The Oscars will be presented this week, which is my annual excuse to use this space to comment on the intersection of movies and religion.
This year, Avatar is the big story, with its innovative effects and its box office records. I enjoyed Avatar, although I don’t think it deserves the best picture award. One aspect of the story that interests me is the issue of the human character’s incarnation as a Nav’i, the alien species who inhabit the distant moon. Our Christian story tells of the word of God becoming incarnate as a human out of God’s love for us. In Avatar, the protagonist becomes incarnate for rather mixed motives. At first, he means the Nav’i harm, but he is changed by his actual encounter with them, and he finally becomes instrumental in their survival. This is a complex incarnation, but it does show us the importance of actually experiencing life from the point of view of another person (or species).
I haven’t seen all the nominees, but my favorite is the Pixar animated movie Up. There is a magical quality to Mr. Fredricksen’s house flying away from the city, lifted into the air by hundreds of brightly colored balloons. It speaks to the complex emotional ties we all have to home, and to our things, especially when those things are attached to important memories and strong emotions. In this case, everything in the house is attached to his wife, who has recently died. In a metaphoric way, many of us move through life carrying our history with us.
One of the real joys of Up is the way in which Mr. Fredricksen is transformed by his engagement with the needs of the young boy Russell. He is reluctant to get involved at first. He is set in his ways. And yet, because he is stuck as the temporary caretaker of this young boy, he develops a fondness and love for him in the course of his unwanted obligation. His change speaks a truth about how we are often changed. Sometimes we have to do the compassionate thing before we have the feeling of compassion. Sometimes it is the fulfillment of our duty that leads us to a new way of feeling, thinking, and viewing the world. We act our way into a new way of thinking, rather than the other way around.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Sermon Audio
In a bold new experiment, audio files of our sermons at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC, are available on the website, at least for now. You can listen or download an mp3 file right here.
Since I'm also still posting the text of the sermons, I should explain that the text is more or less what I had prepared to preach, and the audio is the record of what I actually preached.
Since I'm also still posting the text of the sermons, I should explain that the text is more or less what I had prepared to preach, and the audio is the record of what I actually preached.
Sermon - The Fox and the Hen
Preached on February 28, 2010, the second Sunday in Lent, at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC
Luke 13:13-35
The fox and the hen are both fierce animals. The fox is fierce in its pursuit of power and gain, and the mother hen is fierce in her love and protection of her children. But when the fox meets the hen, it’s not much of a contest, is it? We all know that the hen isn’t getting out of there alive. You and I know it. Those concerned Pharisees knew it, when they warned Jesus that he had better knock off his ministry and get out of town or Herod would kill him. Even Jesus knew it. He knew that even when he left town and went to Jerusalem, they would kill him there anyway. In a struggle that positions the strength of violence against the strength of love, the fox against the mother hen, we know the outcome. It’s just common sense. It’s the conventional wisdom, the kind of thing that everyone knows. And when Jesus died, that conventional wisdom looked really good for about two days. And then came Easter, when God overturned our conventional thinking about where true power lies. The Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor put it this way: It was the “cosmic battle of all time, in which the power of tooth and fang was put up against the power of a mother's love for her chicks. And God bet the farm on the hen” (“Chickens and Foxes” in Bread of Angels).
Let’s back up a bit to that warning about Herod. ‘You better get out of Galilee, Jesus. Herod killed John the Baptist, and it looks like you’re next.’ That’s when Jesus called Herod a fox. In the past century, and especially in recent decades, we have rediscovered a lot about the history of first century Israel that helps us to understand what’s happening in the gospels. Herod was not the ruler of Galilee by popular vote or the anointing of a prophet. He had been appointed ruler by the Roman emperor, because Israel was one of the eastern most holdings in the empire. And maybe you remember how Roman emperors ruled from history class, or from Shakespeare, perhaps. These guys plotted and killed to be emperor, and that kind of power struggle went all the way down the chain of command. Herod’s father, Herod the Great, had killed people in his own family who were threats to his power. He ruled at the time when Jesus was born, and he was the one who killed all the infants in Bethlehem because the wise men told him about a newborn king of the Jews, which was another obvious threat. Thirty years later, his son Herod rules Galilee in the north, and Rome has installed Pontius Pilate in the south over Jerusalem. They’re both foxes, and Jesus knows he’s in for it in either place.
