The Reverend John E. McGinn, Rector

Saint John’s Episcopal Church

Sandwich, Massachusetts  02563

 

January 27, 2008                                                                                                                                 3 Epiphany

 

Today the sermon is taken from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 4, verses

12-23.

 

A man had fallen away from his church, and a friend of his decided to give him a call about a tennis match that they were scheduling later that week.  The friend called from the phone at Christ the Lord Lutheran Church where the friend was attending a meeting.  His friend looked at his caller id, and it said, “Christ the Lord.”  He thought Christ was calling for him, and this turned out to be a wakeup call for him. 

 

Now those of you who saw last year’s remarkable film Amazing Grace remember the story about William Wilberforce.  William Wilberforce was a British politician who, after his conversion to Christianity, became England’s greatest anti-slavery advocate.  It was through his tireless efforts that England eventually outlawed slavery paving the way for the end of slave trade in the Western world.

 

But William Wilberforce almost missed his calling.  After his conversion, Wilberforce considered leaving politics for the ministry.  He wasn’t sure how a Christian could live out his faith in the world.  Fortunately, Wilberforce turned to a man named John Newton for guidance.  Newton, of course, was the author of the much-loved tune Amazing Grace, and Newton who was a former slave trader, had renounced the trade after his conversion.  John Newton convinced Wilberforce that God had called him to remain in politics and exert a Christian influence there.  It was John Newton that gave William Wilberforce the wakeup call and kept him championing the cause of freedom for Britain’s slaves. 

 

Four men, fishermen by trade, were toiling by the nets beside the sea of Galilee when they received a wakeup call from Jesus, and their whole was turned upside down.  Many of us, particularly the men in the congregation, think it would be great to earn our living doing nothing but fishing except if we had to do it to earn a living.  We would probably find it was like a lot of other jobs:  repetitive, demanding, often boring.  Still, it was a way for these disciples to earn a living.  In a way, it helped them to form an identity.

 

To this day, even though he spent most of his life leading the early church, we think of Simon Peter as the big fisherman.  Could it be that work was never meant to be at the center of our lives?  Could it be that there is something more in life than work?  And are we as wise as these four disciples who figured this out?  How did it happen that these four men made such a radical change in their vocations from being fishermen to being disciples and later apostles?  And what can we learn from it?

 

First of all, I think, they had an encounter with Jesus.  They couldn’t attend a seminar on how to find a better job, though such seminars can be helpful.  They didn’t read the famous book What Color is Your Parachute though that might have been helpful if it had been written two millennium ago.  No, they encountered Jesus, and it changed their lives and even changed their vocation.

 

And, you know, I pray that our church, St. John’s, can be a place where people encounter Jesus.  I don’t want it to be just another social organization, or a club, or a fraternity.  These all have their important places in society, but the church ought to be something different.  This ought to be a place where all of us meet God.  I think that God is here at St. John’s.  God is waiting to come into our lives and to make us what God created us to be.  We should come here each week expecting a miracle, expecting that God can do great things through our lives.

 

These first disciples had an encounter with Jesus.  In the second place, they responded to Jesus’ call.  They did so immediately.  They didn’t procrastinate, they didn’t make excuses.  Jesus said, “Follow me,” and they did just that.  Very few people actually make that kind of commitment. 

 

On February 2, 2006, President George W. Bush hosted the sixty-fourth annual National Prayer Breakfast.  This is a bi-partisan event that draws hundreds of politicians and clergy and other guests each year to the White House.  The National Prayer Breakfast is an interfaith gathering:  Christians, Jews, and even a few Muslims, are all included and given time to make remarks.  King Abdullah of Jordan was in attendance as a guest on honor.

 

The speaker that day was the rock star known as Bono, the lead singer of the group U2.  “A number of years ago,” said Bono, “I met a wise man who changed my life.  In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing.  I was saying, you know, I have a new song; Oh God, look after me.  I have a family.  Oh God, please look after them.  I have this crazy idea.  God, please look after that.”  And this wise man said, “Stop!”  He said, “Stop asking God to bless what you are doing.  Get involved in what God is doing, because it is already blessed.”

