one - up in a tree.
It’s sticky so that flies will get caught there, right?
So why doesn’t the spider get caught?
It’s because the spider only makes the circle parts of that web sticky but makes the radii - the straight parts that go from the edges to the center - not sticky at all.
Yep, the flies get caught in the circle parts, while the spider moves around effortlessly because he knows to take the straight paths.
So to get to the center of things, don’t get off track, stuck in the sticky parts - it’s easier if we go straight -
Things only get sticky when we get off that straight and narrow path.
Friends,
How are we being called along the 'straight and narrow' to the next level - the next place of destiny and fulfillment?
What are the nets we need to drop?
What are the routines, rituals, and secure places, in which we have become accustomed, and have become places we now need to leave behind?
And is it now up to us to make the same kind of cool, calculated decisions those architects, pioneering church members, cabbies, restauranteurs, and disciples made to embrace and imitate reform and renewal by following our hearts in order to make ourselves, and our world, better?
Amen.