To get an idea of the power of the Roman empire, the best example would be the colonial powers of places like England, Spain, France, and Belgium. Those were distant rulers with superior military might who expanded their wealth on the backs Africans, and the natives of the Americas, and the Africans who were brought to the Americas. That’s what the Roman empire was like, and places like Nazareth, and Capernaum, and all those little towns where Jesus went to teach and to heal, were bled dry by tributes paid to Rome. That’s why tax collectors are always the sinners in the world of the gospels. They weren’t collecting taxes for the welfare of Israel; they were extorting money for the emperor. And the priests of Israel, who should have demanded justice and spoken for their people, were put out of business. The High Priest at the temple in Jerusalem was supposed to be a lifelong position, but Herod and Pilate went through dozens of priests. If they didn’t tow the line, they were fired.
It is into this history that Jesus comes, proclaiming the kingdom of God here among us, instead of the kingdom of Rome. Jesus feeds the hungry, heals the sick, and proclaims forgiveness from God, which were all things that a good ruler and a good high priest should have been doing. His very ministry was a confrontation with those foxes, and that’s why they wanted to kill him.
Did you know that people used to call the Roman Emperor the prince of peace, the son of God, and even Lord? Those were all names for Caesar. So when those names turn up in the early church and in the writings of the New Testament, it means that they are choosing the power of a mother hen over the power of the fox.
Now, here’s the amazing thing about this confrontation between the fox and the mother hen. From the mother hen’s point of view, even the foxes are misguided chicks who need to be swept up in the love and grace of God. Jesus laments over Jerusalem, sheds tears over the very city that will betray him. That is the depth of a mother’s love. Even when the soldiers carry out orders to crucify him, he forgives them, saying that they don’t know what they’re doing. Even when it seems the darkest, even when he doubts in the garden of Gethsemane, he trusts that the power of the mother hen’s love is stronger than the power of the fox.
We were reminded of this by Martin Luther King, Jr., who always taught that the violence of discrimination could not be overcome by violence, but only by love. And they stood firm, even when it looked like is wasn’t working, when they were met with dogs and firehoses, beatings and arrests, even murders. They saw the struggle through the eyes of Easter, and trusted that power of love would overcome. We were reminded of this again when South Africa finally threw off the burden of apartheid without violence and without retribution for the criminal acts of the people who had enforced apartheid for so many years. And we were reminded by the Amish community in Pennsylvania, after a man murdered their children in a schoolhouse and took his own life, when they chose to see him not as a predator, but as a misguided chick who needed the shelter of God. They attended his funeral, and cared for his family, even as they mourned the death of their own children.
It often seems that this is a world in which the fox succeeds, but only if you take the short view. God bet the farm on the hen. “O Jerusalem” Jesus cried, “how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” He said it of Jerusalem, but he may as well have said it about any of our cities, yours and mine, or any place around the world. God’s love for you is as fierce and passionate as that of a mother for her children. God’s love for us shows us a different kind of power.
I need to tell you about Robi Damelin and Ali Abu Awwad. Robi is a Jewish woman who lives in Israel. Her son, David, was killed by a Palestinian sniper. Ali is a Palestinian Muslim who lives in the West Bank. One day, his brother Yousef was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier. Usually, these are the kinds of losses that increase each side’s anger and desire for vengeance. But Robi and Ali took a different path. They are a part of an organization that brings together Israelis and Palestinians to meet, often for the first time, someone on the other side of the conflict. They understand that they share the same pain. Ali, who is about the same age age as Robi’s son, now tries to care for her as a son in David’s place. Their message to us, and to the rest of the world, is to stop taking sides in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. It will not end by one side winning and the other losing. It will only end when people look across the divide and see in the faces of stranger the faces of their own children, their own parents. (From an interview on the radio program Speaking of Faith, 2/18/2010 ).
