Friday, 24 January 2020

Epiphany 3 – 26 January 2020 – Year A

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.  Amen.


The text for this meditation is written in the 4th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Matthew; Verses 12 – 25:

12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so 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— 16 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.”
17 From 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 sea—for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 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. 22 Immediately 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. 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. 25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

I think that I could safely say that a great many people here in Sarina have not heard of Roman Payne. He is a modern philosopher, author and poet, who currently lives in political exile in Africa. One of his more recent books, titled ‘The Wanderess’, was published in 2013, and since its publication has, unfortunately, influenced art and cultures all over the world. It seems that for many people, Payne’s description of life in this book is fitting and appropriate.  Allow me to quote a passage: “When I was younger (he says), I would cling to life because life was at the top of the turning wheel. But like the song of my gypsy girl, the great wheel turns over and lands on a minor key. It is then that you come of age and life means nothing to you. To live, to die, to overdose, to fall in a coma in the street... it is all the same. It is only in the peach innocence of youth that life is at its crest on top of the wheel. And there being only life, the young cling to it, they fear death… And they should! ...For they are 'in' life.”

Now that’s a rather depressing analysis of life, is it not? How scary it is that people follow and adopt this outlook. Payne’s description though, is nothing more than the offspring of early 20th century philosophers and thinkers. What he describes is sometimes called nihilism, the belief that rejects all religious and moral principles in the belief that life ultimately has no meaning, or purpose. 

In contrast to such a view of life, Jesus, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, says to us this morning, “Follow Me.” In doing so, He offers a radically different view of life and its meaning. Where nihilism denies any purpose to life, Jesus’ call elevates life and gives it unfathomable meaning and value. 

The question is though, what does it mean to “follow Jesus?” What manner or form does our response to our Lord’s call take?  We are told that Peter and Andrew, as well as James and John left their nets and “immediately” followed Jesus when they were called.  In James and John’s case “following Jesus” meant that a radical change would take place even in their vocations.  And so, they left their father in the boat mending the fishing nets.  

You can probably picture the scene in your mind.  When James and John got up and ran off with Jesus, Mr. Zebedee’s mouth must have dropped.  Hey, we’re not done here!  Where are you boys going!?  How am I supposed to mend these nets by myself!?  Though Mr. Zebedee was likely astonished at being abandoned by his sons, we can only trust that God did for him as He does for all of us.  To provide everything needed to “support our body and life, purely out of fatherly divine goodness and mercy without any merit or worthiness on our part.” 

Given that there is strong ‘father / son’ bond in middle Eastern culture, and that in spite of that James and John left in such haste, we are struck by the power of Jesus’ call on their lives.  Scoffers might say the two brothers were probably just glad to get away from those stinky nets and those long nights where they didn’t catch even a single fish; but walking away from their father and family business that supported them was a radical move.  Nevertheless, when Jesus’ called them to “follow Him,” they responded to His call, that divine word, in haste.  Matthew says, “immediately they left their nets and followed Him.” 

Now, I don’t know about you, but, there aren’t many things that I respond to “immediately” because “immediately” suggests a certain sense of urgency and priority, insisting that I abandon MY agenda, MY priorities.  Don’t get me wrong, I do have some flexibility, but when I am locked into a programme, there has to be something pretty special or important to change it ‘immediately’.  Still, I suspect that it’s true of all of us. You know we have a busy life, and when God calls us to follow Him, or puts an opportunity to serve Him right in front of us, we need to pause and think about it, I mean after all, there is generally something more “pressing,” or, “better” for us to do.  

Yet, the disciples responded to their Lord’s call immediately.  Furthermore, in their new life, Jesus would set the agenda, because they were called to be HIS disciples, HIS followers.  In the case of Peter and Andrew, James and John, while fishing is certainly a noble calling, Jesus would have them harvest a different catch using different tools.  In other words, the disciples would concern themselves with the proclamation of God’s Word which ALONE has the power to harvest a catch and to expand the kingdom. 

Furthermore, as they followed Him, Jesus expected His disciples to clarify and act on the values that He gave them in His teaching.  Their “immediate” response to His call perhaps already suggested that they understood the urgency of their task and the need to proclaim God’s call to repentance and His undying gift of grace and forgiveness.  Even in their day, people were dying without hearing of the grace of God in Christ.  There was a certain urgency then, as there is today, for that grace of God to be proclaimed to all parts of the world, to every nation, every tribe and every people.  

Finally, as they followed Him, Jesus’ disciples were to deny themselves. This is perhaps the most difficult part of Jesus call. There is a cross associated with being a Christian.  Jesus made that clear elsewhere in the Scriptures when He said, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” In our contemporary Christian culture there is something terribly contrasting about those words.  For many, Jesus is perceived as some sort of extra-terrestrial Genie. He’s come to give us everything we want and to expect nothing from us in return, not obedience, not repentance, not even a disciplined heart.  

In his most excellent book, “The Cost of Discipleship," Detrich Bonhoeffer expressed a pretty radical view of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, a view that contradicts our culture’s common perception of what it means to be a child of God.  He said, “when Christ calls a person, He bids them to come and die." Bonhoeffer goes on to say, “cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves…it’s the preaching of forgiveness without repentance…baptism without church discipline…communion without confession.... cheap grace is grace without discipleship…grace without the Cross… grace without the living and incarnate Christ."  

Dear friends, called by Christ, we too are called to die to self.  There is really no way around it.  We cannot serve two masters.  A servant looks to his master and he says, master, what shall I do today? As a Christian, our master, of course, is the One who bled and died for us that we might have forgiveness and the hope of a blessed eternity in His presence. And so, we turn to Christ and say, “Lord, I am yours. Your will is greater, more pure, more beneficial to me than my own.” “Help me, to set myself aside and to learn, even as you did, to say those words that can often be very difficult, even painful, ‘Father, not my will, but your will be done.’” 

Jesus says, “you, follow Me,” which, in part, is to say, die to self, and rejoice in My Lordship. In saying, “follow Me,” Jesus also promises newfound purpose and meaning for our life. Each of us is a disciple, a witness to the grace and mercy of God in the crucified and living Lord. Life can no longer be viewed as a series of random, unconnected, meaningless events.

As recorded in Acts 17, in his new life in Christ, Paul stood one day on Mars Hill at the great Athenian temple in Greece.  Greeks were there from every walk of life.  They were people who loved to speculate about life and why things happen as they do. They also loved to speculate about god.  

Paul noticed that there was an altar set up at the temple with an inscription that said, “to the unknown god.” He said, “let me tell you about the God you don’t know.”  “From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being”

Jesus says, “follow Me,” and in doing so, we are assured that He is the Lord of everything, the One who gives purpose and meaning to our lives.  This new-found purpose effects even our calling, our vocation. The disciples were called to leave everything they had behind, in order that they might proclaim the word of truth, in short, that they might fish for souls.  Our vocations, of course, are not all the same, and yet, we all have the same calling from God.  We are children of the Most High God, Redeemed by the blood of His own dear Son. 

The Apostle Peter assures us (1 Peter 2: 9-10), “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 

By water and the Word, God’s grace and forgiveness have touched our hearts.  He has shown us that our life exists in Him. Some of us are fathers and mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers, we serve our community in carrying out various tasks, some work an 8am to 5pm job, some are shift workers. Regardless of the setting, make no mistake, each of us are a holy priest of God in that place.  When Jesus said to us, “follow Me,” He gave our life meaning and purpose, indeed, a meaning and purpose that are holy and godly. “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” May the Lord continue to uphold us in this holy calling.  Amen.

The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.

No comments:

Post a Comment