My sermon for tomorrow

Okay, as requested I'm posting my sermon for tomorrow. Now let me remind you that this is the draft I'll finish up tomorrow morning. So there are bound to be misspellings and also I'll add to and take away I'm sure somethings. But this is what I've got.


My Dad likes to tell this story. I was probably 8 or 9 years old and he took me and I’m assuming my brother out fishing on the boat. My father has always been a fisher and as far back as I can remember we always has a fishing boat, distinguished in my mind form a ski boat which was always the kind of boat I really wanted. So anyway he took us out fishing and after a while I reeled in a big fish—I’m guessing 5 or 6 pounds which was pretty big for the lake fish that we were fishing for. After that one fish I was ready to go in. I was finished. I really didn’t like fishing and honestly still don’t like fishing. One of the reasons was that we weren’t allowed to talk because it would scare the fish away. Now I don’t really know if that is true or just my Dad’s way of keeping a precocious 8 year old quiet. Either way you can imagine this not going over well with me. The other part though that I dislike when it comes to fishing is baiting a hook and then having to get that fish off the hook when it is finally reeled in. I find it pretty disgusting to have to dig into a worm or a minnow or shrimp—although, oddly enough I have no problem with slicing into a plump juicy cooked shrimp. But when it is alive I have a bit of an issue. And then getting that slimy fish in the boat and reaching into its mouth to dig out a hook. Oh no! I don’t want anything to do with that. But my Dad loves to tell the story of when I caught the biggest fish and then wanted to come in. My brother has always been the one to fish with my dad.
In turn I was never really able to connect with my Dad like my brother has. And my Dad didn’t really understand the kid who was into piano and acting. When I was in college I started watching college basketball and football and professional baseball. I know this was largely because that would give me something to talk to my Dad about. And it has worked for the most part. I can almost always get him to at least talk for a little while about sports. Now sometimes I have to fake my knowledge but I know that this is one way that I can connect with him. I can meet him where he is in hopes that he might try to connect with mine.
And I think that is what Jesus was doing in today’s gospel reading. Because I don’t think he was saying that they were going to be literally fishers of people. As I said up above fishing can be a pretty gruesome approach. And it often involves tricking a fish to bite onto the hook. Or in the case of the nets it plucks fish up out of the water who weren’t really looking to be plucked up. Because as much as my Dad loves fishing I’ve never met a fish that loved being caught. It is rare that a fish just jumps into the boat and lays waiting to be filleted and served up for someone’s dinner. And it is far too easy to take the metaphor too far and many of our Christian brothers and sisters have taken the metaphor too far. Looking for the just the right bait to lure someone into Christian. The right net that will keep people from breaking out. Or those that would force people into the boat through a state sanctioned religion. Those who want the fish to submit dead or alive. No I can’t imagine Jesus meant that Simon and Andrew would use the same techniques for discipleship that they had been using to catch fish.
Instead Jesus was talking their language, he was coming to them first. He was finding a way to connect. A way to engage in their lives so that they might engage in his. He was doing what many of the political candidates tried to do in Iowa and New Hampshire. Not now, not when they are trying to campaign in 26 states at a time, but when they had time to focus their efforts on one state with a small number of residents. They were able to really get out and meet and interact with people. And often what they tried to do was to talk their language. They went to supermarkets and gas stations, restaurants and gyms, churches and synagogues—all the places that people gathered. And they also often engaged in tasks that the people they were meeting were engaged in. They did just about everything from bagging groceries to helping at a hospital. My friend Nancy who lives in New Hampshire was going to try and get Mike Huckabee to shovel her sidewalk. I don’t think she was successful but these are the things that they did to connect with people. Now for many of the politicians I think these were just photo opportunities rather than a genuine desire to connect and now it is all about the crowds coming to them. They are hoping that people will come to them so that they don’t have to go to them. But not Jesus he was going out in a genuine desire to connect with these fishermen. Because while most of us have no delusion that one of the people running for president are really like us, these fishermen believe that Jesus really was one of them. He made the connection, a connection so great that they left their nets behind and followed him. I know this had to be so, because I’m not dropping what I’m doing to follow Hillary Clinton or Rudy Guillani around the country or I guess in Rudy’s case around Florida. But these boat workers did. They left family and friends and all they had to follow this person who was like them and promised that they would become fisher of people. And what they say when they followed this stranger become friend was teaching and healing, proclamation of the good news.
Last week I talked about a book I had read called Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg. I want to say a little bit more because I think it aids our discussion today. Borg says that there are three driving stories in the Bible that encapsulate Old Testament theology and influenced the people of the New Testament, stories that were the only stories that Jesus would have known. And are the stories that have largely shaped the church’s understanding of who Jesus is. The first is the story of the Exodus. The story of Moses leading the Isrealites out of the slavery of Egypt. A story that talks of God’s deliverance of the people from bondage. This is a story that is told over and over. And it is easy for us to see how that has been reflected in an understanding to Jesus has the one to lead us out of bondage, out of slavery. We no longer have to live under the rule of Pharoah. We know that our allegiance lies somewhere else. I also get how important this image of Jesus is. For many of us have been slave to something, alcohol, drugs, sex, our families, the closet. Yes many of us need Jesus to be a new Moses offering to lead us out of bondage.
The second story is the priestly story. The story that I alluded to last week. The priestly story is probably the most popular, and by that the one that has been most passed down in our liturgy and in popular theology. The idea that there was a priestly line that would offer sacrifice for the impure people so that they could be reconciled with God. They would make the sacrifice for all the people. This is a prominent image of Jesus. Jesus took on the sins of the world so that we could be reconciled with the Creator. The idea that there is nothing we can do that can separate us from the love of God. Because no matter what we have done we are forgiven because Christ has taken on our sins. This is such an important image for those of us who feel so unworthy, so unlovable because of what we are or what we have done. This image of Christ says you are lovable, you are worthy. And you can leave behind all that self hatred and live a new life, a new way.
The third story that we have talked a little bit about in the last 3 or 4 months is the story of the Exile, not the Exodus but the Exile. The Exile was the Babylonian take over of Isreal and the exile and dispersion of its people. For the Isrealites the necessity was to know that God was with them in exile as God was when they were in Isreal. They needed to notice and have God revealed to them. This image of Jesus reveals to the people many things: Jesus revealed what God was like, Jesus revealed God’s presence with us humans, that God was not an impersonal God but one who understood the struggles of humanity. Also Jesus revealed a light, a light pointing us home out of the darkness that we are living in. Jesus reveals a way to God, path that leads us into a deeper spiritual walk with the Divine. One can see how this image is for the person who has discovered the forgiveness that God offers and yet seeks something deeper than a constant forgiveness of sins.
All of these images are needed because we are all in different places. We need Jesus to meet us where we are. And there are bound to be even more. Because we aren’t all fishers. We aren’t all in the same need for healing the Jesus offered these early disciples. But the good news is that Jesus meets us where we are, he casts a net that is broad and open. One that is inviting and seeks to form real connections. And then sends us out to offer the same invitation to the rest of the world, to people whoever they are wherever they are. If Jesus were meeting you today what he might say to call you out of your boat: Follow me you bankers and I’ll make you bank human life! Follow me you carpernters and contractors and I’ll make you builders of God’s realm. Follow me you librarians and I’ll make you collectors of God’s people. “Follow me, you friends, you parents, you children, you siblings, you neighbors, you strangers, you hosts and guests, and I will make you all these things—to every other human being!” (Anna Carter Florence, Preaching Matthew from www.goodpreacher.com.) Amen.