When Jesus calls us to take up our own cross and follow him, he is asking us to follow his way, which is different from the way of the empire, the way of the fox. He asks us to take on the kind of love that a mother has for her children. There’s a wonderful example of this in the novel Plainsong, by Kent Haruf. Plainsong tells the story of a small town in rural Colorado and the lives of its people, including two brothers, who lived together as bachelors on their cattle farm. Never married and happy about it, they used their dining room table as a work station for tractor parts in need of repair. Then, one day, a thoughtful teacher at the town’s high school asks them to take in girl from the school who is pregnant and without a home or caring family. When they ask the teacher why she chose them, she says “I know it sounds crazy. I suppose it is crazy. But that girl needs somebody and I’m ready to take drastic measures. She needs a home for these months. And…you need somebody too.” “You’re going to die someday without ever having had enough trouble in your life. Not of the right kind, anyway. This is your chance” (Plainsong, page 109).
The right kind of trouble: that sounds about right. Jesus said to tell that fox that he was going to keep healing and teaching, because it was the right kind of trouble. Parents keep being there for their children because it’s the right kind of trouble. We keep showing up when someone is sick, we keep giving a little bit more when tragedy strikes, we keep volunteering to try something new for the sake of others because those are all the right kinds of trouble. Maybe it won’t make us more comfortable, maybe it will cost us something, but those are not the concerns of a mother hen. The fox and the hen meet all the time. And the hen always prevails.
Luke 13:13-35
The fox and the hen are both fierce animals. The fox is fierce in its pursuit of power and gain, and the mother hen is fierce in her love and protection of her children. But when the fox meets the hen, it’s not much of a contest, is it? We all know that the hen isn’t getting out of there alive. You and I know it. Those concerned Pharisees knew it, when they warned Jesus that he had better knock off his ministry and get out of town or Herod would kill him. Even Jesus knew it. He knew that even when he left town and went to Jerusalem, they would kill him there anyway. In a struggle that positions the strength of violence against the strength of love, the fox against the mother hen, we know the outcome. It’s just common sense. It’s the conventional wisdom, the kind of thing that everyone knows. And when Jesus died, that conventional wisdom looked really good for about two days. And then came Easter, when God overturned our conventional thinking about where true power lies. The Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor put it this way: It was the “cosmic battle of all time, in which the power of tooth and fang was put up against the power of a mother's love for her chicks. And God bet the farm on the hen” (“Chickens and Foxes” in Bread of Angels).
Let’s back up a bit to that warning about Herod. ‘You better get out of Galilee, Jesus. Herod killed John the Baptist, and it looks like you’re next.’ That’s when Jesus called Herod a fox. In the past century, and especially in recent decades, we have rediscovered a lot about the history of first century Israel that helps us to understand what’s happening in the gospels. Herod was not the ruler of Galilee by popular vote or the anointing of a prophet. He had been appointed ruler by the Roman emperor, because Israel was one of the eastern most holdings in the empire. And maybe you remember how Roman emperors ruled from history class, or from Shakespeare, perhaps. These guys plotted and killed to be emperor, and that kind of power struggle went all the way down the chain of command. Herod’s father, Herod the Great, had killed people in his own family who were threats to his power. He ruled at the time when Jesus was born, and he was the one who killed all the infants in Bethlehem because the wise men told him about a newborn king of the Jews, which was another obvious threat. Thirty years later, his son Herod rules Galilee in the north, and Rome has installed Pontius Pilate in the south over Jerusalem. They’re both foxes, and Jesus knows he’s in for it in either place.
To get an idea of the power of the Roman empire, the best example would be the colonial powers of places like England, Spain, France, and Belgium. Those were distant rulers with superior military might who expanded their wealth on the backs Africans, and the natives of the Americas, and the Africans who were brought to the Americas. That’s what the Roman empire was like, and places like Nazareth, and Capernaum, and all those little towns where Jesus went to teach and to heal, were bled dry by tributes paid to Rome. That’s why tax collectors are always the sinners in the world of the gospels. They weren’t collecting taxes for the welfare of Israel; they were extorting money for the emperor. And the priests of Israel, who should have demanded justice and spoken for their people, were put out of business. The High Priest at the temple in Jerusalem was supposed to be a lifelong position, but Herod and Pilate went through dozens of priests. If they didn’t tow the line, they were fired.
It is into this history that Jesus comes, proclaiming the kingdom of God here among us, instead of the kingdom of Rome. Jesus feeds the hungry, heals the sick, and proclaims forgiveness from God, which were all things that a good ruler and a good high priest should have been doing. His very ministry was a confrontation with those foxes, and that’s why they wanted to kill him.
