Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany Yr A
January 26, 2020
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church
The Rev. Canon Michael J. Horvath
Gospel: Matthew 4:12-23
If you ever come to our home, you might notice that Charles and I like to collect books. And one kind of book we like to collect and read are cookbooks. We have cookbooks about vegan and vegetarian cooking, all of Julia Child’s cookbooks; books on Filipino, French, Moroccan, Hungarian, Palestinian, Jewish, New England and Southern cooking; books about baking, roasting and barbecuing. Books about French cheeses and books about German wines. It’s quite an array. Every so often I will just pick one up and flip through it, enjoying the list of ingredients and look at the glossy photos of freshly picked basil and sifted flour. It’s rare that I ever actually cook anything (that’s Charles’ passion). For the most part I’m engaging in a spectator sport where my mouth might water, but I’m not tempted to really do the work involved in cooking the actual dish.
How often do you find yourself engaged simply as a spectator? Someone once told me that this world is made up of two kinds of people – those who do and those don’t. If we’re talking about something that I get passionate about, then I’m a fanatic “doer”, otherwise I’m content to be a “don’t doer”, a spectator.
When it comes to heeding God’s call, are we “doers” or casual spectators? That’s the question Jesus is leading us towards in today’s gospel reading. Today, we are looking at Matthew’s version of the start of Jesus’ ministry and I am struck by Jesus’s words here: “The Kingdom of heaven has come near!”
What does the word ‘near’ actually mean? Does it mean that the kingdom of God is here, now – actually present amongst us - or that it is almost here, just over the horizon, in Portsmouth or Tiverton? If we take an honest look at the state of the world today, let alone 2000 years ago, it would be hard to argue that the kingdom of God is here in its totality, and yet we do want to believe that it is, in some sense, already here.
Perhaps Jesus is not announcing an actual time when the Kingdom of heaven has come, like an hour that can be read on a clock or a date that can be marked on a calendar. Perhaps Jesus is instead alerting us to the possibility of encountering the kingdom at any given moment in our lives if we are seeking God. Whenever we turn towards Christ, the time has come for us, and the Kingdom of heaven has drawn near. That can be a one-time even like when we are baptized, but hopefully it is something that continues to unfold in our loves as we try to live into what it means to be a Christian in this world. And, as we do, the Kingdom of heaven is fulfilled in us as we enter more deeply into the eternal truth of God.
Now Jesus is looking for followers to help live out that call in their own lives. And so, we see this first encounter with Simon and Andrew and then with James and John.
In Matthew’s account of the call of the first disciples, we don’t know much about these four men except that they are fishermen by trade. What we do know is that four men are led away from life as they know it in response to Jesus’s call. “Follow and I will make you fishers of people.”
This call is an open invitation, but once accepted Jesus will show us that the life of a disciple is not a spectator sport. Throughout Jesus’s ministry we see him, and, in varying degrees, his disciples feed the hungry, reach out and have compassion for the stranger, the widow, sick, the poor and the orphaned. We see them stand up and give voice against the injustice that comes from the political and economic systems in place. It is a life where the last shall be first and the first shall be last. It is a way of life where the best seat is at the distant end of the table. And it is the life where God’s grace will fill the cracks of our brokenness and suffering with a mercy so fine that it cannot be anything but a taste of heaven.
Now Simon, Andrew, James and John could have said, knowing who Jesus was and what he was about, “Sounds good, Jesus. We’ll stay where we are and catch you when you pass by these parts again next week.” But the profoundness of Jesus’s call made them move. I think they realized that whatever Jesus was offering was going to be life-changing, even if they did not fully understand what they were going to experience as Christ’s disciples. But they also understood that they had to fully give themselves over to the experience. An experience in which they will walk the walk and talk the talk of Jesus. Becoming Jesus’s disciples meant they had to be “doers”, not just spectators.
How about you? We are certainly “doers” when we are here at church on Sunday, but what happens during the week? Are we “casual spectators”, satisfied that we’ll be “Christian” again when we come to church next week, and otherwise leading a life in which God is simply a mild suggestion?
I hope you all saw the Bristol Phoenix and East Bay Life this week. There was a fabulous article about our Laundry Love ministry. To me, that article was a beautiful reminder of what being a “doer for God”, of what being a Christian, can look like in this day and age. Those volunteers are in lock step with God’s calling and the way they and the people they serve are transformed during that once a month encounter is inspiring. We may not be called on to exorcise demons or miraculously feed 5000 people, but we’re still called to walk and talk like Christ. To feed the hungry, to reach out and have compassion for the stranger, the widowed, sick, the poor, and the orphaned. To be in direct relationship with those who feel forgotten and alone. And we are still called to stand up and raise our voices against the injustices perpetrated by our political and economic systems.
And being an engaged Christian can take on many forms – from volunteering at Laundry Love, to making pastoral visits to members of our community, to simply introducing yourself to someone new at coffee hour. It can mean coming regularly to church on Sunday or starting a prayer group or new ministry that we hadn’t thought about. It may mean getting involved in social justice movements or simply reading scripture more often (or reading scripture period if you’re not in the practice of doing so). There’s no one way of following Christ, but there is one specific characteristic that following Christ involves – that of being a “doer.” I can call myself a fisherman, but I will never really be a fisherman if I don’t actually pick up a rod, bait it and cast the line. Similarly, I can read all the recipes in all the cookbooks I have at home, but I can never call myself a cook if I don’t actually turn the oven on and get cooking. The life of a disciple, of being a Christian, is in the doing. And we can throw up our hands and say that our lives our too busy to take on another thing, but that speaks more to your priorities than it does to your ability. You can always say that you’re just too busy for God, but do you think God is ever too busy for you?
Are you a “doer” or simply a “casual spectator?” Are you serving God or are you only expecting God to serve your needs? If you want to simply be a spectator to what God and the Holy Spirit is doing amongst us here at St. Michael’s and in the world, then I’ll keep you in my prayers. But if you want to be a “doer” and aren’t sure how, come see me. Let’s have coffee or lunch and let’s figure out how God is calling you. Because, to be clear, God is calling you and this world needs you. The question is are you are willing to listen and follow, to pick up a rod, to handle the messiness of the bait and to cast a line? Every time we heed God’s call and become “doers” we come smack up against the Kingdom of Heaven right here, right now. And that’s exactly what I’m looking for and I hope you’re looking for the same thing. Amen.
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