 

Get involved in what God is doing - what a radical idea!  Don’t spend so much time asking God to bless what you are doing.  Rather, ask God to show you what God is doing and join in. 

 

Bono believes God is calling him to be an advocate for the poor.  He said to the National Prayer Breakfast:  “Well, God, as I said, is with the poor.  That I believe is what God is doing, and that is what he is calling all of us to do.”

 

All Christians should be committed to helping the poor, but it may not be our chief emphasis.  There are people in the medical field who feel called by God to help in the healing of bodies.  And some in teaching believe they’re calling from God is to help grow little boys’ and girls’ minds.  And a plumber can be a Christian plumber doing honest and helpful work and sharing a positive Christian witness to everyone he serves.

 

Not everybody receives the same calling from God.  Some of you believe that God has called you to teach Sunday School.  Some have been called to serve in an administrative capacity.  The point is, God is calling each of us in our own way to God’s reconciling work in the world.

 

These first disciples had an encounter with Jesus and immediately they responded to Jesus’ call.  And one final thing.  In answering Jesus’ call, these disciples chose being real as opposed to being respectable.

 

Now, let me explain this morning what I mean by that.  Some of you will remember when Andrew Young was one of our most visible African-American leaders.  And you will also remember that he was on the porch when Dr. Martin Luther King was shot by an assassin.  Andrew Young is a former congressman, a former ambassador to the United Nations, and a former mayor of Atlanta, Georgia.  He also is an ordained minister.  He went to Hartford Seminary and one of the women in my former parish was his professor.  He was a wonderful man, a very bright man.

 

One day Andrew Young’s daughter came home from college and she said to him, “Daddy, I heard a missionary talking about ministry in Uganda, and I have done a lot of praying about this.  I think that God want me to take a year and go to Uganda as a missionary.”  “Well, honey,” her father replied, “you know that’s all well and good, but there’s a lot of poor people right here in Atlanta that need you.”  She said, “Daddy, I know that, but I really believe that God is calling me to Uganda.”  “Honey, it’s dangerous over there in Uganda,” Andrew Young pleaded, “You could get hurt!”  “I know that, Daddy, but I could also get hurt right here.”  And he said, “But, honey, you could be killed there!”  “Daddy, I could be killed at any time anywhere.  I really believe that God is calling me to Uganda,” she said.

 

Andrew Young thought and prayed about it, and finally he gave her his blessing.  “When my daughter walked onto that airplane,” he said later, “I realized that in baptizing her and raising her, what I said I wanted most for her was that she would become a respectable Christian, but I wasn’t prepared for her to become a real one.” 

 

I don’t know if you hear what Andrew Young is saying.  There is a difference between being a respectable Christian and a real one.

 

Pollster George Gallop calls it the difference between being a believing church member and a belonging church member.  Anyone can belong to a church.  That is different from believing in God’s purpose in the world and seeking to being a part of achieving that purpose. 

 

Now let me ask you a question.  Are you a believer or simply a belonger?  I think that’s an important question.  And here’s another one:  Are you satisfied with being a respectable Christian or are you a real one?  I can’t answer those two questions for you.  Only you and God know the answers.

 

I know about Peter, and Andrew, and James and John.  Peter became the leader of the early church.  Andrew is often praised as the first evangelist, and John, Son of Thunder, becomes John the beloved disciple writing Revelations on the Isle of Padamas.  John‘s brother James is less prominent in the biblical record, and according to Acts, however, James was beheaded for his faith by Herod Agrippa.  This is the only biblical account of one of Jesus’ twelve apostles being martyred for his activities. 

 

These men were believers, not merely belongers.  They didn’t settle for being respectable Christians.  They were real ones.  They encountered Jesus, and immediately they responded to Jesus’ call.  And may the same thing happen to you and to me this day.

 

Amen