Did you know that people used to call the Roman Emperor the prince of peace, the son of God, and even Lord? Those were all names for Caesar. So when those names turn up in the early church and in the writings of the New Testament, it means that they are choosing the power of a mother hen over the power of the fox.
Now, here’s the amazing thing about this confrontation between the fox and the mother hen. From the mother hen’s point of view, even the foxes are misguided chicks who need to be swept up in the love and grace of God. Jesus laments over Jerusalem, sheds tears over the very city that will betray him. That is the depth of a mother’s love. Even when the soldiers carry out orders to crucify him, he forgives them, saying that they don’t know what they’re doing. Even when it seems the darkest, even when he doubts in the garden of Gethsemane, he trusts that the power of the mother hen’s love is stronger than the power of the fox.
We were reminded of this by Martin Luther King, Jr., who always taught that the violence of discrimination could not be overcome by violence, but only by love. And they stood firm, even when it looked like is wasn’t working, when they were met with dogs and firehoses, beatings and arrests, even murders. They saw the struggle through the eyes of Easter, and trusted that power of love would overcome. We were reminded of this again when South Africa finally threw off the burden of apartheid without violence and without retribution for the criminal acts of the people who had enforced apartheid for so many years. And we were reminded by the Amish community in Pennsylvania, after a man murdered their children in a schoolhouse and took his own life, when they chose to see him not as a predator, but as a misguided chick who needed the shelter of God. They attended his funeral, and cared for his family, even as they mourned the death of their own children.
It often seems that this is a world in which the fox succeeds, but only if you take the short view. God bet the farm on the hen. “O Jerusalem” Jesus cried, “how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” He said it of Jerusalem, but he may as well have said it about any of our cities, yours and mine, or any place around the world. God’s love for you is as fierce and passionate as that of a mother for her children. God’s love for us shows us a different kind of power.
I need to tell you about Robi Damelin and Ali Abu Awwad. Robi is a Jewish woman who lives in Israel. Her son, David, was killed by a Palestinian sniper. Ali is a Palestinian Muslim who lives in the West Bank. One day, his brother Yousef was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier. Usually, these are the kinds of losses that increase each side’s anger and desire for vengeance. But Robi and Ali took a different path. They are a part of an organization that brings together Israelis and Palestinians to meet, often for the first time, someone on the other side of the conflict. They understand that they share the same pain. Ali, who is about the same age age as Robi’s son, now tries to care for her as a son in David’s place. Their message to us, and to the rest of the world, is to stop taking sides in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. It will not end by one side winning and the other losing. It will only end when people look across the divide and see in the faces of stranger the faces of their own children, their own parents. (From an interview on the radio program Speaking of Faith, 2/18/2010 ).
When Jesus calls us to take up our own cross and follow him, he is asking us to follow his way, which is different from the way of the empire, the way of the fox. He asks us to take on the kind of love that a mother has for her children. There’s a wonderful example of this in the novel Plainsong, by Kent Haruf. Plainsong tells the story of a small town in rural Colorado and the lives of its people, including two brothers, who lived together as bachelors on their cattle farm. Never married and happy about it, they used their dining room table as a work station for tractor parts in need of repair. Then, one day, a thoughtful teacher at the town’s high school asks them to take in girl from the school who is pregnant and without a home or caring family. When they ask the teacher why she chose them, she says “I know it sounds crazy. I suppose it is crazy. But that girl needs somebody and I’m ready to take drastic measures. She needs a home for these months. And…you need somebody too.” “You’re going to die someday without ever having had enough trouble in your life. Not of the right kind, anyway. This is your chance” (Plainsong, page 109).
The right kind of trouble: that sounds about right. Jesus said to tell that fox that he was going to keep healing and teaching, because it was the right kind of trouble. Parents keep being there for their children because it’s the right kind of trouble. We keep showing up when someone is sick, we keep giving a little bit more when tragedy strikes, we keep volunteering to try something new for the sake of others because those are all the right kinds of trouble. Maybe it won’t make us more comfortable, maybe it will cost us something, but those are not the concerns of a mother hen. The fox and the hen meet all the time. And the hen always prevails.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Sermon - The Right People
Preached on February 7, 2010, the fifth Sunday of Epiphany, at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.
Isaiah 6:1-8
Luke 5:1-11
The Winter Olympics begin next week in Vancouver, and I am excited. I love the Olympic games. But I’ve been thinking recently about the winter games of 1980, held at Lake Placid, New York. This was now thirty years ago, and it is getting harder to remember the tension of that cold war era, the angst we felt about the Soviet Union. Now we have cooperative space programs, and our leaders meet with each other on global issues. Russian athletes play in our country’s professional basketball and hockey teams, so it’s hard to remember that old animosity and fear.
In 1980, the Russian team had won the gold medal in every Olympic games since 1964. They were the best in the world. A year earlier, they had played the NHL all-stars and won 6-0. Then the United States asked Herb Brooks to coach the national team. The story is told in the movie Miracle, where the coach explains that “All-star teams fail because they rely solely on the individual's talent.” He recruits college players who will play as a team. When try-outs are over and he’s chosen his roster, someone looks at the list and says to him “You're missing some of the best players.”
Brooks says “I'm not looking for the best players. I'm looking for the right ones.” That was the team that finally beat the Soviet Union and won the gold medal in 1980.
So much of our society is focused on the question of who is the best? We live in a competitive culture, from little league sports, to reality shows, to the workplace and schools, and even friendships. There is pressure to think in terms of being the best. But the best person is often not the person we need. We need the right person. God needs the right people, and that means us. If we think that God needs the best people, we count ourselves out. “We’re not up to the task,” we say. “Someone else should do that.” But when we realize that God needs the right people, we realize that God wants us.
Simon was not the best person to become a disciple of Jesus. The first clue of this that we have is that he is a fisherman, along with James and John, just like their father. If Simon had been the best person to become a disciple, he would already be one. All Jewish boys wanted to be disciples of a rabbi back then. The Rabbi was the center of the community, interpreting their religion and arbitrating community affairs. The rabbi was the one you went to with a dispute, because the rabbi’s word would settle it. All Jewish kids spent their young years learning the scriptures and practicing interpretation of the Torah. After a certain age, those who showed promise continued to be schooled. They would memorize whole books of the Hebrew Scriptures, and would practice rabbinical debate with the rabbi. As teenagers, the best students were chosen to become disciples of the rabbi, and, eventually, they could become rabbis themselves. If you weren’t chosen, you just went back to learn the trade of your father. Simon was fishing. He hadn’t been chosen.
When we learn more about him, it becomes easy to see why. Simon’s real problem is that he acts first and thinks second. He speaks first and thinks second. Or maybe he just acts and never gets to the thinking part. It’s true that Simon was the first disciple to name Jesus as the Messiah, when Jesus asked them “who do you say I am?” but a minute later, Simon pulled Jesus aside to rebuke him for his bad ministry program, prompting Jesus to tell him “get behind me, Satan.” Simon was the one who jumped recklessly out of the boat and began to sink before Jesus pulled him up and said “you of little faith.” Simon promised never to deny Jesus, and then did it three times – that very night. And yet, Simon is the one whom Jesus chooses that day when he’s preaching to a crowd on the lakeshore. Simon is the one who gets a new name: Jesus calls him Peter, which means rock, and says “on this rock I will build my church.”
This past summer, the movie Julie and Julia told the stories of Julia Child and the young woman named Julie who recently found inspiration by cooking through Julia Child’s premiere cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In one scene, before she begins the project, Julie is talking to her husband about her admiration for Julia Child, and her worries that her own life will always be a failure in comparison. Her husband reminds her that “Julia Child was not always Julia Child.” You could say the same thing about Peter. Peter wasn’t always Peter. At some point, every we admire has faced uncertainty and self-doubt about a calling, just as I imagine that all of us have felt. They weren’t always the best people; they were the right people.
In 1954, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a young minister, just starting out at a little church in Montgomery Alabama. He turned down a leadership role in the local NAACP because he wanted to focus on getting to know his church. But then a woman named Rosa Parks decided one day that she’d had enough of changing her seat on the bus. King supported a hastily organized bus boycott, and a day later, he found himself nominated to lead it. All he had wanted to do was to get some experience in a little church before deciding on the rest of his career. He wasn’t nearly the most experienced or qualified minister in Montgomery. Not the best person, just the right one.
Moses didn’t think he could speak well enough to lead his people out of slavery. Jeremiah didn’t think he was up to being a prophet, and when God called Jonah to go and speak to Nineveh, he got on a boat heading in the opposite direction. Isaiah had a vision of God while he was in the Temple, and his first thought was that he wasn’t good enough for the job. I think what happened next was God saying something like “I know you’re not the best person, but you’re the right person. Don’t worry. I’ll be with you.” That’s when Isaiah can say “here I am, Lord. Send me.”
What about you? What do you feel moved to do in the depth of your spirit? The answer to that question might be God’s call to you: a calling to heal wounds, to give comfort, to reconcile with someone, to teach, to change the way people are treated, to right an injustice, to create opportunities for recovery and growth for those who don’t have them, to lead a mission or ministry of the church. What would you do if you could get past the thoughts of “I don’t know enough,” “I don’t have the experience,” “I don’t have enough time,” “I don’t know what to say,” “I’m not the best person for that work.” Of course you’re not the best person. But maybe no one is. Maybe all that any of us needs is to be called by God, because it is God who will hold us up when we feel like we are sinking. God will set us straight when our thinking gets off track. And even when we make mistakes and do hurtful things, God will forgive us, and help us to grow stronger from those setbacks.
Remember that catch of fish from the story? After Jesus has spoken to the crowd, he tells Simon to put the boat out into deep waters and let down the nets. Simon points out that they haven’t caught anything all night. In other words – “you stick to the teaching, rabbi. I’m the fisherman here.” But he tries it anyway, and when he does, the net comes up so full of fish that the other boat has to come over to help hold them all. That’s when Simon first knows that he’s in over his head with this rabbi, but Jesus just tells him that those fish are a symbol. “Next you’ll be fishing for people, catching them up in the spirit of God that I am here to show you, and changing the world. I know you don’t believe it anymore than you believed that you would catch these fish, so you’ll just have to trust me. You’re done with the shallow waters of life, it’s time to get deeper.”
And so the call stands always before us. Move on from the shallows to the deep water. Answer God’s call to live differently, even though you’re not sure that you are up to the challenge. Make mistakes along the way, but know that you will grow from them. Answer the call, because you are the right people.
Isaiah 6:1-8
Luke 5:1-11
The Winter Olympics begin next week in Vancouver, and I am excited. I love the Olympic games. But I’ve been thinking recently about the winter games of 1980, held at Lake Placid, New York. This was now thirty years ago, and it is getting harder to remember the tension of that cold war era, the angst we felt about the Soviet Union. Now we have cooperative space programs, and our leaders meet with each other on global issues. Russian athletes play in our country’s professional basketball and hockey teams, so it’s hard to remember that old animosity and fear.
In 1980, the Russian team had won the gold medal in every Olympic games since 1964. They were the best in the world. A year earlier, they had played the NHL all-stars and won 6-0. Then the United States asked Herb Brooks to coach the national team. The story is told in the movie Miracle, where the coach explains that “All-star teams fail because they rely solely on the individual's talent.” He recruits college players who will play as a team. When try-outs are over and he’s chosen his roster, someone looks at the list and says to him “You're missing some of the best players.”
Brooks says “I'm not looking for the best players. I'm looking for the right ones.” That was the team that finally beat the Soviet Union and won the gold medal in 1980.
So much of our society is focused on the question of who is the best? We live in a competitive culture, from little league sports, to reality shows, to the workplace and schools, and even friendships. There is pressure to think in terms of being the best. But the best person is often not the person we need. We need the right person. God needs the right people, and that means us. If we think that God needs the best people, we count ourselves out. “We’re not up to the task,” we say. “Someone else should do that.” But when we realize that God needs the right people, we realize that God wants us.
Simon was not the best person to become a disciple of Jesus. The first clue of this that we have is that he is a fisherman, along with James and John, just like their father. If Simon had been the best person to become a disciple, he would already be one. All Jewish boys wanted to be disciples of a rabbi back then. The Rabbi was the center of the community, interpreting their religion and arbitrating community affairs. The rabbi was the one you went to with a dispute, because the rabbi’s word would settle it. All Jewish kids spent their young years learning the scriptures and practicing interpretation of the Torah. After a certain age, those who showed promise continued to be schooled. They would memorize whole books of the Hebrew Scriptures, and would practice rabbinical debate with the rabbi. As teenagers, the best students were chosen to become disciples of the rabbi, and, eventually, they could become rabbis themselves. If you weren’t chosen, you just went back to learn the trade of your father. Simon was fishing. He hadn’t been chosen.
When we learn more about him, it becomes easy to see why. Simon’s real problem is that he acts first and thinks second. He speaks first and thinks second. Or maybe he just acts and never gets to the thinking part. It’s true that Simon was the first disciple to name Jesus as the Messiah, when Jesus asked them “who do you say I am?” but a minute later, Simon pulled Jesus aside to rebuke him for his bad ministry program, prompting Jesus to tell him “get behind me, Satan.” Simon was the one who jumped recklessly out of the boat and began to sink before Jesus pulled him up and said “you of little faith.” Simon promised never to deny Jesus, and then did it three times – that very night. And yet, Simon is the one whom Jesus chooses that day when he’s preaching to a crowd on the lakeshore. Simon is the one who gets a new name: Jesus calls him Peter, which means rock, and says “on this rock I will build my church.”
This past summer, the movie Julie and Julia told the stories of Julia Child and the young woman named Julie who recently found inspiration by cooking through Julia Child’s premiere cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In one scene, before she begins the project, Julie is talking to her husband about her admiration for Julia Child, and her worries that her own life will always be a failure in comparison. Her husband reminds her that “Julia Child was not always Julia Child.” You could say the same thing about Peter. Peter wasn’t always Peter. At some point, every we admire has faced uncertainty and self-doubt about a calling, just as I imagine that all of us have felt. They weren’t always the best people; they were the right people.
In 1954, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a young minister, just starting out at a little church in Montgomery Alabama. He turned down a leadership role in the local NAACP because he wanted to focus on getting to know his church. But then a woman named Rosa Parks decided one day that she’d had enough of changing her seat on the bus. King supported a hastily organized bus boycott, and a day later, he found himself nominated to lead it. All he had wanted to do was to get some experience in a little church before deciding on the rest of his career. He wasn’t nearly the most experienced or qualified minister in Montgomery. Not the best person, just the right one.
Moses didn’t think he could speak well enough to lead his people out of slavery. Jeremiah didn’t think he was up to being a prophet, and when God called Jonah to go and speak to Nineveh, he got on a boat heading in the opposite direction. Isaiah had a vision of God while he was in the Temple, and his first thought was that he wasn’t good enough for the job. I think what happened next was God saying something like “I know you’re not the best person, but you’re the right person. Don’t worry. I’ll be with you.” That’s when Isaiah can say “here I am, Lord. Send me.”
What about you? What do you feel moved to do in the depth of your spirit? The answer to that question might be God’s call to you: a calling to heal wounds, to give comfort, to reconcile with someone, to teach, to change the way people are treated, to right an injustice, to create opportunities for recovery and growth for those who don’t have them, to lead a mission or ministry of the church. What would you do if you could get past the thoughts of “I don’t know enough,” “I don’t have the experience,” “I don’t have enough time,” “I don’t know what to say,” “I’m not the best person for that work.” Of course you’re not the best person. But maybe no one is. Maybe all that any of us needs is to be called by God, because it is God who will hold us up when we feel like we are sinking. God will set us straight when our thinking gets off track. And even when we make mistakes and do hurtful things, God will forgive us, and help us to grow stronger from those setbacks.
Remember that catch of fish from the story? After Jesus has spoken to the crowd, he tells Simon to put the boat out into deep waters and let down the nets. Simon points out that they haven’t caught anything all night. In other words – “you stick to the teaching, rabbi. I’m the fisherman here.” But he tries it anyway, and when he does, the net comes up so full of fish that the other boat has to come over to help hold them all. That’s when Simon first knows that he’s in over his head with this rabbi, but Jesus just tells him that those fish are a symbol. “Next you’ll be fishing for people, catching them up in the spirit of God that I am here to show you, and changing the world. I know you don’t believe it anymore than you believed that you would catch these fish, so you’ll just have to trust me. You’re done with the shallow waters of life, it’s time to get deeper.”
And so the call stands always before us. Move on from the shallows to the deep water. Answer God’s call to live differently, even though you’re not sure that you are up to the challenge. Make mistakes along the way, but know that you will grow from them. Answer the call, because you are the right people.
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